Page 13 of The Highland Laird’s Hellion Bride

Magnus had a reply ready. It was of the exact caliber that would have usually ended his cousin’s commentary for the remainder of the evening. But just then, the heavy oak doors groaned open, and Mrs. McAulay stepped into the courtyard. She was wiping her calloused hands on her apron, her grey hair slipping from its pins. She crossed the cobblestones, caught sight of Elspeth, and stopped dead.

Her hands slowly came off her canvas apron. Her sharp eyes swept over Elspeth, taking in the fine blue silk, the pearls, the loose, damp curl at her temple, and the thick smudge of courtyard muck already staining her hem.

Whatever the housekeeper found beneath the grime was clearly writ across her face. Her eyes went bright and wet at the edges. She crossed the remaining distance before Elspeth could arrange her features into a polite expression, and snatched both of the lass’s small hands into her own.

“Oh,” she breathed, her voice dropping far below its usual commanding register. “Oh, lass.” She held Elspeth’s hands tightly, searching her face. “Welcome to Ben Cruachan.” She squeezed once. “Welcome home.”

Elspeth stared at her. The rigid, defensive set of her shoulders softened a fraction.

“Thank ye,” Elspeth said in a low voice, smiling softly. The careful, managed architecture she had carried all evening had completely vanished from her voice.

Without a word of explanation, Mrs. McAulay tucked Elspeth’s arm into the crook of her own. She turned and began drawing the lass toward the Great Hall, unleashing a steady, maternal stream of chatter. She asked about the warmth, about the long road, about whether she had eaten a proper meal, and properly detailed the state of the guest chamber; how long the peat fire had been laid, and what provisions could be scavenged from the kitchen at such an hour.

Elspeth went with her. She was listening closely. Magnus could see it in the way her head turned at the right moments, the way she nodded against the wind, and the way she once murmured something so quiet it made the old housekeeper gently pat her arm.

They crossed the stone threshold together. The massive hall swallowed them whole, offering up its amber firelight, its thick warmth, and the heavy shapes of staghounds that stirred at the intrusion before resettling next to the hearth.

Magnus kept his eyes fixed on the empty, glowing doorway long after they had vanished.

“I’ll send word to the Council at first light,” Duncan muttered. “They’ll want to hear the news. Settle on a wedding date.” He paused. “I’ve already spoken to the stable lads, as it happens. We’ve a wager running on our future Lady. How many days before she saddles up and flees back south.”

He tilted his head, his gaze mocking. “I give her a fortnight. Robbie swears a week. Donal’s taken a month because she answered yer goat questions without fainting, which he claims demonstrates unusual character.” A beat. “I’m considered the optimist.”

Magnus snapped his head around, his gaze boring into his cousin. Duncan met the dark look with that same infuriating innocence he had practiced since boyhood.

“Remove the wager,” Magnus said, his voice dropping to a dangerous murmur.

“It’s already in motion. The coin’s growing already.”

“Duncan.” The name was a low warning.

Duncan studied him for a tense moment, searching his face. Slowly, the performance dropped away, revealing the real man underneath. The fierce, dependable warrior Magnus had trusted with his life on a dozen battlefields and trusted still.

Duncan gave a short nod. “Aye,” he muttered. “I’ll sort it out.” He turned on his heel and disappeared into the darkness toward the stables.

Magnus stood alone in the freezing courtyard. The rogue sheep were in the kitchen garden, systematically reducing the rows to stalks. He should move them. He would move them in a moment. But he remained rooted to the spot, staring at the blazing rectangle of the hall door, the wager clawing at him.

The anger had been brief, a primitive reflex, but it left behind a sharp ache because Duncan had unceremoniously named the exact thing Magnus was already thinking.

How many days?

He looked at the castle. This was his fortress, where his people lived. A place that had fiercely been itself for thirteen long years and had never needed to change for anyone.

He had built this order from the wreckage of what it had been before he had ridden home from training at sixteen years old and found nothing but choking black smoke where his family’s walls should have been.

He did not think about that night. He had trained his mind never to go there the same way he had locked away a great many things. The mental walls held.

Alas, his thoughts betrayed him, drifting back to the ride. Two hours. For two agonizing hours on the dark road from Bickerson Hall, Elspeth had sat rigid in front of him in the saddle, her spine straining not to touch his chest, her small hands buried in the thick folds of her cloak.

He had matched her effort, flexing his muscles to hold the leather reins wider than necessary, his broad shoulders angled back, his eyes focusing hard on the dark dirt road ahead.

She was petite against him. He was taken aback by her fragility. She had commanded the crowded hall with an impressively solid presence, looking him in the eye and answering his questions flatly. She had held her ground and did not back down before his overwhelming presence. However, a delicate being he could have covered with one arm was now folded between his arms.

He had been scrupulously careful not to do so.

And then there was her perfume. A light, intoxicating scent. Roses and a warmer, deeper note, alarmingly potent for two hours of forced proximity. It had penetrated the heavy wool of his cloak within the first mile. By the second hour, it was simply part of the air he breathed, refusing to dwindle.

He had tried to shut it out by calculating accounts, grazing rotations, and the exact figures of the wool merchant in Inveraray who had been short-weighing him since September. It had not worked.