The corner of his mouth twitched. “Trust me, I would have been there if I could.”
“It is a good thing I arrived, then. To save you the trouble.”
His brow creased.
She nodded toward the small trunk near the door. “Look, I brought my gown. You can see me in the yellow fabric you could have seen two weeks ago.”
“Are ye that eager to be me wife?” he asked, his voice lilting.
“Do not flatter yourself. This is a business arrangement.” She heard the breathlessness in her voice and despised that too. “That is what this has always been, has it not? You need a wife. I need a husband.”
A brief silence settled between them.
Emma wondered if he would contradict her. A part of her even hoped he would. Instead, he straightened and cleared his throat.
“Aye. Since ye are here, let’s speak about the terms.”
“The terms?” she repeated carefully.
“Aye.”
His shoulders relaxed, and his hands hung loose. It was the posture of a man who knew he would win an argument by living longer than it did.
Emma squared her shoulders. She would not be placed like a pin on his map. “Are these terms you can keep?” she asked. “Or will something elsecome up?”
“Ye are a feisty woman, are ye nae?” he said wryly. “I show ye me wounds from the battle and tell ye about the letter I wrote, and yet ye are still apprehensive.”
Emma shrugged. “Well, you could have written sooner.”
“Aye, well, since I was busy trying nae to die, ye will have to forgive me for that.”
She opened her mouth to argue further when her eyes slid almost against her will to the side of his shirt. A dark red stain had spread across the linen like water across stone.
“Is that…” The words died in her throat.
He looked down at his shirt and let out an exhausted groan.“Oh, nae again.”
Emma felt the floor tilt beneath her feet and the air thicken.She reached blindly for the edge of the desk. He caught her before she could find it, one hand on her elbow, the other on her back. Heat seeped through her dress and steadied her in a way she could not understand.
“Easy,” he murmured. “Look at me.”
“I am looking,” she said, though her vision had narrowed. “There is blood.”
“Aye, there is.”
Her stomach twisted as the room stopped tilting. She heard the crack of a knot in the wood. She tried to focus on that sound until her breathing steadied.
“If ye are going to faint at the sight of blood,” he said, voice low, “then perhaps marrying a laird isnae the best thing for ye.”
The words stung, and pride immediately burned away the fog. She wrenched herself out of his hold.
“I did not cross a country to be sent home by a cut,” she huffed. “I am here. I will not leave. I will be married. You will not change that.”
He regarded her as if measuring a span of rope. Something in his gaze shifted, less dismissal, more assessment.
“We are meant to be helping each other,” she added, quieter now, because she felt the weight of her choice and did not wish to waste what steadiness she had regained.
“Aye,” he said. “And to help ye, I will set the rules that keep this place from tearing itself apart.”
