Page 14 of The Highland Ghost’s Virgin

Isobel’s smile faded. She lowered her cup, staring into the red embers of the fire. The silence in the stone room stretched, filled only by the distant, muffled roar of the sea breaking against the keep’s foundations.

"When our grandfather died," Isobel started, her voice dropping to a low, quiet murmur, "Alpin dinnae cry. He was ten years old. He just walked down to the shore and sat on the shingle for two days. Me father had to carry him back inside. After that he stopped playing. He stopped talking to the boys in the village. He just watched the water."

Grisselle stopped breathing, her eyes fixing on Isobel’s face.

"Our father took the Lairdship after that, but grief had already taken half of him with it. Alpin's carried this family since he was ten years old, Grisselle, whether or not he wore the title for it. He doesnae ken how to do anything else."

"He knows how to give orders," Grisselle pointed out gently.

"Orders are easy. People are hard," Isobel said. She looked up, her dark eyes pinning Grisselle to the spot. "He agreed to this marriage because the council threatened to strip his authority if he dinnae produce an heir. But he dinnae go to London to find a wife. He went to find the girl who wrote that letter."

Grisselle swallowed hard, the burn of the whisky returning in her throat. "I told him the truth. I told him I wrote it to his grandfather, the legend."

"I ken," Isobel said, standing up and brushing the wrinkles from her skirt. She picked up the empty tin cups, her face entirely serious now. “And he's never once forgiven himself for being the one who came back out of that water."

Isobel walked to the heavy oak door and left Grisselle with her thoughts.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The fire in the study had not been lit properly, and the room smelled of old parchment, damp wool, and the bitter tang of stale ink. Alpin stood by the high desk, his fingers tracing the jagged edge of a brass inkwell.

The knock came at exactly the hour he'd named, which didn't surprise him.

"Enter."

The door opened only far enough to let her through, and she closed it behind her. She wore the same green wool from the road, her hair pinned up badly enough that a curl had already worked loose over one ear, and she crossed to the chair across his desk and sat without being asked.

"You sent for me."

"I did."

Grisselle did not sit in the leather chair opposite him. She stood beside the heavy bookshelf, her hands tucked into the deep pockets of her wool skirt. Her hair was still a wild, copper cloud, only partially tamed by a single dark ribbon at the base of her neck.

"The agreement needs to be plain," Alpin said, his deep voice scraping through the small room. He did not look at her face; he kept his eyes on the blank ledger sheet between them. "We are bound by the contract signed in London. Me council will see a betrothal, and the parish will see a wedding. But that is the extent of the matter."

"A wedding of convenience," Grisselle repeated. Her voice was steady. "No grand words. No expectations."

"None," Alpin said, his jaw tightening until the scar on his neck went white. "Ye will have yer horse, yer freedom on the braes, and the security of me name. In return, I require a lady who stands at the high table when the clan gathers, so the old men will stop looking toward Edinburgh for a bride."

Grisselle stepped closer to the desk, her green eyes fixed on his. Her chest rose and fell in a quick, shallow rhythm, the knuckles of her right hand turning white against the polished oak.

"How generous," Grisselle said. "A husband who wants nothing from his wife."

"I want the council satisfied. That's the whole of it."

"And when they ask for an heir? Does 'nothing real' extend to the nursery, or only to conversation at supper?"

His jaw worked once before he answered. He hadn't let himself land on that particular question yet, and he wasn't about to land on it now, in front of her, with the rain making the room feel smaller than it was. "We'll cross that when we come to it."

"How reassuring." She rose before he could say anything else, smoothing her skirts with a briskness that dared him to read something into it. "A contract, then. I hope you keep a scribe, Laird Herston, because I intend to have every clause of my freedom written down where you can't later claim you never said it."

"Ye have me word."

"I have your word." She said it flat, and made herself hold his eyes to say it.

She looked away first, down at the ledger between them, and found something to do with her hands, smoothing a wrinkle out of her sleeve that wasn't there. When she looked up again, her chin came up too, a beat too deliberate.

"It is a fair trade, Laird Herston. It beats the wagers at White's, and it beats the smell of lavender water." A pause, shorter than she meant it to be. "I agree."