Page 73 of The Highland Ghost’s Virgin

"Father dinnae go mad from the sea, Isobel," Alpin said, his voice a low, subterranean rumble that vibrated in the tight corridor. "He was poisoned by inches. By Mòr’s words. By the very hands that brewed his evening tea."

Isobel’s hand flew to her mouth, a harsh gasp tearing from her throat. "Mòr? That cannae…she's served this family since we were bairns."

"Dougal has the proof," Alpin growled, his jaw locked so tight his teeth gritted together. "She laid the words to drive da into the sea and kept the house in chaos. Every shadow in this keep for twenty years... her doing."

"Sweet Lord," Isobel whispered, her eyes shining with sudden, angry tears as she stepped closer, laying a trembling hand on his forearm. "What will ye do, Alpin? Ye cannae strike her down in the hall."

"Nay," Alpin grunted, his thumb tracing the worn crossguard of his blade. "A Laird gives a clean reckoning, nae a murder in the dark. But I need me head clear before I bring the hammer down."

He pulled away from her touch, not out of malice, but because the fire boiling in his blood was too raw to stand still. He needed the air. He needed the freezing bite of the salt spray to wash the rage from his throat before he set his hands to what came next.

The dark, treacherous stairs leading down to the cove had always called to him. For twenty years, the roar of the surf against the black basalt cliffs was the only sound that could quiet the noise in his head. Whenever the walls of Herston Keep pressed too tightly, whenever the ghost of his grandfather weighed upon his neck like an iron chain, he went to the edge of the freezing water. He went to remember the cold.

Tonight, the shore remained empty.

Alpin stood at the high arched window of his study, looking down at the dark ribbon of path winding toward the sea. The tide was coming in, white foam snapping against the sharp rocks in the moonlight, but he felt no pull toward it. The dark, restless thing that had lived inside his chest had gone silent. It had drowned three nights ago in the very same cold water that had almost stolen Grisselle’s breath away.

Behind him, the heavy iron latch of the study door clicked.

He didn't turn right away, listening instead to the soft, steady rhythm of her footsteps against the stone floor.

"Niall said I would find ye here," Grisselle said, her voice clear and carrying no trace of the raspy illness that had held her for days. "The council elders have finally scattered from the lower hall. Old MacCarron looked ready to argue over those two roods of brackish pasture until sunrise before ye gave him his final answer."

Alpin turned, letting his back rest against the deep stone sill. He looked at her, really looked at her. The color had returned to her high cheekbones, and her dark green eyes held that bright, dangerous spark that had terrified him the first day she arrived at the keep.

"MacCarron knows where the boundary lies," Alpin said softly, his voice lower than usual in the quiet room, carrying the calm weight of a Laird who had just spent three hours holding a restless council in line. "He wanted to see if three days of rain had made me soft enough to yield an inch of MacLeod land. He has his answer now."

Grisselle stepped further into the solar, her mouth curving into a faint, knowing smile. "And Niall?"

"Niall sat at me right hand and enjoyed watching the old man squirm far too much to offer any help," Alpin grunted, the ghost of a smirk touching his lips as he watched her cross the stone floor toward him.

Grisselle stepped closer, stopping near the edge of his broad oak desk. Her eyes flicked toward the window, then to the empty hooks where his heavy oiled mantle usually hung when he went down to the cove at midnight.

"Ye didn't go down to the water tonight," she noted quietly.

"Nay."

"Or last night."

Alpin shifted, his boots catching the pale moonlight streaming through the leaded glass. "The sea has nothing I need to hear."

Grisselle tilted her head, her dark brows drawing together in that sharp, questioning way she had when she was piecing a puzzle together. "A week ago, ye would have let the salt air scrape ye raw before sitting through a council meeting."

"A week ago," Alpin said, taking a step toward her, "I thought me duty was to keep this keep from falling into the sea, and me fate was to end up like me grandfather, a man who gave everything to the waves to save me."

He stopped just a foot away from her. The faint smell of dried lavender and sweet woodsmoke clung to her wool mantle.

"When I held ye in that hall," he continued, his tone stripped of every bit of Laird’s formality, "when yer skin went as cold as the sea-foam and yer pulse dropped to a ghost of a beat... I realized something."

Grisselle’s breath hitched slightly, her hand coming up to touch the silver clasp of her mantle. "What did ye realize, Alpin?"

"That the water can take the stones. It can take the ships, the cattle, and the lost crests." His eyes locked onto hers, dark and unyielding. "It takes whatever is foolish enough to stand still and let it. But it will nae take ye. Nae while I have breath in me lungs."

He reached out, his broad, calloused fingers closing gently over her hand, drawing it away from her collar. He held her wrist, feeling the strong, steady thump of her blood beneath her warm skin. It was vibrant, real, and entirely alive.

"I spent years living like a man who was already dead, holding onto memories and old duties until I forgot how to live," Alpin said, his thumb tracing the blue vein in her wrist. "And when ye came to Herston, ye brought life into rooms that had been cold for a generation."

Grisselle swallowed hard, her tongue darting out to wet her lower lip, but she didn't pull her hand back. "Alpin."