Page 17 of The Highland Laird’s Hellion Bride

She looked back up, her pride flaring.

“I daenae wear boots anyway,” she told him, wrapping herself in all the icy dignity available to a woman in a strange fortress at an ungodly hour.

Something sharp crossed his face.

He is disappointed. He expects absolute compliance from me.

His jaw set hard. His eyes darted away from hers to the shuttered window, then to the floor, and finally back to the doorframe beside him.

He nodded once, an uncomfortable, final nod that signaled the conclusion of a topic he would never revisit. Then he turned to leave.

He had to angle his massive shoulders slightly, acting on pure instinct, as he ducked beneath the low wooden lintel. It wasn’t a sharp or clumsy movement, but a perfectly automatic one borne from years of familiarity.

He opened the door opposite her, stepped through the threshold, and then the heavy oak clicked shut behind him.

His scent was all that remained of his short presence.

Rain, woodsmoke, cured leather, and wrapped in this all, something warmer. A raw, distinct note of cold air. It had flooded the room with him, and it lingered after he left. Just barely, already beginning to fade into the draft.

Elspeth sank onto the edge of the bed as the fire settled with a soft pop. Outside, the wind found a small gap somewhere in the warped shutters, making a low, whistling sound before losing its grip again. Becky was white as a ghost as she stood silently beside the open trunk.

Barbarian. I’ve been traded away to an absolute barbarian.

A man who answered questions about art and music with “Nay” and questions about his family with “Dead,” seeming to fully believe that these truncated words were complete and sufficient answers.

A man who had offered her heavy work boots, which she could only interpret as a clumsy attempt at warmth, and who had looked genuinely confused when the gesture was not met with the same enthusiasm it had been offered.

She lifted her head to look at Becky. Becky looked right back at her.

“He said dead,” Elspeth whispered.

“I heard.”

“As an answer to a question about his childhood.”

“Aye.” Becky paused, before adding in a carefully neutral tone, “To be fair, technically it is an answer.”

Elspeth blew air through her lips, falling back onto the mattress and staring blankly up at the ceiling. The stone above her was ancient, massive, and unbothered by her emotional predicament.

She thought about the romantic sonnets she had read, about dramatic Highland moons and mythical heroes with depthless eyes who composed brilliant poetry in the dark. Then she thought about a man who ducked under his own doorframe by muscle memory, offered leather boots instead of comfort, and possessed arms—she was profoundly annoyed to notice even now, especially now—built to a physical scale that defied all reason.

She closed her eyes tightly and took a deep breath through her nose.

Barbarian.

Yet, this time, the word did not land in her chest with quite the same force.

Chapter Seven

The council had been deliberating for twenty minutes.

Magnus knew this. He had also counted the number of times Angus had repeated himself: four. The number of times Fearchar had contradicted something he himself had said earlier: twice. Duncan had refilled his ale three times already, perfectly displaying the quality of his contributions to the discussion, which had not improved with volume.

He sat at the head of the table and said nothing. Elspeth sat to his left without comment, her hands folded on the table. She had changed from last night’s ruined silk into something simpler and darker, and her dark hair had been pinned back into a knot.

“A month,” Angus said in a heavy tone. “Minimum. The arrangements alone take long.”

“Six weeks,” Fearchar countered. “There are contracts still to be signed, I believe.”