The morning in Caorann began the way most of them did—wet stone underfoot, smoke curling from the hearth fires in slow ribbons, and the sharp scent of peat mingling with lavender soap in the corridor that led from the cloister to the chapel. The shutters were still drawn, but a faint light had begun to edge towards the windowsills, soft and grey with mist. Somewhere deeper in the keep, a bell tolled once, then fell quiet.
Mairead liked the silence before morning prayers. She liked the hush of it, the way the air seemed to still just long enough for her to gather her thoughts, to breathe in something deeper than silence. A pause, she liked to call it. The kind the soul needed to remember itself. It was in those moments that she felt closest to what she hoped God saw in her—not pious or perfect, but willing. Still learning.
She had meant to go to the chapel early that day. To light a candle and give thanks for something she couldn’t name. But her steps slowed in the corridor.
“Mairead.”
She turned.
Sister Agnes stood at the far end of the passage, her voice low but firm. The older woman’s hands were folded in front of her habit, her shoulders square, her face unreadable—but not unkind.
“There’s been word from Glen Lyon.”
The name stopped her breath.
“Fer the church?” Her voice cracked on the last word.
Sister Agnes gave a single nod. “It’s still in ruin. They’ve begun clearin’ the wreckage. But they’ve asked fer help. Fer someone skilled in scripture. In healin’. Tae guide.”
She didn’t say what else she meant. Didn’t say the other word that hung heavy in the air between them: conversion.
Mairead’s fingers curled against her palms. The corridor was warm from the hearths below, but her hands had gone cold.
“Ye’re sendin’ me,” she said.
It wasn’t a question.
The nun’s gaze softened just slightly, a flicker of something like approval ghosting behind her eyes. “Aye. If ye accept. Ye’d be part o’ the rebuildin’ effort. There’s still unrest, but the laird himself has allowed it. A pagan, aye—but one who daesnae seek war.”
The stone wall pressed cool against Mairead’s back. She hadn’t realized she’d moved until the roughness caught her shoulder blades. A strange flutter moved behind her ribs. A sense of being… shifted. As though something in her life had turned, just slightly, without her having touched it.
“And when I return?” she asked, barely above a whisper.
Sister Agnes took a step closer. Her voice lowered, but it was no less certain. “Then ye will be ready.”
Mairead’s breath left her all at once.
Ready.
To take the veil. To give herself wholly. To leave behind the questions, the wondering. To put on the habit and call it enough. To belong.
Her throat tightened, and it took her a moment to nod. “Thank ye,” she said, her voice shaking. “I dinnae deserve such trust.”
“Ye’ve earned it,” the nun said simply. “The journey begins within the week. Ye’ll go with a few others. I believe Sister Mòrag is preparin’ provisions already.”
Mairead barely heard the last part. She was still holding onto those words.
Ye’ve earned it.
She had waited her whole life to hear that. And yet it didn’t settle in her chest the way she thought it would. It trembled there instead. Restless. A little too alive.
She dipped her head in reverence. “I’ll find Kirsteen. She should hear it from me.”
Sister Agnes nodded once. “See that ye dae.”
The corridor emptied behind her as she turned and walked back the way she came. Her steps were faster now. Lighter. But her breath didn’t come easy.
She was going to Glen Lyon, the pagan stronghold. To the glen where men still traced runes in the dirt and left offerings for trees. Where they danced on solstice nights and drank from carved horns and didn’t know the shape of a rosary bead.
And yet, God had opened the door, and she was walking through it.
She turned, her robes sweeping softly behind her. Mairead stood frozen a moment longer, her hands still trembling slightly. Then she turned and hurried toward the courtyard.
Kirsteen.
She found her in the herb garden, kneeling beside a row of wild mint, her hair pulled back in a rough braid. She looked up as Mairead approached.
“Ye look like a woman wi’ news,” Kirsteen said, squinting into the sun.
“They’re sendin’ me,” Mairead said breathlessly. “Tae Glen Lyon.”
Kirsteen blinked, then grinned. “About time.”
Mairead laughed. “I’m tae help rebuild the chapel. When I return—”
“Ye take yer vows.”
“Aye.”
Kirsteen stood and wiped her hands on her apron. “Well, I suppose we’d better start packin’. They’ll want us off before the week’s end.”
Mairead frowned. “Us?”
Kirsteen tilted her head. “Didnae they tell ye? I’m goin’ wi’ ye.”
The breath whooshed out of Mairead’s lungs. “Ye’re what?”
“I was requested. Fer healin’. Fer… guidin’.”
Mairead stared at her. Then a small smile broke across her face. “We’re goin’ taegether.”
Kirsteen’s grin widened. “Glen Lyon willnae ken what’s comin’.” Then she paused, as if just remembering. “Oh—Mairead, the laird’s asked tae speak wi’ ye.”
Mairead stilled. “The laird asked fer me?”
“One o’ the guards told me. Said John wanted tae see ye before we left.”
Her stomach twisted. “Why?”
Kirsteen shrugged. “I dinnae ken. But if he daes, ye’d best go.”
They stood there for a moment longer, sunlight pooling at their feet, the scent of mint and wild thyme in the air between them. And for the first time in a long time, Mairead felt something like hope.
Kirsteen bumped her shoulder lightly. “Ye’d best go then, before he sends someone tae drag ye by the wrist.”
Mairead laughed. “Aye. Though I’m nae sure what he could want wi’ me.”
Kirsteen nudged her gently again. “Go on, then. I’ll meet ye back in the dormitory. We’ve packin’ tae dae.”
Mairead hesitated, then nodded. “I’ll be quick.”
“Famous last words,” Kirsteen muttered, but her smile didn’t fade.
Mairead turned toward the staircase and took the stairs with careful steps, her skirts gathered in one hand, the other brushing lightly along the cool stone wall. She passed two novices in the corridor below, murmuring good morning, and they bowed their heads in return, though their eyes followed her longer than they should have. No one had said it aloud, but it was clear enough that word had already traveled. That she was to go, that she had been chosen.
Her heart beat faster at the thought.
She reached the laird’s chamber and paused, smoothing the front of her gown, then knocked twice.
The door opened, and there he was, Laird John of Caorann. His hand braced against the wood, his expression unreadable for a moment. Then it softened, almost too quickly.
“Sister Mairead,” he said, stepping aside. “Come in.”
The room was warm, filled with the scent of old wood and ink. She hesitated only a breath, then entered, folding her hands before her.
“I was told ye wished tae see me.”
John’s gaze didn’t leave her. He motioned to a chair near the hearth. “Please. Sit.”
She did, perching lightly on the edge, while he crossed the room to pour water into a cup and brought it to her.
“They’ve accepted,” he said quietly. “Glen Lyon. The laird will allow the missionaries tae assist with the rebuilding o’ the chapel.”
Her fingers tightened slightly around the cup. “Aye. Sister Agnes just told me.”
He studied her. “And ye’ve agreed?”
“I have.”
His jaw tensed. Only slightly, but she saw it. “Sister… ye dinnae need tae go.”
Her brow furrowed. “I dae. It’s part o’ me path. I’ve prayed on it.”
“There are others,” he said. “Others who could take yer place.”
“I was chosen.”
He stepped closer. “By a nun. Nae by God.”
She blinked. “That’s—me laird, why would ye say that?”
He sighed, turning away for a moment before facing her again. “Because I worry. About what ye’ll face there. They’re pagans still. Heathens, some o’ them. And their laird—he’s nae a man ye should trust.”
Mairead set the cup down, her fingers now folded tightly in her lap. “I’ve been called tae serve, me laird. Ye ken what this means tae me. It’s the final step before me vows.”
He was quiet a long moment. Then: “What if ye didnae take them?”
She stared at him. “What?”
“What if ye stayed?” His voice dropped lower. “Ye could dae good here, Mairead. Teach. Heal. Live.”
She rose from the chair. “But I want tae take them.”
“Because it’s all ye’ve ever kent,” he said, stepping toward her. “Because ye think it’s the only way tae be pure. But ye are already—ye shine wi’ a light that has naethin’ tae dae wi’ vows or veils.”
Her breath caught. “I dinnae understand.”
He smiled, gently this time. And stepped closer. “Ye dinnae have tae. Just listen.”
“I… I must go,” she said, shaking her head. “This is me chance tae prove I’m ready.”
“Prove tae who?” he asked. “God? Or them?”
She looked up at him. “Both.”
A beat passed. Then he reached out and cupped her cheek in one hand.
It startled her.
The warmth of his palm was gentle. His eyes were soft, but she didn’t want to return their stare, so she stilled.
“I only want what’s best fer ye,” he said. “I’ve watched ye grow from a frightened girl tae somethin’ more. Somethin’ rare. And if I could spare ye pain…”
She shook her head. “I dinnae need sparin’. I need direction. I’ve prayed fer it—and now I have it.”
His thumb brushed against her cheekbone. She flushed.
She told herself it was only gratitude, kindness. He was a man of God. He cared for her soul, nothing more.
He stepped back then, slowly, and smiled again. “Then go,” he said. “And may the Lord walk beside ye.”
She nodded, flustered, and moved toward the door.
And as she slipped out into the corridor, her heart pounding and her thoughts tangled, she told herself that she had misunderstood.
That it had been blessing, not longing, in his touch.
That she was going to Glen Lyon for God.
She didn’t look back. Just hurried down the stairs and into the morning light, where the road awaited and the sky was wide and clean and full of the unknown.
And somewhere ahead of her, a church had burned to ash and waited to be raised from ruin. And Mairead—blessed, chosen, still innocent of the things she could not see—began to pack.
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Tamed by the Dark Highlander – Get Extended Epilogue
A low, quiet heat that curled between her ribs before she had even opened her eyes. It wasn’t sunlight—though that too had begun to bleed faintly through the shutters—but something deeper. A weight pressed against her spine, a slow, steady breath behind her ear. And arms. One banded beneath her ribs, the other curled loosely around her waist, fingers resting just at the edge of her hip. She could feel his calluses. His heartbeat.
Mairead kept still for a moment, just breathing it in. The smell of ash and wool. The faint scent of pine oil in his hair. The way his chest rose and fell behind her like a rhythm older than speech.
A shift behind her, and then a murmur—low, half-slurred by sleep. “Ye’re awake.”
She tilted her head back slightly. “So are ye.”
Raghnall’s face was hidden against her shoulder, but she felt his smile. “Ye were breathin’ too fast. Gave yerself away.”
“I was thinkin’.”
“Dangerous, that.” He nudged her gently with his nose, then pressed a kiss just behind her ear. “What were ye thinkin’ about, wife?”
That word still made her chest ache. In the best way.
She turned toward him, shifting so that their legs tangled again beneath the blanket. Her hand found his chest, fingers curling lightly in the dark hair there. “I was thinkin’ I dinnae want tae move.”
His eyes were barely open, blue-gray and soft with morning light. “Aye. Let’s nae.”
A long pause passed between them. The kind where nothing needed to be said, but everything could be. She could feel the sun rising behind her. The fire had gone out hours ago, but his warmth wrapped around her like a second skin. They had somewhere to be.
“Raghnall,” she said quietly. “We’re goin’ tae be late.”
He groaned into her neck. “Let’s let the priest start without us.”
“It’s a celebration,” she said, though her voice lacked conviction. “They rebuilt the whole thing. Fer all o’ Glen Lyon. Ye’re the laird.”
He lifted his head finally, blinking at her. “Nay. I’m yer husband.”
Her cheeks flushed. He reached up and brushed a strand of hair from her brow.
“Want tae stay a little longer?” she whispered.
He didn’t answer. Just kissed her again, slower this time, with the kind of patience that came from knowing they had the rest of their lives. His hand ran down her side, a slow arc of heat, and she shivered despite herself.
They stayed that way for a few more minutes, just breath and skin and silence.
Eventually, Mairead pulled away, groaning as she sat up. “If anyone dares make me speak today, I’m blamin’ ye.”
“Fair,” he muttered, already stretching out in the space she’d left behind, the covers slipping low on his hips.
She tried not to look but failed.
“I’ll go first,” she said, voice a little higher than she meant. “Or we’ll never leave this room.”
She dressed quickly, cheeks still warm, hair half-pinned and slightly tousled from his hands, but he didn’t comment—just watched her with that quiet, amused reverence that made her hands shake for no good reason. When she was done, she helped him with his belt, swatted his hand away when he tried to lace his boots wrong, and laughed when he kissed her just beneath the jaw and said she looked like a queen. And then, with fingers linked and hearts steadier than either expected, they stepped out of the keep and into the morning.
The courtyard was already full when they arrived.
Sunlight slanted down in rich gold over the newly swept stones, catching in the threads of banners strung from the battlements. Mairead paused at the top of the steps, fingers tangled lightly in Raghnall’s as her eyes swept across the gathered crowd.
Everyone was there.
Children wove between the legs of their parents, chasing each other with wild laughter. Donnan stood near the steps, balancing a tray of what looked like oatcakes and calling out instructions to a cluster of younger lads carrying benches. Cairbre had a mug in each hand and was already deep in what appeared to be a very animated discussion with Ruaidhri. And near the eastern wall, just beneath the shadow of the chapel, Father Peter stood quietly, his hands folded, his face calm.
Mairead’s gaze lifted to the building behind him.
It was smaller than the one they’d lost. Just a single nave, one narrow spire, a cross carved from Glen Lyon stone mounted in its place of honor. But it was beautiful. The stones had been washed clean. The wood beams were fresh-hewn and polished. A pale blue cloth had been strung across the door, a sign of peace and new beginnings.
And it was finished.
She swallowed thickly.
“Ye built a church,” Raghnall said behind her, his voice low.
“Nae alone,” she said. “But… aye. I did.”
He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles, soft as breath.
They descended the steps together, greeted with a round of nods and cheers. Someone clapped Raghnall on the back. Someone else handed Mairead a ribboned garland, which she accepted with flushed cheeks.
It was strange, in a way, being seen. Not as a prisoner. Not as a missionary. But as someone who belonged. Someone who had stayed.
Kirsteen found her a moment later, arms full of sweet bread and an expression of mock indignation. “Ye’re late.”
“Speak tae yer laird,” Mairead teased, ducking the bread she nearly got swatted with.
They laughed together, and for a moment, it felt like everything had always been this way. As if the pain and fire had only been a prelude to the joy that now wrapped itself around the village like spring mist.
Father Peter stepped forward.
“Lady mac Anndra,” he said, with a small bow.
“Faither,” she answered, dipping her head in return.
“We were just about tae begin the blessing.”
“Lead on,” she said softly.
As the crowd shifted, forming a gentle arc around the chapel doors, Mairead felt Raghnall’s hand press lightly to the small of her back. She turned and looked at him. He didn’t smile, not quite. But his eyes were warm, his gaze steady.
And in that moment, she felt it again. The same thing she’d felt in the ruins, when he’d touched her cheek through the veil of smoke. The same thing she’d felt on their wedding night, when he had kissed her with every scar laid bare.
That she had not just been saved. She had been chosen.
She turned to him.
Raghnall was still watching the children, a faint smile caught at the corner of his mouth. She watched him for a moment, watched the line of his jaw, the soft ripple of sunlight across his brow, the ease that had crept into his shoulders when he wasn’t looking. And she thought of all the versions of him she had known—the storm, the silence, the shield. The man who once could not bear the thought of faith and now stood before the church he’d helped raise from the bones of the old.
“Raghnall.”
He turned to her.
Her fingers grasped his. “Thank ye.”
His brow lifted slightly. “Fer what?”
“Fer all o’ this,” she said. “Fer fightin’ tae keep me. Fer buildin’ this place, even when it went against everythin’ ye once believed. Fer stayin. Fer choosin’ us.”
He didn’t answer right away. Just looked at her, as if memorizing her face again. Then he brought her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her knuckles.
“Come,” he said. “Ye should see it from the inside.”
She followed him across the green. The crowd was still gathered, laughter ringing through the courtyard, but they slipped away through a smaller side door, unnoticed, or perhaps simply left alone. The hallway was cool, the stone still fresh with the scent of mortar and lime, but there was something warm beneath it. Something living.
And when they stepped through the final arch, into the new nave of the church, Mairead’s breath caught.
It was beautiful.
Not grand, not gilded, but holy in its own way. The floors had been swept clean, the benches carved by hand. Ivy wrapped gently around the wooden beams overhead, and between them, colored glass caught the light in quiet ribbons of blue and red and gold. The altar was simple, a polished stone slab beneath a carved cross, and behind it, the arch of the window framed the glen like a painting.
She stepped forward slowly, her footsteps soft against the flagstones. Her eyes flicked over every detail—the woven hangings at the side, the braided candles, the small vase of wildflowers someone had placed at the foot of the pulpit.
“I ken it’s nae what ye’re used tae,” Raghnall said, almost hesitantly.
She turned. “It’s more than I ever dreamed.”
He watched her cross to the center of the room. Watched her stand there in the soft light like something consecrated. And then he moved to her side, wrapping his arm gently around her back.
She let her head rest against his shoulder.
“I used tae wonder if I’d ever find a place that felt like mine,” she whispered. “Fer a while I thought it would be the convent. Then the mission. Then… it was just the want o’ bein’ good. O’ belongin’ somewhere.”
She looked up at him.
“But now I ken. This is it. Ye are it.”
Something shifted in his eyes. A kind of awe, as if her love still startled him.
She turned into his arms then, both hands settling on his chest. And when she lifted her gaze again, it wasn’t with fear, or hesitation, or doubt. It was with the quiet certainty of a woman who had walked through fire and come out with something worth burning for.
“There’s somethin’ I have tae tell ye,” she said.
He stilled, brows dipping just slightly. “What is it?”
She reached for his hand, then guided it gently to her stomach.
It took a moment.
Then his eyes widened.
“Mairead—”
She nodded, tears rising unbidden. “Aye.”
He didn’t speak. Just dropped to his knees before her, one hand still on her belly, the other catching at her waist like he needed to hold on to her or he might fall through the floor. His forehead pressed to her stomach, and when he finally lifted his face again, his eyes were glassy.
“A bairn.”
“Aye,” she said again, laughter breaking through her tears. “A bairn.”
His hands moved, slowly, as if afraid the moment might vanish if he moved too quickly. He kissed her just above the fabric of her gown, then looked up at her like she had become the answer to a question he hadn’t known how to ask.
“I dinnae have words,” he said.
“Then dinnae speak,” she whispered, cupping his face. “Just hold me.”
He rose, gathering her into his arms like something precious, and she let herself be wrapped in it—in him. In everything they had survived, everything they had fought for. And when he kissed her, it was different again. No longer fierce with longing, or tender with thanks. But full of promise.
For the child who would come into the world with a legacy forged in fire and rebuilt in peace. For the woman who had chosen faith, and then chosen love, and found that both could live in her at once. And for the man who had once stood in ruin, and now stood there, whole.
They stood in the center of the church long after the bells had stopped ringing. Long after the laughter outside had faded into music. Long after the sun dipped past the high windows and lit the altar in gold.
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Chapter One
1211, Glen Lyon
The pot steamed steadily, thick with barley, onions, and softened carrots. Mairead stirred it with quiet focus. Her wimple clung damply to her brow beneath the sun, which had risen warmer than expected.
A line of villagers passed her table, and she met each with a small smile, a warm bowl, and a soft blessing.
“May the Lord reward yer labor,” she said to a man with blistered hands. He hesitated, then nodded, accepting the food like it was something more than nourishment.
Behind her, the church ruins breathed with quiet effort. Just weeks ago, it had been set ablaze, torched in the night by pagan raiders who saw its presence in Glen Lyon as a threat. The roof had collapsed in places, and the stone walls still bore smoke stains like bruises. But this space, the old nave, had been chosen for the soup line on purpose. The villagers rebuilding it had insisted: healing had to start here, where the wound was deepest.
Mairead and the others had come from Caorann with the Church’s blessing—missionaries, laborers, a few healers. Their task was simple: help rebuild the glen and bring the Light of God to those who still walked in shadow.
Mairead and the other missionaries from Caorann were working to rebuild it stone by stone, determined to restore what had been lost. She had come with them not just as a helper, but as a woman preparing to take her final vows.
That was to be her last mission before she finally joined the convent. It was a test of faith, although she had never questioned her calling. Her heart had long since settled. All she longed for was this work and service to the Lord. Her faith was not decoration. It lived in her hands.
Mairead handed another bowl to a boy who looked barely seventeen. He made the sign of the cross before stepping away. She echoed the motion, lips moving in silent prayer.
One bowl. Then another. The rhythm steadied her.
The pot was half-empty when a voice disrupted the flow.
“Sister Mairead?” The voice, girlish and hesitant, broke gently across the murmur of voices.
Mairead turned to find Kirsteen lingering at the edge of the commotion, arms folded tightly, curls escaping her veil in wild coils. Her cheeks were pink, her posture tense.
“May I speak with ye? Just a moment.”
Mairead glanced toward Brother Tomaigh. “Will ye take over fer a moment?”
He gave a silent nod, already stepping forward. His large hands closed over the ladle’s handle as she released it. The soup sloshed slightly under the shift.
She offered a small nod in thanks. As he rolled up his sleeves and took position behind the pot, Mairead wiped her palms on her apron and turned toward the girl, by the edge of the ruined sanctuary, where light filtered through the fractured beams and wind slipped through the stone gaps, carrying the scent of damp moss and char.
Kirsteen was uncharacteristically silent, fidgeting with her sleeve as though trying to keep her thoughts from spilling.
“Ye’ve been awfully quiet,” Mairead said gently, letting a hint of mischief into her voice. “Must be spendin’ too much time with me.”
Kirsteen cast her a sidelong glance, lips twitching. “Only waitin’ tae see ye break, that’s all.”
“Break?” Mairead echoed, amused.
“Aye,” she said, grinning as she tucked a curl behind her ear. “Ye’ve been keepin’ something tae yerself since we left Caorann. And I think I ken what it is.”
Mairead raised a brow. “Dae ye now?”
Kirsteen leaned closer, lowering her voice like they were sharing a confession. “He spoke tae ye, didnae he? Laird Caorann. Before we left.”
Mairead’s lips pressed into a line. “He did.”
Kirsteen straightened with a triumphant noise. “Ha! I kent it. And what did the mighty Laird have tae say tae ye?”
Mairead lowered her voice, hands folding in her lap. “He asked me nae tae come.” From beyond the ruined wall, the muffled sounds of ladles and quiet chatter drifted through the morning air.
Kirsteen blinked. “He did what? Truly?”
“He said Glen Lyon was dangerous. That I ought tae stay behind.”
Kirsteen gave an exaggerated gasp. “Did he give the same warning tae Braither Malcolm? Or Sister Agnes?”
Mairead shook her head, “Nay.”
Kirsteen made a face. “Oh aye, just ye. How very impartial o’ him.”
“He was worried.” She shrugged, her gaze drifting toward the mist-soft hills beyond the church wall—or what was left of it.
“Oh, I’m sure. Concerned fer the mission, was he?” she teased, nudging Mairead with her elbow. “Or just fer the bonnie postulant with the green eyes?”
Mairead tried to keep her voice even. “He was kind.”
Kirsteen let out a soft laugh. “That man watches ye like a hawk watches a rabbit. A sanctified, scripture-quoting rabbit.”
Mairead blinked, then gave a short, unexpected laugh. “That’s awful.”
“But accurate.” Kirsteen nudged her knee with her own, biting back a grin. “Dinnae tell me ye’ve nae noticed. Half the keep saw it before ye did.”
For a breath, Mairead didn’t answer. The memory flickered. The way Laird Caorann had looked at her that morning wasn’t like a laird giving orders, but like a man searching for something. She’d told herself it was nothing.
“There’s naething tae notice,” Mairead said, though her tone softened. “He respects me devotion. That’s all.”
“Uh-huh.” Kirsteen leaned forward, eyes dancing. “And when he leaned in and told ye nae tae come, did he happen tae hold yer hand? Look real sorrowful, like he was picturing ye walkin’ intae the mist, never tae return?”
“Kirsteen,” Mairead said sharply, though heat rose to her cheeks.
“I’m simply asking!” she said, laughing as she threw up her hands in mock innocence. “Saints preserve me, ye act like I suggested marriage.”
Mairead gave her a long look, but it lacked real force. “He meant well.”
Kirsteen shook her head, more affectionate than disapproving. “Ye’ve such a talent fer explainin’ away things that make the rest o’ us blush.”
“There’s naething tae blush about.”
Kirsteen shifted slightly, her voice quieter now. “What if he asked ye tae stay. Promised comfort, safety… maybe even love.”
Mairead looked down at her hands, resting still in her lap. “I would tell him nay.”
“That easy?”
“Aye. I dinnae want it.”
“Ye’ve always been like that,” Kirsteen said finally. “Certain. Like ye were carved out o’ something steadier than the rest o’ us.”
Mairead smiled faintly. “And ye? What are ye carved from?”
Kirsteen grinned. “Bits o’ bark and nonsense. But I stick close tae ye. Maybe some o’ yer holiness will rub on me.”
“Unlikely,” Mairead murmured, but her smile deepened.
“I still think he fancies ye.”
Mairead sighed, then nudged her playfully. “And I still think ye talk too much.”
“That’s what makes me charming.”
“Nay, that’s what makes ye exhausting.”
“But ye’d be too lonely without me.”
Mairead didn’t argue. Instead, she reached out and briefly placed a hand over Kirsteen’s. “I would.”
Kirsteen went still, then gave a quick smile. It was the kind that tried to hide something tender. “Well. Then I’ll keep botherin’ ye. Just tae make sure.”
They stood together in that fragile light, a moment held between ruin and renewal. And then—
A scream. A sharp, human, terrifying scream.
Mairead froze, her spine snapping straight as a cry sliced through the air.
Kirsteen whirled beside her, curls whipping as she scanned the space, eyes wide with raw instinct. Another shout followed, closer now. Then a third, shriller. The sound of feet pounding the earth grew louder, no rhythm, only panic. The low hum of the people surrounding them fractured like glass.
Mairead turned sharply, skirts twisting at her ankles. Kirsteen’s hand found her forearm, clinging for one startled second as they both froze.
Through the haze of afternoon light, thick with drifting ash, men rushed out of the half-constructed church. Through the ruined doorway, shadowed figures surged forward in a blur of limbs and flame. One carried a torch. Another swung something metal. Fire caught fast on the edge of thatch, rising greedy and orange. One raised a rusty axe, another bore a flaming brand above his head as if to summon judgment himself.
The builders dropped their tools. Soup spilled across the packed earth in a hiss of broth and smoke.
Those weren’t looters. They came with purpose, not chaos for its own sake. Their faces were half-painted in streaks of ash and ochre, symbols carved into their bare arms.
Pagan marks.
Mairead recognized them, though she’d never seen them worn so boldly. This wasn’t hunger or protest. It was hatred. Vengeance. The church was rising from its ashes, and now they meant to return it to dust. She saw one of them glance her way—eyes wild, mouth twisted—and felt it in her bones. She wasn’t just a woman in their path. She was the reason they’d come. She and the others, who threatened their pagan beliefs.
Mairead’s fingers tightened around Kirsteen’s sleeve, her breath sharp. “Run,” she said with finality, as if the choice had already been made for both of them, and then she ran.
There was no thought to it, no calculation, no direction. Her body surged forward, skirts wrapped tight around her legs as she bolted from the collapsing sanctuary. Her breath burned in her throat and her heart thudded in her chest, like an alarm.
Behind her, the world unraveled. Shouts shattered into each other, wood splintered, and fire leapt eagerly toward anything dry. The sound of the torch hitting the wall made her flinch even as she ran, its flames catching fast like a curse.
Run. Just run.
People fled past and all around her. The wide eyes of a boy flashed as he tripped over a fallen beam. A builder bellowed his son’s name. The air filled with ash and panic. Kirsteen darted off with the urgency of someone who knew exactly where the edge of safety was.
Dear God, make it stop.
Mairead turned to follow, legs aching, lungs raw, and then she heard a heavier sound. It didn’t fit. Boots that pounded like hooves. She looked over her shoulder and froze.
A man. No—a figure that barely resembled one. Towering. Misshapen. Scars made a map of cruelty across his face; one eye bulged, the other sunk deep like rot in fruit. Their eyes met and his were glittering with something feral and certain. The corners of his mouth lifted into a grin that wasn’t human. It was hungry.
Mairead’s pulse surged. She tore her gaze away and forced her legs to move faster, pushing past the stitch blooming in her side, past the burn in her throat. Her feet tore through mud and moss, every breath shallow, every step panicked.
But even as she ran, she knew it was too late.
The sound of his pursuit bore down on her like a storm. She fled harder, her breath hitching with every step. The air, choked with smoke and noise, rasped through her throat and her eyes watered. She ran faster than she’d ever thought she could, but still it wasn’t enough.
Too close. Too fast. Please, Lord—
An arm hooked tight around her middle. She cried out as her balance snapped and the world spun. Her back hit the earth with a thud that knocked her breath loose. She tried to scream, but he was already on top of her, pressing a hand over her mouth.
His weight compressed her ribs. His fingers found her wrists and forced them to the dirt. She kicked, but her feet found no purchase. His stench was unbearable—smoke and filth and sweat. His face hovered inches above hers.
“A holy lass,” he muttered, teeth bared. “Sent tae save us heathens, aye?”
He leaned closer, his breath hot against her cheek.
“Thought ye could come here and build over us?” he sneered, voice thick with bile. “Raise yer cross on burnt stone and call it mercy?”
His grip tightened. She tried to twist away, but he pressed down harder, breath hot against her cheek.
“We are faithless, aye? I wonder,” he rasped, voice soaked in malice, “how much yer God’ll help ye now.”
Her body recoiled even as it was trapped, her lungs struggled. Her arms buckled in his grip, her legs kicked, failed. The smoke around her thickened, the flames were now all around.
“Please,” she choked. “Please dinnae.”
He laughed, his breath hot against her cheek, as he shifted more of his weight onto her chest, the pressure forcing the last gasp from her lungs. His hands fumbled with the fabric of her skirts, tugging them up despite her legs thrashing with every ounce of strength she had left. Panic flooded her bloodstream.
Please, Lord, help me. Nae like this.
Then the weight vanished, ripped away with such force her chest bucked upward, and air slammed into her lungs in a single, searing gasp. She choked on it. Coughed. Her arms fell open beside her, numb and shaking.
She blinked against the smoke, lashes wet with sweat and ash, her body curled like something discarded. Her skirts were twisted around her thighs, her back slick with earth. Every nerve screamed.
Through the blur of flame and fog, she saw him.
A figure, tall, broad shoulders cut against the light, cloaked in smoke and silence. He walked through the blaze without flinching or faltering. Like an angel of vengeance.
God above… he looks like judgment and mercy both. A man shouldnae be that handsome. It’s impossible.
He didn’t speak, didn’t look at her, but simply gripped the attacker by the collar, the movement swift, final.
Mairead couldn’t see the aftermath. Her limbs betrayed her, heavy as iron. Her vision veiled over. She heard a snarl that couldn’t have been human, and the answering crack of something being moved with force.
The fire caught on, and his eyes met hers across the smoke. And in that moment, pinned beneath his stare, she knew he was had come to save her.
Chapter Two
Flames rose like banners of judgment, clawing at the sky with a heat that warped the air. Smoke rolled in waves over stone, timber, and flesh, rendering the world a stifling haze. Mairead lay where the ground had taken her, half-curled on her side, her chest heaving against the unbearable pressure in her lungs. Her wimple had come loose, strands of damp hair clinging to her cheeks. Her ribs ached with every breath, her knees were raw, slick with blood. Her throat burned was by the smoke.
She couldn’t move but he moved like he had been summoned by the fire itself.
She saw him only in flashes. Through stinging eyes and broken breath, his form emerged between curls of smoke: a bare back licked by flame, muscles flexing beneath skin streaked with soot, a scarred arm rising and falling in arcs of controlled violence. He fought like someone reclaiming dominion.
The brute who had attacked her lunged again, shouting something guttural. But he was slower now, confused, winded. The stranger caught him mid-charge with a hook to the ribs that cracked like kindling. He followed it with a knee to the gut that folded the man, then grabbed him by the collar and flung him against the half-collapsed beam like he weighed nothing at all.
The man stumbled to his feet with a roar, blood streaming from his nose, swinging wide with something clenched in his hand. A shard of broken wood, sharp enough to wound, but the stranger didn’t flinch. He sidestepped cleanly, caught the wrist in mid-swing and twisted. A snap echoed sharply over the fire. The shard dropped and the brute screamed.
Then came the finishing blow—an elbow to the jaw, a closed fist to the temple, and a final, ruthless strike that dropped the man where he stood.
He didn’t look at her, didn’t say a word. Just turned slightly, scanning the chaos around them. His chest heaved with effort, but his stance was still coiled, like he could go again, and harder, if needed.
Mairead could only stare. There was no grace in his violence, only certainty.
And still the fire burned, destroying everything around them.
The beams overhead groaned like dying creatures. One snapped and fell, scattering embers across the scorched ground. The stranger didn’t so much as flinch. Ash fell on his shoulders like snow, clung to his hair, streaked his arms. He stood still, breathing deep, as if the fire itself answered to him.
Mairead coughed, the motion tearing at her lungs. The smoke forced its way into her throat, bitter and acrid, leaving a film of ash on her tongue and the taste of burnt timber and iron deep in the back of her mouth. It clawed down her throat with every breath.
Her hands curled weakly in the moss. Her mouth moved around the shape of a prayer, but no sound escaped. Her chest rose and fell in jagged shudders as her vision began to tunnel.
The light fractured. Everything narrowed to a single, burning thread. Her senses collapsed inward, sound dulled, her limbs turned weightless, and then it was as if the ground vanished beneath her. She was falling, not through space, but into a void edged in flame and silence, as though her body no longer belonged to the world it once obeyed.
She felt a rough hand on her face. A sort of slap—brief and gentle—landed on her cheek, more of a nudge than anything.
Her eyes flew open.
He was crouched over her now, framed by firelight. His face stole her breath. Sharp angles, unreadable eyes, and a jaw darkened by soot and stubble. His features were forged in something harder than beauty. Grief, maybe. Or war.
Saints have mercy…
He looked like something pulled from a legend.
He looked at her with unwavering intent, the kind of focus that stripped away ceremony without blinking
I cannae look away.
“Ye need tae stay awake,” he said, voice low and coarse.
She parted her lips, but no words came.
He didn’t wait. His shirt was off in a single motion, his torso thick with scars that told a story. He turned away for a moment, vanishing briefly into the haze. When he returned, the shirt was damp, glistening with moisture from a nearby patch of ground where fire hadn’t yet touched. He pressed the cold, soaked wool to her mouth and nose.
She flinched.
“Breathe,” he ordered. “Through it. Slow.”
She tried. The water smelled of smoke and metal and it burned as the air went down. She coughed hard. Once, then again. Her ribs cried out in protest. Her throat seized and loosened in turns, trying to pull in something that didn’t hurt.
One hand cradled the back of her head, the other steadied her at the shoulder. He anchored her.
She inhaled again, this time with slightly more control. The world came back to her in small pieces: the moss beneath her spine, the bitter taste of soot, the weight of her own limbs. And him.
He smelled of fire and sweat. Of brine and bark.
“Can ye move?”
She tried lifting her arms but they trembled. Her legs shifted, then gave out.
He exhaled, then gathered her, his arms sliding under her knees and behind her back, lifting her without strain. Her fingers, without meaning to, clutched at his bare shoulder. His skin was coarse, calloused, sun hardened.
He carried her through smoke and ash, his pace steady. Behind them, the flames roared. The chapel timbers collapsed in a groan. The roof buckled, but he did not turn to look.
He walked her to the edge of the chaos, where the air was cooler, where the smoke thinned enough for the sky to reappear. There, he knelt and lowered her on the grass with a care that did not match the force he had shown only moments before.
She clung to the cloth over her face. The air that passed through it felt heavy but livable.
He rose. “Wait here,” he said roughly. “I’ll come back.”
Then he turned back toward the fire. She wanted to call out, but her voice had abandoned her.
She watched him reenter the blaze from afar. Not as a fighter now, but as a man who knew what had to be done. He moved among the scattered workers, the men with buckets and ropes and shouted orders. At one point, she saw him take the rope at the well and draw it up himself.
And still, the fire raged, but he did not yield to it.
Mairead’s head lolled against the moss. Her limbs were no longer her own. Her vision fluttered in and out. The shirt in her hands was the only tether she had left at that moment.
She closed her eyes.
This was nae messenger o’ God, she thought, somewhere between thought and oblivion. Nay angel wears scars like that. Nay savior speaks without blessing.
And yet—
He had come to save her. And somehow, in the hollow left behind by fear, that was enough of an answer for her.
Time expanded in the strange hush that followed the fire. The final flames sputtered and curled into smoke, their resistance waning. Around her, the world descended into heavy silence. Ash floated like snow across the blackened bones of the church. Stone steamed beneath the wreckage. The air was dense with the stench of scorched wood, burnt wool, and the bitter tang of violence, freshly spent.
Dear God… they’ve burned it again. All we rebuilt, all we prayed over gone in a blink.
Mairead remained still, spine pressed into the scorched moss, the cloth he had given her clutched tight in her hands. Her limbs had ceased their shaking, but they held no will of their own.
They had raised beams with bare hands, knelt in ash and mud, clung to the promise that light could return to Glen Lyon. She had believed it. And now—
What kind o’ hatred did it take tae burn down a house o’ God twice?
From somewhere deeper in the ruin, the sound of water met wood with a sharp hiss. A man sobbed, open and unrestrained.
She opened her eyes. The man who saved her was returning.
He sat beside her, the same control evident in his motions and in the way he had lifted beams from the path of others. His chest bore the weathering of war: scars, bruises yellowed at the edges, and the deep stillness of someone who had learned not to flinch.
“How dae ye feel?” His voice had settled. Still rough, but not sharp. No softness, but no longer something meant to wound.
She cleared her throat. “Like I’ve survived something I shouldnae have.”
He made a sound, half scoff, half exhale, and reached for the waterskin at his side.
“Here.”
She tried to lift her hand. Her fingers twitched and she failed. He noted it, said nothing, and steadied her head with one palm while tilting the skin to her lips with the other. The water was cold, drawn straight from the river, sharp with minerals and the faint taste of stone. The cold cut through the burn in her throat like mercy.
Her first swallow turned into a cough. The second stayed down.
“Enough?”
She nodded, too winded to speak.
He shifted beside her, soaked the shirt again using what remained of the water, then wrung it out and brought it to her face.
“Let me help.”
This time she didn’t resist. He began with her temple, wiping away soot and sweat. Then her jawline. Her throat. He didn’t linger. His movements were efficient, almost clinical.
But the precise, measured way he touched her stirred something unspoken beneath her skin. A heat that wasn’t fire.
She blinked it back, ashamed of the way her breath caught, of the way her body leaned, barely. Guilt followed hard on the feeling, sharp and immediate. She turned her face slightly, as though the soot had settled somewhere he couldn’t reach.
She watched him through lowered lashes, her gaze flicking to the curve of his jaw, the tension still held in his hands. Then she shifted slightly. Just enough to pull back. Her fingers tightened around the cloth, and she nodded once, a subtle motion that said it was enough. “Thank ye.”
He inclined his head slightly. “Ye’re welcome.”
The silence settled back over them, awkward now, at least for her. Her hands stilled, her gaze fixed on the cloth in her lap as if it might speak first. The weight of his nearness pressed at the edges of her thoughts, and she suddenly felt the heat rise again.
“What’s yer name?” she asked quietly.
He looked at her directly then, as if he had known the question would come and had been waiting for it.
“Mairead,” she offered when he said nothing. “O’ Caorann. I came with the Church.”
He rose with the quiet resolve of someone who never moved unless it served a purpose. Every inch of him stayed composed, as if motion itself were a decision.
“Raghnall,” he said.
The name struck something inside her. It was a name spoken in sermons and whispers both, a name she had been taught to fear before she ever understood what fear was. Laird Raghnall, they had said, worshipped stone and storm, bowed to trees, not God. She had imagined someone wild-eyed, beastlike. This man was none of those things, which somehow made it worse.
“Raghnall mac Anndra?”
He nodded. A single, precise gesture. ”Aye.”
Her spine straightened. “Ye’re the laird o’ Glen Lyon?”
He arched a brow. “Dae I look like a stable boy?”
She studied him, stunned. This was the man whispered about in Caorann, the one used to frighten children into obedience? This was the pagan laird whose name preceded threats and warnings?
“I didnae expect—”
“What?”
“That ye were the one tae save me.” Her throat worked once around the words, a quiet swallow betraying something she couldn’t name. The admission felt heavier spoken aloud than it had in her thoughts.
He didn’t smile. But something in his expression shifted. ”Why nae?”
“Because…” She hesitated. The words came to her more quickly than they should have, and she nearly swallowed them again. But honesty was a sharp thing once unsheathed. “…ye’re a pagan.”
He exhaled through his nose. The noise was quiet, not amused. “Pagan. Nae a monster.”
Her fingers curled slightly at her sides. “Aye. But that’s nae… I dinnae mean it as a curse.”
His mouth flattened. “Good. If I were,” he said, tone sharpening, “ye’d be dead.”
“I’ve nay right tae judge.” She bit her lip. “But I have every right tae question.”
“And I’ve every right tae be offended,” he said, the corners of his mouth unmoving. His expression held no heat, only the tired caution of a man who had heard this too many times to care, but not enough to let it pass unanswered.
Their eyes held, unmoving.
Then, quieter, he added, “This wasnae meant tae happen.”
“The fire?”
He nodded.
She searched his face. No flicker of doubt, no hesitation. Just certainty, worn thin by anger. ”It was yer people.”
She stared at him, the words catching in her mouth before she said them. The weight of ash still clung to her skin, and the screams still echoed somewhere behind her ribs.
“That daesnae change what’s been done,” she said at last, quieter than before.
“Nay,” he said. “But it determines what happens next.” His voice was level, but there was something bitter buried beneath it.
She didn’t know what he meant. The men who had started the fire…Were they his kin? His enemies? In Caorann, they spoke of Glen Lyon justice as something half-legend, half-warning. There were stories of blood rites, of traitors buried standing. She had never known what to believe. And now, with the laird before her, she realized she still didn’t.
Mairead looked down at her hands. The cloth had gone slack in her grip. ”I cannae stay here. Nae beside a man who denies God.”
He continued, his tone unchanging. “Ye dinnae need faith tae act with decency. Or courage. I pulled ye from the fire. I stopped the man who would’ve defiled ye. I helped ye breathe. If that’s nae holy enough, perhaps yer God measures with a narrow rule.”
She didn’t speak. She had prayed and this man, this pagan, had been the one to answer.
His words echoed in the hollow of her chest, heavier than scripture. If she told the priests in Caorann what had happened and what he had done, they would call it luck. Or blasphemy.
The sea had left her drowsy, lulled by its constant motion and whispered promises. For the final hour of the crossing, Odette remained pressed against the wooden rail, her fingers curled tightly around the rough wool of her traveling cloak, eyes heavy as she watched the misty outline of land approach. The salt air clung to her skin, gritty and cold, and the cries of gulls echoed overhead, sharp and plaintive beneath the leaden sky.
When the vessel finally docked, she rose with the tentative grace of a child on the edge of something unfamiliar. Her legs tingled, sluggish from stillness. Her braid had loosened in the wind, blonde strands sticking to her damp cheeks. This place—Scotland—felt different. The wind had teeth. The sky was a veil of iron. She understood none of the words shouted by the dockhands. They were foreign, clipped and unfamiliar, heavy in the mouth like stones.
Her small suitcase, a worn blue leather case tied with her mother’s ribbon, felt too heavy in her hands. Each footstep down the gangplank thudded louder than it should have, echoing through her chest as much as the dock.
A black carriage waited nearby, rigid and formal, its wooden frame trimmed in tarnished metal. Emblazoned on the door was a strange crest—a lion encircled by curling vines.
A tall, expressionless man approached. He wore a long black coat and gloves, his hair neatly combed, his face unreadable.
“Mademoiselle Odette,” he said, bowing his head slightly. His accent was thick, foreign to her ear. “Yer faither is expecting ye. I am Malcolm, the house butler.”
She offered a shy, halting “Bonjour,” barely above a whisper.
He did not return the greeting. Instead, he reached for her case.
“I can carry it,” she said quickly, some part of her wanting to assert herself, to hold onto one small thread of control.
“Aye,” he replied, taking it regardless. “But ye willnae.”
She followed him in silence, her footsteps muffled by the wet earth.
Inside the carriage, the upholstery was stiff and cold. She folded her hands in her lap, posture perfect, chin high—like her governess had taught her. But her eyes remained fixed to the small window, watching the countryside roll past like a dream she wasn’t part of. The hills were wide and grey-green, dotted with sheep and stone fences. The sky loomed endlessly above, a pale wash of silver.
She missed the golden warmth of France. She missed the sound of bread crust cracking open. She missed the scent of lavender and the steady cadence of voices she understood.
Four days since she’d seen her governess. Her father’s letters had been frequent and affectionate—ink-smudged, always ending with promises—but it had been nearly two years since she had seen him. He had remarried. A Scottish woman named Sheona. Odette had practiced the name in secret, over and over. But it always sounded like flint between her teeth.
The house rose like a relic from the hill.
Not quite a castle, but close. Its dark stone walls were coated in ivy, and the roofline cut sharp against the sky. The windows were long and narrow, recessed like eyes. Two stone griffins flanked the grand entrance, their mouths frozen mid-snarl.
The carriage halted. Malcolm stepped out and opened the door, offering a gloved hand.
“Welcome tae Beaumont House,” he said.
She stepped down cautiously, boots crunching against the gravel. The air smelled of ash and peat, of something earthy and old. She wrapped her cloak tighter around her shoulders.
A man stood at the top of the stairs.
Familiar.
“Papa!” she cried, voice breaking.
She dropped her suitcase and ran. Her braid bounced against her back. Her legs, unsteady on the voyage, found speed as if her body remembered its way home.
He caught her mid-leap, arms wrapping tight around her waist. His coat smelled like pipe smoke and worn parchment. His beard brushed her cheek like bristles. Her heart opened.
“Ma petite,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to her temple. “Mon coeur. Look at you. You have grown like the wild roses of summer.”
She burrowed against him, desperate for his warmth, for the solidity of him. He was here. Real. Solid. She felt like she might dissolve if she let go.
“I missed you,” she whispered, her voice trembling.
“And I, you. Every day since I left.”
He set her down gently, brushing windblown hair from her brow. “Taller, no? And your mother’s eyes. The same frown when you’re trying not to cry.”
She laughed, embarrassed, and swiped at her eyes.
Then she felt it.
A presence.
She turned slowly.
At the top of the stairs, standing just beyond the threshold of the house, was a woman. She was tall and composed, her dress a deep forest green. Her dark auburn hair was pulled so tightly from her face it gave her an expression of severity. Her smile was slight, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Her hands were folded in front of her.
Odette knew instantly that this was Sheona. There was nothing warm in her posture. Nothing soft. Her beauty was precise, calculated.
Odette stepped slightly closer to her father.
For a moment, it was as if nothing had changed. But then he drew back. His hands, strong and rough, stayed at her shoulders, anchoring her in the hush that followed.
“Ma petite,” he said, his voice softened by memory. He crouched to her level, searching her face. “No one will ever take the place of your maman. You know that. She was… irreplaceable.”
Odette nodded, though her chin trembled. The soft weight of those words curled into her like a ribbon, sad and sweet. She didn’t fully understand them, but she wanted to believe them. Her father had always spoken in truths too large for her to hold all at once. Still, she nodded. That was what daughters did.
He pressed onward, gently. “But sometimes, when the heart has known sorrow, it learns to carry joy again. Not the same joy—but a new kind. You will understand one day, when you are older.”
Odette wasn’t sure she wanted a new kind. She wanted the old kind, the kind that smelled of lemon soap and sang lullabies in French. But she nodded again. Her fingers gripped the fabric of his coat with the desperation of someone trying to hold on to what remained.
He rose and turned to the woman who had been waiting, half in shadow.
“Odette,” he said carefully, “this is Sheona.”
Sheona came forward, her steps deliberate. She lowered herself into a crouch with a poise that reminded Odette of statues—elegant, unmoving, cold.
“Hello, Odette,” she said. Her French was passable, but her voice held none of the softness of the language. It was too precise.
Odette dipped her head politely. She did not smile, not yet. But she stepped forward when her father gave the smallest nod.
Sheona’s embrace came too quickly. It was practiced, unnatural in its choreography. Her arms wrapped around Odette tightly—too tightly. The fabric of her bodice smelled of lilies and something metallic, like jewelry left out in the rain. Odette felt the pressure of the woman’s ribs, the tension in her shoulders. This was not the softness of her mother’s touch. This was something else.
“Ye are lovelier than I imagined,” Sheona murmured. “So delicate.”
Odette pulled away and blinked. “Merci, Madame.”
Her father smiled, proud. “Sheona has prepared everything for your arrival. The room, your books, even a few sweets.”
Odette forced a smile and turned toward Sheona again. “You look very elegant,” she offered, in her best polite French. “Like someone from a painting.”
Sheona’s eyes narrowed slightly, but her lips curled upward. “What a lovely thing tae say.”
Footsteps clattered on the stairs.
Two girls appeared, descending quickly. One was taller, with pale gold hair tied back in an elaborate braid and a faint, curious smile. The other trailed just behind, her auburn curls bouncing, her expression sharp and sizing.
“And these,” said her father, gesturing with pride, “are your new sisters. Vivienne and Celeste.”
Vivienne curtsied. “Bonjour,” she said in halting French, the accent harsh. “Welcome tae Scotland.”
Celeste folded her arms. “She’s not as tall as I thought. Papa said she was nearly ten.”
“I am ten,” Odette said, blinking.
Celeste turned her head. “Dinnae look it.”
“Celeste,” Sheona said, her tone flat with warning, but the girl only smirked.
Vivienne stepped forward. “We’re going tae the garden,” she said. “Maman says it’s good tae get fresh air.”
Odette hesitated, unsure whether that was an invitation.
Her father rested a hand on her head. “Go on, ma chérie. Play with your sisters. The sun’s still out, and the garden is safe.”
She looked down at her shoes. The laces were crooked; one had loosened on the walk from the carriage. Her stockings sagged slightly. Her dress, though carefully chosen, was wrinkled from travel. Her fingers clutched at the edge of her sleeve.
“Can I leave my suitcase in my room first?”
“Of course,” he said. “Malcolm will see to it.”
She turned and followed the girls. They did not wait. Their skirts flared as they hurried through the corridor, whispering to each other in quick, breathless bursts. Odette’s smaller steps forced her to skip now and then to keep up.
The back doors opened into a garden that looked like it had once been drawn from a fairytale. But now that story had ended. The rose bushes were unruly. The hedges overgrown. Lavender and heather crowded the paths. Wild bees danced between blossoms.
Celeste darted toward a crooked swing and shouted, “Ye can sit if ye want! But the bench is wet.”
“Yes,” Vivienne echoed. “Ye can watch.”
Then they were gone—laughing, swinging, racing in circles that did not include her.
Odette remained where she was, caught in a pause she didn’t know how to step out of. The sun warmed her shoulders. A breeze fluttered the edges of her sleeves. Her new sisters’ voices lifted and echoed across the garden like birds in flight.
She moved to the bench and sat carefully, tucking her dress beneath her. The wood was indeed damp. She felt it soak through her stockings. But she didn’t stand.
Sheona’s hug still lingered. Her words, too, with their polished sweetness. Odette’s mind tried to sift through what felt strange. The house was grand. The garden full. But something within her remained unsure.
She watched the clouds drift, white and careless. A bee landed near her foot. She tucked her hands beneath her knees. She would be good. She would be sweet. That was what girls like her were meant to be.
But already, the world felt different.
Already, she felt alone.
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The Charming Laird’s Burning Claim – Get Extended Epilogue
The hills of Normandy unfurled like velvet beneath a sky the color of old parchment, the kind of gold-streaked hue that made memory feel tangible.
It had taken them a day to cross the Channel, in a blend of sea salt and sun-warmed air, and then it had taken a week of winding carriage rides and careful directions through the French countryside. But now, standing at the gates of the old Beaumont estate, Odette felt something ancient stir within her. Time folded inward like parchment being creased, layers of her childhood pressing into the present.
The air smelled of loam and lavender, a heady perfume that nestled in the bones and coaxed breath into something slower, reverent. The wind danced gently through the tall grass, brushing the hem of her travel gown, tugging playfully at her veil. She stood still, holding Gregory’s hand tightly, as though grounding herself in his warmth might steady her through what was to come.
The wrought iron archway loomed before them, still shaped like climbing vines. A faded ‘B’ crowned the gate, tarnished now, but familiar. Achingly familiar.
The caretaker had given her a key when they had passed by his cottage. The house had been maintained at a bare minimum, for Sheona had withheld most of the money her father had allotted for it for upkeep after his death. But it had never been fully abandoned and still stood proud, if tired.
The garden was overgrown, tangled in silence.
Wild roses had claimed the walkways like conquerors. Ivy strangled the old arbor where she used to sit with her governess on warm afternoons. Stone benches were hidden beneath thick blankets of moss, and the central fountain—a swan with wings curved in marble grace—was cracked and dry, its basin filled with leaves and forgotten petals.
Odette exhaled slowly. Her voice came out hushed. “This used to be beautiful.”
Gregory squeezed her hand and looked around. “It still is. It just needs coaxing. I could hire someone today, if ye’d like. A whole crew. It’ll be humming wi’ life by week’s end.”
She turned to him, heart swelling with affection. “You would do that?”
“Fer ye,” he said, “I’d restore the entire world.”
She leaned against him, resting her head briefly on his shoulder. The ache inside her, the one she had feared would return when she stepped back into France, was gentled by the steady rhythm of his presence. Her fingers curled more tightly into his.
“I want to see the house,” she said.
They climbed the wide steps together. The marble was stained by decades of rain and sun, and the once-white columns were streaked with gray. She paused at the grand doors, white with bronzed filigree handles shaped like lilies. Her hand hovered at the knob, fingers brushing its cool metal.
Her heart pounded. Her mother had once passed through these doors every morning, dressed in silk. She had watched from the window when Odette danced on the terrace. Her father’s voice had thundered in the halls just beyond.
She closed her eyes, then turned the knob.
The door creaked open slowly, the sound reverberating through the hollow stillness. Dust lifted like ghosts from the air, shimmering in the sunlight as they drifted past the chandelier above.
The entry hall greeted her like a breath she hadn’t taken in years. The checkered marble floor bore faint outlines where rugs had once lain. The chandelier, once a crystal bloom, was dulled by cobwebs. Her mother’s mirror still hung above the console table, catching light just enough to reflect Odette’s silhouette back to her.
She stepped inside.
“It’s exactly as I left it,” she whispered, each word trembling.
Gregory didn’t speak. He followed her, quiet, reverent.
They wandered slowly through the estate, her memories guiding each turn. In the drawing room, faded curtains billowed slightly in the breeze. The scent of dried roses lingered beneath the dust. Her mother’s harp stood in the corner, its strings loose but unbroken. Odette reached out, her fingers brushing one softly. A faint note sounded—fragile, but still there.
Her throat closed.
In the dining room, the long table still stood proud, flanked by velvet chairs. She ran her hand along its surface, remembering the echo of porcelain teacups and the soft clicking of her mother’s ring against the rim. The candlesticks were tarnished but upright.
They ascended the grand staircase, her hand sliding along the worn banister. In the hallway above, shadows moved with them like memories come to watch.
Her father’s study was unchanged. The curtains were drawn, but she opened them slowly. Light poured in, revealing shelves of ledgers, a leather-bound chair by the hearth, and a coat—his coat—still hanging near the door. The globe stood mid-spin, caught in stasis from a moment long ago.
“I never liked this room,” she murmured.
Gregory took her hand, didn’t ask why.
She guided him onward, and they stepped into the hallway,
The library door creaked open.
Sunlight streamed through tall windows, bathing the room in gold. The shelves towered to the ceiling, their spines faded but present. Dust coated everything, but her fingers found their way without hesitation. She crossed to the back wall, knelt slightly, and pulled a slender book from the lowest shelf.
It was pale green, the leather worn.
“These,” she said, holding it close. “These were mine. The poetry books.”
Gregory knelt beside her. “The poetry ye read in secret?”
“You remembered,” She smiled faintly. “I would sneak down here after everyone had gone to bed and read by candlelight. I memorized whole passages.”
Gregory reached for a volume beside hers and opened it at random. “Ye wanted tae be a poet?”
“Sometimes. Other times I wanted to be a teacher. Or a painter.”
He grinned. “And instead ye ended up married tae a Highland laird.”
She laughed. “Yes. A fate I never would’ve guessed.”
Gregory traced a finger along the edge of the page. “But it suits ye. Because ye never stopped dreamin’. Nae even when the world tried tae silence ye.”
She looked at him, eyes shimmering. “You see all of me, don’t you?”
“Aye,” he said. “Every inch. And I love every version o’ ye. Past, present, and the ones still tae come.”
She closed the book and held it to her chest. “I feel like a ghost, being here.”
Gregory moved behind her, arms wrapping gently around her waist. He rested his chin against her shoulder.
“We get tae decide what lives again,” he whispered.
They stood there in silence, surrounded by pages and breath, in the house that had shaped her and the man who would help her shape what came next.
After a long pause, she exhaled.
“There’s one more room,” she said. “I saved it for last.”
Gregory kissed her temple. “Then take me there, mo chridhe.”
She rose, fingers curled around the green book and turned toward the corridor.
At the end of the hall, the door waited—small, painted in faded lavender, the way it had always been.
Her childhood room.
The lavender door yielded softly under her hand.
Odette crossed the threshold slowly, the familiar scent of lilac and dust wrapping around her like a forgotten lullaby. Golden shafts of late afternoon light filtered through the sheer lace curtains, painting delicate shadows across the floorboards. For a long moment, she stood still, her fingers still on the knob, overwhelmed by a rush of memories too immense to voice.
The room had remained untouched by time.
Pale blue walls, bordered with ivory trim, retained the softness of her girlhood. The carved vanity by the window was scattered with combs and a small porcelain tray, edges chipped but still lovely. Dolls lined the mantle—faded, but their button eyes gleamed with silent witness. On the far wall, her earliest watercolors still hung slightly askew, curling at the edges, the paper warped with age. The past had waited patiently for her return.
“This is where I imagined I ruled the world,” she murmured, stepping deeper inside.
Gregory stood at the doorway, quietly observing her with a reverence that made her throat tighten. As he crossed the threshold, each of his movements seemed imbued with care, as if afraid to disturb the sacred quiet.
She turned toward him with a small smile. “If I wore my mother’s gloves and my favorite tulle skirt, I truly believed I was a queen.”
He gave a soft chuckle. “Ye always had that look about ye. Still dae.”
Odette let the sound of her laughter warm the space before drifting to the wardrobe. The hinges groaned in protest as she pulled it open. Inside, small dresses hung in neat rows, adorned with satin ribbons and lace overlays. She reached out to grab them, her fingers trembling.
“My mother made many of these,” she said quietly. “Each one for a different occasion. She used to say that beauty mattered, even if no one saw it.”
Gregory ran a thumb along one sleeve, marveling at the craftsmanship. “They’re beautiful. But they’re… a wee bit small fer ye now, I think.”
Her lips curved, a blush coloring her cheeks.
She turned, hesitating for a breath. “Oh. No. They’re not for me.”
Gregory tilted his head. “Nay? Then who are they fer?”
Odette’s hands curled around the edge of a dress as she looked at him, eyes glimmering.
“Our child,” she said, voice barely above a whisper.
The words fell into the stillness like a blessing. Gregory stood frozen, eyes fixed on hers. Then his lips parted, and his breath caught.
“Ye’re…”
She nodded, her eyes brimming. “I wanted to tell you when the moment was right. I wanted us to be here. Where it all began.”
He crossed to her in two steps, gathering her into his arms. She laughed, tears mingling with joy, as he lifted her and spun her lightly. When he set her down, he held her as if anchoring himself in something holy.
“Are ye certain? Truly?”
“Yes,” she breathed.
He dropped to his knees before her, his hands sliding gently to her waist, his cheek pressing against her abdomen.
“Hello, little one,” he whispered, eyes closed. “It’s Da. Ye’ve already changed everything.”
Odette tangled her fingers in his hair, tears trailing down her cheeks.
They settled on the edge of the bed. The mattress creaked beneath them, same as it always had. Her hand guided his to her stomach, pressing it there with quiet reverence.
“It’s early,” she said, “but I feel it. I already know.”
Gregory’s thumb stroked the soft fabric. “Will it have yer eyes?”
“And your impossibly stubborn jaw,” she replied with a smile.
He groaned playfully. “A Highland-French whirlwind. We’re in trouble.”
They both laughed.
Then he sobered, his gaze steady. “Odette, I swear tae ye, I will be the faither this child deserves. I’ll teach our bairns tae be brave and kind, tae fight when they must and love without fear. Just as I learned from ye.”
She pressed her forehead to his.
“And I’ll teach them to dream,” she said. “To love stories, to cherish silence, to find beauty in small things. I’ll show them this place and tell them who their mother was before she became their mother.”
He nodded, eyes gleaming. “We’ll raise them between two countries. Let them walk the green hills and speak with fire in their voice. Let them belong tae both lands.”
“We’ll give them names that mean strength. That carry memory.”
“Aye,” he whispered. “And hope.”
She kissed him then, full of light and longing and quiet joy. Her hands framed his face, and his arms circled her waist, grounding her. They stayed like that, suspended in the moment, in a room where every ghost had been turned into something soft.
When they parted, golden light filtered in long beams across the floor. Dust motes swirled like confetti in celebration.
Odette looked around the room. The toys, the books, the colors of her past all whispered promises.
“I want to restore it all,” she said. “The house, the garden. I want our children to visit here, as often as they’d want.”
Gregory squeezed her hand. “Then that’s what we’ll dae. Every wall, every window. Whatever it takes.”
Don’t miss your link to the whole book at the end of the preview.
Chapter One
Beaumont Estate, 1715
Odette Beaumont was already on her feet, toes brushing the cold stone floor as she tugged her dressing gown tighter, the morning sun not yet generous with its warmth. Her long, blonde hair was still half-pinned, the rest tumbling in stubborn waves down her back, and she had not yet touched the basin of water meant to greet her waking. There was no time. There never was.
She yanked open the shutters to a dawn streaked in silver, the light glinting across the wide, lonely land she was forced to call home. The Beaumont estate stretched beyond what the eye could measure, but it was land slowly being choked by darkness and decay. But that morning, their salvation would come in the form of Nevil Hillam.
Even the name clanged in her head like iron dropped onto marble. He was due to arrive by noon, a man with enough property to silence most councilmen, and just enough charm to pass for appealing, though Odette had never seen him in person. She had only heard of him from Sheona’s lips, while her stepmother taught her daughters, over afternoon tea, all the ways to trap a man like him.
Odette moved quickly, folding out of her sleep-wrinkled linens with military precision. Her gown slid off her shoulders in one swift motion, and she dressed in a cream working dress, before her hair was fully secured with a blue ribbon behind her head. She left her room without ceremony, door swinging wide as she strode into the corridor. The floorboards groaned underfoot, but she didn’t wince. She’d grown used to those groans. If the house wasn’t complaining, she’d worry it had finally given up.
Nevil owned the land that pressed against the Beaumont estate borders. If his acres married theirs, they might finally tear their lands from the Galbraith clan’s grasp. That was the current Beaumont strategy, the one Odette had overheard Sheona preparing for the past few years.
In the grand hall, the light through the arched windows bled golden across the dusty floors. She paused, taking stock.
That was where Nevil would first step foot. She saw it clearly—the muddy boot prints, the scuffs on the wainscotting, the way the dust danced in the morning light, ready to betray every untended surface.
And Odette, the sole biological Beaumont daughter, had been reduced to little more than a maid. A head maid at best, accountable for every speck of dust that dared settle on any surface. Today, of all days, everything had to be flawless.
Sheona had always insisted that the inheritance left behind by her father, the late Louis Beaumont, was hers alone to manage. Not one coin, not a parcel, had been left in Odette’s name. “Yer faither didnae believe in daughters as heirs,” Sheona had once said with a smug shrug, draped in mourning silk that had cost enough to feed the tenants for half a year.
Odette had accepted it at the time. She had been young, scared and foolishly obedient, her grief over her father’s death leaving no room to consider the consequences of being left penniless and alone.
With a deep breath, she rolled up her sleeves and got to work. Her arms started to ache halfway through sweeping, but she pressed on. The rugs were beaten, the banisters polished until they reflected her face. In the dining hall, she rearranged the chairs three times before they felt right, then set to polishing the silver until it gleamed like a second sun. She opened the tall windows, letting in the scent of summer-laced grass and the soft rustle of garden life.
The garden. It needed to be perfect.
A picnic had been suggested by Sheona with her usual flippant grace, a casual thing said with a velvet-bound voice. But it meant more work. Odette paced through the hedgerows and flower beds, rearranging cushions, checking for bees’ nests in the seats, retying the canopies in tighter knots, pulling weeds with her bare hands.
By the time she finished, her palms were streaked with green, her back damp from effort. Still, she couldn’t stop. She rushed inside, carefully washing and drying her feet before, to avoid smudging the pristine floors, then made her way to the kitchen. Her stomach growled once, but she ignored it. The cook should have been halfway through the preparations by now.
Instead, she was met with chaos.
“Didnae I tell ye, ye fumble-fingered nyaff?” The cook’s voice cracked like a whip across the kitchen, aimed at some cowering maid.
The cook’s face was the color of overripe plums from the oven’s blistering heat and a lifetime of shouted orders. Arms thick as rolling pins carved through the flour-dusted air, sending clouds swirling in their wake as she bellowed at the staff.
Her two assistants scrambled about like cornered hens, all twitchy limbs and darting glances, their aprons flapping as if the devil himself were at their heels. The clang of copper pots dueled with the hiss of boiling stock, but the cook’s voice cut through it all, like razored steel against the kitchen’s roar. Then those flinty eyes locked on Odette.
A derisive snort escaped her before she made a failed attempt at composing herself. “Dinnae look at me like that, Miss Odette. I told the girls yesterday—we’re out o’ nutmeg, we’re out o’ sugar, and the butcher delivered lamb instead o’ quail. Lamb! Fer a picnic!”
Odette didn’t blink. “Give me the list.”
Cook blinked, startled. “Ye’ll go yerself?”
“Unless you’d like to present roasted lamb for the picnic.”
The cook thrust the list at her, muttering under her breath, and Odette turned on her heel and headed toward the grand entrance. She was halfway to the door, breath already picking up with the anticipation of a sprint to town, when two high-pitched voices trilled down the hall.
“Odette!”
“Odette! Wait!”
Celeste first, all powdered cheeks and manicured hands, followed by Vivienne with her sharp eyes and the silken sneer she thought was subtle. They were already impeccably dressed, with corsets too tight, hair pinned in elaborate nests and lips like bleeding cherries. Odette stilled. She knew that tone, and she cursed herself for not leaving the house a little earlier, before they’d had a chance to see her leave.
Vivienne reached her first. “Ye’ve nae fixed the hem o’ me gown, and I want it ready fer the luncheon before—”
Celeste interrupted, “And I cannae find the sapphire comb. The one we brought back from Elmsport? I need it. And the ribbon box—have ye even looked? I told ye days ago.”
“Ye havenae cleaned me room,” Vivienne added, as if the realization offended her.
Celeste brightened. “Or mine! And Maither said we should each bring a token fer Mr. Hillam. Something thoughtful. Like poetry, maybe? Or an embroidered kerchief? Ye can dae one fer each o’ us. Ye’re good with thread.”
“And words.”
The list spiraled impossibly fast, like a fever dream. Odette did not flinch. She stood very still, the market list in her fingers like a blade.
“If you keep me here, there will be no food on the table when Mr. Hillam arrives. There will be no tokens, no hemmed gowns, no sapphire combs—no picnic.” Odette finally interrupted them, raising a hand to silence their chatter as she struggled to contain her frustration. Losing her temper would only make matters worse.
Vivienne’s brows lifted. “Well, someone’s in a mood.”
“Dinnae take that tone with us,” Celeste huffed. “If ye speak tae us like that again, we’ll tell Mther. Ye ken what that means.”
A flicker of pain, deep in the spine. A ghost-memory of leather across skin, of welts hidden beneath dresses. Odette met their eyes squarely.
“Do what you must. As will I.” And she pushed past them before either could reply.
Outside, the morning had warmed. The sun found her skin, kissing the sheen of sweat that coated her neck and collarbone. The sky stretched open above her, and her boots hit the gravel path with purposeful rhythm. She felt the familiar ache of fury in her chest—a low, ever-burning heat that she had learned to breathe around.
The wind caught her hair as she stepped onto the main road, tugging strands free from the ribbon she’d tied low behind her neck. She didn’t bother to fix it. The market waited for her, and her time was already borrowed. She pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders and kept her gaze steady, her steps sure.
The town wore suspicion like a second skin. It clung to the buildings, weather-worn and squat, and to the faces of the people who watched from behind carts and cracked shutters. Odette knew how they saw her. Her features were too delicate, her posture too straight, her cheeks too sharply carved, her tongue too quick. She was too foreign to blend in with them—too French. And the town hated the French.
It didn’t matter that she had lived in the Highlands since she was fourteen. It didn’t matter that she had earned her keep and held her tongue. Her voice betrayed her the moment she opened her mouth. Her vowels had edges. So, she spoke as little as she could.
Every errand was a tightrope. The Galbraith lands bristled with men who polished their muskets like sacred relics and saw rebellion in every stranger’s glance. Their hatred of outsiders ran deep as their peat bogs, and they had no patience for women who didn’t know their place. Especially not foreign women with French and Jacobite blood whispering through their veins.
Odette never bowed.
She kept her eyes forward and her steps quick. The grocer’s stall stood first in her path. Lemons. Soft cheese. She pushed open the shop door, its bell jingling with false cheer.
“Well now, good day tae ye, miss.” The grocer’s son leaned against the counter, broad shoulders straining his linen shirt, a smirk playing about his mouth that suggested he found himself endlessly amusing. His gaze swept over her like she was a cut of meat on display. “What can I dae fer ye today?”
She said nothing. Simply raised one finger and pointed to the yellow citrus stacked in woven baskets. His smirk faltered. An awkward beat passed before he huffed and began bagging the lemons, his thick fingers denting their waxy skins.
When she pointed next to the cheese, a creamy round wrapped in muslin, he snatched it up without meeting her eyes this time, his earlier charm curdling into irritation.
Coins clinked against the counter as she paid. As he counted out her change, she caught his muttered words, “Bloody odd, some folk…”
The insult hung in the air between them, sour as the lemons in her basket.
Odette pocketed the change without reaction. Pride was for those who could afford it—for women who hadn’t been whipped by their stepmothers two days prior.
The baker was next. The girl behind the counter wouldn’t meet her eye. That was fine. Odette didn’t need friendship. She needed flour. It wasn’t until she reached the end of the row of shops, where the butcher’s stood with its sagging sign and smoke-scented walls, that she allowed herself to breathe more deeply.
Maria, the butcher’s wife, greeted her with a warm smile from behind the counter, hands still dusted with salt. Her dark hair was pulled back in a braid, her apron worn through at the hips. She looked tired, but kind. She was always kind.
“Ye look flustered today,” Maria said, wiping her hands on a cloth.
“It’s been quite a day today,” Odette replied with a faint smile. “I have come to buy some quails, for the picnic.”
The two children—Niall and little Tom—darted out from the back room like arrows. Tom hugged Odette’s legs with the enthusiasm of a pup, and she reached down to ruffle his hair. Niall simply grinned at her from behind a row of smoked sausages.
“How is the madhouse today?” Maria asked, moving behind the counter and beginning to wrap parcels.
Odette exhaled through her nose. “Vivienne has a list of demands for me before noon, Celeste is looking for fine jewels, and Mr. Hillam arrives by noon.”
“May the saints protect ye.”
“They’ve stopped answering me letters.”
Maria laughed. The sound was rough and real. It softened Odette in places inside her soul she didn’t realize had gone stiff.
“Still thinking o’ running off?” Maria asked after a moment, quieter now. More cautious.
Odette looked at her, then glanced at the children, who were busy poking at a jar of pickled onions. “I’ve sent a letter,” she said softly. “To my aunt in Lyon.”
Maria stilled. Her dark brows drew together. “That aunt? The one with the bakery near the port?”
“The same. I don’t know if she still lives there. Or if she still thinks of me as family. But if she does…”
Maria nodded. “She will.”
“I asked her for help. A place to stay. Funds, if she can spare them.”
“And if she daesnae reply?”
Odette wrapped her arms across her chest. “Then I will think again. But I had to try.”
Maria looked at her for a long time, then passed over the wrapped parcel of meats and dry sausages. “Ye deserve more than that house. More than scraps and silence.”
“We all do.”
The door creaked open behind them. Three men stepped inside.
They were not locals. Odette knew that before they spoke by the way they carried themselves, like they expected space to be cleared for them. Their coats were long, travel-stained, their boots laced in a style she hadn’t seen in months. One of them, taller than the others, had a scar across his chin that looked recent.
“We need supplies,” the tallest said, voice low and hard. “Dry meats. Cuts that keep. And nay fuss.”
Maria’s smile faltered. “Aye. I’ve some salted pork and beef left from last week.”
The man gave her a cursory nod, eyes already moving over the room. When they landed on Odette, they paused.
“Ye from here?” he asked.
Odette met his gaze evenly, then nodded.
The man stepped closer. Not threatening, exactly. But not friendly either. “Where from?”
“Nearby,” she said. Clear. Calm.
He stared at her for a moment longer, then snorted. Maria moved quickly, placing a wrapped parcel on the counter.
“Here. That should hold ye through the week. It’s all I have until Friday.”
The men exchanged a glance. The one with the scar dropped coins on the wood, never looking away from Odette. Then, the man smiled, slow and ugly. But he turned and walked toward the door. The three of them left without another word and the door shut behind them like a falling axe.
Maria exhaled. “Saints. Odette—”
“I know.”
Maria reached across the counter and touched her hand. “Just go home. Dinnae linger too long.”
Odette nodded. She gathered the parcels, kissed both children and stepped back into the wind.
Chapter Two
Odette clutched the heavy parcels against her chest, her shawl slipping down her shoulder as she half-walked, half-ran down the lane, boots thudding against the damp earth. She cursed herself under her breath for wasting time, though the words came out in little puffs of steam. Idiot. Foolish, chattering idiot. What had possessed her to stay so long? Laughing with Maria like she hadn’t a thousand things left to do. As if that day wasn’t the day the entire household had been waiting for months.
The wind had picked up, dragging the clouds back across the sky and throwing a veil over the sun. Her pulse hammered a frantic rhythm beneath her collarbone, each beat painting the same damning picture of Sheona in the great hall, prematurely lighting the beeswax candles, while Vivienne and Celeste would be draped over their mother’s chaise by now, pouting through rosebud lips about how Odette hadn’t braided their hair with the pearl pins, how the lace at their cuffs hung crooked without her fingers to set it right.
And Nevil Hillam—
The thought struck like icy water. Nevil’s carriage would crest the eastern road in mere hours.
“Damn it,” she muttered, quickening her steps, her boots slipping on the moss-lined cobbles as she veered into a narrower street. Her breath caught sharp in her chest. It wasn’t far now. Just across the green, down the slope. She could be home in twenty minutes if she walked fast.
She was halfway through rearranging her to-do list in her mind—flowers first, then set the table, help Elise with the linens, reheat the broth—when she heard it.
Footsteps.
Heavy, deliberate, just a beat behind her own. She didn’t turn around. Not at first. There were always footsteps behind her in town, weren’t there? People walking, going about their day, minding their business. But something didn’t feel… right. They didn’t match the rhythm of the street. She could hear the click of her own boots, the rustling of her skirts and the echo of something heavier.
Her spine stiffened.
She told herself not to be silly. Town was busy today, as always was on market mornings, and the air smelled of smoked herring and damp wool. Nothing bad could happen in ordinary daylight.
She glanced over her shoulder. Just a flick of her eyes. They were there. The same three men from the shop.
They weren’t near enough to touch her. Not within arm’s reach, and yet they were still too close. Far too close for men who should have been halfway to the tavern by now, considering she’d deliberately lingered in the shop until their footsteps had faded five minutes past.
Sunlight carved their features into something unfamiliar. Indoors, they’d been just rough-faced laborers; out here, the glare sharpened them like knives on a whetstone. The dark-haired one who had spoken to her at the shop, taller than his companions, with a nose that hooked sharply to the left, wasn’t merely smiling. His lips peeled back from teeth that looked too white, too even, in a face weathered by wind and work. It wasn’t a smile at all. It was a predator’s grimace, twisting his already harsh features into something grotesque. The kind of expression that made a woman’s palms sweat and her throat tighten, though she couldn’t say why.
One of the others, shorter and broader, said something low and guttural. The dark-haired man’s smirk widened, and for one terrible second, Odette imagined she could smell the ale on their breath, even across the distance between them.
She snapped her head forward and kept walking, faster now, steps clipped and uneven, eyes fixed on the narrow path ahead.
Don’t panic. You’re imagining things.
She turned down a darker lane. It was narrower than the others, a shortcut only locals used, with crooked little garden gates and several cats underfoot. She hadn’t meant to take it. Her feet had done it without asking her permission. But now that she was there, she tried to see it as a stroke of luck. If they were just going her way, they wouldn’t follow her here. They’d go the long way around, as any normal traveler might.
The road twisted. She passed the blacksmith’s shed, empty at this hour, and a cart of rotten apples, buzzing with flies. She let herself breathe again.
She glanced back. They were still there. All three of them. And they were getting closer.
Her fingers clenched around the string of the package so hard it bit into her skin. She turned down another path. One that made no sense unless you were from there—narrower than the previous, with uneven stones and thorns clawing at your legs. No stranger would know to follow it.
But they did and their boots slapped the stones, louder now. Her chest tightened. She wasn’t imagining it. She was not imagining it.
She sped up. Her arms ached from the weight of the parcels, but she didn’t stop. Her thoughts tangled into knots. Who were they? Why her? She hadn’t looked at them. Hadn’t said a word. Had she done anything to upset them?
She turned again, sharper this time, nearly losing her footing on a patch of gravel. She passed the old garden wall, ducked beneath the low-hanging tree where the crows always nested, and darted into the alley beside the milliner’s, which was narrow enough to make her shoulders brush brick.
When she emerged on the other side, she broke into a run.
The parcels were a hindrance. She clutched them tighter, arms burning, feet slipping, heartbeat hammering so loud she thought it might betray her. But she didn’t stop. Don’t look back. Just move. But she did look. They were running too. And they were faster than her.
No, no, no—
A loose stone caught her foot. She stumbled, arms flailing to catch balance. One bundle tumbled from her grip.
She didn’t even stop to mourn it. She sprinted, still carrying the other parcels.
Skirts flying, loose hair whipping her cheeks, breath ragged in her throat. Her home was still so far, and her feet ached, and the world was too loud.
She turned another corner. Dead end. She skidded to a halt, chest heaving, eyes wild.
No. Not here. Not here.
She spun around. They were there, blocking the only way out. They were silent now, grin gone from the tall one’s face. She backed up against the wall, fingers outstretched behind her, as if the cold stone might offer a way out. Her breath came in frantic bursts, her lungs too small, her heart too loud.
The tallest one spoke.
“Ye dropped yer things,” the words rolled out in a thick brogue, though she couldn’t place the region. Not that it mattered. There was no kindness in that voice, only a rough amusement that put her teeth on edge. She knew the accent well enough, though her own tongue could never wrap around those guttural vowels.
She didn’t answer.
The third one stepped forward. Blond, scruffy. His nose looked like it had been broken and badly set. “Bit o’ a rush, aren’t ye? Something wrong?”
“Yes,” she whispered, though she wasn’t sure they heard her.
The dark-haired one stepped into the center. “Funny how yer people always seem tae run when it’s time tae answer fer what they’ve done.”
Odette blinked. “What?”
He didn’t repeat himself.
“Ye live in that big house on the hill, dinnae ye?” asked the blond one, voice too casual. “With all the little silver spoons and the paintings o’ men who never bled a day in their lives.”
She didn’t reply. Couldn’t. Her voice had hidden somewhere beneath her ribs.
“Me land,” the dark one said, “used tae stretch as far as I could see. Me father built it. Me grandfather fought fer it. And yer fine French soldiers burned it tae ash.”
“Me maither,” added the third, quietest of the three, “died with yer flag above her.”
Odette shook her head. “I—I haven’t done anything. I don’t—my family hasn’t—”
“Yer family has,” said the tall one. “They all have. And ye wear their name.”
He stepped closer. Odette’s back hit the stone, as her fingers scraped rough brick and her heart beat so fast it was a war drum in her ears.
“We’ve waited a long time,” he said. “And now it’s time someone paid.”
Odette’s breath left her lungs in a sharp gasp.
The nearest man grabbed her by the upper arm, his grip vice-like and punishing. Another seized a handful of her hair, jerking her head back so suddenly her neck cracked. A small cry escaped her, shrill and desperate. She kicked at one of them—whoever had his hand at her waist—and he swore, grabbing her tighter. It all happened so fast. Her bundles fell to the ground, parcels bursting open.
“Let me go!” she screamed, twisting in their hold, nails clawing at their arms. She tried to bite one—anything to get them off—but they were too many and too strong for her to take on. Their laughter was cruel and close to her ear, their breath reeking of stale drink and old anger. Rough hands yanked at her shawl, another at the laces of her bodice. Her mind flooded with panic.
This is happening.
It didn’t feel real. It was as if she’d been dropped into someone else’s nightmare, someone else’s pain. Her limbs flailed in a hopeless attempt to break free. She kicked, scratched, screamed again. They slapped a hand over her mouth, but she bit it hard, drawing blood.
“Ye filthy little—!” one of them hissed.
A hand tangled in her hair, and with one wrenching pull, her ribbon snapped loose. The silk fluttered to the ground like a white flag of surrender. But she wasn’t surrendering. Not yet. Not ever. She didn’t stop fighting. Her voice cracked as she tried again to scream for help, her throat raw with the effort.
And then—
“Who’s there?”
A man’s voice, deep and cutting through the chaos like a blade. Not close, but not too far either.
Odette screamed again, louder this time. “Help!” Her voice split the quiet of the alley, bright with desperation. One of the men cursed, slapped her across the cheek hard enough to make her vision white out.
“Shut ‘er up!”
“I hear ye!” the voice came again, nearer now.
Odette fought harder, tasted blood in her mouth, tears streaming freely down her face.
Footsteps. Fast. And then—he was there.
At first, she didn’t know what she was seeing. Just a tall figure, broad and cloaked in shadows, standing at the mouth of the alley with a drawn sword.
“Step away from her,” he said, voice low and deadly.
The men froze. One of them laughed nervously. “And who the hell are ye supposed tae be?”
He took a step forward, sunlight catching on the blade.
“Yer final mistake.”
Then it all happened at once.
The stranger moved with terrifying precision. He disarmed the first man in a single motion, elbowed the second hard enough to send him crashing into a wall. The third ran for him with a dagger, only to find himself flat on his back in the mud within seconds, the weapon skidding away.
Odette crouched against the wall, clutching her arms around herself as the sounds of fists and bone and metal rang out in sickening rhythm. She couldn’t look away. Couldn’t even breathe.
He moved like a controlled but ferocious storm, effortless but wrathful. She couldn’t make out his face clearly, but every line of his body spoke of power, of danger wrapped in grace. The man appeared like something born of storm and legends. Every flex of his muscle, every controlled shift of weight speaking of power that hummed beneath his skin. Where other men lumbered or stumbled, he flowed, his body obeying some silent rhythm only he could hear. Sunlight caught his sharp jawline as he fought, and for one breathless moment, Odette forgot how to think.
Magnificent.
The word burned through her like whisky, leaving her throat tight. He was something primal. As if the old tales of warriors blessed by God had taken flesh before her. She couldn’t tear her eyes away.
Within moments, it was done.
The men groaned on the ground, one crawling, another unconscious. The third tried to get up, but the stranger placed a boot on his back and pressed him down.
“Tell yer friends,” he said quietly. “And if I ever see ye near her again, ye’ll regret drawing breath.”
The man whimpered. The stranger let him go. Odette still hadn’t moved.
He turned to her slowly, sword now lowered, his voice softened. “Are ye hurt?”
She blinked up at him, her mind trying to connect thoughts that wouldn’t hold. Her body was shaking, her breath came in short bursts. Her lip stung, her scalp burned where the man had yanked her hair.
“I’m—” She tried to nod. “I’m fine.”
He didn’t argue. Just looked at her a moment, then glanced at the basket she’d dropped in the scuffle. Loaves spilled, the meat parcel burst open and leaking across the stones. He crouched without a word. His movements were unhurried, not delicate exactly, but careful. Intentional.
She watched as he brushed dirt from one of the loaves with his bare hand, rewrapped the meat with surprising precision, and set them back inside the basket. Then, still kneeling, he pulled a clean, pale linen handkerchief from his coat pocket and unfolded it.
“Ye’re bleedin’,” he murmured, not quite meeting her eyes. “May I?”
Odette opened her mouth, unsure what she meant to say. Her hands were still trembling, but she gave the smallest nod.
He rose slowly and stepped close enough that the heat of him reached her, warmth radiating off his coat, his skin, the steam of his breath in the cooling afternoon. When he reached for her lip, he didn’t touch her. Just held the cloth near her mouth, offering it. Waiting.
She took it with shaking fingers. But when she pressed it to her mouth, her hand faltered. Without thinking, he caught her wrist. Not to still her, just to steady it. His grip was surprisingly gentle, calloused skin against hers.
Her heart stuttered. He guided her hand just slightly, then let go, as if the brief contact had been too much.
God, those hands.
Capable of wielding a broadsword yet now helping her tend a cut no deeper than a papercut with the reverence of a priest at altar. Roughened by war, but startlingly kind. Veins traced rivers of strength beneath sun-bronzed skin, the pulse at his wrist steady where hers fluttered wild as a caged bird. The brush of skin against skin sent a spark up her arm.
His shadowed, dark grey eyes lingered on her. He was tall. Not just tall, formidable. The kind of man who carried weight simply by standing still. His jaw was cut like stone, and his eyes, though unreadable, bore the gravity of someone who’d seen too much but feared nothing.
Odette’s breath caught. This strange flutter in her chest that had no place in this moment.
“I didn’t mean to cause trouble,” she whispered, brushing the tears from her cheeks. Her voice was hoarse. “I was just… heading home.”
She stood too quickly. Her knees buckled, and she nearly stumbled. He reached for her instinctively, one hand at her elbow, but she flinched.
“I’m fine,” she said again, too fast, too sharp.
He stepped back. Her hands shook as she patted her skirts, trying to gather whatever scraps of composure remained. Her ribbon lay in the dirt, but she left it. The thought of bending down, of presenting her back to anyone, even though he was her savior, made her stomach twist
“Thank you,” she said, eyes fixed on the ground. “For helping me.”
“I couldnae ignore yer screams.”
God, that voice. It rolls through me like low thunder before a storm.
“No,” she murmured. “I suppose not.”
She moved past him, legs stiff, shoes crunching on the gravel. She had to leave. Now. Before the tears started again. Before the fear made its way back in. She didn’t give him her name.
The alley spilled out into a narrow street, and she kept walking, faster now, turning sharply left and then right again. She didn’t look back, despite wanting to.
But she heard him.
“Wait—”
Her heart jumped. She kept walking.
“Miss—please—”
She broke into a jog, slipping between two houses, her body moving on instinct. She didn’t know why she ran. He had saved her, not hurt her, but her mind no longer had any trace of rationality. Her fear had roots, and they were deep.
