Page 42 of Owned by the Scarred Laird

“Have ye tasted the fire-water then, me Lady?” Isla pressed, her eyes gleaming with gossip.

“Once,” Chloe said, the memory of the distillery flaring hot in her throat, the scent of peat smoke and man suddenly overwhelming her senses. “But I did nae drink it.”

Isla looked personally insulted by the revelation, while Mrs. Donnan let out a low, dry sound that sounded suspiciously like a choked laugh. And still, the stone stairs leading back up to the great hall remained dead silent.

Chloe had known, when she marched down to the kitchens, that Edward would not follow her here. She had not expected him to. She had fled to the lower depths because the alternative was sitting alone like a painted doll in a massive chair, staring at a full goblet of wine, and she refused to let him turn her into a victim.

She was not that woman. She had never been that woman. She had spent ten years standing in brilliant, crowded rooms where no one saw her, yet she had kept her soul intact. She could do it again for forty more years if the earth required it of her.

But as she sat on the hard kitchen bench, the cold truth settled into her veins.

She was starting to care.

That was the terrifying, inconvenient reality she had not prepared for. She knew how to manage distance; she had been kept at arm’s length by her father her entire life. She was an expert in surviving isolation. What she did not know how to handle was the sudden, sharp ache that tightened her throat every time she heard Edward’s voice.

Christ, what is happenin’ to me?

She was not prepared for the way her pulse raced when he delivered those dry, careful sentences that barely concealed the raging torrent beneath his skin. She was not ready for the absolute tenderness that broke through his stone mask every time he looked at his brother’s orphaned boy.

She had not expected to care whether he took his place at the supper table. But she did. She cared enough that it made her angry.

Isla was asking her another question about the weavers in the glen. Chloe forced her mind back to the heat of the kitchen, delivered an easy answer, and kept her hands perfectly relaxed around her cup. She did not allow a single tremor of her frustration to show on her face.

High above them, the fierce Highland wind battered the stone battlements, howling through the empty, freezing corridors of the castle.

No footsteps came down the stairs.

13

Chloe’s ears were numb from William’s screams.

This was not the thin, intermittent fussing Chloe had learned to read with clockwork predictability over the past few days. It was not the protest cry of a bored babe or the sharp, hungry demand that heralded the morning porridge. This was a continuous, raw friction. A desperate, ragged edge that tightened around her chest like a noose each time the sound crested.

She had exhausted everything her ten years of labor had taught her.

“William.” She bounced him gently, her voice low and steady. “William, I am askin’ ye, as one reasonable person to another, to please stop.”

William did not stop.

She changed his clothes, paced the length of the room until her ankles ached, rocked him until her arms went numb, and hummed every melody she could remember into the top of his head. She offered him cooled water, checked his swaddling for stray pins, and pressed her palm against his forehead. Nothing.

“All right.” She held him out at arm’s length and looked at him directly. His face was scarlet, his fists bunched, his entire small body vibrating with primal misery. “Let us think about this together. Ye are fed. Ye are dry. Ye are warm. Ye have me full and undivided attention.” She tilted her head. “What is it ye actually want, William?”

William screamed directly into her face.

“That is nae an answer,” she told him. “That is just more of the same.”

She tried dangling her ribbon in front of him. He ignored it. She made a series of faces that would have deeply concerned any adult witness. He remained unmoved. She attempted to create a puppet using her own hand and one of his spare socks, complete with a voice she felt deserved more credit than she was receiving.

“This is Angus the sock,” she said gravely, waggling it. “Angus would very much like it if ye stopped screamin’ long enough for him to tell ye a story.”

William lunged forward and bit her collarbone directly through the heavy wool of her gown.

“It is all right, little love,” she murmured into his temple for perhaps the ninth time, her voice a low anchor against his storm. “I’ve got ye. I am right here.”

The bite was not strong enough to draw blood; it was the fierce, blunt pressure of toothless, swollen gums. But the frantic, concentrated desperation of the strike made her pull him back to look at his face. His mouth was stretched wide. His lower lip trembled violently as tears leaked from his swollen eyes. He lunged again at her chest, seeking anything to grind against his pain.

Chloe froze, an old memory clicking into place. She had seen this once before, two winters ago, in the drafty kitchens of Lady Jenny’s estate. The old cook had diagnosed it in a single glance.