Page 20 of The Highland Ghost’s Virgin

"Ye havenae stolen anything," Alpin rasped, his face turning a dark, angry red beneath his wind-burnt skin. He dropped the crumpled paper onto the desk, his hands coming down on her shoulders before he could think, his large fingers gripping the green wool. "And I daenae look at ye like an enemy."

"Then look at me!" she demanded, her fingers locking into the rough wool of his plaid to pull him down, her breath hot against his chin. "How do you mean to spend a lifetime with a wife you only read like a contract, Alpin? You'll wear yourself thin hunting for the loophole in me, and there isn’t one to find."

Alpin froze, his hands staying flat against her shoulders.

The gale outside hit the narrow glass with a violent rattle, but inside the small study, the air suddenly went completely still. He looked down into her wide green eyes, and for the first time since he’d met her in that suffocating London drawing-room, he didn't see a viscount's daughter or a contract to be managed. He saw the sharp, fierce angle of her chin, the dirt beneath her fingernails from the baking trough, and the absolute, unyielding iron in her spirit that had refused to let the city break her.

She was the girl they had written off because she wouldn't look polite in a parlor.

And he was the Laird who had buried himself under ten years of stone and silence, no matter how many hands — Isobel's, Dougal's, Niall's — kept reaching in after him.

Alpin’s grip on her shoulders loosened, his large thumbs smoothing over the rough fabric of her collar. His jaw relaxed, the white scar on his neck softening as his breath came out in a long, ragged plume.

"They’re small people, Grisselle," he said, his voice dropping into a low, quiet burr that seemed to fill the narrow space between them. "The lot of them. They live in brick cages and they’re afraid of the wind."

Grisselle’s fingers didn't let go of his plaid, but the frantic, angry rise and fall of her chest slowed. She stared up at his face, her lips parting slightly as she traced the line of his scar, her green eyes losing that sharp, defensive armor for the first time since they’d left the south.

"They are very loud cages," she whispered.

"The hills are louder," Alpin said, his hand sliding down from her shoulder to grasp her forearm, his grip firm but no longer angry. "And they daenae give a damn about Lord George or his wagers."

A tiny, sharp line appeared at the corner of Grisselle’s mouth, the barest hint of her usual biting smile breaking through the dark mood. "Does that mean you aren't going to buy me a proper carpet, Laird Herston?"

A laugh broke out of Alpin before he could stop it. He stepped in rather than back, close enough that the toes of his boots bracketed hers on the stone.

"The stone was good enough for me grandfather," Alpin muttered, his black eyes dropping to the center of her mouth before he caught himself and stepped back a single pace. He didn't slam the wall back up this time; his face remained open, his broad shoulders squared against the window light. "And if yer mother asks again, tell her the sheep here have better manners than the gentlemen at Almack’s."

Grisselle let out a short, genuine laugh that seemed to clear the stale smell of ink right out of the room. She let go of his plaid, smoothing her green skirts with a quick, brisk movement of her hands that had nothing to do with London manners.

"I will tell her exactly that," she said, her voice steady again as she picked up the torn pieces of the parchment from the desk. She walked to the hearth, dropped them straight into the grey embers, and watched the paper catch, the yellow flame illuminating the sharp, fierce line of her profile.

Alpin stood by the high desk, his fingers tracking the edge of the brass inkwell, his eyes fixed on her as the smoke disappeared up the chimney.

The air between them had changed; the contract was still there, folded tight against his ribs, but the room didn't feel small anymore.

Supper came and went with Alpin's chair sitting empty at the high table long enough for Greer to start muttering about wolves. When full dark fell, and he still hadn't come up from the water, Grisselle pulled her cloak from its hook and went looking for him where Isobel always said he'd be.

The tide was sliding out over the shingle with a long, dragging hiss that nearly drowned the crunch of her slippers.

Grisselle kept her cloak wrapped tight around her chest, her chin tucked against the spray that came stinging off the dark firth. Ahead of her, the massive, broad-shouldered shape of Alpin cut a black silhouette against the grey foam of the breakers. He didn't move. He stood with his heavy boots planted deep in the wet sand, his face turned toward the open sea.

A larger wave hit a shelf of granite to her left, the water rushing up the shale and soaking the hem of her green wool gown. She didn't slow down. She took three more steps, her leather soles making a heavy, squelching wet sound against the gravel.

Alpin’s shoulders went rigid beneath his plaid. He didn't turn around. He didn't even shift his weight.

"The track back up the cliff is slick after dark," his deep burr broke through the roar of the surf, hard and low. "Ye'll be breaking an ankle if ye stay down here."

Grisselle didn't stop until she was standing two paces away, right beside his left shoulder. The wind caught her loose curls, whipping the copper strands across her cheek, but her eyes remained fixed on the side of his face. The pale, jagged line of his scar caught the faint, watery light of the rising moon, cutting a white path from his jaw straight down into the collar of his shirt.

She had counted that scar without meaning to more times than she cared to admit. Over supper, across the hall, once from the top of the stairs when she'd told herself she was only looking for Isobel.

She still didn't know what had made it. She only knew it had turned a boy of ten into a man who stood exactly like this, alone, staring at water that had already taken everything it meant to take from him.

I want to know him.

The thought arrived uninvited, and entirely inconvenient.

"How did it happen?" she asked, her voice clean and direct, skipping any southern politeness.