Page 75 of The Highland Laird’s Hellion Bride

“It’s nae so different as ye think.” Elspeth rested her forehead against Katherine’s, the way they’d done as girls, sharing secrets too large for the space between them. “Ye’ll be a wonderful mother. I’ve never once doubted it, nae since I watched ye scold half the kitchen staff into behaving better than they’d managed in years, purely by expecting better of them.”

“That’s nae the same skill as raising a child.”

“It’s precisely the same skill. Ye’ll simply be expecting better of someone considerably smaller.”

Katherine laughed properly at that, the sound breaking loose from wherever she’d been holding it. For a moment, they stood there, foreheads pressed together, hands clasped, neither of them saying anything at all.

“I used to think,” Katherine said eventually, quieter now, “that ye’d be the one telling me this news first. About yerself. Nae the other way round.”

“There’s still time for that.”

“Aye.” Katherine pulled back, studying her. “And ye… ye’re happy here. Truly. I’ve watched ye all morning, and I’ve nae once seen ye wear that face ye used to wear at home, the one ye thought fooled everyone.”

“What face?”

“The one that said ye were counting the days until something better came along.” Katherine’s thumb brushed once over Elspeth’s knuckles. “Ye’re nae wearing it now.”

Elspeth considered that for a moment and found, to her own surprise, that she didn’t have an argument ready.

“I used to think it’d be something grander than this,” she admitted. “All those stories I read ye. Princes on horseback. Vows shouted from cliffsides.”

“And now?”

“And now I’m nae certain I want a cliffside at all.” She glanced toward the door, where Agnes’s laugh carried faintly from the direction of the paddocks, where Liam’s low voice answered something she couldn’t make out. “I think I might simply want this. A full house. People who choose to stay in it, even after the shouting from cliffsides has gone quiet.”

Katherine’s eyes had gone bright again, and this time she didn’t bother blinking back her tears. “Ye’re getting soft, Elspeth MacRae.”

“I’m getting married soon. I’m allowed a bit of softness.”

“Ye’re allowed considerably more than a bit, if that’s the direction ye’re headed.”

Katherine squeezed her hands hard once more and let go, already reaching to swipe at her own eyes with the heel of one palm. “Now, nae a word of this to anyone, especially nae Liam’s mother. Or she’ll have the whole clan informed before supper.”

“Yer secret’s safe.”

“It had better be.”

She sniffed once, decisively, and turned back toward the abandoned trunk as though nothing had happened, though her hand lingered, just briefly, against her stomach before she bent to retrieve the gown she’d set aside.

“Now, lace or plain hem? I refuse to leave this room until ye’ve decided, and I willnae be swayed by any argument that doesnae account for how it looks when ye’re dancing.”

* * *

Inspecting the western boundary was the first task of the day, and Duncan met him at the fence line with two horses already saddled.

“Ye slept,” Duncan said, eyeing him. “That’s new.”

“I slept some.”

“Aye, ye look it.” Duncan swung up. “We’re checking the whole stretch today, or just where the fire happened?”

“The whole stretch. If O’Brien’s men found one weak point, they’ll have looked for others.”

They rode the fence line in long silence, Magnus checking each post, each length of stone wall, running his hand along seams the way he had two days past, looking for anything a blade might have worked loose.

Her laugh, sharp and sudden, ringing off stone.

He was three posts past the halfway mark, Duncan already speaking, before he realized he hadn’t heard a word of it.