Chapter 15
Chloe heard a low humming vibration rolling up the glen, and the murmurs of people going about a hundred shifting tasks at once. A metallic strike of a blacksmith’s hammer, the agonizing creak of ungreased cart wheels.
She sat straighter against Edward’s chest, turning her head toward the sound.
Then Beira crested the final ridge and the village unfolded below them, and Chloe pulled a sharp, involuntary breath into her lungs.
It bore no resemblance to the tidy, stagnant settlements surrounding Lady Jenny’s low country estate.
This was a different breed of civilization entirely.
The stone-and-timber buildings cascaded down toward the crashing water in chaotic, uneven rows.
Thick, gray smoke billowed from a dozen chimneys, and the central artery of the village was choked with people, livestock, and the frantic, productive friction of a place that never truly slept.
“It is enormous,” she breathed, her eyes darting across the sprawl.
“It is modest,” Edward’s gravelly voice corrected from directly behind her ear, his chest vibrating against her shoulder blades. “By the standards of the coast.”
“I do nae possess coast standards, me Laird.”
She felt the subtle, muscular shift in his torso as he adjusted his grip on the leather reins.
“Nay,” he murmured, his tone softening by a fraction.
“I suppose ye do nae. They are fishermen,” Edward explained, his voice low, a rare note of pride threading the gravel.
“The majority of them occupy the cottages within a quarter mile of the stone harbor. The silver they pull from these waters sustains three full inland villages through the depths of winter.”
She was barely processing his words. Her eyes were drunk on the horizon.
“I have never looked upon it,” she whispered.
“The harbor?”
“The sea.” She shook her head slightly, her gaze glued to the crashing waves, a profound awe softening the sharp lines of her face. “In all me years… I have never seen the sea.”
He fell silent instantly. Behind her, she became acutely aware of the sudden change in his breathing, the sharp hitch in his chest, and the heavy shift of his weight. She knew he had stopped looking at the harbor; now he was looking at her, translating the raw, childlike wonder across her face.
“I will take ye to it,” he said.
Chloe turned her head sharply. His face was agonizingly close, his pale blue eyes level with hers.
The distance between their lips was less than a breath.
The look he gave her was not his calculated, political armor.
It was not the defensive sneer of the Laird.
It was something entirely simpler. It was a quiet, undefended vulnerability.
“We’ll see the shore,” Edward clarified, his voice dropping into a rough, intimate register that sent a shiver straight down her spine. “Properly. Nae the normal filth of the harbor. The open shore, where the wild water breaks against the earth.”
“Aye,” she whispered, her voice failing her, her brown eyes locking onto his. “I would like that.”
He held her gaze for a heartbeat too long, the current between them snapping tight and hot. Then, abruptly breaking the spell, he swung his massive leg over the saddle and dismounted onto the muddy stones.
The village was infinitely louder on foot. The stone lane felt narrower, the air thick with the shouting of merchants and the smell of roasting fish from the market stalls lining the harbor wall.
Edward pushed his way through the crowd. Chloe stayed close to his side, her boots slipping now and then on the uneven flagstones. The rocks were slippery from the morning’s heavy rain, worn smooth as glass by years of iron-shod traffic, and made completely dangerous by the layer of wet mud.
She was distracted, her eyes tracking a heavy fishing boat being unloaded at the far pier, three brawny men hauling a massive, dripping net with flawless coordination. She did not look at her feet.
A smooth stone shifted beneath her heel. Her ankle twisted inward with a sickening, violent pop, and her balance vanished.
She went down hard. She managed to catch her weight on one knee, her bare hand scraping roughly against the abrasive stone, but a sharp, white-hot lance of agony exploded through her left ankle, stealing the breath from her lungs in a jagged gasp.
She slammed her teeth together, biting through her lower lip to choke back the scream before it could breach her mouth.
“Chloe!”
Edward was on the stones beside her before the sound of her name had even cleared his throat.
One massive, calloused hand clamped around her upper arm; the other braced her opposite knee, his hard face inches from hers, tight with a sudden, roaring panic.
His guarded expression was shattered into dust. He was just looking at her, his pale eyes searching hers for the depth of the damage.
“I am perfectly well,” she lied through a clenched jaw, her face blanching white.
“Ye are nae.” He cast a sharp, dark look down at her twisted boot. “Can ye bear weight to stand?”
She tried. She gritted her teeth, braced her hands against his broad shoulders, and attempted to push upward.
Her left ankle rejected the terms of the negotiation instantly and violently.
The moment her heel touched the stone, the joint gave way like wet sand.
She would have crashed back into the mud if his arms had not already been an iron cradle around her body.
His left hand locked under her knees, his right arm sweeping around her waist, catching her before her failure was complete.
“I’ve got ye, lass,” he growled.
And then, with a single, effortless surge of his thighs, he lifted her entirely into the air.
“Put me down,” she said. “I can walk.”
“Ye cannae walk.”
“I can hop.”
“Ye will do neither.” He was already moving through the crowd, his stride unchanged. “Be still.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it. The pain in her ankle justified his grip—a hot, stabbing throb that shot up her calf every time he shifted. She curled her fingers into the heavy wool of his plaid and stared furiously into the distance as the village floated past at a dizzying new height.
He carried her through the staring crowd as though she weighed no more than a bundle of dry heather.
The village tavern was a low-slung timber-framed structure three doors down from the harbor wall, reeking of stale ale, woodsmoke, and fried herring. The stout gray-haired woman who managed the taproom hurried forward the moment Edward breached her threshold.
“A private room,” he said. Not a question. “Fire already lit. Hot broth. And a basin of cold water.” He glanced at the woman’s hands. “Now.”
The woman was already moving before he finished the sentence.
They navigated a dark, narrow staircase. A heavy oak chair was dragged before a small hearth. Edward lowered her into it and immediately dropped to both knees on the flagstones before her, reaching for the laces of her boot.
“I can manage me own boot,” Chloe said.
“Ye can manage it after I’ve seen the bone.” He did not look up. “Hold still.”
His massive scarred hands were agonizingly careful as they slid the leather from her foot. He braced her heel in his broad palm, his thick thumbs pressing methodically along the swollen contours of the joint, checking each ligament with focused deliberateness.
Chloe locked her jaw and stared at the flickering flames in the iron grate, refusing to let him hear her whimper.
“The bone is whole,” he said, his voice a low vibration near her shin. “It is nae a break.”
“I told ye I was well.”
“Ye are nae well. Ye are merely unbroken.” He snapped his head up, his pale eyes pinning her to the chair. “There is a vast ocean of misery between those two definitions.”
He lowered her foot carefully to the floorboards and rose to his full height.
“We stay until mornin’,” he stated. “Nay argument.”
Chloe parted her lips to object. “Edward, the bairn.”
“Ye cannae mount a horse with a joint in that condition,” he cut her off, his voice flat and final. “The joltin’ of the trail will turn a simple strain into a permanent ruin. We bide our time here.”
“I have ruined the entire outin’,” Chloe said, the words slipping from her throat with a raw, heavy bitterness she had not intended to expose.
She cut herself off, her eyes dropping to her lap as she twisted her fingers together.
“I only desired… I just wanted a few hours of peace. Ye possess a mountain of work. I dragged ye from yer ledgers, and now we are trapped in a drafty tavern because I am an idiot who canna watch where she places her feet.”
“Chloe.”
The sheer weight of her name cut through her spiral. She went quiet.
He stood perfectly still before her, the amber glow of the hearth fire dancing across the harsh angles of his scarred face.
His arms hung loose at his sides. His expression had returned to that careful, stoic mask he wore like a shield, but beneath the ice, something raw and hot was burning in his eyes.
“Ye are more important than all that,” Edward said in a low rumble. He grabbed her chin and made her look at him.
Chloe had absolutely no script for those words.
She turned the sentence over in her mind, searching frantically for a qualification, a hidden insult, or a political caveat.
She discovered nothing. He had delivered the truth raw and naked, and the moment the words were spent, he ripped his eyes away from hers as if he thoroughly regretted the honesty of them.
She was left alone with the echo of his confession, the weight of it settling deep behind her ribs until her chest ached.
“Thank ye,” she whispered into the quiet.
Edward offered a single, stiff nod of his chin, turned on his heel, and strode toward the door. “I will see to the broth.”