Page 43 of Owned by the Scarred Laird

She turned sharply to the young nursemaid, who was standing by the arrow-slit window with her hands white-knuckled against her apron. Chloe’s breath came out short as she bounced the screaming child against her ribs.

The heavy latch on the door clicked. She did not look up immediately. She assumed it was Melodie with the morning logs, or perhaps Mrs. Donnan, drawn up from the lower hall by the sheer volume of the child’s distress.

“His gums,” a low, gravelly baritone cut through the noise.

Chloe snapped her head around.

Edward stood just inside the threshold. His massive frame filled the doorway, his arms hanging loose at his sides. His pale blue eyes were fixed entirely on the struggling babe.

“He’s teethin’,” Edward said flatly.

Without asking for permission, Edward crossed the room in three long, heavy strides. He reached into the stoneware basin, his large, scarred hands brushing hers aside as he snatched the linen. With two efficient, brutal twists of his thick wrists, he wrung the excess water from the fabric. The drops that hit the floorboards were freezing. He folded the cloth into a tight square and held it out to her.

Chloe took it, her fingers grazing the rough calluses of his palm. She kept William back in his cradle.

The moment William saw the damp linen, he lunged for it with both hands. He shoved the icy cloth into his mouth. The sudden, complete silence in the room was almost jarring, given the agonizing hour that had come before.

The young nursemaid let out a long, shuddering breath of relief by the window.

Chloe stared down at the baby in her arms. William’s eyes were already growing glazed and distant as he mashed his swollen gums into the cold fabric, his tiny shoulders finally dropping.

“He has done this before?” she asked softly, her voice raspy.

Edward moved to the other side of the carved wooden cradle. He did not crowd her, but he did not step back either. He stood close enough that she could smell the crisp winter air and the horse-leather scent on his plaid. He was watching the child with that intense, unreadable expression she still had no name for. A gaze so entirely present and fiercely protective that it made her chest ache.

“Once,” Edward muttered, his jaw shifting. “Four weeks back. He woke the entire east wing of the fortress.”

“What did ye do to soothe him?”

A long pause stretched out. Edward stared at the child’s blankets. “I walked him. Up and down the length of the great hall. For two hours until the sun rose.” He cleared his throat, his voice dropping an octave. “The cold cloth is more efficient.”

Chloe studied his profile. In the gray morning light filtering through the window, she could see the dark, purplish shadows bruising the skin beneath his eyes. He had not slept. She did not know when, precisely, his sleeping habits had become something she cataloged, but the knowledge sat heavy in her mind.

“Ye were up with him alone,” she stated quietly. “Four weeks ago. Before I was ever a thought in this glen.”

He said nothing. It was his preferred method of confirmation.

Suddenly, William reached up from his blankets. His tiny, damp fist closed around Edward’s index finger.

The gesture happened without an ounce of intent from either of them. Edward had simply been standing close enough to the cradle’s edge that his hand was within reach, and William, half-delirious with the sweet relief of the cold linen, grabbed the nearest anchor available. He held on with that fierce, primal grip unique to infants, offering no ceremony or preference.

Edward went completely, utterly rigid.

Chloe watched him look down at the small, pale hand wrapped around his thick, heavily scarred finger. The same finger that had wrapped around a claymore, the same hands that had split open throats to survive.

She watched a raw, terrifyingly vulnerable emotion ripple across his hard features. He was not quick enough to hide it. For one beautiful, unguarded second, the beast was gone, leaving only a man drowning in a quiet, terrifying love for an orphaned boy.

“Bairns do that,” she whispered, her voice barely a breath. “When they find someone they trust.”

Edward snapped his gaze up to hers. Chloe did not pull away; she offered him a small, genuine smile, her eyes warm in the gray light, before looking back down at the baby.

They stood there on opposite sides of the cradle.

“I sent the nursemaid to go to sleep,” Chloe said into the silence. “She seemed exhausted.”

“How considerate.”

When William started to squirm again as the cloth lost its chill, Edward handed him over without ceremony. His large hands were careful with the boy’s weight, his forearms brushing her ribs as she took the child back onto her shoulder. She settled into the slow walk she had been practicing for an hour; she knew these floorboards now, knew exactly which planks would creak and which would stay silent.