Page 111 of The Highland Laird’s Hellion Bride

His plaid landed around her shoulders before she realized it.

She turned around to find Magnus standing behind her, with his hands on the plaid’s hem, softly settling it on her shoulders. He looked at her once and tilted his head toward the yard.

She followed him out.

The air hit her sharp and clean after the heat of the hall, and she pulled the plaid tighter around her shoulders while Magnus fell into step beside her. They crossed the yard in the direction of the sheep track without discussing it.

Above them, the sky had grown vast, stars covering it from edge to edge. She could have sworn there were more than last time.

She looked up again and nearly walked into a fence post. Magnus caught her elbow without comment and steered her two inches to the right.

“Thank ye,” she said.

“Watch where ye’re going.”

“I’m watching the stars.”

“Aye. And walking into fence posts.”

“I can do both.”

“Ye cannae,” he said, and kept hold of her elbow for the rest of the yard.

The sheep track was steep enough that she needed both hands for the first stretch. Magnus stayed close, one hand on her back where the ground was rough, not pushing, just present. By the time they reached the flat ground of the circle, her breath had gone white in the cold air, and the hall below was a warm blur of light and faint music drifting up the hill.

She stood in the middle of the stones, looking up. Magnus stood beside her, looking at her. She caught him at it and let him have the moment before she teased, “Ye stole me from me own cèilidh.”

“Aye.”

“Duncan will notice.”

“Duncan is telling a woman about a thing he did six years ago that wasnae as impressive as he remembers. He’ll nae notice for at least an hour.”

Elspeth looked back up at the sky. The stars were unreasonably bright. She thought about the poem she had quoted to herself up here last night, the one in green ink in her old journal, and felt, with some bemusement, that she had been right about it all along. She had just had the wrong idea about who she was saying it to.

“I should have walked with ye to see the stars,” Magnus said.

She looked at him. He was watching the sky now, his jaw set.

She reached up and kissed him.

“I’m here now,” she said against his mouth. “We’re here now. That’s enough.”

He looked at her for a moment after she pulled back, tracing her cheekbone with his thumb.

They found the broad stone she had sat on before, and she settled against his side, pulling his arm around her. The silence was of the comfortable kind. She let it sit for a while.

The music drifted up from below, faint and sweet. It was a slow air now, the cèilidh winding down. She could see the Great Hall windows from here, glowing warm and gold, the line of the yard, and the dark shape of the stables—all of it spread peacefully below them. A feeling of belonging stirred in her chest. It was not only this world that belonged to them; they belonged to it too.

“So,” she said.

“Mm.”

“Poetry.” She felt him shift slightly beside her. “I thought ye decided princes were exhaustin’.”

He turned toward her and pressed his mouth to hers, kissing her slowly, his hand cupping her jaw. She smiled into the kiss.

“They are,” he said.