Page 44 of A Highland Bride Disciplined (Scottish Daddies #2)
T he silence came on like a blanket thrown over a fire.
It was smothering and absolute. No more clang of steel, no shouts, no broken commands carried by the wind.
Even in the depths of the keep, in the safety of the nursery, the roar of battle quieted to just the hush of a courtyard holding its breath and the soft edged hush of Elise’s tiny breaths.
She rocked on her heels, clutching the babe so close her knuckles blanched. Her lips moved of their own accord, the old words spilling in a whisper she hadn’t spoken since she was a girl with scraped knees and braids, “God keep him. God keep them all. God — keep him.”
A tear slipped hot and guilty from the corner of her eye and slid into the baby’s bonnet. Elise snuffled once, as if answering, and burrowed deeper into the crook of Scarlett’s elbow.
Effie hovered near the nursery door like a guard too small for her post, hands worrying the linen of her apron into a rope. “It’s quiet,” she breathed, as though saying it any louder might crack the quiet open again.
Scarlett nodded, throat too tight to manage sound. She bent and pressed her mouth to the babe’s warm crown. “My wee fierce one,” she murmured into the curls. “Ye’re safe. Ye’re safe.”
Footsteps. More than one set — a shuffle, thud, and scrape — moving along the corridor outside. Effie’s eyes went wide, and her hand flew to her mouth. Scarlett turned, every muscle ready to fracture.
Kian filled the doorway.
Blood streaked the leather across his chest in dark swathes.
There were flecks along his jaw, dried in his beard.
His hair was damp with sweat, and his eyes were bright.
For a strange, disorienting second, the world narrowed to the shape of him within the frame of that door, living proof that the silence wasn’t grief.
He looked first to Elise and then to Scarlett. Something like relief broke across the carved severity of his face, too fast and too raw to hide. “Scarlett.”
Whatever she’d meant to say scattered. She couldn’t remember how to breathe. Her arms tightened on the babe and then, realizing herself, she pushed Elise gently into Effie’s waiting hands.
“Take her,” she whispered. “Please, just take her.”
Effie gathered the child with a murmured “Aye, m’lady,” and stepped back from the door, giving them space.
Scarlett crossed the room before her mind caught up with her feet.
“Kian.” She was running and then she was against him, her arms around his neck, her cheek to his chest. He was warm and solid and so very alive.
The smell of smoke, iron, sweat mixed with the sharpness of spent fear and it hit her all at once, and her knees almost buckled.
“Easy,” he said, voice rough. He caught her by the waist and steadied her, his hands spanning the narrow of her back. “I’ve got ye, lass.”
“Are ye hurt?” The words rushed out high and thin. She reared back to look him over, hands already moving of their own will, checking, searching. “God above, Kian, ye’re — ye’re covered!”
“It’s nae mine,” he said. “Well, most of it, anyway…”
“Most?” She dragged his sleeve up, found a scrape along his forearm and a bruise purpling the ridge of muscle near his shoulder, but nothing that bled fresh. Her fingers trembled so badly she couldn’t make them behave.
“Does it pain ye? This — here,” she pressed against a bump on his arm. “Does it?”
He caught her hands gently. “Scarlett.”
Her gaze snapped to his. The steadiness there, the keening heat held in check, made the floor tilt. “Ye’re all right,” she said, like a woman testing language again. “Ye’re — ye’re all right.”
“Aye.”
“And the men?”
“I assume some injuries,” he said. “But we held. The keep stands.”
Her lungs released by halves. She looked down at herself only when he did, his mouth quirking at the edge. Her gown was a creamy wool, the one Morag called too nice for every day, and it now bore his dark smears like a grisly new pattern.
“Yer gown,” he said softly. “Ye’ll have Morag after ye if she sees it.”
“I’ll burn it before she sees.” Her laugh came out strangled and ugly. Her palms slid back up to his face, the rasp of his short beard scraping her skin. “I thought —” The words tripped and fell.
“I thought I was about to lose ye —”
He lowered his brow to hers. “Nae that easily, lass.”
Her shoulders began to shake. All the iron she’d poured into herself went liquid at once. “It was me,” she blurted, the confession bursting out hot and clumsy. “It was me who nearly… If I had just listened to ye — God, Kian, I let him in here with me foolishness —”
“Scarlett,” he warned softly.
“Me own guilt,” she forced on, because stopping meant drowning. “I couldnae bear what happened to Nieve, and I let it crack me open, and I dinnae see what was walkin’ through the crack —”
He drew her in and held hard. “Enough.”
She couldn’t stop shaking. She buried her face in the blood-scented leather at his breastbone. He gathered her even closer, forearm a wall across her back, his hand cupping the base of her skull like she might come apart if he didn’t hold that one place.
Behind them, Effie made a small sound. It was half-sob and half-laugh. And Elise hiccupped a drowsy sigh. Scarlett could not look, though, because she knew that if she did, she’d fall to pieces entirely. She just held Kian, and Kian held her, and for long moments the world shrank to that.
He was the first to shift. Not away. Just enough to tip her chin, enough to bring her eyes up to his. She’d never seen that particular mix there: tenderness like velvet laid over something bright and fierce, and heat banked to a coal. “I’m here,” he said.
“I ken.” Another tear fell. She didn’t bother to hide it. “Thank God.”
“Thank Tam and a dozen good men besides,” he said, but the words were gentle, almost easing. “And thank the devil that Roderick was nae half the warrior he fancied himself.”
“Roderick is —” She couldn’t make herself say dead with Elise within hearing. “Dead.”
“Aye.”
She let out a breath that left her empty and shaking and oddly light. “Then it’s done.”
“For now. I have to write to his faither,” he said. The honesty of it steadied her more than any lie would have. He skimmed his knuckles across her cheek, the backs of them cleaner than the rest of him. “How are ye?”
“Me?” She huffed. “I’ve a ruined gown, my heart is beatin’ too fast, and I have a sudden urge to be sick on Morag’s good rugs, but otherwise, I’m,” she swallowed. “I’m whole.”
He almost smiled. Almost. “That’ll do.”
She slid her arms around him again and held on because there was nothing else to do with a body that had just learned how easily it could be left behind. She felt him breathe with her, slow and deep, until her own breaths matched his.
“Effie,” Kian said at last, not raising his voice. “All is well.”
Effie had the grace to pretend she hadn’t been crying. “Aye, m’laird. All’s well.” She bounced Elise once, and the babe made a small, contented sound, unconcerned by the blood and fear of grown folk.
Scarlett pulled back and swiped at her cheeks. “I almost lost the two most important things in my life today,” she said softly.
“Scarlett,” he said, and just the sound of her name on his lips made her close her mouth, as if he had commanded her to. His thumb caught her last tear, and he tasted it shamelessly.
The corridor behind them stirred. It was full of low voices, a boot scraping, someone clearing a throat with the nervousness of a man who’d rather face swords than interrupt his laird.
“M’laird.” A young guard, tunic smeared with mud and ash but eyes clear, hovered at the threshold, hat crushed between his hands.
Kian kept his palm on Scarlett’s waist and turned. “Report.”
“The west walk was aflame, but the stone held. We’ve doused it. The door to the kitchens was demolished. Seven men with deep wounds, three with broken bones. The rest — just bruises and pride.”
“None dead?”
“None of ours.” The lad’s jaw set with the simple brutality of that. “Nae the MacLennan or Muir men, either?”
“Nay, m’laird.
Scarlett’s hand tightened against his jawbone, a small flinch she tried to hide.
He covered her fingers with his for a heartbeat.
“Get the injured to the hall by the kitchens,” he told the guard.
“Tam will see to triage and Brighde the rest. Make sure the men eat. And water the horses before any fool even breathes a word of celebration. We’ll clean up whatever wreckage there is tomorrow. ”
“Aye, m’laird.” The lad dashed away without another word.
Scarlett turned to him, the familiar set of her shoulders returning like an old cloak, Lady of Crawford, brisk and steady. “Go,” she said, trying to hustle him with gentle hands. “See to the men. I’ll find Morag and Brighde. The injured will be needin’ blankets and broth and supplies.”
He didn’t move. It was as if the idea of letting her out of his grasp felt like stepping onto the icy loch.
“In a moment,” he said finally looking up at her, a determined stich in his brow that took her breath away.