Page 73 of The Highland Laird’s Hellion Bride

It was then that a smaller figure edged out from behind his legs, where she’d apparently been standing the whole while, overlooked in the chaos of trunks and gowns and Katherine’s running commentary.

Little Agnes had grown taller since Elspeth had last seen her—or simply straightened, chin level, hands folded properly in front of her skirts, the way a girl stood when she’d been practicing.

She dropped into a curtsey, slow and precise, the exact shape Katherine’s would have taken.

“Me Lady,” Agnes greeted gravely. “Congratulations on yer upcoming nuptials.”

Elspeth knelt. “Oh, Agnes.” She held her arms open. “Come here.”

Agnes held herself stiffly for exactly two seconds—Elspeth counted them, mostly out of fondness—before her composure broke, small arms coming up around her neck with a fierceness that had nothing formal left in it at all.

“I told Da I wanted to come,” Agnes said, voice muffled against her shoulder. “I told him if I didnae get to see the goat again, I’d cry the whole journey, and he said that wasnae a proper reason for a young lady to travel, and I said I didnae care one bit.”

“And here ye are.”

“Here I am.” Agnes pulled back just far enough to study her properly, solemn again. “Is she still fond of chewing things she oughtnae?”

“Considerably more fond of it than when ye last met her.”

Agnes nodded once, satisfied, as though this confirmed something important she’d suspected all along.

Elspeth had to look away and rise back to her feet, because there was something about a child gone serious over the welfare of a goat that threatened to undo her rather more than the moment strictly warranted.

Katherine, watching the whole exchange from beside the trunk with a gown draped over one arm, pressed the back of her hand to her brow with theatrical precision.

“I cannae bear it,” she announced to the room at large. “A child and a goat. I shall weep.”

“Ye’re nae actually weeping.”

“I am considering it. Give me a moment to properly commit to the bit.”

Duncan chose precisely that moment to appear in the doorway, took one look at the room—Katherine draped over a trunk in mock anguish, Agnes holding fast to two fistfuls of Elspeth’s skirts, gowns scattered across every surface not currently occupied by a person—and gripped both sides of the doorframe like a man bracing against a strong wind.

“Ben Cruachan,” he announced, “has become unbearable. Sentiment everywhere I turn. I cannae walk ten feet without tripping over an embrace.”

“Ye’re welcome to join it, Duncan. There’s plenty to go round.”

“I would rather muck out every stall in the stables.” He was already retreating even as he said it. “Liam, come. Ye’re wanted for something considerably less damp than this room’s about to get, and I’d rather show a man fences and cattle than stand here another moment, watching grown women weep over ribbon.”

Liam offered Elspeth a brief, sympathetic nod and followed him out without argument.

Elspeth heard Magnus’s voice pick up faintly somewhere past the door, already trading some low remark with Duncan she couldn’t quite catch.

“Now.” Katherine straightened, all business again, reaching for the next trunk before the men’s footsteps had even faded down the corridor. “We have a great deal to do before the handfasting, and I refuse to let ye be married in anything less than the gown ye deserve, so ye may as well settle in.”

Agnes climbed up onto the bed without waiting to be asked and tucked her legs beneath her skirts, settling in.

Elspeth looked between them—Katherine already elbow-deep in fabric again, Agnes watching with grave, unblinking attention, the door standing open to the yard beyond—and found herself, for the first time in what felt like a very long while, simply glad of the noise of it.

Chapter Twenty-One

Elspeth was half-listening to Katherine debate lace against plain hem when she noticed Liam standing in the doorway, hat already in hand, patient in the way he had of waiting to be noticed rather than announcing himself.

He cleared his throat. “Agnes, fancy a walk to the paddocks?”

Agnes looked up from the edge of the bed, where she’d been half-listening to Katherine debate the merits of lace against plain hem for the better part of ten minutes. “The paddocks?”

“Aye. Every animal on this land has something to teach a future lady, if she’s willing to listen.” Liam extended a hand toward her, patient, unhurried. “Sheep, cattle, horses. A good lady kens her land the way she kens her own household.”