Page 1 of The Highland Laird’s Hellion Bride

Chapter One

“And though he fought against the tide of his own heart,” Elspeth read aloud, pressing the back of her hand to her forehead with theatrical suffering, “he kent, with every breath drawn beneath a Highland moon, that his soul belonged only to her.”

“His soul.” Katherine did not look up from her mending, her needle piercing the heavy linen with a sharp snip. “Nae his livestock. Nae his accounts. But his soul!”

“As it should be.” Elspeth turned the stiff page, the scent of aged ink and paper rising from her lap. “That is how it is done.”

“Mmm.” Katherine bit the thread, the snap echoing in the quiet solar. “And how is that working out for the woman in the story? Is she fed? Is she warm? Does he listen when she speaks, or does he simply stare at her with his jaw doing something dramatic near a cliff?”

Elspeth lowered the leather-bound volume. “He recites poetry to her beneath the stars.”

“Liam once fell asleep while I was speaking to him about the kitchen stores.” Katherine’s mouth curved, a soft, involuntary warmth smoothing the sharp line of her lips. “And yet I would rather have that man than every sonnet ever written. Though he did apologize quite thoroughly once he woke.”

Elspeth laughed, the sound breaking through the heavy silence as the book fell across her knee.

Outside, the rain tapped relentlessly against the narrow stone windows, the grey Highland chill held at bay only by the hearth. The fire had burned down to a deep, pulsing amber, the kind of afternoon that demanded nothing but survival from the cold.

For three days, Elspeth had tucked herself away within Katherine’s walls like a stray animal lured in by the heat. The dread of returning home sat heavily at the base of her throat, like a stone.

“Somewhere,” she said, her fingers tracing the gold-leaf lettering, “there must be a man who composes poetry and listens.”

“Somewhere,” Katherine agreed, her gaze dropping back to her stitches. “And I suspect he lives in that book.”

Elspeth looked down. The hero’s eyes were described as stormy and depthless, full of unspoken longing. She had memorized the passage. She had no notion of what unspoken longing looked like on a man’s face, but she knew what her father’s preferred candidates looked like: old, thick-necked, and satisfied with their own ledgers.

A sudden, frigid draft swept across the floorboards, making the fire hiss and duck. Katherine’s needle stopped mid-air.

Elspeth turned.

Alistair MacRae stood in the doorway, holding a thick, wax-sealed sheaf of papers under his arm, his dark woolen traveling coat damp at the shoulders and smelling of wet horseflesh and mountain mire. He had not sent a rider ahead. He never did. He moved through life as though the world were a map drawn solely for his march.

“Elspeth.” His cold grey eyes swept across the solar, lingering on the scattered silks with the hard displeasure he reserved for things he could not immediately count or sell. “I have come from Edinburgh. There is news.”

Elspeth closed the book, her knuckles turning white against the leather. “Father.”

He crossed the room without invitation, his heavy boots leaving damp, dark imprints on the rug. He dropped the papers onto the small oak table with a dull thud. “The negotiations are complete. Laird Dunmore has agreed to the terms. The contract will be drawn before the month’s end.”

A pocket of sap exploded in the hearth. Outside, the rain turned fierce, lashing the glass.

“Dunmore,” Elspeth whispered, the name tasting like ash on her tongue.

“Aye.”

She knew the name. Everyone in the Highlands knew it.

Laird Dunmore of the eastern holdings was a man who collected assets: five hundred head of cattle; thousands of bleak, wind-scoured acres; three standard alliances through three thin-lipped daughters; and a reputation for a temper as rotten as his gout-ridden leg. And now he wanted a twenty-one-year-old mistress to oversee his servants and nurse him through old age.

Her hands went still in her lap, her heart hammering hard against the heavy wool of her skirt. Her blood ran cold, a low tremor spreading deep in her chest.

“He is nearly sixty years of age,” she said, her voice tighter than she intended.

“He is fifty-four.” Her father didn’t blink, his tone clipped. “And he shares his northern border with the Airlies. An alliance there secures our position on the Council for a generation.”

Our position. His timber. His standing. She was merely the coin he was dropping into Dunmore’s palm to pay for it.

She opened her mouth to speak, to remind him that she had run his house since her mother died, but he turned his gaze upon her. It was a heavy, flat look. The look he used to quiet barking hounds.

“Perhaps,” he said softly, his voice dropping to a dangerous, gravelly register, “this discussion neednae take place in front of Lady MacDougal.”