Chapter 11
Chapter
Eleven
Iwoke before dawn with Dawson’s words still echoing in my mind.
I love you. And I want to court you properly.
Three days had passed since he’d stood in my stillroom with his battered face and earnest eyes, declaring himself as if it were the simplest thing in the world.
Three days of stolen glances across the great hall, of his hand brushing mine when he thought no one was watching, of my heart racing every time he entered a room.
I had given him nothing in return. Not acceptance, not rejection—just silence and the promise to tend his wounds. The coward’s way out, and I knew it.
The snow had stopped and so today was the Candlemas market. I would have to face Malcolm MacKenzie on neutral ground, where Connor’s protection meant nothing and poisoned tongues could do their worst. The thought made my stomach clench with familiar dread.
But beneath the dread was something else now. Something that felt dangerously like hope.
He told Connor he loves me. He took a punch to the face for the right to court me.
I pressed my hands over my eyes, willing the thoughts away. Hope was a blade that cut both ways. I had learned that lesson at great cost.
A knock at my door made me flinch.
“Elspeth?” Kate’s voice, gentle but insistent. “We’re leaving soon.”
I dressed quickly, my fingers clumsy with the laces of my bodice. The face that stared back at me from the small looking glass was pale, drawn tight with anxiety. I looked like a woman walking to her own execution.
Stop it, I told myself fiercely. You faced Alasdair’s betrayal. You survived the whispers and the shame. You will not let Malcolm MacKenzie break you.
But it wasn’t just Malcolm I feared facing today. It was Dawson—and the choice his declaration demanded of me.
The market was beautiful, even though I fretted the entire way there.
Evergreen boughs draped every stall, their sharp scent mingling with roasting meat and spiced wine. Children darted between adults, shrieking with laughter. A fiddler played somewhere nearby, the tune bright and hopeful against the cold February air.
I kept my hood up and my eyes down, moving through the crowd like a ghost. Kate walked on my left, Maddie on my right, their arms linked through mine. Brodie and Connor flanked us at a distance, hands resting on their sword hilts.
And Dawson walked with them.
I felt his gaze on me like a physical touch.
Every time I glanced back, his green eyes found mine with an intensity that made my breath catch.
He wore the ancient sword strapped to his back—the one that had brought him here, across centuries—and moved with the careful alertness of a man expecting trouble.
He’s watching over me, I realized. Not because Connor asked him to. Because he meant what he said.
The thought sent warmth flooding through my chest, followed immediately by terror. I wasn’t ready for this. Wasn’t ready to believe, to hope, to risk my battered heart on another man’s promises.
But my heart, it seemed, had other ideas.
The first time I saw Malcolm, my blood turned to ice.
He stood near the blacksmith’s booth, deep in conversation with two other MacKenzie men, a cup of ale in his hand. His own sword hung at his hip, the MacKenzie crest glinting on the pommel. He hadn’t noticed me yet.
I turned sharply, pulling Kate and Maddie toward a ribbon seller’s stall.
“Elspeth—” Kate began.
“Not yet,” I whispered. “Please. I just need a moment.”
I pretended to examine ribbons I had no intention of buying, my fingers trembling against the silk. Blue, the color of summer skies. I used to love blue, before I learned to make myself invisible in grays and browns.
“That blue would look lovely with your coloring,” the merchant said kindly. “Bring out the warmth in your hair.”
A shadow fell across the stall. I looked up to find Dawson standing beside me, close enough that I could feel the heat of him through my cloak, his blond hair falling over one eye.
“She’s right,” he said quietly, his eyes never leaving my face. “You should have it.”
“I don’t need—”
“I know you don’t need it.” He reached past me, his arm brushing mine, and handed the merchant a coin he’d earned from his labors. “But you deserve it. You deserve beautiful things, Elspeth.”
The merchant wrapped the ribbon and pressed it into my hands, her eyes bright with curiosity. I stood frozen, acutely aware of the warmth spreading through my chest, of the way my heart was hammering against my ribs.
“Dawson—”
“You don’t have to say anything.” His voice was low, meant only for me. “I told you I’d earn your trust. This is me, earning it. One small thing at a time.”
He moved away before I could respond, falling back into step with Connor and Brodie. But I felt his presence like a flame at my back, warming me against the cold.
Kate appeared at my elbow, her expression knowing. “He’s rather determined, isn’t he?”
“He’s hopeless,” I muttered.
“That’s not the same thing as unwelcome.”
I didn’t have an answer for that.
The second encounter with Malcolm came near the herb seller’s stall.
I had relaxed slightly, drawn in despite myself by the familiar scent of dried lavender and chamomile. Old Agnes was showing me a bundle of rare valerian root when Malcolm’s voice cut through the crowd.
“Well, well. The MacLeod healer emerges from her den.”
I froze. Agnes’s weathered face tightened with disapproval, but she said nothing. No one ever did.
Malcolm had positioned himself between me and any easy escape, his companions flanking him like hunting dogs. His smile made my skin crawl.
“I thought perhaps you’d finally taken holy orders,” he continued, loud enough for those nearby to hear. “Shut yourself away to atone for your sins.”
My throat closed. The words I wanted to say—the defiance, the anger—lodged somewhere behind my breastbone.
Kate stepped forward. “Malcolm MacKenzie, you’ve got the manners of a goat and half the wit. Find somewhere else to spread your poison.”
A few people laughed nervously. Malcolm’s eyes narrowed, but he made a mocking bow and retreated—for now.
“I want to leave,” I said, my voice barely audible.
“No.” Maddie’s grip on my arm tightened. “He doesn’t get to chase you away. Not today.”
I let them lead me through the market, past pottery stalls and honey vendors and a young mother who needed advice about her teething infant. Normal conversations. Useful conversations. For a few blessed minutes, I was simply the healer again.
But I felt Malcolm watching. Waiting. Gathering his audience for whatever cruelty he had planned.
And somewhere in the crowd, I felt Dawson watching too—ready to step between me and danger, just as he’d promised.
The thought should have made me feel protected. Instead, it terrified me. Because protection meant relying on someone. And relying on someone meant giving them the power to destroy me when they left.
He said he loves you, whispered a treacherous voice in my mind. He took a punch from your brother for the right to court you.
Alasdair said he loved me too, I reminded myself. And look how that ended.
But even as I thought it, I knew the comparison wasn’t fair.
Alasdair had made promises in secret, in shadows, where no one could hold him accountable.
Dawson had declared himself to Connor in the training yard.
Had taken a beating and asked for more. Had stood before my family and claimed me openly.
That wasn’t the behavior of a man planning to run.
Malcolm found me a third time near the center of the market.
He had gathered his audience—a cluster of men from neighboring clans, their expressions ranging from curious to cruel. They positioned themselves where the crowd was thickest, where everyone would hear.
“There she is,” Malcolm announced, his voice carrying like a herald’s. “Bronmuir’s own scarlet woman. Tell me, gentlemen—have any of you had the pleasure of her particular skills?”
The laughter that followed was ugly, knowing. I felt it land like blows against my skin.
Kate started forward, fury blazing in her eyes, but I caught her arm.
“No,” I said. And something in my voice made her stop.
I was shaking. My whole body trembled as though I had been dunked in ice water. But Dawson’s words echoed in my mind—You deserve beautiful things, Elspeth—and beneath them, other words, fiercer words. I love you.
Maybe I didn’t believe him yet. Maybe I couldn’t let myself trust. But he believed in me. He saw something in me worth loving, worth fighting for. And if he could see it, maybe—just maybe—it was actually there.
I stepped forward, past Kate and Maddie, past the protective barrier they had formed around me.
Malcolm’s smile widened. He thought he had won.
“Your kinsman,” I said, and my voice cracked on the first word. I swallowed hard and tried again. “Your kinsman Alasdair was a coward and a liar.”
The laughter died. Malcolm’s smile flickered.
“He bedded me with promises of marriage while his wife waited in Inverness.” My voice grew stronger, though tears blurred my vision.
“He made me believe we would build a life together. And when I carried his child, he vanished. Left me to face the shame alone while he returned to his comfortable life and I lost the babe.”
Silence had fallen across the market. I felt dozens of eyes on me, but I kept my gaze fixed on Malcolm’s face.
“If there’s shame in that story, Malcolm MacKenzie, it belongs to him.
It belongs to every man who makes promises he cannot keep, who uses women and discards them.
” My voice broke, but I didn’t stop. “I have been silent for three years. I have hidden and endured and let people like you define who I am. But I am done.”
I stepped closer, and Malcolm actually retreated.
“So say what you will. Call me whatever names make you feel powerful. But know this—every word you speak tells me more about your character than it ever could about mine.”
For a heartbeat, the world held its breath.
Then Malcolm lunged.