Claimed By a Ruthless Scot (The Lairds’ Forbidden Passions #1)

Prologue

Elaina knew something was wrong even before the maid spoke.

The afternoon light behind her turned her face pale, and though she kept her hands folded properly before her apron, her unease betrayed her.

Elaina set down the pestle at once.

“What is it, Helena?”

The maid lowered her eyes. “The laird requests yer presence in the solar at once, me lady. Ye are tae greet an honored guest and pour wine.”

It was not the request itself that troubled Elaina, for her father often summoned her when courtesy was required. It was the manner of it and the look in the girl’s face, as though even she understood that something in this command was not ordinary.

Elaina straightened slowly, brushing the fine dust of dried rosemary from her fingers. “Did he say who this honored guest is?”

“Nay, me lady.”

A hard little knot formed beneath Elaina’s ribs. She had lived too long under her father’s roof not to know when she was being arranged like an object in a room before important eyes were invited to rest upon her.

By the time she reached the corridor outside the solar, every instinct in her was awake and wary. She paused only once, her hand upon the latch, and drew a breath deep enough to steady herself before entering.

The room beyond was warm with late afternoon light and the smell of peat smoke.

Her father sat near the hearth, broad-shouldered and severe, with one elbow resting upon the carved arm of his chair as though he presided not over a conversation but over a judgment already half-decided.

Across from him sat a man Elaina had never seen before and yet knew at once.

Laird Lachlan MacKenzie.

She knew him by reputation first, by the scar that cut across his cheek, the iron-grey hair, the cold self-possession of a man long accustomed to being feared and never denied.

He was older than her father had led her to expect when speaking of neighboring lairds, and larger too, with a heaviness to him that did not diminish the force of his presence.

His gaze settled upon her at once, not with the detached civility owed a host’s daughter. He looked at her as though she were the answer to a question he had not yet spoken aloud.

She dropped into a curtsey, because she had been trained to do so, not because she wished to show him respect. “Me laird.”

MacKenzie rose only enough to acknowledge her before sitting again. “Mistress Fraser.”

Her father gestured toward the sideboard, where the wine waited already prepared. “Pour.”

Elaina crossed the room with what composure she could summon. The cups stood ready and the wine darkened the glass as she tipped the bottle. She brought one cup first to her father, then turned to MacKenzie. He held out his hand for it, but did not take it immediately.

His fingers brushed hers. The touch lasted scarcely a second, yet Elaina felt every instant of it, and not by accident. When she withdrew, his mouth curved very slightly, as though he knew precisely how much she disliked him already and found the knowledge pleasing.

She stepped back at once.

“Stay,” her father ordered.

It held her as effectively as any chain.

“Our guest may wish fer more wine.”

There was nothing to be said to that. She moved to the sideboard and stood there, with every sense strained and every instinct urging her to leave.

The men resumed their conversation. At first, it was of the sort she had expected: land, neighboring tensions and the shifting weight of loyalties among clans.

Her father spoke without passion, as if all human lives could be reduced to pieces placed and removed at proper advantage.

MacKenzie spoke less, but when he did, it was with the assurance of a man accustomed to having others make room for his will.

Elaina understood enough to know they were discussing more than courtesy. There was talk of mutual benefit, of strength better joined than spent in rivalry. Clan Grant’s name arose more than once, and whenever it did, a peculiar hardness entered MacKenzie’s face.

It was clear the meeting had purpose. It was equally clear that she had been summoned not to be polite, but to be present.

MacKenzie’s gaze drifted to her again. “Yer daughter is yer only bairn?”

Her father did not so much as glance her way. “Aye.”

“And how old is she?”

“Twenty and two.”

MacKenzie inclined his head, as though marking down a useful fact. “She carries herself well.”

“She was taught properly.”

Elaina kept her eyes lowered, though heat rose beneath her skin. There was something in the manner of the subject, in being discussed while standing there silent, like a horse whose temperament was being praised, that made humiliation burn all the hotter for being so quietly delivered.

MacKenzie took a sip of wine. “Has she experience of managing a household?”

“She has been raised tae understand her duty.”

It was always duty with her father, never character, never wishes and never happiness.

MacKenzie’s gaze traveled over her once more. “And is she obedient?”

Something in Elaina went cold. Before her father could answer, she lifted her eyes.

“I am nae in the habit of disobeying the courtesies expected of me, me laird.”

For the first time, true interest sharpened in MacKenzie’s expression. It was not admiration. It was the alertness of a man who discovered edge where he had expected only softness.

Her father’s face darkened slightly, though whether at her interruption or at the spirit beneath it she could not tell.

MacKenzie, however, only smiled. “A careful answer, lass.”

Elaina did not reply. Then, MacKenzie set down his cup.

“If our houses are tae be joined, I have nae desire fer a loose understanding.”

Alasdair leaned back slightly in his chair. “Nay?”

“Nay.” MacKenzie’s voice remained low, but there was iron in it now. “I dinnae make half alliances. If I am tae bind meself tae Fraser, I will dae so properly… permanently.”

Elaina’s fingers tightened against one another.

Her father regarded him with narrowed eyes. “What terms dae ye propose?”

MacKenzie rose. He looked at her as a conqueror surveys territory he has decided to claim. Then, he turned back to her father.

“I will agree tae yer alliance on one condition.”

Alasdair’s expression did not change. “Name it.”

MacKenzie’s gaze returned to Elaina once more, and his mouth curved in a way that made her skin crawl. “I will marry the lass.”

The words seemed to strike the room and linger there, impossible to absorb and yet undeniable. Elaina found her voice only because horror forced it from her.

“Faither—”

He looked at her then, and there was in his face the exact expression he wore when servants interrupted at the wrong moment.

“That will dae.”

MacKenzie watched her with undisguised satisfaction, enjoying, she thought, not merely the demand itself but the effect of it upon her. The realization that her fear pleased him shook her more deeply than she wished to show.

She forced herself not to step back.

“I have nae agreed tae anything,” she said, and though her voice trembled, the words were clear.

Neither man appeared troubled by them.

MacKenzie gave a low, humorless laugh. “That may still be remedied.”

Her father rose at last, to bring the discussion to its conclusion.

“Elaina, ye may leave us.”

Leave, while they finished arranging her life.

The insult of it nearly stole her breath. Yet she understood in that instant that to remain would be no victory. She was not being consulted. She was being dismissed because her usefulness, for the moment, had been achieved.

She turned because she would not let either of them see what it cost her. But as she reached the door, MacKenzie spoke again.

“I trust,” he said, “that once she is me wife, she will learn her place quickly enough.”

Elaina stopped. She did not turn. Her hand closed hard around the latch, and for one wild instant, she imagined throwing open the door and running without coat, without plan, without anything but the desperate need to put walls and distance between herself and that voice.

Instead, she stood very still.

And behind her, after only the briefest pause, she heard her father. “She will dae as she is told.”

That was the moment it ceased to be dread and became certainty. He meant to give her to him. Not perhaps this very hour, not perhaps without terms and formalities and all the outward courtesies by which men disguised their cruelties, but he meant to do it.

Elaina opened the door. No one called her back.

She stepped into the corridor with all the steadiness she could command.

She walked because she would not run, not while servants might see and not while she had not yet formed the thought fully enough to survive it.

But deep within her, beneath the shock and revulsion and gathering fear, a single truth had already begun to harden into resolve.

If her father meant to hand her to Laird MacKenzie, then she would have to save herself.