“Just to make sure,” she said testily.
“Alright,” he agreed, unsure how he felt about the condition but, given their situation, unwilling to disagree. “What was the second thing?”
“My clothes,” she said, smoothing a hand down her dress.
As she did so, he noticed that it was the same pale pink gown she had worn upon her arrival. It still looked damp from the rain and wrinkled all over. She looked a little disheveled.
“Did me servants nae provide ye with more clothes to wear? I shall speak with them?—”
“No,” she replied, with that same prim expression on her face. “I don’t wish to wear your wife’s old clothes. It doesn’t feel respectful to her, and I’d rather have them fit me properly. If you give me some money, I can buy some that are more suitable for the weather in Scotland. Or I might just freeze to death in my bed.”
He shook his head. Women were an odd breed. “Ye dinnae need to pay me back. It’ll be a gift,” he said, enjoying the idea that he could pay for something that would make her more comfortable.
He could imagine her in a gown of deep burgundy or mauve. It would bring out the color of her hair.
He cleared his throat. “What was the third thing?”
“As I said, I need to write to Daphne. I’d like permission to enter your study to get the things I will need.”
“That willnae be necessary,” came an unfamiliar male voice from the end of the corridor.
Magnus turned, a hand on his sword, shocked to see three figures standing before them.
One he recognized as the Englishman from MacIrvin Castle, finally giving him a full view of the man Leah was fleeing from. He was standing beside an apologetic-looking Laird MacIrvin, and the tall woman Magnus had seen speaking to Leah at the ceilidh.
He heard Leah gasp beside him, all the color draining from her face as she laid eyes on the older man.
Magnus felt his protective instincts drive him forward, and he stepped around Leah to block her from view.
The Englishman scoffed as he watched him do it, puffing out his chest in indignation as he advanced toward them.
“I am the Earl of Burton, and that is my daughter. She will be leaving with me immediately!”
CHAPTER 11
For the firsttime since he had known her, Magnus saw the fire in his phoenix’s eyes die. The second her eyes fell on her father, it was as though all the fight left her.
Magnus would not have previously described himself as the protective sort—he liked his own company and was not accustomed to coming to the defense of others, but he believed he would have run the man through if he had tried to take Leah from him at that moment.
“You are ruined!” the Earl thundered. “Your reputation, your life—everything. No man will want you now. I shall have to bribe half of thetonto forget this ill-advised sojourn.”
His gnarly hand was reaching toward Leah as he advanced on her, and Magnus felt a jolt of pure rage on her behalf. This was the man who would marry her off to the highest bidder without a thought for the life she would lead.
“Nothing I do matters as long as I uphold my family name.”
Leah’s words from the carriage echoed in his mind, and he hurriedly stepped in front of her.
The Englishman, whose fingers had been about to grip her upper arm, came to a halt, staring up at him with a practiced expression of outrage and indignation, his brow furrowed, his lips curled, his chest puffed out like a peacock’s. It must have taken him years to perfect it.
“Get out of my way this instant. Heaven only knows what depravities you have subjected my only daughter to while she has been under your roof.”
His bluster soon died, however, as Magnus took a menacing step forward.
“Papa, Laird MacWatt has done nothing of the sort!” Leah protested. “I am quite well. I merely needed a place to?—”
“You will be silent. I have never been so ashamed of anyone in my life. I expected better of you, girl.” Lord Burton stepped back as Magnus growled at him. “Someone remove this ogre from my sight this instant. I shall not be threatened, when all I wish to do is protect my daughter.”
He leaned around Magnus to fix his steely gaze on Leah again and scoffed as she backed away.
