Page 2 of Owned by the Scarred Laird

“Chloe Mullen is certainly nay maid to ye!” he barked, almost indignant. “I’ve come a long way. I will nae be kept waitin’.”

Chloe stood frozen on the stone floor, her heart pounding a frantic beat against her ribs that felt way too loud for the sudden silence of the room.

Who is he? How does he ken me name?

She searched his face, looking for anything familiar or recognizable, but there was nothing. The far doors opened, and Thomas came through them at a glacial pace, a guard falling in half a step behind him, low and urgent.

"Laird MacLaud, there's a man —" The man cut himself off at the sight of the hall.

“What in God’s name is this?”

“I am here for me daughter.” The man turned toward Thomas and said it again, slower, as though he’d already said it too many times. “Chloe Mullen. She’s here. I’ve come to take her home.”

The room froze.

Chloe heard Jenny say something beside her. She heard Thomas respond. Somewhere behind her, one of the kitchen girls had come to the doorway and was being quietly pulled back by someone else. All of it reached her as if through water, muffled and strange, because there was a sound in her own ears now that was louder than any of it.

His daughter.

Her mother had told her about her father plainly and without making a ceremony of it. He died before ye were born. Chloe had never questioned it. It had never occurred to her to do so.

She did not know how much time had passed. Long enough for Thomas to get between the man and the room. Long enough for Jenny to look at her more than once with carefully guarded eyes. Long enough for the ground under her feet to finally start feeling solid again.

She found her voice somewhere in the middle of all of it.

“I daenae have a father,” she whispered desperately.

The man stopped. He turned and looked at her for the first time since she had walked in.

Chloe stood straight. She kept her hands still at her sides. “Me father died before I was born. Me mother told me herself.” She held his gaze. “So I daenae ken who ye are, or what it is ye think ye want here. But ye have the wrong person.”

He looked at her for a long moment, made a small sound in the back of his throat, before slowly crossing the hall toward her. He stopped close enough that she had to hold herself from stepping back. She raised her eyes and kept them steadily on him.

His eyes moved across her face. “Ye have yer mother’s look about ye.” Then, almost in the same breath, he sneered, “Stubborn bitch hid ye from me all these years.”

Jenny went rigid.

Thomas took one step forward. “I beg yer pardon.”

“Ye heard me.”

“Aye, I heard ye.” Thomas’s voice had dropped. “And I will ask ye to mind yerself. That woman raised Chloe from a bairn. She’s nae here to defend herself and ye’ll nae speak of her that way in this house.”

Jenny had moved to Chloe’s side without Chloe noticing. Her hand found Chloe’s arm and gripped it.

Chloe could not speak.

Me mother. He is standin’ there talking about me mother like she was nothin’.

The anger came up fast and hot before the grief could get there first.

“Daenae,” she said. Her voice came out low. “Daenae speak about me mother like that. Ye didnae even ken her.”

The man frowned. Looked at Thomas, then Jenny, then back at Chloe. Something shifted in his expression.

“Who do ye think I am talkin’ about?”

“Moira Mullen.” Chloe lifted her chin. “She raised me as both mother and faither, so I willnae stand here and listen to ye speak of her in that manner.”