Her shoulders rolled back beneath her gown as she lifted her chin a fraction and schooled her features into something calmer and less easily read. If she must stand in this place, she would not look eager, nor frightened enough to gratify the hall, nor soft enough to invite pity.
Bruce would have barked at that thought, she suspected. Her father would have kissed her temple and told her to come home. Neither comfort was available.
Isobel noticed the shift in her posture. “Do ye need some ale?”
“The last thing I need is ale,” Ava replied. “Meeting yer brother is hard enough while sober.”
That almost earned her a smile. “Ye need nae make a performance of it.”
“I daenae,” Ava said. “It comes naturally.”
Isobel opened her mouth to speak, when the sound of footsteps rose behind them.
They were not loud, and that was the first strange thing about them. Unlike the other ones Ava had heard since she stepped into the hall, they sounded firm and determined. Like they never needed to be loud in the first place. She could tell it also surprised the other attendees because everyone fell silent and froze. Even Isobel’s breath seemed to catch.
Ava’s body understood before her thoughts did, and the private space between the two women vanished at once. Everything they had said, every fear and every slow effort at composure, was suddenly exposed to reality.
Isobel opened her mouth to speak. “Ava, I…”
The words faded as Ava turned and saw him.
For one suspended moment, nothing in her mind aligned. She had expected severity, perhaps ugliness, perhaps some grim and weathered face that matched the stories told of theSilent Death. She had expected a man who looked like a menace in a bad way.
What she had not expected, and what no one—not even Isobel—had prepared her for, was the most handsome man she had ever seen in her life.
Her eyes remained on him, almost involuntarily. He looked arresting and formidable. He had broad shoulders, dark hair, and a face strong enough to alter the room by appearing in it.
There was something marked in him too, something dangerous, and Ava knew it had something to do with the scar around his neck. It looked too sharp to have been caused by an accident.
He looked handsome and utterly dangerous at the same time.
Ava felt her breath catch in her chest. Every thought she had had over the past weeks about theSilent Deathhad now gathered into one living figure before her.
Standing there under the watchful hush of the hall, she knew with sharp certainty who the man was.
This was Ciaran Nairn.
This was theSilent Death.
CHAPTER 3
Ciaran enteredthe auction hall and already regretted that he had allowed this to happen in the first place.
The whole thing struck him as practically absurd. Marriage was a private duty, oroughtto have been, settled with clear terms and with as little noise as possible. Instead, the very act of choosing a wife had been turned into some kind of ceremony. He knew Isobel had something to do with the auction. The plan had her name written all over it. But he knew better than to discourage her. She would probably come up with something much more absurd if he had.
The room was full of watchful faces and quiet hunger he recognized all too well. Fathers who had rejected his requests now wanting advantage, and women arranged under careful light as if they were pieces of fabric he had been asked to choose from at the dressmaker’s.
He wanted it done, and he wanted it done as quickly as possible.
Nothing in him had come there to be softened. He did not want charm. He did not want sweetness. He did not want the sort of warm, hopeful gaze that asked him for more than he was ready to provide.
This would be nothing but a marriage of convenience. He needed a wife who could fulfill her duties, bear what needed bearing, and leave the rest untouched.
That was all marriage was for anyway.
The crowd shifted as he moved further inside. He could feel the attention gather and travel with him, no matter how hard people tried to pretend otherwise. The servants kept to the walls, and the clan representatives stood with their hands folded and their eyes too sharp to be merely just for politeness' sake. The women themselves were gathered in an orderly line that did little to disguise the fact that they were being measured.
He disliked the spectacle, but not enough to leave without choosing. He had delayed the matter long enough. He would end it today and be free of it.
