Her father did not so much as glance her way. “Aye.”
“And how old is she?”
“Twenty and two.”
MacKenzie inclined his head, as though marking down a useful fact. “She carries herself well.”
“She was taught properly.”
Elaina kept her eyes lowered, though heat rose beneath her skin. There was something in the manner of the subject, in being discussed while standing there silent, like a horse whose temperament was being praised, that made humiliation burn all the hotter for being so quietly delivered.
MacKenzie took a sip of wine. “Has she experience of managing a household?”
“She has been raised tae understand her duty.”
It was always duty with her father, never character, never wishes and never happiness.
MacKenzie’s gaze traveled over her once more. “And is she obedient?”
Something in Elaina went cold. Before her father could answer, she lifted her eyes.
“I am nae in the habit of disobeying the courtesies expected of me, me laird.”
For the first time, true interest sharpened in MacKenzie’s expression. It was not admiration. It was the alertness of a man who discovered edge where he had expected only softness.
Her father’s face darkened slightly, though whether at her interruption or at the spirit beneath it she could not tell.
MacKenzie, however, only smiled. “A careful answer, lass.”
Elaina did not reply. Then, MacKenzie set down his cup.
“If our houses are tae be joined, I have nae desire fer a loose understanding.”
Alasdair leaned back slightly in his chair. “Nay?”
“Nay.” MacKenzie’s voice remained low, but there was iron in it now. “I dinnae make half alliances. If I am tae bind meself tae Fraser, I will dae so properly…permanently.”
Elaina’s fingers tightened against one another.
Her father regarded him with narrowed eyes. “What terms dae ye propose?”
MacKenzie rose. He looked at her as a conqueror surveys territory he has decided to claim. Then, he turned back to her father.
“I will agree tae yer alliance on one condition.”
Alasdair’s expression did not change. “Name it.”
MacKenzie’s gaze returned to Elaina once more, and his mouth curved in a way that made her skin crawl. “I will marry the lass.”
The words seemed to strike the room and linger there, impossible to absorb and yet undeniable. Elaina found her voice only because horror forced it from her.
“Faither—”
He looked at her then, and there was in his face the exact expression he wore when servants interrupted at the wrong moment.
“That will dae.”
MacKenzie watched her with undisguised satisfaction, enjoying, she thought, not merely the demand itself but the effect of it upon her. The realization that her fear pleased him shook her more deeply than she wished to show.
