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She set the letter down on the scarred wood. Her hands were shaking so badly that her fingernails clicked against the desk.

The Black Laird finally turned around.

He stepped slowly out of the shadows and into the flickering firelight.

Mabel’s breath caught painfully in her throat. She instinctively took a half-step backward, her body reacting on its own.

The terrifying stories whispered across the Highlands had not exaggerated.

A vicious, jagged scar slashed across his face, a mark of some old, brutal savagery. But as Mabel looked up at him, her heart gave a sudden, unsteady kick against her ribs that had nothing to do with fear.

For all the terrifying tales of the Black Laird, no one had ever mentioned that beneath the ruin of his scar lay a face of stark, rugged beauty. His jaw was locked into a hard, unforgiving line, covered in a shadow of dark stubble. His piercing gray eyes were intense and captivating, surrounded by thick, dark lashes. He was devastatingly handsome, possessing a formidable, raw masculinity that overwhelmed the quiet space of the solar.

Mabel stared at him, paralyzed. A strange, unwanted flutter of heat sparked low in her belly. She was exhausted, covered in mud, and grieving, yet as his relentless gaze locked onto hers, she felt an undeniable, magnetic pull. She noticed the strong, clean line of his throat, the sheer power radiating from his broad chest, and the way his presence seemed to consume all the air in the room.

He looked down at her but did not say a word.

He reached out with a large, heavily scarred hand and picked up the parchment.

He broke the red wax seal. The sharp snap echoed loudly in the quiet room.

Mabel watched his face intently as he unfolded the heavy paper. She watched the way his thick, dark eyebrows pulled together. She looked for any sign of emotion, any crack in his formidable armor, but he was unreadable. She could only observe the slight, almost imperceptible tightening of his jaw as his eyes moved across her father’s final words.

He stood there in silence, staring at the parchment long after he had finished reading.

Mabel held her breath, her small hands gripping the muddy folds of her cloak tightly. Was he angry? Would he turn her away? She was asking this intimidating warrior to take on the burden of a ruined clan and a hunted heiress.

He slowly folded the letter. He placed it gently onto the desk, his hand resting flat over the paper for a single, heavy heartbeat.

“Yer father died a hero,” he said. His voice was no longer a flat rumble. It carried a quiet, solemn gravity. “He was a good man. The Highlands are darker tonight without him.”

Mabel’s lower lip trembled violently. The unexpected reverence in his terrifying voice pierced straight through her defenses. “He trusted ye,” she whispered, her blunt honesty slipping out before she could stop it. “He said ye were the only one.”

“He did,” he agreed quietly.

He did not step closer to offer comfort. He remained emotionally guarded, a high, impenetrable wall of cold stone standing between them.

“I made a promise to William Crawford on the battlefield years ago,” he stated, his piercing gray eyes locking onto her blue ones with a fierce, unbreakable intensity. “I intend to honor it. While ye remain under me roof, ye are under me protection. Nay man will touch ye. Nay harm will come to ye. I swear it.”

Mabel stared at him, her chest heaving with shallow breaths. The sheer force of his vow seemed to physically alter the air in the room. He did not sound like a man making a polite promise. He sounded like a man declaring an unchangeable law.

“Thank ye,” Mabel breathed, her shoulders finally dropping a fraction of an inch as the crushing exhaustion of the past three days fully hit her.

He studied her face carefully. His gaze was sharp, analyzing every single detail of her battered appearance, lingering for a fraction of a second on her trembling, mud-stained lips before snapping back to her eyes.

“Before I dismiss ye to rest,” he said, his tone shifting instantly from solemn respect back to the cold, calculating precision of a wartime Laird, “I need an answer.”

Mabel blinked, trying to force her exhausted mind to focus. “Aye. Anything.”

He rested his large hands flat on the edge of the desk, leaning forward slightly. The movement brought him closer, highlighting the dangerous, lethal power coiled tightly within his frame.

“Does anyone ken ye came here?” he asked softly.

Mabel’s breath caught. She thought of the dark, freezing glens. She thought of the frantic, terrifying ride, the shadows that seemed to move in the corner of her eyes, the constant, suffocating feeling of being hunted by the men who wanted her title and her lands.

“I…” Mabel stammered, her hands gripping her cloak tighter. “I daenae ken.”

Caelan MacCarron’s jaw locked. Something dark moved behind his eyes, confirming every single one of her worst fears.