Page 66 of Owned by the Scarred Laird

Beathag’s hands stilled instantly on her bag.

The words hung heavily in the air and stayed there. Chloe felt them settle deep into her chest.

She snapped her gaze up to meet the housekeeper’s eyes. “What violence?”

Mrs. Donnan’s expression closed up so fast the shift was almost audible in the quiet room. She pulled her already straight spine even higher and smoothed the front of her apron with both palms. A gesture Chloe had come to recognize as her automatic way of buying herself time.

“I only meant…” the housekeeper said, delivering the words with careful precision. “That the Laird has led men into battle. As all lairds must do. It is nae a delicate life.”

“That is nae what ye meant,” Chloe said flatly.

A sharp beat passed. Mrs. Donnan flicked an anxious look toward Beathag. Beathag closed the mouth of her bag with a small, firm snap.

“What I can tell ye,” the old healer said, her tone choosing every single syllable with surgical deliberateness, “is that the Laird has always been capable of more care than people ever expect of him.” She picked up her bag from the floor. “And that yer ankle will be sound for ridin’ by the mornin’, if ye rest it today exactly as instructed.”

She turned and moved toward the doorway. Mrs. Donnan moved immediately beside her. Then she stepped through the open door, Beathag following close behind her, and the door closed softly into the frame.

Chloe was left completely alone by the ticking fire, her ankle bound tight in its linen wrapping. A particular, sharp unease settled over her.

The field beyond the eastern gate was the one his father had used for drilling men. Edward had not thought about that in years. He thought about it now, crossing the soft, yielding ground with Chloe’s horse on a lead rein beside him, the morning mist still sitting low along the dark tree line, and then he put it away.

The ground was good. No stones to speak of, and the grass was short enough from the autumn. The clean air carried the scent of the river, cold and sharp. A good place to learn something. That was all it was.

He stopped in the dead center of the field and turned to look at her.

She was watching the horse. Not him, not the open field, just the horse. Her hands were already resting on the reins.

“Today ye ride alone,” he said, breaking the quiet.

Her eyes snapped to him. “Alone?”

“I will be beside ye. But the reins are yers, and the decisions are yers.” He paused, watching her face. “She already kens ye. That’s half the work done.”

Chloe looked down at Beira. The mare regarded her with large, patient eyes and exhaled a long, warm breath that steamed briefly in the cold air.

“The other half?” Chloe asked.

“Gettin’ out of yer own way,” he said flatly.

She mounted without his assistance this time and settled into the saddle. Edward watched her find her seat. She had remembered what he had shown her: weight pressed into the heel, back straight, eyes fixed forward. Her hands were the issue. She held the leather reins too tightly, her knuckles pale against the dark straps, her wrists completely locked.

He moved to her left side.

“Yer hands,” he commanded. “Loosen them.”

“I am loosenin’ them.”

They were not loosening. He reached up and placed both of his heavy, calloused hands directly over hers on the reins. There was warmth and weight, with no urgency in the contact.

She went completely still beneath his touch.

“Ye’re holdin’ her mouth,” he said, his voice dropping low. “She can feel every single thing ye feel through that contact. Right now, she feels fear.”

“I am nae afraid.”

“I ken,” he murmured. “But yer hands daenae.”

A quiet beat passed. Then, slowly, he felt her fingers soften under his. One by one, the knuckles lost their white strain. The leather loosened slightly, then a little more, and Beira’s head dipped half an inch in immediate response, the stiff tension draining from the horse’s neck.