The Highland Laird’s Hellion Bride (Auctioned to Highland Lairds #2)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

“And though he fought against the tide of his own heart,” Elspeth read aloud, pressing the back of her hand to her forehead with theatrical suffering, “he kent, with every breath drawn beneath a Highland moon, that his soul belonged only to her.”

“His soul.” Katherine did not look up from her mending, her needle piercing the heavy linen with a sharp snip. “Nae his livestock. Nae his accounts. But his soul!”

“As it should be.” Elspeth turned the stiff page, the scent of aged ink and paper rising from her lap. “That is how it is done.”

“Mmm.” Katherine bit the thread, the snap echoing in the quiet solar. “And how is that working out for the woman in the story? Is she fed? Is she warm? Does he listen when she speaks, or does he simply stare at her with his jaw doing something dramatic near a cliff?”

Elspeth lowered the leather-bound volume. “He recites poetry to her beneath the stars.”

“Liam once fell asleep while I was speaking to him about the kitchen stores.” Katherine’s mouth curved, a soft, involuntary warmth smoothing the sharp line of her lips. “And yet I would rather have that man than every sonnet ever written. Though he did apologize quite thoroughly once he woke.”

Elspeth laughed, the sound breaking through the heavy silence as the book fell across her knee.

Outside, the rain tapped relentlessly against the narrow stone windows, the grey Highland chill held at bay only by the hearth. The fire had burned down to a deep, pulsing amber, the kind of afternoon that demanded nothing but survival from the cold.

For three days, Elspeth had tucked herself away within Katherine’s walls like a stray animal lured in by the heat. The dread of returning home sat heavily at the base of her throat, like a stone.

“Somewhere,” she said, her fingers tracing the gold-leaf lettering, “there must be a man who composes poetry and listens.”

“Somewhere,” Katherine agreed, her gaze dropping back to her stitches. “And I suspect he lives in that book.”

Elspeth looked down. The hero’s eyes were described as stormy and depthless, full of unspoken longing.

She had memorized the passage. She had no notion of what unspoken longing looked like on a man’s face, but she knew what her father’s preferred candidates looked like: old, thick-necked, and satisfied with their own ledgers.

A sudden, frigid draft swept across the floorboards, making the fire hiss and duck. Katherine’s needle stopped mid-air.

Elspeth turned.

Alistair MacRae stood in the doorway, holding a thick, wax-sealed sheaf of papers under his arm, his dark woolen traveling coat damp at the shoulders and smelling of wet horseflesh and mountain mire.

He had not sent a rider ahead. He never did.

He moved through life as though the world were a map drawn solely for his march.

“Elspeth.” His cold grey eyes swept across the solar, lingering on the scattered silks with the hard displeasure he reserved for things he could not immediately count or sell. “I have come from Edinburgh. There is news.”

Elspeth closed the book, her knuckles turning white against the leather. “Father.”

He crossed the room without invitation, his heavy boots leaving damp, dark imprints on the rug. He dropped the papers onto the small oak table with a dull thud. “The negotiations are complete. Laird Dunmore has agreed to the terms. The contract will be drawn before the month’s end.”

A pocket of sap exploded in the hearth. Outside, the rain turned fierce, lashing the glass.

“Dunmore,” Elspeth whispered, the name tasting like ash on her tongue.

“Aye.”

She knew the name. Everyone in the Highlands knew it.

Laird Dunmore of the eastern holdings was a man who collected assets: five hundred head of cattle; thousands of bleak, wind-scoured acres; three standard alliances through three thin-lipped daughters; and a reputation for a temper as rotten as his gout-ridden leg.

And now he wanted a twenty-one-year-old mistress to oversee his servants and nurse him through old age.

Her hands went still in her lap, her heart hammering hard against the heavy wool of her skirt. Her blood ran cold, a low tremor spreading deep in her chest.

“He is nearly sixty years of age,” she said, her voice tighter than she intended.

“He is fifty-four.” Her father didn’t blink, his tone clipped. “And he shares his northern border with the Airlies. An alliance there secures our position on the Council for a generation.”

Our position. His timber. His standing. She was merely the coin he was dropping into Dunmore’s palm to pay for it.

She opened her mouth to speak, to remind him that she had run his house since her mother died, but he turned his gaze upon her. It was a heavy, flat look. The look he used to quiet barking hounds.

“Perhaps,” he said softly, his voice dropping to a dangerous, gravelly register, “this discussion neednae take place in front of Lady MacDougal.”

He offered Katherine a stiff nod that was more warning than courtesy. “Though there is nothing shameful in a daughter’s duty. Marriage is a transaction. She is fortunate to be useful.”

Useful.

The word stuck in Elspeth’s throat like pine needles.

She had been useful since she was fourteen, when he dismissed the steward because her hands were free to take up the inkwell. She had balanced his ledgers, argued down the dishonest wool merchants, and kept his tenants from starving during the frost.

She had done it in absolute silence, because in her father’s house, tears had never once altered the price of grain. And now her life was to be traded for a Council seat.

Katherine set her mending down on the table. The movement was slow, deliberate, but Elspeth noticed the dangerous shift. The subtle squaring of her shoulders, the smooth, unreadable mask of perfect politeness that meant she was about to strike.

“Laird MacRae.” Katherine’s voice poured out like warm honey. “Forgive me for intruding.” She looked him dead in the eye, her posture radiating absolute defiance. “But if coin and alliances are truly what ye seek, I wonder if ye’ve considered what Elspeth is actually worth on the open market.”

She tilted her chin, a tiny, mocking smile touching her lips. “A woman of her blood, her education, her years managing an entire estate, that isnae a handful of aging acres. That is a prize.”

Alistair stiffened, the muscles along his jaw tightening into iron knots. He did not speak, but his eyes narrowed as he reconsidered.

“Laird Bickerson holds his gathering at the week’s end,” Katherine continued, her tone light, conversational, and lethal. “Every year, wealthy lairds, powerful men all of them, seek capable wives and sound alliances. They are the kind of men who bid, Laird MacRae. Who compete with full purses.”

She let the words hang in the damp air. “I am quite certain that if Elspeth were presented there, ye would find the offers considerably more advantageous than what an old man with a failing leg has proposed. She is young. She is accomplished. She is extraordinarily well-suited to running a great house.” She smiled sweetly, her eyes flashing.

“Surely a man of yer shrewdness can see the difference between accepting the first low offer and commanding a premium.”

Silence stretched, thick and suffocating.

Elspeth fixed her gaze on the dying fire, her heart thudding against her ribs so violently that she feared they could hear it. A cold, dizzying sickness washed over her.

An auction.

She would stand before a hall of strange men, weighed and measured like a breeding mare. But the realization hit her: she was already an animal in a stall. Her father had already measured her and priced her before he entered the room. The only thing Katherine had changed was the size of the market.

Elspeth looked up at her friend, who was staring at her father unblinking, her expression bright and absolutely terrifying.

She thinks this is a rescue, she realized with a sudden, sharp pang. She genuinely believes this gives me a choice.

And perhaps it did. Men who were not fifty-four and bitter. Men who might look at a wife as a living soul rather than an accounting trick.

Involuntarily, her mind flashed to the hero in her book. Depthless eyes, a quiet strength, a man who chose a woman because he wanted her, not her father’s borders.

Her father stood perfectly still, his eyes fixed on the papers as the greed took root. The small, mechanical movements of his mind showed in the hard line of his mouth. He liked the arithmetic.

“Perhaps,” he said, his voice dropping to the smooth, flat tone of a merchant closing a trade, “attending isnae such a terrible idea. But if the offers arenae better…” He grabbed the papers from the table and tucked them back into his damp coat.

“… the arrangement with Dunmore will remain.” He looked at Elspeth. “Be ready by Thursday.”

He turned on his heel and strode out, the heavy oak door slamming shut behind him. The echo vibrated through the stone walls.

Elspeth sat frozen, her breath catching in her throat. Then she turned to Katherine. Her friend was already looking back at her, her eyes wide with a mix of frantic triumph and sudden dread.

“Trust me,” Katherine mouthed across the quiet room.

Elspeth looked down at her lap. The book lay open, the words blurring before her eyes. Her fingers trembled against the page.

“I think,” she whispered into the cold draft, “ye’ve just sold me.”

Katherine winced, her fingers tightening around her mending. “Only temporarily,” she murmured, her voice losing its confidence. “I hope.”