Page 49 of A Highland Bride Disciplined

The fire in her chambers had burned low, casting amber shadows across the floor, and Elise was fussing again, her cheeks blotchy with the beginnings of a cry. Scarlett bounced her gently on her hip, walking in slow, soothing circles while humming under her breath.

Effie was supposed to have come twenty minutes ago.

“She’s late,” Scarlett muttered, glancing at the small clock above the hearth. She adjusted Elise’s blanket with one hand and jiggled her a bit with the other. “Where is she?”

Elise responded with a high-pitched whimper that pierced the quiet of the room.

Scarlett rubbed her back, murmuring nonsense as she walked toward the window. She was meant to be dining with Kian already, and she knew he would be angry.

Of all the times for Effie to be late, it had to be the night me husband decided to play the dutiful laird and summon me to dinner like a civilized man.

Elise hiccupped, and Scarlett sighed. “Aye, I feel the same.”

That was when the knock came.

Kian.

She turned just as the door creaked open, revealing Kian’s broad frame filling the threshold. His dark gaze swept the room once before settling on her.

And just like that, the air changed.

Kian didn’t walk into rooms so much as take possession of them. His shoulders, broad beneath his dark tunic, carried a clear and taut tension, and the dim lamplight caught the sharp line of his jaw. He looked like the kind of trouble that might taste delicious. There was something cold in his expression and untouchable, and yet Scarlett could feel heat rising in her chest like she’d just been caught doing something she shouldn’t.

No man has a right to look that powerful… it’s just nae fair.

She stood straighter, adjusting the baby in her arms and willing her expression into something neutral.

“What is it?” she asked expectantly, as if she was meant to be there and not downstairs in the private dining hall with him.

“Ye’re late,” he said flatly, his eyes darting around assessing the room and immediately understanding before Scarlett explained.

“Effie hasnae come.”

Kian raised a brow, his mouth twitching ever so slightly at the corner. “So I noticed.”

Scarlett shifted Elise to her other hip and gestured vaguely toward the adjoining chamber. “I’ll be ready in just a minute. Here. Hold her.”

She moved before she could think better of it, depositing the baby gently into Kian’s arms with all the confidence of a woman who had been handling infants for longer than just under a week.

“Wait, what?” Kian froze, his arms automatically stretching out to receive the child like she was made of glass and might detonate at any moment. “Scarlett —”

“I’ll only be a minute,” she called over her shoulder, already moving into the small changing room beside her bedroom. “And mind her head.”

Kian stood stiff as a statue in the middle of the chamber, holding Elise in front of him like she might bite. Her tiny fingers flailed against his chest, one of them snagging the laces of his shirt.

He stared down at her, eyes wide.

“God above,” he muttered. “Ye’re a tiny demon, are ye nae?”

Scarlett had left the door slightly open, and paused at the sound of Kian’s voice. She leaned closer, half-dressed and halfway buttoning the back of her gown.

“I daenae ken why yer maither left ye here, lassie,” Kian was saying softly, his voice gruff but quiet. “But yer presence has turned everything inside out.”

There was a pause.

“Yer lady guardian is wild,” he continued, matter-of-factly. “Beautiful, aye. Fierce, too. But untamable. Drove me half mad in the short time we had before I left, and now… Christ above. Now, she’s got me holding ye like I was born for it. Like ye were born to us.”

Scarlett bit back a laugh. Her hand froze on the ribbon of her bodice.