Page 73 of Owned by the Scarred Laird

“Aye,” he agreed, his voice rough and warm. “That one actually is.”

Chloe laughed, a bright sound in the quiet air. He said nothing more, but she felt the deep, radiant warmth of him lying beside her.

Looking at the sky, she understood with absolute clarity that this, this exact moment right here, lying on a blanket in a sunlit meadow with a sleeping babe between them and a cloud that was either a boot or a hound, was costing him something immense.

It was costing him in the way that truly good things cost, when you have spent your entire life completely unused to them.

She kept her eyes on the pale blue sky.

She did not say a single word about it. She simply lay there in the grass and let the summer afternoon be exactly what it was.

The cloud overhead parted at the edges. It lost its argument against the sky, dissolving into something shapeless and indeterminate.

“There was a place,” Edward said. The words cut through the quiet. He had not decided to say them. They came from somewhere deep below the level of decision, pulled out by the warmth of the afternoon and the steady, breathing weight of William sleeping between them.

“A field,” he said, keeping his eyes on the sky. “Smaller than this. Further from the castle.” He swallowed, his throat dry. “I used to go there when I needed to get away from me father, when things were…” He stopped. Chose differently. “When I needed to be somewhere else.”

The meadow held the words. Beside him, Chloe said nothing. She did not reach for the silence or try to fill it. She simply lay there and let it exist.

“The grass was longer there,” he said, his voice dropping lower. “In the summer, ye could lie flat, and the whole world disappeared. Nothin’ above ye but the sky.” A heavy pause stretched between them, thick with the scent of crushed heather. “It was the only place I could feel good. Safe.”

His jaw closed. A sudden, sharp spike of adrenaline hit him as he realized what he had been about to say. The words ‘the only place he could not find me’ sat right at the back of his teeth where they had no business being.

He looked at the sky and shook his head.

“It is nothin’ worth rememberin’,” he said.

His voice came out level. That was something.

“That’s twice now,” Chloe said.

He went still. “Twice what?”

“Twice ye’ve started tellin’ me somethin’ and stopped halfway through, like someone put a hand over yer mouth.”

“There was nothin’ left to tell.”

“There’s a whole field ye just described to me in more detail than most men give their own weddin’ day.” She kept her eyes on the sky, just as he had his. “I am nae askin’ ye to finish it. I am only sayin’ I noticed.”

He kept his eyes up for one more moment, then rolled to his side and pushed himself upright, brushing the grass from his palms with more thoroughness than was necessary.

The meadow came back into sharp focus. The wildflowers, the wicker basket, the hills dark beyond the tree line, and the castle in the distance with its flags just visible above the rise.

He stood. Brushed his hands again.

Behind him, the silence changed quality. He did not turn to look at her. He did not need to. He could feel her watching him.

That was the problem. That was precisely the problem.

“We should go back,” he said to the hills. “Before William wakes and decides he is unhappy about it.”

He turned and crouched beside the sleeping child. He slid one large hand beneath the boy’s head and the other beneath his back, lifting him in smooth, careful motion. William stirred, made a small, indignant sound, and then settled against Edward’s chest.

Edward straightened.

Chloe was sitting up now. She had her knees drawn tightly to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. She was watching him.

He looked at William instead. He focused on the small creased face against his shoulder and the dark lashes.