Page 82 of The Highland Laird’s Hellion Bride

Elspeth looked back once more at the closed door, at the swan pacing in front of it, wings settling by degrees.

“Then I intend to find out,” she said, and started for the keep, leaving Katherine to catch up.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Elspeth found Mrs. McAulay in the stillroom, sleeves already rolled up for the day’s work, sorting dried lavender into bundles.

“Mrs. McAulay , I need yer help with something.”

“What is it, me Lady?”

“The swans. I thought they might do well near the pond behind the kitchen gardens, rather than the loch, since Magnus seems…” Elspeth searched for the word. “Unsettled by them. I thought if they were kept further off, out of his way, it might ease matters.”

Mrs. McAulay ’s hands stopped on the lavender. “Nae swans.”

“I beg yer pardon?”

“Nae swans, lass. Nae near the pond, nae near the loch, nae anywhere on this land if it can be helped.” Mrs. McAulay set the bundle down. “Anything but swans.”

“I daenae understand. What’s so terrible about a pair of birds?”

“It’s nae the birds themselves.” Mrs. McAulay glanced toward the door, as though Magnus might be standing just beyond it, and lowered her voice regardless. “The Laird cannae abide them. Willnae say why, exactly, nae to me, and I’ve served this household for many, many years.”

She shook her head, half amused, half genuinely troubled.

“But word’s already reached the kitchens of the color he went this mornin’. One of the lads swore he’d never seen the Laird move so fast in his life, save perhaps the night of the fire, and even then he’d had a purpose to run toward instead of away from.”

Katherine would love to hear this story, but she had peeled off toward the nursery to check on Agnes, which left Elspeth alone by the time she reached the stillroom door.

“Duncan seemed to ken something about it. He was laughing so hard he nearly fell off his rock.”

“Duncan’s ken him since they were bairns. He’d ken things I never would.” Mrs. McAulay returned to her lavender, though not without a faintly amused shake of her head. “Whatever it is, lass, ye’ll want to find him and settle it, before it festers into something worse.”

“I only meant it kindly.”

“I daenae doubt it for a moment. He likely kens that too.” Mrs. McAulay ’s mouth twitched, just slightly. “Go on. Find him. And me Lady, daenae laugh when he tells ye why, whatever it is. A man doesnae go that pale over something small.”

Elspeth found him near the stables an hour later, currying the grey gelding in long even strokes. “Magnus.”

He didn’t stop, though something in his shoulders went a fraction stiffer. “Elspeth.”

“I owe ye an apology.” She stepped further into the stables, twisting her hands together before she caught herself doing it and made herself stop. “I didnae mean to cause ye any distress this morning. I only thought the loch looked bare, and I wanted to give ye something.”

“Ye have naught to apologize for.”

“I clearly do, given ye fled the length of the yard from a bird.”

That made the brush in his hand go still. He glanced at her sideways, some faint, reluctant humor working at the corner of his mouth despite himself. “I didnae flee.”

“Ye repositioned rather dramatically, then.”

“Aye. That.” He set the brush down at last on the rail, and rolled his sleeve back partway, revealing a thin, pale scar along his forearm she’d never noticed before, half-hidden beneath the dark hair there. “When I was a boy, me sister had a swan.”

“A swan. As a pet.”

“She found it as a cygnet. Wing hurt, half-starved, nae more than a fistful of feathers and bad temper. She nursed it back whole over the course of a whole winter, fed it from her own hand every morning before anyone else was awake.”

Something at the corner of his mouth almost moved, there and gone. “It grew into the meanest creature I’ve ever encountered in me whole life, and it decided, for reasons ken only to itself, that I was its mortal enemy.”