Page 89 of Owned by the Scarred Laird

She turned for the door, the letter warm against her ribs where she’d tucked it, and had her hand on the latch before his voice caught her from across the room.

“Chloe.”

She stopped. She did not turn around, not right away, giving him the same half-second he had given her in the distillery, the half-second he had not used then either.

“Aye?”

The silence stretched again, a thing neither of them seemed able to reach across, no matter how short the distance looked. She counted two of her own heartbeats before he spoke.

“Send word when ye arrive safe.”

Not what she’d let herself hope for, though she had not let herself name what that hope had actually been. Not that.

“I will,” she said, and let herself out, and did not let the door show him one thing more on her face until it had swung fully shut between them.

26

The morning she was set to leave, Edward found reasons to be anywhere in the yard except near the carriage.

He inspected the east wall, where a stone had come loose two winters back and would likely outlast him without falling. He questioned the smith about a shoe on Beira that needed no questioning. He stood at the granary door and read the same tally sheet three times without once absorbing a number on it, all the while watching, from the corner of his eye, the small procession taking shape by the gate.

Duncan had the carriage horses hitched and was checking the harness buckles, tugging at each strap twice, crouching to run a hand along the traces.

“Ye’ve checked that buckle three times now,” Edward said, coming up behind him.

“Four, actually.” Duncan did not look up. “Better four times than the axle givin’ out somewhere past Dunvegan with the boy aboard.”

“The axle’s sound. I had it looked at meself last month.”

“Aye, well.” Duncan straightened, wiped his palms on his breeches, and looked toward the keep steps, where Melodie was directing two servants with a trunk between them. “Ye’d think, watchin’ this, that someone was bein’ sent off to war rather than a fortnight at her own kin’s castle.”

Edward said nothing to that.

“She hasnae smiled once this mornin’,” Duncan went on. “Nae at William. Nae at Melodie fussin’ over the trunk. I’ve never ken her to go a whole mornin’ without smilin’ at somethin’.”

“She’s tired. It’s an early start.”

“Aye. That’ll be it.” Duncan went back to the harness, and if he did not believe a word of the explanation, he had the sense not to say so twice.

Chloe came down the keep steps a few minutes later, carrying William on her hip, dressed for travel, her hair pinned back more simply than Edward had ever seen it. She was talking to Melodie about something—the trunk, maybe, or the route—her voice steady and even, and she did not glance toward the granary once.

Edward set the tally sheet down and made himself walk over.

“Ye have everythin’ ye need?”

“Aye.” She shifted William higher on her hip. He had found a fistful of her collar and was working it with great concentration. “Melodie’s packed for a month, though I told her a fortnight would do.”

“Better too much than too little, on the road.”

“That’s what she said.” Chloe glanced past him, toward the gate, toward the four guards already mounted and waiting. “Four men for one carriage and a fortnight’s ride. Ye’d think I was smugglin’ the crown jewels out of the castle.”

“The roads have had trouble on them. I told ye that.”

“Ye did.” She did not ask what trouble, same as she had not asked before. She adjusted William’s blanket instead, tucking a corner more securely, and looked at everything in the yard except Edward’s face. “Well. We should be off before the light gets much higher. Jenny will have the whole house watching the road by midday if we’re late.”

“Aye.”

Neither of them moved.