Page 4 of In Bed with a Highland Brute

Murdoch forced himself so much that Ian chuckled.

“On second thoughts, ye were better as ye were.”

Murdoch smiled genuinely this time, though it didn’t last long. He took his seat at the table, so busy thinking of that letter that he scarcely paid attention to who else was there for dinner.

I have tae go back. I have tae face Lillie’s family again.

Turning his focus to the table, Murdoch looked around at the other diners. At the head of the table was Laird Noah Chattan, with his wife, Scarlett, and their son, Aiden, in her lap, although he was soon to be taken to bed. Growing older, the boy could now sit up and chew on the chunks of chicken that Scarlett put into his hands, but still they preferred to keep him away from noisy places like this. Beside Laird Chattan was Ian, and next to him his wife, Aila. On the far side of the table was Avery, Scarlett’s brother, and his wife, Callie, Aila’s sister. It was one crazy family, Murdoch had to admit. Callie’s other sister, Fiadh, sat at the foot of the table, and beside her was Elliot, Murdoch’s fellow soldier and a good friend.

The connections around the table were complicated, and had not only been formed by the love that connected the married couples, but also the trials and dangers that had thrust these people into one another’s paths. Murdoch had been a part of it all, watching the various times his friends had come close to death. Some of those trials were the reasons he bore so many scars today.

There was another at the table that Murdoch was reluctant to look at. Slowly and delicately, she sat down beside Murdoch.

Ah, Eloise.

She was Scarlett’s twin sister. They bore the same rich auburn hair, the bright, even icy, blue eyes, and the petite features. Excessively pretty, she was hard to look away from once Murdoch allowed himself to sneak a peek.

She is Lady Scarlett’s sister. Aye, she is out of bounds.

Yet there were other reasons Murdoch did not want himself to be attracted to Eloise. He’d vowed never to consider a woman in his life again, after what had happened to Lillie. And there was also the matter of Eloise’s character.

She was so refined, well spoken, and well-mannered that Murdoch felt like an illiterate and bumbling fool of a soldier next to her. More than once her small nose had wrinkled in conversations between them.

Clearly, she thinks me a bampot.

“Well, how are ye, Callie?” Lady Scarlett called from the head of the table. “God kens I struggled with my sickness when I was carrying Aiden. How are ye faring?”

“Ugh,” Callie grimaced, making many around the table chuckled, apart from her husband, Avery, who looked at her with concern. “Me stomach turns just at the sight of all this food. Do me a favor, Eloise.” She pushed the trenchers away from herself and toward Eloise on the opposite side of the table. “Take it all away from me.”

“With pleasure,” Eloise assured her, her pronunciation so perfect that Murdoch sighed under his breath.

Why does she have tae be so perfect all the time?

It infuriated him. He stabbed his knife at the chicken on his plate a little more harshly than he had intended.

“How are the soldiers’ drills progressing?” Laird Chattan asked of his brother. Ian eagerly nodded, looking to Murdoch for his agreement.

“Well, although some of the men arenae used tae fighting yet when they’re exhausted.”

“Aye, their stamina needs improving,” Murdoch said, reaching for the trencher of saffron-soaked leeks that Eloise passed him. When their fingers brushed on the bowl, she pulled back sharply, and he had to tighten his hold on the bowl to stop it from falling. He glanced at her, sensing how much she looked down at him, for she could not even bear his touch.

She refused to look at him but stared down at her trencher instead.

Murdoch could never understand why people confused Eloise and Scarlett. To Murdoch’s mind, they were entirely different, even though they were twins. Scarlett was spirited in character, sometimes even overbearing, whereas Eloise was quiet and timid like a mouse, so concerned with modesty and decorum that she often times looked stern. It was an expression he had never seen in Lady Scarlett’s face.

“We need tae run drills with the men,” Murdoch continued on, returning his focus to Ian and Laird Chattan. “Wake them at the middle of the night and make them run their drills. Aye, that should do it.”

“Then it’s settled.” As Laird Chattan turned to his brother to make the arrangements, Murdoch caught sight of Eloise shifting in her seat.

“In the middle of the night…” she said under her breath.

“I beg yer pardon?” He turned to look at her, his voice lowered to a whisper.

“In the middle of the night,” Eloise said simply, lifting her chin to meet his gaze. She smiled, as if it were only natural for her to correct his grammar.

Murdoch sat back, losing interest in his food as he gazed at her.

“I dinnae remember asking for a teacher, Eloise,” he said sharply. No one else at the table seemed to notice their conversation, for they were all laughing at some tale Ian was telling about the soldiers.