Page 101 of The Laird’s Wrong Wife

They reached for the map at the same moment, and their hands paused with scarcely an inch between them. Oscar looked from her hand to her face. His breathing deepened, pressing his chest against his shirt. He took the opposite edge of the map and held it there.

Ceana unfolded the first clue and pressed down the narrow strip of paper. Paisley’s neat letters carried Tommy’s blunt instruction.

“Begin where Ceana made Faither agree to her terms. Find the oldest MacKane marriage contract.”

“So… the study?” she asked.

“The oldest contracts fill half a chest.” Oscar lifted the edge of the map. “Tommy has chosen an inconveniently large collection.”

“I expect to find the right one before ye finish complainin’.”

The corner of his mouth curved despite his narrowed eyes.

Ceana took the opposite edge of the map, and they both crossed the room. Their shoulders drew close in the doorway. At the first bend in the passage, his sleeve brushed hers, but she said nothing about it. If they were going to get through this together, they needed to be quick about it.

CHAPTER 25

Ceana traced the marks carved into the deed chest. Tommy’s map rested against her hip while she inspected a shallow curve almost hidden among older scratches.

Oscar reached for the map. “I think I should have this, since I ken where the castle records are kept.”

Ceana laughed. “Well, I hold the clue.” She shifted it behind her, and her sleeve brushed his wrist.

“Give it to me,” he demanded.

“Ye have had six weeks to do whatever ye wanted on yer side of the passage, me Laird. I am afraid the map will remain with me.”

His gaze held hers. “Then I must confine me authority to the lock.”

He drew a key from his belt and opened the chest. Several folded records filled the lower shelves, while a narrow panel sat within the carved upper frame.

“The oldest documents are kept behind that,” he said. “The panel lifts once the catch is released.”

Marks from several generations scored the wood. Ceana compared them with the older MacKane symbol Paisley had copied onto the map and found the same hooked line near one corner.

“This one.”

Oscar pressed beneath it while Ceana stopped behind him, placing the map on the table for a brief minute. A hidden catch yielded, and the panel loosened. As he lifted it, Ceana saw their marriage contract in the lower compartment. Oscar’s firm hand had written their names across the outer fold, with her signature beneath his. Her fingers stopped above it as she remembered his hand closing around hers during their bargain.

“Ye kept our marriage contract here?”

“Where else would I keep it?”

She looked at their names once more, then reached for the linen-wrapped bundle above.

Oscar drew it forward while she kept the wrapper steady. Their fingers met over the tie. His forefinger lingered against hers, warm and rough, with the linen trapped between them. Ceana felt his breath near her temple before she loosened her hold.

A folded paper had been fastened around the protective wrapper, and the documents beneath remained untouched. Ceana recognized Paisley’s neat writing.

Where Father trains, find the line no watcher crosses. The oldest MacKane mark guards the next clue.

“The trainin’ yard,” she said.

Oscar nodded. “Remember the boundary ye once treated as a suggestion?”

“It served me well, did it nae?” she responded as she grabbed the map and made for the door.

The yard remained wet from the rain as the men fitted the redirected timber above the grain store, and rope enclosed the damaged practice frame. Oscar passed the working men without interrupting and followed her to the flat stones marking the observers’ boundary.