Chapter 5
Chapter Five
It is a sensible decision.
Magnus turned the thought over in his head during the long ride. By the time Ben Cruachan rose against the night sky, he had satisfied himself that the logic was sound.
The woman could manage livestock. She understood feed ratios, stubborn animals, and the difference between treating a symptom and finding its cause. She had answered every question without flinching and without performing, which was rarer than it should have been.
She is capable.
Capability was what he had gone looking for, and capability was what he had found. He was pleased with himself.
He dismounted and handed the reins to the stable lad who emerged from the castle.
The castle was lit and warm; he could see it from here.
Firelight in the Great Hall windows and movement of shadows inside.
He had built that. Thirteen years of it.
Stone by stone, season by season, every trade route renegotiated, every crumbling wall rebuilt, and every winter survived until surviving became prospering. And now it would also have a lady.
Sensible.
He nodded with satisfaction and turned to help Elspeth down. She was already looking at Ben Cruachan, her eyes wide with wonder.
He followed her gaze across the courtyard. The hall doors stood open, because the dogs preferred it that way and he had stopped arguing with them years ago.
One of the dogs was asleep in the doorway, taking up most of it.
Three sheep had found their way into the kitchen garden again through the low gate.
Chickens crossed the cobblestones. And through the open hall doors, visible in the warm rectangle of firelight, the goat lay beside the hearth with her legs tucked beneath her and her chin on the stone.
It was, Magnus thought, exactly as it should be.
He looked back at Elspeth. The color had drained from her face. One more shade, and she would be as white as the wool on his sheep’s back.
“Are ye frightened?” he asked, his deep voice cutting through the clatter of the yard.
She swallowed. Her gaze moved from the sheep to the chickens to the dog in the doorway, then settled briefly on the goat’s outline by the fire.
“Nay,” she said. The word came out measured. “Merely overwhelmed.”
He offered his hand. Her cold fingers slid into his palm, her grip lighter than he had expected. But the contact sparked a sudden, sharp heat that traveled straight up his forearm.
He gripped her waist, his large hands sinking into the fine blue silk, and lifted her down. She hung in his grasp for a single breath, her chest mere inches from his, before he set her feet on the cobblestones.
She stood perfectly still, watching the courtyard with eyes that hardly blinked. One of the younger goats pressed its nose briefly against the elder beside it. An automatic thing, barely a gesture. Elspeth’s gaze paused there.
“There are so many of them,” she said softly. A pause followed, and then quieter still: “Are they happy here?”
Magnus had to pause to consider the question. Before he could respond, she caught herself, her chin lifting slightly in defiance.
“I mean, they seem content enough.” She gestured uncertainly toward the garden. “But should they nae be wandering the hills? Living somewhere more wild?”
Magnus looked at her. He looked at the goats, at the three sheep demolishing his kitchen garden with great satisfaction, at the small brown goat now investigating the hem of a hanging torch bracket with her teeth. Then he looked back at Elspeth.
“Lass,” he said, his chest rumbling. “They’re goats. They’re—”
Something struck the hem of her skirt.
She looked down.
The chicken, the small brown one that had been escaping the stables since August with a commitment that had outlasted every solution he had attempted, had found the hem of her silk gown.
It was investigating the fabric. It pecked once, considerately.
Pecked again, then tilted its head at the result.
Elspeth made a genuinely startled, high-pitched sound before taking a step back. Her heel caught on an uneven cobblestone. For one moment, she lost her balance. She grabbed blindly for the courtyard wall, her fingers striking the rough stone, and caught herself.
And then she laughed. It was sudden, bright, and completely unguarded. The sound rang off the granite walls and lifted into the cold night air, while the chicken walked away from her, utterly unmoved.
Magnus was reaching out to steady her, but he froze. He stood very still, his muscles locking.
Her cheeks had turned a deep pink. Cold and laughter was a violent combination that did something to the color of her skin the candlelit hall had not prepared him for.
She had one hand braced against the wall, watching the retreating chicken with delight, her mouth curved with the tail end of it, the lingering mirth glittering in her eyes.
He had completely forgotten what he intended to say, but he was aware that they were standing in his courtyard, in front of his castle, and that his gaze was locked on her lips.
“Careful, Cousin,” Duncan’s voice sounded at his shoulder, quiet, unhurried, and dripping with his usual wretched timing. He leaned in, his words meant for Magnus alone. “That’s the sound that’ll ruin yer peace of mind forever.”
Magnus had a reply ready. It was of the exact caliber that would have usually ended his cousin’s commentary for the remainder of the evening.
But just then, the heavy oak doors groaned open, and Mrs. McAulay stepped into the courtyard.
She was wiping her calloused hands on her apron, her grey hair slipping from its pins.
She crossed the cobblestones, caught sight of Elspeth, and stopped dead.
Her hands slowly came off her canvas apron. Her sharp eyes swept over Elspeth, taking in the fine blue silk, the pearls, the loose, damp curl at her temple, and the thick smudge of courtyard muck already staining her hem.
Whatever the housekeeper found beneath the grime was clearly writ across her face. Her eyes went bright and wet at the edges. She crossed the remaining distance before Elspeth could arrange her features into a polite expression, and snatched both of the lass’s small hands into her own.
“Oh,” she breathed, her voice dropping far below its usual commanding register. “Oh, lass.” She held Elspeth’s hands tightly, searching her face. “Welcome to Ben Cruachan.” She squeezed once. “Welcome home.”
Elspeth stared at her. The rigid, defensive set of her shoulders softened a fraction.
“Thank ye,” Elspeth said in a low voice, smiling softly. The careful, managed architecture she had carried all evening had completely vanished from her voice.
Without a word of explanation, Mrs. McAulay tucked Elspeth’s arm into the crook of her own.
She turned and began drawing the lass toward the Great Hall, unleashing a steady, maternal stream of chatter.
She asked about the warmth, about the long road, about whether she had eaten a proper meal, and properly detailed the state of the guest chamber; how long the peat fire had been laid, and what provisions could be scavenged from the kitchen at such an hour.
Elspeth went with her. She was listening closely. Magnus could see it in the way her head turned at the right moments, the way she nodded against the wind, and the way she once murmured something so quiet it made the old housekeeper gently pat her arm.
They crossed the stone threshold together. The massive hall swallowed them whole, offering up its amber firelight, its thick warmth, and the heavy shapes of staghounds that stirred at the intrusion before resettling next to the hearth.
Magnus kept his eyes fixed on the empty, glowing doorway long after they had vanished.
“I’ll send word to the Council at first light,” Duncan muttered. “They’ll want to hear the news. Settle on a wedding date.” He paused. “I’ve already spoken to the stable lads, as it happens. We’ve a wager running on our future Lady. How many days before she saddles up and flees back south.”
He tilted his head, his gaze mocking. “I give her a fortnight. Robbie swears a week. Donal’s taken a month because she answered yer goat questions without fainting, which he claims demonstrates unusual character.” A beat. “I’m considered the optimist.”
Magnus snapped his head around, his gaze boring into his cousin. Duncan met the dark look with that same infuriating innocence he had practiced since boyhood.
“Remove the wager,” Magnus said, his voice dropping to a dangerous murmur.
“It’s already in motion. The coin’s growing already.”
“Duncan.” The name was a low warning.
Duncan studied him for a tense moment, searching his face. Slowly, the performance dropped away, revealing the real man underneath. The fierce, dependable warrior Magnus had trusted with his life on a dozen battlefields and trusted still.
Duncan gave a short nod. “Aye,” he muttered. “I’ll sort it out.” He turned on his heel and disappeared into the darkness toward the stables.
Magnus stood alone in the freezing courtyard. The rogue sheep were in the kitchen garden, systematically reducing the rows to stalks. He should move them. He would move them in a moment. But he remained rooted to the spot, staring at the blazing rectangle of the hall door, the wager clawing at him.
The anger had been brief, a primitive reflex, but it left behind a sharp ache because Duncan had unceremoniously named the exact thing Magnus was already thinking.
How many days?
He looked at the castle. This was his fortress, where his people lived. A place that had fiercely been itself for thirteen long years and had never needed to change for anyone.
He had built this order from the wreckage of what it had been before he had ridden home from training at sixteen years old and found nothing but choking black smoke where his family’s walls should have been.
He did not think about that night. He had trained his mind never to go there the same way he had locked away a great many things. The mental walls held.
Alas, his thoughts betrayed him, drifting back to the ride. Two hours. For two agonizing hours on the dark road from Bickerson Hall, Elspeth had sat rigid in front of him in the saddle, her spine straining not to touch his chest, her small hands buried in the thick folds of her cloak.
He had matched her effort, flexing his muscles to hold the leather reins wider than necessary, his broad shoulders angled back, his eyes focusing hard on the dark dirt road ahead.
She was petite against him. He was taken aback by her fragility.
She had commanded the crowded hall with an impressively solid presence, looking him in the eye and answering his questions flatly.
She had held her ground and did not back down before his overwhelming presence.
However, a delicate being he could have covered with one arm was now folded between his arms.
He had been scrupulously careful not to do so.
And then there was her perfume. A light, intoxicating scent. Roses and a warmer, deeper note, alarmingly potent for two hours of forced proximity. It had penetrated the heavy wool of his cloak within the first mile. By the second hour, it was simply part of the air he breathed, refusing to dwindle.
He had tried to shut it out by calculating accounts, grazing rotations, and the exact figures of the wool merchant in Inveraray who had been short-weighing him since September. It had not worked.
He could smell it there, in the middle of his own courtyard.
He looked toward the hall doors. She was in there, navigating a world she did not know. Mrs. McAulay would be walking her through rooms he had paced ten thousand times, rooms he no longer truly saw because they had long since hardened into the routine shape of his days.
She would notice the draughts rattling the north corridor because the winter shutters had warped and he had not yet found a solution.
She would inspect a Great Hall that smelled perpetually of woodsmoke and wet staghounds, and a kitchen that Mrs. O’Halloran ruled with a benevolent iron fist and a total lack of patience for outside opinions.
Elspeth possessed an elegance that did not wash off in the dirt. It lived in her spine, in the deliberate set of her hands. And this was his castle. His mud. His livestock. His rough Highlanders who considered a clean coat a grand occasion rather than a basic standard.
Capable.
Magnus stared at the doors for one final moment.
Then he turned, strode across the dark courtyard to the kitchen garden, and began aggressively hauling the sheep out of the dirt.
They went without their usual stubborn argument, and he chose not to look for any deeper meaning in their compliance.
He slammed the wooden gate shut, latched it, and stood with his large hands gripping the frozen post.
He looked up at his castle. At the glowing windows, the grey smoke drifting from the stone chimneys, and the dark, massive bulk of the walls he had physically repaired with his blistered hands before he had men enough to command.
He had brought her here. He had taken her from her world and brought her to this wild, chaotic rock.
She had looked at his home with wide, overwhelmed eyes and asked if his goats were happy.
She had laughed at a chicken, her perfume was permanently bonded to his clothes, and his own men were already wagering on the day she would abandon him.
Magnus closed his eyes against the wind.
Perhaps I have made a fatal mistake.