Page 32 of The Highland Laird’s Hellion Bride

He was not. He was managing his attention. He was directing it appropriately toward the plate, toward the walls, toward the ledgers that required his absolute focus. Because focus was what this fortress called for. Not the scent of roses. Not the pale skin of a woman’s throat.

He picked up the letter again. He read the first line. He set it down.

He looked up at the dark timber ceiling for a long moment, his chest rising with a heavy breath. Then he pulled the merchant’s letter back toward him, dipped his quill into the black ink, and began to write.

Chapter Ten

Elspeth pushed open the library door and went straight to the third shelf from the bottom, the one beside the sermons, where she had left the book with its spine turned just so—a habit her old governess had beaten into her before she had ever learned her letters properly.

Her fingers found sermons. Then a ledger of household accounts nobody read. Then more sermons.

She crouched and ran her hand along the gap, as though the book might have fallen and wedged itself somewhere out of sight.

Nothing.

She stood up, checked the shelf above it, then the one below. Then she went back to the original spot. Surely she had misremembered. Surely a book that thick did not simply vanish from a locked room in a castle full of people who could not read half so well as she could.

It was not only one book. She counted the gaps as she went, four of them scattered across two shelves, each space too clean. Dust was wiped from where something had recently occupied it.

Someone had deliberately gone through this library and removed certain books.

Elspeth closed the last cabinet with more force than necessary. She marched out of the library, down the corridor, past Mrs. McAulay , who called something after her about the noon meal, which Elspeth replied to hastily, and out through the side door. The courtyard was bright with a cold, clean light that made everything look sharper.

She found him near the stables.

A black stallion reared against a length of rope, his hooves cutting the air. Magnus stood his ground without so much as stepping back. One hand was steady on the line, and he was faintly murmuring words she could not catch from this distance.

The horse came down hard, snorted, and tried again. Magnus waited him out, his feet planted, his shoulders set. Two dogs sat nearby with their tongues out, watching the whole process.

Elspeth’s steps faltered on the cobbles. She caught herself against the fence post and sharply reminded her feet what they were meant to be doing.

By the time she reached the paddock, the stallion had settled enough to be led, and Magnus had bent down to retrieve a chicken that had wandered into his path. The indignant bird was tucked beneath one arm as though this were an ordinary interruption to the business of breaking a half-wild horse.

“Someone removed a book from the library,” Elspeth stated flatly.

Magnus glanced up. He did not stop walking, so she fell into step beside him, matching his stride toward the stable door. “Did they?”

“A romance novel. The very book I’ve been reading.”

He looked down at the chicken as though it had just said something requiring his full attention. He turned it slightly, checking its wing, its feet, anything.

“Perhaps someone borrowed it.”

“Did ye borrow it?”

“Nay.”

“Magnus.”

“Aye?”

“Did ye remove the book?”

He set the chicken down inside the stables and straightened slowly, rolling one shoulder as though it had gone stiff. Morag picked that exact moment to trot past them with something green hanging out of her mouth, bleated once triumphantly, and kept going.

“There were too many foolish things in that library,” Magnus said.

Elspeth folded her arms. “Did ye perhaps confiscate all the romance novels?”