Page 4 of The Highland Laird’s Hellion Bride

Tormod shifted his weight off his aching joint. “Thirteen years,” he croaked, his eyes locking onto Magnus’s scarred face. “Thirteen years ago, ye came back to a broken clan. Empty cottages, salted fields—near enough—and granaries rotting to dust.” He paused, letting the memory hang.

Magnus did not need a reminder. He remembered that cursed day with permanent, bleeding clarity. It was the very thing that had forged him.

“And now, look at us,” Tormod continued, his voice softening. “The people eat. The children survive the winter. The trade routes ye built are real, me Laird. This prosperity is real. Ben Cruachan breathes again because of ye.”

“Then we are agreed,” Magnus said flatly. “The clan is well.”

“The clan is well,” Angus allowed carefully. “But there is the matter of what comes after. Who will lead when ye fall? Who will inherit? The succession is…”

“Uncertain,” Fearchar finished.

The word settled heavily in the damp air.

Magnus reached down, picked up his mallet from the post, and walked toward the granary wall to set it away. He was not avoiding them. He had a tool to store, and he could hear their badgering perfectly well from six feet away.

“I have no need of a wife,” he said. “I have said so.”

“Ye’ve said so for eight years,” Duncan chimed in from the side, unhelpfully.

“And I have been right for eight years.”

“Me Laird.” Angus stepped into his path, his face tight with exhaustion. “A laird needs heirs. And a lady beside him, someone to manage the household, the people.”

Magnus stopped.

He did not raise his voice. He merely turned his gaze upon Angus. It was the heavy, dark look that had broken men twice Angus’s size. The murmuring immediately died down.

“Ben Cruachan prospers,” he said, each word dropping like stone, “because I rebuilt it. The cottages stand because me hands repaired them. The people eat because I negotiated the terms.” He looked at each of them, his eyes hard. “The livestock multiply because I ken more about sheep than any man in this glen. If I desired a wife, I would have taken one.”

Outside, the wind rattled the dry thatch, but silence descended on the granary.

Fearchar was the one to break it; he had never learned to yield. “If ye willnae choose,” he spat, his chin trembling with defiance, “then the elders will choose for ye. That is our right by law, and I’ll nae apologize for it.”

The silence that followed was thick.

Magnus went perfectly still. He knew he had been backed into a corner. His jaw clenched, the muscles tightening until the scars along his cheek pulled taut. His eyes fixed on the empty air.

Someone deciding for him. Someone walking into the life he had pulled out of the ashes with his own bleeding fingers and rearranging it for their own comfort.

Before the rage building in his chest could break, Duncan stepped between them. He placed a firm hand on Magnus’s forearm—not to hold him back, but to ground him—and leaned in close.

“Bickerson’s auction,” he muttered quickly. “Week’s end. Ye go, ye choose, ye come back with a woman of yer own choosing. Better yer requirements than theirs, Magnus.”

Magnus looked at his cousin. Duncan held his gaze, unblinking.

The requirements.

Magnus weighed the word. He had strict parameters for everything. The granaries had to be dry, the ledgers had to balance, the fences had to hold, and the livestock had to remain inside them. His life worked because it was ordered and predictable. Introducing an unknown variable chosen by three old men was a vulnerability he could not permit.

“Very well,” he acquiesced.

Duncan blinked, a flash of surprise crossing his features. He clearly had not expected the logic to bite so quickly.

Magnus turned back to the elders. “One auction. One wife. I will attend. I will choose.” He leveled his gaze at Angus, then Fearchar, then Tormod. “After which the matter is closed, and ye daenae raise it again. Any of ye.” He snatched his ledger from the shelf. “That is how it will be done.”

He strode past them, his heavy boots echoing on the stone floor.

Behind him, the old men exhaled. A shaky sound of relief.