Page 37 of Owned by the Scarred Laird

“I have work to attend to,” he said, though he did not move an inch.

“Aye. Ye always have work.”

She watched him closely. His broad shoulders had dropped, losing the rigid posture of a man about to flee.

“He likes ye,” Edward said, his voice barely audible over the crackle of the hearth.

“He spat on me.”

“He spits on everyone he deems worthy.” A small beat. “He bit me once.”

Chloe blinked, her lips parting. “He bit ye?”

“His gums are harder than iron.”

A laugh escaped her before she could choke it back. A quiet, genuine sound that bubbled up from her chest, breaking the heavy air. She pressed her fingers to her lips a second too late.

Edward snapped his gaze back to her, visibly startled by her laughter. For a brief, fleeting moment, his expression was completely unguarded. His eyes softened, a raw, desperate hunger flashing through the blue depths—so intense it made her breath hitch. Then, just as quickly, it vanished, locked behind his fortress walls.

Chloe turned toward the cradle to hide the flush creeping up her neck.

“He needs consistency,” she said, her voice trembling slightly before she steadied it. “A bairn this small needs the same faces about him, the same voices, day in and day out. It’s how he learns the world willnae drop him again.” She paused, taking a breath. “He kens yer voice already, Edward. He just doesnae hear it often enough.”

Edward said nothing, his face returning to stone.

“I ken ye carry this clan on yer back,” she said, keeping her voice gentle. “Every life in this glen, every harvest, every decision, I daenae pretend to understand the weight of it.” She looked at him over her shoulder. “But that bairn is eight months old, and he is yer own blood. He willnae remember these mornings, but his body will.”

A pause. “Ten minutes, Edward. That is all I am askin’. Ten minutes in the mornin’ so he kens yer voice when ye walk through the door.”

“Ye speak to me as though I am one of yer servants,” Edward said.

Chloe turned her full body to face him. He was staring at her now, his pale eyes giving away absolutely nothing, yet revealing far too much of the torment inside him. His arms were still crossed, but the tension had bled from his frame. He looked like a man standing on the edge of a precipice, waiting for something to push him over.

“Nay,” she said, her voice dropping into a soft, fierce whisper. “I speak to ye as yer lady.”

Edward held her gaze, the heat between them rising until her skin tingled. She refused to look away.

Slowly, deliberately, he uncrossed his arms. He stepped toward the doorway, his stride measured and heavy. He stopped at the threshold, his massive frame blocking out the light from the corridor. He did not look back.

“I will come,” he growled low. “In the mornings.”

He vanished down the hallway before she could even draw breath to reply.

Chloe turned back to the cradle, her knees feeling strangely weak. William slept on, entirely unbothered by the storms of the adults above him.

She stood there, listening to the heavy, rhythmic thud of Edward’s boots fade into the distance, leaving the nursery quiet once more. But the air felt different now. Something fundamental had shifted in the stone of Castle O’Brien. Something she did not have the words to name, and was not sure she was ready to face.

12

Four mornings running now and Edward had kept his word and gone to the nursery before the household was fully stirring. Four mornings apparently was all it took for Tyler to notice.

“Me Laird,” Tyler said, his voice dripping with sudden, unearned amusement. His eyes darted past Edward’s shoulder, tracking the long stone corridor back to the heavy oak door of the nursery. The grin turned entirely deliberate. “Hauntin’ the upper corridors this mornin’, are we?”

Tyler had a talent for showing up exactly when a man least wanted company, honed, as far as Edward could tell, over ten years of soldiering together and absolutely no accompanying respect for rank.

Duncan, one of the guards, was with the man-at-arms, both of them flushed, sweating, and reeking of the crisp morning air from the training yard, cutting through the nursery wing on their way to return the practice blades to the armory. It was the shortest route between the two, and it ran straight past the nursery, whether Tyler had chosen it for that reason or not.

Tyler’s hand rested comfortably on the pommel of the broadsword at his hip, while Duncan held a notched wooden practice blade tucked under his arm like an extension of his own awkward, adolescent limbs.