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Lachlan glanced over his shoulder at his wife and then with a grumble, set Torrie to her feet, her boots crunching onto the gravel of the drive. “Sloane said you needed time, but this was too much for my liking.” He pointed with a thumb over his shoulder to the castle. “I sent the staff inside—they came out, wanting to welcome you, but Eva didnae want them to overwhelm you.”
“They—they wanted to welcome me?” Torrie’s forehead wrinkled.
“Of course, lass.” A frown set on his face. “Oh, you are worried on the time after the fire?”
She nodded.
“You were a handful. But you were also in pain.” He waved his hand in the air. “So that’s forgotten. What’s important is you’re here now. Home.”
“Sloane did tell you this is just for a visit?”
Lachlan shrugged his shoulders. “A man can hope.”
The right side of her face lifted in a crooked smile. “Just a visit. My husband wanted to meet you.”
“Speaking of which, I wasnae pleased to miss the wedding, lass.” Lachlan’s head tilted down, scolding her just the same as he’d done when they were children. “We would have traveled to London for it.”
“I know—it was quick and I’m sorry. I would have loved to have you there, but we wanted to get married sooner rather than later.”
The gravel crunched behind her and Roe stepped beside her. He’d left his cane in the coach and she could see the pain radiating up from his leg into his eyes. It’d been three months since they landed in London and his leg was still not healed, but getting there.
Lachlan’s hazel eyes shifted from joy to furious in the heartbeat it took for his look to shift to Roe.
He turned fully to Roe, his arms clasping together into a wall over his chest, his face stone. “This be the bastard that put you through hell?”
Torrie couldn’t suppress a grin. “This be him.”
Impossibly hard looks passed between the two men. Roe taking her cousin’s scrutiny and returning his own.
Lachlan opened his mouth first. “I’m not inclined to like you.”
Roe offered one nod. “Most aren’t.” He looked to Torrie, then centered his stare on Lachlan. “But I am inclined to like you. You saved Torrie once when I was too weak to do so. For that, you have my unending gratitude.”
Lachlan’s left eyebrow cocked. “The fire?”
“Aye. The fire.” Sincerity shone in Roe’s grey eyes. “You were told I had nothing to do with setting that farm ablaze?”
“I was advised as such, yes.”
Roe’s mouth tightened into a hard line. “But I think what is even more important for you to know is that everything in my life since that moment has been focused on Torrie—to an unhealthy degree, if I admit to it. I would gladly die for this woman by my side. A thousand painful deaths, if deemed.”
Evalyn reached below her husband’s crossed arms and pinched his side. “Lach.”
Lachlan glanced down at her, a sigh on his lips. He looked to Roe. “But as you come recommended by both this one”—he nodded toward Torrie—“and my sister, and the other bane of my existence—Wolfbridge—I humbly have to welcome you to my home.”
“Humble.” Evalyn snorted a chuckle and threaded a hand under Lachlan’s right arm, tugging it loose from his chest. “Humble is not Lachlan’s forte, Lord Glenford. You will have to forgive us for the suspect welcome my husband just extended.”
“It is Roe, my lady.” His look shifted to Lachlan. “And I understand—I am more than grateful for every person that sees it their business to look after my wife—and she has a lot of you.”
Lachlan chuckled, though no smile lifted his mouth. “Wolfbridge got to you?”
“As did Sloane.” Torrie said. “As did Rory and several other of the Scots you sent to help us. I am not to be touched, yet this brave soul has dared to do that very thing, Lach.”
Lachlan stared at Roe for a long breath and then the slightest smile cracked through the granite of his face. “Then he has enough mettle for me, Englishman or not.”
~~~
Roe stared out at the rolling green hill descending from his toes, craggily grey rocks jutting up from the ground, crystals of frost holding onto each blade of grass. The land went on forever from this vantage—far, far from the sea. Just as he liked it.
