Page 10 of A Highland Bride Disciplined

He glanced up, squinting. “That bad?”

“God’s teeth!” Kian growled. He paced toward the desk and then the hearth and then the window. “She’s mad! Leapt from the carriage. Threw herself on that woman she dinnae ken. Stubborn as a damn mule.”

This wasn’t meant to be complicated.

He hadn’t asked for a passionate wife. He hadn’t evenwanteda wife.

He married her because she was the MacLennan laird’s eldest daughter. That’s it. The alliance brought grain, livestock, and enough Highland kinship to keep his rebuilt clan from falling under again.

And she was beautiful. More than he’d expected. Her portrait hadn’t done her justice.

But beauty didn’t excuse recklessness. Or disobedience. Or that sinful look she gave him when he dared suggest she might need tolisten.

Tam simply whistled.

Foolish. Reckless.

Kian let out a slow breath and turned back to the desk, where a stack of ledgers waited.

“Sharp, aye?”

“Sharp as stell,” he muttered. “And pointed squarely at me.”

“Better than one of those cow-eyed brides who stares at ye with nay thought in her head.”

Kian gave him a flat look. “I’ve rebuilt this clan from ashes, Tam. Every coin, barrel, man accounted for. Control is what brough us here, and she —”

“Is a thunderstorm, aye,” Tam nodded. “Maybe that’s what unsettles ye, though. She doesnae bow. And ye’re nae used to being gainsaid.”

He glared. “I’ll nae be gainsaid in me own keep.”

“And yet,” Tam said dryly, “the lass has ye pacing like a cage beast.”

Rebuilding Crawford after his father drank it near to ruin had taken everything from him. He spent every hour, every drop of patience, every scrap of pride on rebuilding his clan. He left nothing to chance.

He sat, then, rolling up his sleeves, and shotting Tam a look. “Enough. There’s work to be done.”

The shipments needed to be tracked, four-hundred barrels of aged Crawford whiskey heading to Stirling by week's end. Contracts that needed final seals before his trip to Edinburgh. Instructions for the steward on harvest yields, inventory for the pantry, and a matter with the roof on the east wing that still hadn’t been seen to since the thaw.

Tam only laughed, strolled toward the door with a blade in one hand and a whetstone in the other that he tosses nonchalantly.

Kian signed three letters, sealed two, and made notes on another six. He sharpened a quill. Then another. It was easier than thinking of her. Her voice. The way she’d turned to him with flushed cheeks after the fight, demanding answers like she had a right to them.

And yetshehad thrown his orders to the wind without blinking.

He stood abruptly, knocking his chair back. He needed to give the steward instructions for tomorrow’s rotation.

He spent the next several hours reviewing the weapons inventory in the armory and checking on the storeroom keys. A list in his head.

It was long past midnight by the time Kian returned to his chambers. The food on his supper tray was cold.

The keep had fallen quiet. Wind howled faintly through the tower slits, and torchlight cast restless shadows on the stone walls. He shut the door behind him and exhaled, dragging a hand through his hair.

His body was tired. His mind was not.

Across the hall, through a connecting antechamber, lay the room he’d had prepared for Scarlett.

He’d planned to go to her. Had told himself it was his right, his duty, even. They were married. It was expected.