Chapter 3 #2
Her mouth watered, her stomach rumbling again to show its appreciation for the meal she was about to eat.
Especially after all the long days of traveling, where she had been eating some variety of the same brown stew or murky broth at all the places she had stopped at.
Not that she was ungrateful for the food, but it was nice to have fresh fruit again.
The Laird raised his grey eyes. “Because I have two trespassers under me roof.”
“Now, my Laird, I must protest,” she replied, skewering a blackberry on a fork. “Lizzy cannot possibly count as a trespasser. She doesn’t walk yet, so she cannot truly trespass. And she is so little that when I had her hidden in my cloak, not a soul noticed.”
He made a sound like a disapproving hum, but she could have sworn he almost smiled. If it were not for his wild beard, she might have been able to tell with more certainty.
As she chewed, she took him in for the first time. There was a withdrawn air about him that hadn’t been there last night, although perhaps she was merely confusing him being withdrawn with him being clothed.
Her gaze skimmed over his silver scars, small ones, cutting across his face and the triangle of skin that showed between the sides of his open collar.
He must have been in many fights. Won many fights, or he would likely have much worse scars than this.
She assumed that was how fighting worked.
But was he as cruel as the almanac said he was? Had she been mistaken about that almost smile? Did he have the ability to smile? As far as she knew from her books and whatnot, cruel men didn’t smile.
Is there something more hiding beneath that beard?
She imagined scarred lips or part of his chin missing, and might have let her imagination run wild if he had not muttered a sharp “stop that” at that very moment.
His deep, rumbling voice pulled her out of her thoughts, and she cast him a defiant look. “Stop what?”
“Staring,” he grumbled. “I’m tryin’ to eat me breakfast in peace. I’m nae a spectacle for while ye eat yers.”
She dropped her gaze to her plate and stabbed a slice of apple drenched in cream. “Right, of course. Apologies. I did not mean to—”
The creak of hinges silenced her, her attention snapping to the hall door, where another man had just entered.
He was tall, though not as monumental as Gordon, and built in the same sturdy fashion, though where Gordon’s hair was dark, this man’s hair was a brownish-red, his face freckled and shaven.
Staring at the man, Agnes wondered if there was some kind of magic in the food. If she fed Lizzy a berry, would Lizzy sprout up, eventually towering over her poor, stunted Aunt Agnes?
The man looked back at Agnes with curiosity, before turning to the Laird. “Me Laird, I didnae mean to interrupt yer breakfast, but there’s an incident in the far west villages.” He returned his attention to Agnes. “I’m Keith MacIddon, his Man-at-Arms.”
She dipped her head. “Agnes. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
Gordon’s grip tightened on his fork, his knuckles whitening. “Do I need to kill someone this early in the morning?” He spoke without humor, quite serious.
Agnes drew in a sharp breath and covered the baby’s ears. “The nice gentleman meant kiss, darling. It is just his strange accent.”
“It isnae, and I certainly didnae,” the Laird replied without looking at her as he pushed back his chair.
“I daenae think there’ll be bloodshed,” Keith said, a smirk quirking his lips. “Unless ye’re inclined to make a mornin’ example of the English who wander too close to our territory.”
A chill ran down Agnes’s spine. She was an Englishwoman who had not just wandered too close, but had marched right into their territory.
“English?” The Laird’s eyes narrowed.
The other man nodded. “Aye, that’s what the villagers said. Strange men, askin’ questions. Strange enough that the village sent a rider and is askin’ for yer help.”
A sudden realization smacked Agnes’s brain, that chill becoming a tremor of panic. She held Lizzy tighter to her, as if those unknown English trespassers might be about to barge right through the door.
She got up and walked straight to the windows, pulling back the curtain just an inch to peek out at the sunlit world.
It took her eyes a second to adjust to the glare, her gaze flitting this way and that, terrified that she would see a mane of bright red hair and the very last face she wanted to see.
It didn’t help that there were several redheaded people down in the courtyard, tricking her eyes, ramping up her terror that, for all of that riding and determination, she had already been caught.
Lizzy began to fuss, as if sensing her concern, or perhaps sensing the potential proximity of her wretched father.
“It is all right, dearest one,” Agnes whispered against the baby’s fluffy red hair. “It is all right. It cannot be him. It simply cannot. It—”
A stifled scream of fright escaped her lips as two strong hands came to rest on her shoulders. She whipped around, her stressed mind convinced that she was about to stare up into the nasty brown eyes of Edwin.
Instead, grey eyes, narrowed in something like concern, searched her face with a breathtaking intensity.
“Lass, I asked ye this last night, and I’ll ask ye again. Do I need to ki—” The Laird paused, frowning down at the fussing baby. A moment later, he rolled his eyes and mumbled, “Do I need to kiss them?”
As sweet as the gesture was, she couldn’t bring herself to smile. All thoughts of Edwin catching up to her had robbed her of any amusement. To kill the man would remove the problem; there was no mistaking that, but she didn’t want any blood on her hands. Or on the Laird’s.
She would not stoop to Edwin’s wickedness.
“I just… I cannot let them find me,” she rasped. “I cannot let them get near Lizzy, or I will lose her. And… I cannot lose her, my Laird. She is mine to protect. I promised I would.”
It was, in fact, the last thing she had ever said to her sister. A solemn vow that Lizzy would be taken care of, would know only love, and would never, ever come to any harm.
The Laird watched her as if he was reading her, studying the pages and chapters of her face, the secret stories in her eyes.
Agnes hugged Lizzy and kissed the baby’s head, so she would have a reason to look away from that searching, intense gaze, feeling suddenly very vulnerable, very exposed.
“Fine,” the Laird said gruffly.
“Fine?” She swallowed.
He puffed out a breath. “Ye’re stayin’ here. Ye protect that bairn, I’ll protect ye.”
“What?” she gasped. “You… Truly? You mean it?”
“Aye.”
“So, you will marry me?” Her demeanor brightened, a hopeful smile spreading across her face.
She had known she would have to marry one day, but this was surely the best reason to marry: to keep Lizzy safe and to keep the promise she had made to Christine. Few gentlemen would accept another man’s child as their own, much less one that hadn’t even been born to their brides, but—
“Och nay, lass,” the Laird snorted.
“Then how—”
He interrupted her with a sharp look. “But they’ll hear that ye’re me betrothed until they lose yer tracks, and I promise ye that they will.
” He paused, slowly removing his hands from her shoulders, the accidental caress sending a faint tingle to the nape of her neck.
“Lass, no one will dare to touch the Mad Laird’s bride. ”