Page 60 of The Highland Laird’s Hellion Bride

Neither of them said anything further about it, because there was nothing further that needed saying. A castle distracted by a wedding, and soon enough by a cradle, was a castle that wasn’t watching its walls as closely as it ought.

Magnus stood very still in the ash and the grey light, and let himself think, for exactly as long as it took to draw a full breath, about the storm. About how he’d stood in the armory with his hands full of Elspeth instead of walking the wall as he did every night without fail, about how easy it would have been for a man with oil and patience to slip past sentries who’d been told to shelter from the rain rather than stand exposed to it.

He had been distracted. For the first time in thirteen years, on the one night it might have mattered most, he had been thinking about something other than what was coming for him out of the dark.

That ended now.

“Double the night watch,” he ordered. “Starting tonight, until I say otherwise.”

“Aye.”

“I want men stationed at the eastern border by nightfall. Armed, and rotated so none of them go soft from standing still too long.” He was already walking back toward the keep as he said it, Duncan falling into step beside him without needing to be told to. “And find Jinny for me. Wherever I left her.”

“Ye left her in the armory.”

“Then that’s where I’ll find her.” Magnus did not look back at the ruined shed, or at the oil-stained stone, or at the men hauling ash and blackened timber into piles behind him. “I willnae be caught unarmed again. Nae in me own home.”

He glanced once more across the yard. Elspeth was on her feet now, handing her blanket off to the stable girl who’d been crying earlier, saying something to Mrs. McAulay that made the older woman’s mouth twitch into a smile despite everything. She hadn’t looked toward him again.

It was wise of her. He had a great deal of walking to do before dawn finished breaking, and every one of the next ten conversations he needed to have would go a good deal worse if he spent them thinking about the shape of her against him instead of the oil someone had poured deliberately onto his own stones.

He made himself walk faster. It helped, marginally.

Chapter Seventeen

The kitchen smelled of woodsmoke and the dregs of Mrs. McAulay ’s chamomile.

Elspeth sat wrapped in a blanket someone had pressed on her sometime past midnight, watching soot settle into the grain of the worktable each time she moved her hands.

“Ye did well tonight,” Mrs. McAulay said, refilling her cup without being asked. “Better than half the grown men out there, from what I saw.”

“I mostly carried goats.”

“Aye, and kept yer head while doing it, which is more than I can say for young Fergus, who tried to save the chickens and the ale barrel in the same armful and dropped both.” Mrs. McAulay ’s mouth twitched. “Ye’ll do.”

A kitchen girl hurried past with an armful of scorched linens destined for the wash, and behind her, a stable lad limped in favoring one ankle, waving off Mrs. McAulay ’s attempt to sit him down and look at it.

The whole household moved through the room in fits and starts, soot-blackened and wide awake despite the hour.

Elspeth was still working out what to say to Mrs. McAulay when the door opened and Magnus filled it, black to the wrists, his shirt torn at one shoulder. His eyes went to her first, before the room, before anything else in it.

“The watch has been doubled,” he said, to no one in particular. “Men will be stationed at the eastern border by nightfall. Duncan’s seeing to the rotation now.”

“Good,” Mrs. McAulay said, unbothered, and went back to her kettle as though lairds announced troop movements over teacups every night of the week. “Anyone hurt bad?” she added, not looking up.

“Nothing Fergus’s pride willnae recover from.” Magnus’s gaze had already flicked back to Elspeth, moving over her—quick, thorough, cataloging what’s still standing. “Ye’re nae hurt.”

It wasn’t a question. She answered it anyway.

“Aye. A goat stepped on me foot, and I believe I’ve ruined this dress beyond saving, but otherwise I’m whole.”

Something in his jaw eased fractionally, though he said nothing further about it. He crossed to where she sat instead. He crouched, which put him well below her eye level for once, and reached out before she’d braced herself for it, tucking a loose curl back behind her ear with two fingers gone rough and blackened at the knuckle.

Her pulse did something inconvenient at the touch, warmth spreading under her skin exactly where his fingers had been. She went very still, the way a person went stiff when they did not trust themselves to move without giving something away. Across the room, Mrs. McAulay suddenly found a deep interest in the kettle.

Magnus didn’t seem to notice, or didn’t let on that he had. His hand fell back to his side, and the memory of his mouth against hers—hours old now, and nowhere near as distant as it ought to have felt—rose up so clearly that Elspeth had to look down at her own hands to keep it from showing on her face.

Say something. Ask him to stay for a moment.