Page 7 of The Laird’s Wrong Wife

“Everyone else was too busy,” Tommy said. He moved to her side and looked up at Oscar. “She heard me cryin’ and followed me. Then she made me stop so Ness wouldnae be more afraid.”

Oscar’s attention settled on his son. “Where were yer guards?”

Tommy rubbed one foot against the other. “Near the fires.”

“And where were ye told to remain?”

“Near the guards.”

A reprimand would come later, once the boy had slept and the relief of Ness’s rescue had faded. Oscar had occupied himself with arranging a kidnapping while Tommy wandered beyond the crowded grounds and placed himself where no guard could see him. The knowledge tightened his grip on the control he had carried through the evening.

“We will discuss that when we return home,” Oscar said. “Ye will remain with yer guard until then.”

“He only left because Ness ran away,” Lady Daphne interjected. Her voice remained quiet, though she held his gaze. “He was trying to bring her back before she reached the fire.”

“Understandin’ his reason doesnae make it any less reckless.”

“Nay, but it does explain why he disobeyed.”

Oscar studied her. She defended the boy without pretending his choice had been safe. Most people either excused Tommy because of his age or condemned his mischief without asking what had driven it. Lady Daphne had known him for minutes and somehow managed both.

Tommy appeared satisfied that the matter had been settled. “I helped hold Ness still. She said I was brave.”

“Ye were,” Lady Daphne told him. “Once ye stopped panickin’.”

Tommy grinned. “She is a great lady, Faither.”

“So ye have mentioned.”

“She is,” he insisted as Oscar looked between them.

Tommy distrusted unfamiliar women with a thoroughness that had exhausted several members of the household. He rarely accepted kindness without seeing how far he could take it. Now he stood pressed against the captive’s side and spoke as if Oscar required convincing of her virtues.

“And ye are a great lad,” she said.

Oscar raised an eyebrow. “A great lad?”

Lady Daphne looked at him as if his disbelief proved some failing in his judgment. “Aye. He is also very sweet.”

“Sweet,” he repeated.

Tommy beamed at the praise, apparently willing to accept a reputation no one at MacKane Castle would recognize.

“The sweetest,” she emphasized. Her hand rested briefly on the boy’s dark hair. “He must take after his maither.”

Oscar went still before he brought the reaction under control. His wife’s exhausted face returned to him, pale against the bed linens after Tommy’s birth. He remembered holding the child while she struggled to draw another breath and how her final words had been too faint for anyone else in the chamber to hear.

Lady Daphne noticed the change in him. Her hand slipped from Tommy’s hair, and she lowered her gaze without asking what wound she had touched.

Tommy remained unaware. “Will ye come and see Ness tomorrow? She likes ye now.”

Lady Daphne’s expression softened as she looked at him. “I would like that, though I cannae stay.”

The answer displeased Tommy, and Oscar found that it displeased him as well. A woman his son trusted could prove useful, especially one who understood the boy’s motives and gained his obedience without bargaining for it.

Oscar needed time to discover whether the bond would survive another meeting. He also wanted time to understand why her courage and wit had altered the purpose of this encounter.

Lady Daphne bent and adjusted Tommy’s collar where it had folded beneath his coat. “Return to yer guard, sweetness. Keep Ness away from the fires and make certain she rests.”