Page 44 of The Highland Laird’s Hellion Bride

Magnus set his quill down for the fifth time and rose from the table so abruptly that the bench scraped loudly across the stone.

“Duncan.”

His cousin glanced up from his whisky, one eyebrow raised. “Aye?”

“Outside. Now.”

Duncan set his cup down with visible reluctance, murmured something to MacKinnon about checking the stables, and followed Magnus through the hall doors into the courtyard, where the cold was sharp enough to clear a man’s head—or ought to.

His own was apparently an exception.

“She has done every single thing except the one thing I betrothed her for,” Magnus said, before the door had fully swung shut behind them.

Duncan folded his arms, leaning against the stone wall. “Which part troubles ye most? I’d wager ye’ve a list.”

“She’s rearranged the stillroom without askin’. She’s in the kitchens brewin’ herbs with Mrs. McAulay as though she’s been here a decade. She’s turned me hall into a nursery for half the children from the village, and in four days, Duncan, four days, she hasnae once, nae a single time, so much as looked at the livestock ledgers.”

“The livestock ledgers,” Duncan repeated.

“I married her for her knowledge of livestock.”

“Ye married her because she answered yer questions at the auction better than any other woman in that hall, and because ye were half in love with the notion of a wife who kent a lamb from a chicken.” His mouth twitched. “Ye didnae marry a shepherd, Cousin. Ye married a woman who’s runnin’ this household better than either of us has managed on our own.”

Magnus turned away, his jaw tight, and looked out over the courtyard where nothing required his attention. That made it considerably harder to justify staring at it.

“She’s supposed to manage the household. The livestock. The provisionin’.”

“She’s managin’ everything but the livestock, and doing it better than anyone’s managed since before ye were born.” Duncan pushed off the wall. “Ye ken what I think troubles ye?”

“I didnae ask.”

“I’ll tell ye anyway.” His grin was unrepentant. “Ye’re nae actually angry that she’s failed at her duties, Magnus. Ye’re angry that she’s succeeded at somethin’ ye cannae control.”

Magnus said nothing to that, because there was nothing to say that would not confirm it, and he had no intention of confirming anything to Duncan on a cold afternoon in his own courtyard.

He turned and went back inside.

The Great Hall had grown louder in his absence. He crossed toward the hearth with every intention of retrieving his ledger and removing himself to somewhere quiet, and stopped three steps short of the table.

The youngest MacKinnon girl—Annie, small and round-cheeked, no more than five—had gone pale and rigid on the rug, her lower lip trembling. Elspeth’s story had apparently taken a turn toward a witch in the woods, and the witch, by all appearances, had proven considerably too vivid for a child of five.

Elspeth broke off mid-sentence. She reached over without any visible urgency and smoothed a curl back from Annie’s damp cheek with two fingers, the gesture unhurried and unremarkable, yet utterly charming.

“The witch is very silly, really,” Elspeth said in a low voice. “She’s terrible at bein’ frightenin’. Trips over her own broom more often than nae.”

Annie sniffed. “Does she?”

“Constantly. Once, she flew straight into a tree because she was too busy admirin’ her own hat.”

A small, wet laugh escaped the girl, and she leaned against Elspeth’s shoulder, tucked there as naturally as if she’d done it a dozen times before. Elspeth let her stay, one arm settling loose around her, already picking the story back up from a gentler thread.

Magnus stood very still. He watched the whole exchange from start to finish, and realized that he could not for the life of him look away.

He found that fact considerably more unsettling than the sight itself.

He made himself sit. He made himself pull the ledger back toward him and dip his quill. When he looked down at the page, he could not recall which figures he had already tallied and which he had not.

“She’s good with them,” Duncan said, dropping onto the bench across from him, too pleased with himself.