Page 70 of Owned by the Scarred Laird

Neither had she.

20

The hardest part of the entire conspiracy was Angela.

It was not navigating the bustling castle kitchens. Chloe had been managing her way around hearths and sculleries since she was eight years old, and Isla had handed over the complete run of the larder.

It was not unearthing the thick blankets, or packing the heavy willow basket, or even convincing the unyielding Mrs. Donnan that little William was finally healthy enough for the fresh afternoon air and that she, Chloe, was perfectly capable of managing an eight-month-old baby in a meadow without a catastrophic disaster.

Mrs. Donnan had ultimately conceded the point.

The hardest part was Angela, because Angela was entirely incapable of telling a lie. She could not spin a falsehood. She knew she could not spin a falsehood, and yet she committed herself to the deceptive task anyway.

“I will simply tell him I need to show him somethin’ important in the north pasture,” Angela had declared firmly that morning, when Chloe explained the details of the plan over a quiet breakfast. “Somethin’ about the boundary fence. Somethin’ is wrong with the fence.”

“What exactly is wrong with the fence?” Chloe had asked, pausing with her spoon.

Angela had considered this with a furrowed brow. “I daenae ken yet. I will decide on the way.”

“Angela.”

“I will be utterly convincin’,” Angela insisted, lifting her chin. “I am always very convincin’ when I truly believe in what I am doin’.”

“Ye believe in a fictional fence.”

“I believe in ye,” Angela said softly, and picked up her teacup as though the entire matter were permanently settled.

The preparations took Chloe the better part of the morning.

Isla produced a hearty meat pie, a thick wedge of sharp yellow cheese, and a clean linen cloth packed full of crumbly oatcakes, without even being asked, and added a small stoneware jar of preserved sweet plums.

Chloe found wool blankets that were thick enough to ward off the damp ground yet light enough to carry across the fields. She even took the time to cut early wildflowers from the kitchen garden, which were bright yellow and white blooms, the small, hardy ones that had stubbornly come up along the stones of the south wall. She tucked them carefully into the corner of the basket for no practical reason at all, except that the meadow was already full of them and it simply felt right to bring some along.

She collected young William from the sunny nursery at midmorning. The bairn was in spectacular spirits, batting wildly at the silk ribbons on the nursemaid’s linen cap with single-minded focus. He submitted to being bundled snugly into his warm blankets and settled against Chloe’s shoulder.

She was just unlatching the heavy meadow gate when she heard them coming down the path. Angela’s voice rang out first, pitched slightly louder than was strictly necessary.

“And here it is, the very fence I mentioned, I think it was… Oh.” A dramatic pause rattled the air. “Oh, Chloe is out here. What an absolute coincidence.”

Chloe closed her eyes briefly against the midday sun, praying for patience.

Edward’s heavy footsteps stopped dead on the dirt path.

She turned around slowly.

The Laird was standing at the wooden gate. His dark eyes moved methodically from Angela—who had arranged her features into an expression of innocent surprise so terrible it would not have convinced a child of six—to the thick blankets spread out across the green grass, to the packed larder basket, to the delicate wildflowers she had set in the center of the cloth, and finally to William resting warm on her hip.

Then his gaze snapped directly to her.

Chloe lifted her chin, refusing to shrink back. “I thought it was yer turn to be surprised,” she said, her voice steady.

A heavy beat passed between them in the open air.

“Angela told me there was somethin’ severely wrong with the boundary fence,” he said, his voice level.

“There may well be somethin’ wrong with the fence,” Chloe replied smoothly. “I didnae look at it.”

He cast a long look at Angela. Angela immediately looked away, staring at the nearby wooden posts with sudden, intense interest. He looked back at Chloe, and she watched him take in the fullness of the blanket, the abundant food, the neatly arranged flowers, and William wrapped in his finest wool.