Page 23

“Well, he is incredibly foolish,” Mabel said.

Morag stared at her for a second then let out a loud, booming bark of laughter. “Aye, Ma’am! He is the most stubborn, foolish, thick-headed man in all of Scotland! And someone desperately needs to tell him that!”

Mabel laughed. The sound bubbled up from her chest, clear and unburdened. Isla joined in, giggling loudly at the housekeeper’s blatant disrespect for their terrifying laird.

For the first time since she had arrived at Blackthorn Keep, Mabel did not feel like a prisoner, and she did not feel alone.

“Come on, Isla,” Mabel said, standing up and taking a final sip of the warm cider. She felt lighter, her spine straight and her chin lifted. “Let us leave Morag to her baking before she hands me a paring knife and makes me peel those turnips.”

“I would never dare, Ma’am!” Morag called out playfully, already turning back to yell at another servant. “But if ye see the Laird, tell him if he misses his supper again, I am feeding it to the hounds!”

Mabel and Isla pushed through the heavy wooden doors, still laughing as they stepped out into the crisp, freezing air of the central courtyard.

The heavy, bruising gray clouds that normally blanketed the Highlands had finally broken. A rare, brilliant shaft of late afternoon sunlight cut through the mist, illuminating the wet cobblestones and casting a warm, golden glow over the grim stone fortress.

Mabel pulled her dark cloak tightly around her shoulders, oblivious to the fact that she was no longer merely walking through a strange keep. She was walking through her new reality, armed with the suspicion that the most terrifying man in the Highlands might possess a heart capable of love.

Caelan stood in the dim quiet of his solar, his hands braced flat against the stone sill of the window.

He was paralyzed.

He had heard the sound cutting through the heavy, oppressive silence of his room long before he actually moved to the glass. It was a clear, bright, unburdened laugh. A sound so foreign to the blood-soaked walls of Blackthorn Keep that it had physically stopped his heart in his chest.

He looked down into the courtyard.

Mabel was walking beside her red-haired maid. She was smiling.

The rare, golden sunlight hit her directly, catching in the loose strands of her golden-blonde hair and turning them into spun fire. The heavy, dark shadows that had bruised her beautiful face for days were gone. She looked radiant, possessing a soft, breathtaking beauty that hit Caelan with the violent force of a physical blow.

She is smiling.

Something deep, ancient, and buried inside Caelan’s chest violently tore itself open.

It was a feeling he had actively suppressed for nearly a decade. It was a raw, aching, desperate yearning for warmth. For a single second, he allowed himself to imagine what it would be like to walk down those stone stairs, to cross the muddy courtyard, and to pull her directly into his arms. He imagined burying his face in her golden hair, breathing in the scent of lavender and rain, and surrendering to the sheer, magnetic pull that constantly dragged him toward her.

His large, scarred hand tightened brutally on the stone sill, his knuckles turning white.

Nae, Caelan commanded himself, a harsh, jagged breath tearing through his gritted teeth.

He forced his eyes away from her smile, focusing instead on the heavy iron broadsword strapped to the guard passing her. He focused on the dark, blood-stained history of the very stones she was walking on.

Look at what ye are, Caelan, he told himself brutally, the familiar, crushing weight of his guilt returning to instantly suffocate the brief spark of hope. Ye are a killer. Ye are a warlord.

She was light. She was life. She deserved a man who could stand in the sun with her, a man whose face did not terrify children, a man who did not wake up choking on the memory of the men he had slaughtered. If he pulled her into his shadows, he would extinguish her light.

It was a tactical truth. It was the only truth that mattered.

With a forceful movement, Caelan pushed himself away from the window, stepping backward into the deepest shadows of the solar where he belonged. He turned his back on the courtyard, cutting himself off from the sight of her.

A sharp, heavy knock shattered the silence of the room.

Caelan’s jaw locked. He forcefully smoothed the terrifying, emotionless mask of the Black Laird back over his features before turning toward the door.

“Enter,” Caelan commanded, his voice a harsh, vibrating rumble.

The door pushed open. Duncan Fraser strode into the room. The captain of the guard was not smiling. His face was set into a grim, unyielding scowl, and his posture was rigid.

Duncan did not offer a customary greeting. He walked straight across the solar, stopping right in front of Caelan’s oak desk.