Page 72 of The Highland Laird’s Hellion Bride

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From Elspeth’s side, the hat war was very much ongoing when Duncan clapped his cousin on the shoulder across the yard. She caught the tail end of it, Magnus’s flat “I preferred the goats” carrying just far enough for her to hear, and filed it away for later.

“I saw that.” Katherine hadn’t looked away from the ribbon debate for even a second. “Yer Laird, muttering about goats behind me back.”

“He mutters about goats fairly often. Ye shouldnae take it personally.”

“I take everything personally; it’s how I manage such a full life,” Katherine said jokingly and threw both arms around Elspeth for the second time in under an hour, squeezing hard enough that Elspeth had to brace against it to keep her balance.

“I was wondering when ye would do this.”

“Well, ye ken me. I’m allowed.” Katherine drew back, and her gaze snagged immediately on the shoulder of Elspeth’s gown, the soot smudge faintly visible despite Becky’s best efforts with a brush that morning. Her whole expression went from fond to horrified in the space of a single breath. “What is that?”

“A fire. Two nights ago. I already told ye.”

“Ye told me a fire, ye did not tell me it was close enough to leave a mark on ye.” Katherine’s hand pressed flat to her own chest. “They nearly burned ye before ye’ve even married the man! This is precisely why women should never trust beasts at a stranger’s gathering. I’ve said it for years, and no one ever listens.”

“It was the furnace shed, Katherine. There was no gathering.”

“A furnace shed full of fire is a stranger’s gathering of the worst sort, is it nae? The principle stands regardless.”

Elspeth laughed at that, properly, the first time in days the sound had come without her having to reach for it.

Katherine took the laugh as permission to seize her by the wrist and haul her indoors, calling instructions over her shoulder to two servants already staggering under the weight of trunks.

“Bring them up. All of them. I’ll nae have Lady Elspeth married in whatever she happens to have hanging in her wardrobe already. I’ve seen it; it’s tragic.”

“There’s nothing wrong with what I have.”

“There’s nothing wrong with it, the way there’s nothing wrong with porridge.”

Katherine had the first trunk open before they’d even reached the bedchamber properly, gowns coming out faster than the maid trailing behind her could catch and fold them.

“This one.” A green, held up, assessed, tossed onto the growing pile atop the bed. “Nay, too hopeful. This one.” A grey, held next to it. “Better. Tragic. The sort of color a woman wears when her Laird’s gone and nearly gotten himself killed in a fire two days before their handfasting and she must simply endure it with dignity.”

“Magnus is fine.”

“He’s fine now. Every Highland romance I’ve ever read has exactly one scene where the hero rides off into danger the night before the wedding, and the heroine’s left to manage in an appropriately tragic gown while she waits.”

“He isnae riding anywhere.”

“Nae yet.” Katherine held up the grey gown against her own reflection, considering. “But it costs nothing to be prepared. I’ve heard from three separate servants already that he carried burning beams out with his bare hands. That’s nae a man inclined to sit still.”

Elspeth opened her mouth to argue the point and found, again, that she didn’t have the words, which Katherine accepted as victory and returned to the trunk with renewed enthusiasm.

Liam appeared in the doorway a few minutes later, a third chest balanced against one hip.

“Where does this one go?”

“Anywhere, love. I’ve lost track.”

He set it down with visible relief and straightened, one hand pressed briefly to the small of his back.

“I stopped asking questions somewhere around the second trunk,” he said to no one in particular, though his eyes found Elspeth’s. “Ye have me sympathies. And Magnus has them doubly.”

“He’s mentioned as much. Several times, in fact, and always in the tone of a man composing his own eulogy.”

“Aye, he would.” Liam’s mouth twitched. “We stoic types tend to recognize our own.”