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“I believe Aunt Moira is waiting.” His voice came out flat, as though he hadn’t just been breathing her in, his body still warm from being pressed to hers.

Isla’s lips pressed into a thin line. She nodded once, not to his empty words but to the shift in the air, the coldness rushing in to erase the heat that had been there a moment ago.

“I should go,” she said.

She moved past him and out of the armory, her footsteps quick.

Alisdair let out an angry snarl and drove his fist into the cupboard door, the wood splitting under the blow. Even that was not enough to settle him, because her scent lingered in the air.

CHAPTER SEVEN

CASTLE CORNERS

Alisdair looked over the marriage contract. A laird’s marriage was never simply tradition or convenience. It was politics; it was paperwork.

Somehow that thought eased the heavy feeling he had woken up with. It was just ink on parchment. Not real. Not yet.

Lady Moira let herself into the study without knocking. She was, after all, the only person allowed to.

It was nearly impossible for Alisdair to get mad at his aunt. She had given up everything to serve this family, and had stood beside him and Ewan every day since they had lost their parents.

“I am busy,” he said, without looking up from the papers.

“Ye’re always busy,” she scoffed.

“I am the Laird, Auntie.”

“And it is yer duty to oversee the preparations for yer weddin’, is it nae?”

“I am doin’ exactly that,” he huffed.

“Nonsense, lad.”

Alisdair finally looked up at her, scowling. “I have punished men for less,” he threatened playfully.

“Ye had better use that tone with people who havenae changed yer hippins.”

Alisdair shook his head. His aunt had helped raise him and Ewan, and was the only one who truly did not fear him. Besides Isla.

The thought made him more abrupt.

“What do ye want?”

“Yer opinion is needed for the weddin’. Come with me.”

His head was filled with the upcoming wedding enough already, and he no longer wanted to have anything to do with it. “I trust ye to handle everythin’.”

“Will ye at least pretend to be interested in yer own weddin’, lad?”

“I am far too busy to oversee pies and fabrics, Lady Moira.”

“Daenae ‘Lady Moira’ me, lad.”

“What would ye have me do, Auntie?”

“Come to the kitchens at once.”

“I am nae goin’ to leave me work and come to the kitchens!”