Page 73 of A Highland Bride Disciplined

Her smile turned sly. “Giving orders again?”

“Just this one,” he said.

She moved toward the door, but paused with her hand on the latch. “I’ll see ye at the festival, Laird Crawford.”

“Aye, ye will, Lady Crawford.”

14

The bells over Crawford Keep’s courtyard gates rang out in slow peals. The three long notes that rolled over the hills like a summons. The Michaelmas Festival Day had begun.

Scarlett stood at the edge of the bailey, hands smoothing over the skirts of the gown Mrs. Morag had bullied her into wearing. Dark green velvet, embroidered in gold wheat stalks along the hem, with a bodice snug enough to keep her upright if her spine gave out. Her hair, tamed into loose curls, was pinned back just enough to keep it from blowing into her face in the autumn wind. She certainly looked the part of the Laird’s wife.

Her lips pressed together.

She felt like someone had taken the solid ground beneath her and replaced it with thin ice.

The sound of children’s laughter and the thump of boots on packed dirt rose from the meadow below, mingling with the merry whistle of a piper already warming his fingers. The air smelled of roasting meat, sweet cider, and peat smoke drifting from the cooking fires. Somewhere down there, bread was baking in clay ovens, and somewhere else, women were laying out platters of apples glazed in honey.

It should have been a day for joy. Her first appearance as Lady Crawford next to Laird Crawford. Her first public appearance since Elise had come into her life.

And there it is again —the hollow ache in her chest.

Elise was in the nursery now, Morag and the new nursemaid watching over her. Scarlett had told herself over and over that she was safe. Still, every instinct she had screamed at her to turn back, climb the stairs, and peek just once more to make sure her little chest rose and fell.

Nae for too many hours, she reminded herself. She’d never left her for so long.

She stepped forward as a knot of villagers approached, their faces splitting into grins.

“Lady Crawford!” Old Fergus MacNair, stooped as a willow in winter, bowed low, his wool cap clutched in his hands. “It does me good to see ye among us.”

Scarlett smiled and clasped his arm briefly. “It does me good to be here, Fergus.”

He nodded toward the line of market stalls that curved in a half-moon around the green. “We’ve kept the oatcakes away from the honey, as ye advised.”

“Good,” she said, allowing herself a small swell of pride. “I’ve nay wish to referee one of those famous brawls between yer wife and Mrs. Crockett over bee rights.”

A ripple of laughter passed between the men in the group.

And still, her thoughts tugged back to the keep.

She walked on, making herself stop at each cluster of stalls, praising the dyed wool, the carved toys, the fresh loaves scored in neat patterns. A pair of girls no older than twelve came running up with garlands of late-blooming marigolds, insisting she take one to wear in her hair.

She thanked them, promised she’d wear it before the day was out.

But then her mind shifted again, to something darker.

Elise’s maither.

It was entirely possible that by day’s end they’d have an answer. That guard would ride in with some scrap of news from wherever he’d been searching.

And if Kian was right, if Elise’s maither was just a poor woman who couldnae feed her child, then was it nae cruel to keep them apart?

Scarlett knew what Kian had said was true. They could help her. They have the means. But helping a woman raise her child was not the same as handing the child back and stepping out of her life.

Her hand tightened around the leather strap of her small satchel until her knuckles went white.

Would Elise cry for me? Forget me? Would she be happy?