Highlander of Storm (Breaking into Highland Hearts #5)

Chapter 1

“The terms are clear,” Connor said, his voice coming out just a little deeper than he had intended.

The dim study smelled of beeswax and smoke, thanks to the low fireplace at the very end of where he stood with the people before him.

The marriage contract lay between him and Laird MacAdair, its neat black lines already dry and its empty spaces waiting for names that would matter less than the peace they purchased.

Connor kept one hand near the parchment and the other flat against the table. He did not reach for the quill yet.

Across from him, Laird MacAdair watched with a face made for suspicion. Next to MacAdair, Thalia Hudson sat straight-backed in a dark green gown, her hands folded in her lap so tightly that her knuckles had paled.

Connor noticed.

He noticed everything.

“The border grazing rights remain unchanged,” he continued. “Trade passage stays open through winter. Any insult between our men comes to me or to ye before swords are drawn.”

MacAdair’s jaw tightened. “And me sister?”

Connor looked at Thalia and watched as she lifted her chin, as if she had been preparing herself for it.

Brave enough, then.

Her mouth was set, but her fingers betrayed her.

“She will be Lady Moore,” Connor said, his voice even. “She will have the protection of me name, me walls, and me clan.”

Thalia lowered her eyes. “That is most generous, me Laird.”

“It isnae generosity. It is the agreement.”

Her lashes flickered, and he noticed MacAdair’s fingers curl against the arm of his chair.

Connor did not soften the answer. Softness was a poor thing to build a treaty upon. A man like him could dress marriage in pretty words, but at the root, it remained an exchange. Land, peace, bloodlines, protection.

The woman seated before him understood that well enough. She had dressed carefully for a future she feared and arrived because her brother required it.

That deserved respect, even if it did not require tenderness.

MacAdair pushed the contract forward with two fingers. “Then let us be done.”

Connor reached for the quill, and just as he put his palm on the piece of parchment, the study door opened.

Every man in the room turned.

Connor’s best friend and man-at-arms, Alex, stood at the threshold with one hand still on the door, his broad shoulders filling half the frame.

His tousled dark hair fell over his face in impatient, rough curls.

He knew better than to interrupt the signing of a treaty.

He also looked as if he would rather be standing before a blade than at the door.

“Me Laird.”

Connor did not drop the quill. “This had better be about a fire or the English army.”

Alex’s gaze flicked to MacAdair, then to Thalia, then back to Connor. “It concerns something at the gate.”

Connor sighed. It wasn’t an unknown fact that his brother had the worst timing in the world. Still, it never failed to irritate Connor to no end.

“Can it wait a few minutes?”

Alex shook his head. “I’m afraid nae.”

Connor dropped the quill. “Is it a threat?”

Alex hesitated.

Connor narrowed his eyes. “Alex.”

“It is loud.”

For the first time that morning, MacAdair looked uncertain.

Connor rose to his feet, his chair scraping across the floor. “Stay here.”

MacAdair stood as well. “If there is something at yer gate, I will see it before I sign me sister into this clan.”

Thalia rose more slowly. She stopped near the door, one hand grazing the wall as if she might need the support.

Connor took his sword from where it rested against the wall. “Suit yerself.”

He crossed the study and stepped out into the passageway with controlled speed. Servants flattened themselves against the stone walls when they saw him coming, and two guards on the stairs turned at once, stepping aside before he had to speak.

MacAdair followed close behind, with Thalia and Alex behind him.

“What kind of loud?” Connor asked.

Alex grimaced. “The strangest kind, I must say.”

“Well, that narrows it poorly.”

“Aye, me Laird.”

They passed through the lower hall and out into the courtyard. The sound reached him before the sight did. A sharp, furious cry cut through the yard near the outer gate.

Connor stopped for a fraction of a second.

Is that—

He moved.

His men had gathered in an uneven circle near the gatehouse. Warriors who had faced raiders, cattle thieves, and winter marches stood with their weapons drawn or half-drawn, staring at the ground as if the devil had climbed out of it. His irritation wavered before fading into concern.

“Move,” Connor ordered.

The nearest guard jumped aside.

“They didnae ken whether to touch it,” Alex muttered.

“Touch what?”

Alex swallowed. “It.”

Connor rolled his eyes, pushing through the circle with his sword ready.

A basket sat on the stones, and in it, wrapped in a blanket too fine to belong to a crofter and too plain to belong to anyone of lower class, lay a newborn baby.

His face was red from crying, his fists tight and his small body writhing against the blanket.

The rest of the men stared at him with open alarm.

“Good Lord,” Connor huffed, moving closer. “I should train ye harder if a bairn can hold the gate against twenty armed men.”

One guard cleared his throat. “He was screaming, me Laird.”

“Aye. Many enemies do before they lose.”

Alex leaned closer, then leaned back when the baby released another enraged cry. “He’s smaller than I thought bairns were.”

“That is generally how they begin,” Connor responded as he sheathed his sword.

The sound of metal sliding home made his men straighten, as if the act itself had given them permission to breathe.

He crouched and slid one hand beneath the child’s head, the other under his body, and then lifted him carefully from the basket and settled him against his chest. The baby gave one last furious sound, kicked inside the blanket, then suddenly fell quiet.

Connor kept his gaze on the child. He was small and warm and furious and alive.

Who would do this? Who would drop a newborn babe at me gate?

He adjusted the blanket beneath the baby’s chin with his thumb. The baby’s mouth opened, closed, then opened again in a soundless complaint.

“Well,” Alex said quietly. “That worked.”

Connor looked at him.

Alex straightened. “I mean, of course it did.”

Connor exhaled and returned his gaze to the basket. Something white and rather distinctive stuck out from it. He reached down and took the folded note. The child stirred against him as he opened it.

To the owner of this castle,

He belongs to you. He has no name.

The baby made a small sound against his chest as he folded the note in one hand. No one spoke. His men shifted because they knew the shape of his silence. Rage made some men loud. Connor had learned better uses for it.

Suddenly, as a sharp reminder of what he had been doing before he got distracted, Thalia’s voice came from behind him, thin and shocked. “A child?”

Connor turned to find her standing several paces away, pale enough that MacAdair reached for her elbow.

“So it seems,” he said.

MacAdair’s face hardened. His gaze darted from the baby to the note in Connor’s hand. “Ye expected me sister to sign herself into this?”

“This has nothing to do with the treaty, MacAdair. It is just as peculiar to us.”

“I would argue that it has everything to do with it.”

Before Connor could respond to the remark, Thalia stepped back. It was a small movement, but Connor saw everything inside it. Horror for the infant. Shame at being relieved. Fear of what the courtyard had just made public.

“Forgive me,” she said, her voice unsteady. “I cannae.”

Connor looked at her once. “Nay one is asking ye to.”

MacAdair placed himself before her. “I am afraid I must agree with me sister on this. The wedding is off.”

Connor’s hand shifted toward his sword, and every man in the courtyard saw it. The baby even cried once, sharp and furious, straight against his chest. Connor looked down and saw that the baby’s face had screwed up again, his mouth open in protest, his body stiff with the effort of being heard.

Alex took one careful step closer. “Me Laird?”

Connor removed his hand from the sword, and the silence that followed was worse than shouting would have been. He could feel MacAdair waiting for the threat, the refusal, the insult—something bloody enough to match the insult given and received in front of half his guards.

He gave him none.

“See that our guests are given food before they ride,” he instructed.

MacAdair stared. “That is all?”

“I wouldnae want to force yer hand into something ye daenae want.”

Thalia’s breath caught. MacAdair took her arm and drew her back toward the hall, his men closing around them.

Connor did not watch them go. The treaty he had built collapsed behind him, and the men in the courtyard waited for orders, punishment, certainty.

Something.

He had none ready.

He looked down at the baby in his arms. The baby blinked up at him, his face still flushed, his fist pressed beneath his chin as if offended by every living soul within reach.

Connor tightened the blanket around him. “Who are ye, child?”

Two Weeks Later

Violet kept her head down and her pace brisk as she followed the servants’ passageway deeper into Moore Castle. She had learned a week ago, after several investigations and looking through taverns, that the castle had, in fact, received an unnamed newborn baby.

Her heart pounded as she moved, inwardly thanking the unsuspecting footman who would not stop talking. She still remembered her words as she asked that the man receive another tankard of the strongest ale.

“Ye are very kind, lass,” he had said, his voice coarse.

“Nae to worry,” she had responded, the mission playing in her head. “So tell me, how do ye enter the castle?”

Now, as she braced the cold and navigated the dark passageway that led straight into the heart of Moore Castle, she couldn’t help but wonder if she had signed up for something she simply couldn’t handle.