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“Glaikit woman!” He shook her hard enough to make her vision swim. “Did ye think I wouldna hear, that I wouldna ken
exactly
what ye were trying to do? Ye’re
mine
, Rowena Kinnaird.
Mine
!”

“Unhand her!” Welcome words, but it wasn’t her father who shoved Malcolm away. Nay, ’twas Nottingham who held the brute off with one arm and kept her from falling with the other. His hand curled around her waist, warm and secure . . . But it was not the support she wished for. Why, even before all these people, could the Kinnaird not defend her?

“A
Sassenach
?” Malcolm whirled to face her father, his face mottling red. “Ye wouldna.”

Father didn’t so much as blink out of turn. “Ye presume too much, Malcolm. Something I wish I had seen in you sooner. Now if ye’ll excuse us—I was in discussion with the duke.”

“Ye were in discussion with
me
before that Sassenach ever got to the Highlands, and I’ll not be dismissed!”

Rowena squeezed her eyes shut and prayed with every meager ounce of faith within her that he wouldn’t say it all here and now. That he wouldn’t blurt out before the Nottinghams what he’d done to her, what he had taken.

The duke leaned down. “Is he the laird you mentioned?”

A shudder shook her. “I didna ken what kind o’ man he was.”

Malcolm spun back their way, eyes still ablaze. “Ye needna worry yerself with salvaging her honor, Yer Grace. It’ll be o’ no concern to anyone when she’s my wife.”

Nottingham’s hand pressed tighter to her side. “I don’t believe the lady wishes to wed you, Mister . . . ?”

“Kinnaird.”

A glance up at the duke’s face revealed, of all things, a return of his amused smile. “Ah, a clansman. How cozy.”

Malcolm looked ready to haul off and punch Nottingham in the nose. “The next chief of Clan Kinnaird, and I’ll thank you to take your dirty English paws off my future wife.”

Nottingham lifted his free hand and made a show of examining it. “Well now. I’m not as tidy as usual, I grant you, but it was for a good cause.”

With a growl, Malcolm lunged forward, clamping his hand around her arm and tugging.

She tried to resist, to pull away, to tuck herself to the duke’s side. But Malcolm had anticipated her reaction and pulled hard. Then his hand was on her hip and his chest was before her eyes and his musk was overwhelming her and the stones were biting her back again and the pain—the pain clouded her vision, obliterated everything, and she could only beg again, “No, no,
no
!”

The room—
this
room—came rushing back as her father hauled Malcolm a step away, as Nottingham caught her up again, as the women all rushed forward, the duchess shouting something about her ankle.

Her ankle—its throb was so much less now, with that other agony again in her mind.

Malcolm struggled against her father.

The duke glowered with the ferocity of a winter storm. “Don’t. Touch. Her. Again.”

The brute snarled. “Stay out of it, Sassenach. Ye canna stand between us forever.”

The tremors gripped her fast and hard and would have sent her to her knees had Nottingham not held her upright. He stroked his thumb in a circle obviously meant to soothe. And which, oddly, it did. A little.

“Yes,” he said, his voice low and tight. “I can. And I will.”

Malcolm strained against Father’s hands. “What’ll ye do? Take her south, hide her away? I’ll find her. She’s mine, and I’ll find her as surely in England as in my own glen.”

He would. She had no doubt of that. How had she ever thought it would be enough to leave Loch Morar? Her ghosts would follow her wherever she went.

Nottingham smiled. “And what good will that do you, when she’s the Duchess of Nottingham?”

The world stilled. Every breath caught. Rowena couldn’t even think of breathing, not when he looked down into her eyes and she saw the soft light in his. The promise. The offer of that thing she craved most—escape. Quietly, he added, “If you’ll have me, Rowena.”

Her name sounded different, somehow, on his lips without that cushioning
Lady
before it—and punctuated, as it was, with the Gaelic curses that Malcolm spat. The brute roared, fought against Father’s arms.

Rowena pressed closer to Nottingham’s side and whispered the only word that would come. “Aye.”

His mother and sister’s shouts were drowned out by Malcolm’s as he broke free. In the next moment he’d wrenched her away from Nottingham again, his face as dark as sin.

He’d kill her then and there, she saw it in his eyes as his hands closed around her neck. No one would be able to stop him in time, and she’d never be able to fight him off. She had only one defense, and she barely got the words past her lips before his fingers tightened. “Elspeth’s with child.”

The implications did exactly as she expected. The fire in his eyes shifted, a different shade of anger snuffing out the murderous rage. His hands dropped from her neck, even if they then dug into her shoulders. “Then ye could well be naught. Is that what ye’re saying?”

The words shouldn’t hurt, not when she’d counted on him feeling that way. Not when she still bore the marks of a far harsher proof of his lack of love. Why, then, did they pierce like arrows through the remnants of her heart?

“She’ll still be my daughter.” Father came, finally, to her side. He shoved Malcolm away and supported her himself. “’Tis
you
who may well be naught, Malcolm. Now get out o’ my home.”

The muscle in Malcolm’s jaw ticked, but he took a step away. Backward, his gaze never leaving Rowena’s. His hands still in fists by his side. “Aye. But know this, Rowena.” His words were in Gaelic, hard as stone. “If I find you carry my babe, I
will
come for you. No child of mine will be raised by a Sassenach.”

Fear curled anew in her stomach. And it didn’t vanish when he left.

Seven

P
rotect her.

That had been the impression that had seized Brice’s heart when that blasted Scot charged into the room, and it reverberated still now, as he looked down into the chalky face of the woman who had just agreed to marry him. She shook so violently that he feared she might collapse. And no wonder—her neck now had screaming red marks where the brute’s fingers had grabbed and pressed. She was small, delicate. Kinnaird could have—perhaps
would
have—snapped her neck before Brice or her father could have stopped him.

Lochaber had delivered her back to Brice’s side to follow and make sure that Kinnaird actually left, and now here they were. Engaged. And for life of him, he couldn’t bring himself to regret the impulsive offer. The Lord’s command had been crystalline in his heart, His will perfectly clear. Brice was meant to wed this frightened young woman.

If only the Lord were in the habit of handing him reasons along with those undeniable impressions. Because though she was pretty in a quiet way, though she seemed sweet enough, though she obviously needed a protector, though he had been willing to grant the Lord had a purpose for introducing them, she wasn’t anything like what Brice imagined his future wife being.

Protect her
. It sounded like his own words, his own thoughts. Only clearer, stronger. Truer.

Rowena looked up at him, her silver eyes as big as moons and bright with the fervor of fear. “Ye needna . . .”

But he did. Perhaps Malcolm’s motivations were largely tied up in the title he’d thought she was sure to inherit, but it couldn’t be only that. Brice had seen passion enough in people. The Scot’s might be dark, but it was still passion. The desire to have, to own, to possess—the very same kind that had darkened the eyes of Pratt last summer, when he’d held a shotgun at the ready and demanded a hostage. The same kind that churned within Lady Pratt when she demanded the Fire Eyes.

A curse, without question. The curse of sin, of lust, of covetousness, of hatred.

And Malcolm was too much in its throes to leave Rowena alone just because Lady Lochaber was with child. “You’re not safe here, Rowena,” he said softly. He’d thought her father the threat—and had seen her wince away from him in the crofter’s cottage. But Lochaber paled in comparison to this laird.

“But . . .”

He looked up, met the gaze of his mother and then her stepmother. “Could we have a moment, please?”

The matrons were both quick to nod and usher the rest out. But Ella tossed a look at him over her shoulder that was filled with worry. He gave her a smile. Not a grin, flippant and carefree, but one to let her know he didn’t regret anything. Her frown eased a bit.

The Abbotts’ didn’t. No doubt his friend would have thoughts aplenty on entering so quickly into a holy covenant. And Miss Abbott plenty about the type of young lady who would trick a man into marriage.

He waited until the door had closed behind the last of them and then led Rowena to her chair. He took the time to pull over a footstool for her to rest her injured ankle upon. Once she was situated, he perched on the ottoman beside her leg and rested his elbows on his knees. “Is that all right?”

Rowena wrapped her arms around her middle and nodded, her expression hollow with the shock of all that had just happened.

His instinct was to reach for her hands, but he suspected that wouldn’t have the desired effect, despite how willing she had been to cling to his side in the face of Kinnaird. He settled for clasping his own hands together between his knees. “Right. You have to know he won’t give up so easily. You can’t stay here.”

She shook her head, so slowly it looked . . . mournful. “I’m worthless to him now.”

“If Lady Lochaber has a son, which is not guaranteed. And even if it were, that man . . . he has something dark within him. I know you saw it. Who’s to say he wouldn’t try to kill the babe to keep his standing as heir to the chiefdom, and yours to the earldom?”

A shudder ripped through her, and she met his gaze again. How many times in their short acquaintance had he seen that bright panic in her eyes? Too many. “No. My father would never let him close enough.”

“Your father was but a few feet away just now.” He pointed at the spot they’d occupied. “But what could he have done had Kinnaird broken your neck? Sometimes one moment is all it takes for tragedy to strike. And no one can be on their guard every second.”

Her eyes slid shut.

“We must do all we can to make the risk too great for him to attempt it. Marrying me will help with that. He can’t expect to just come and claim you.”

Her silver stare opened to him again. “Who’s to say he willna come after you too, then? Kill the babe, kill you, and then force me back here?”

Brice nearly snorted—Kinnaird would have to wait in line to get his shot at him. And perhaps it was mere arrogance, but he still thought Lady Pratt the more dangerous adversary. Kinnaird was hot temper and impulse. The lady was cold calculation and patience.

Brice feared ice far more than fire. “The advantage will be ours in England. He won’t know the land. He won’t have the friends. And the press is always dogging my steps, which will provide another layer of protection.”

She went even paler. “The press? But I’m . . . I’m not suited, sir. I’d shame you, be an embarrassment to the Nottingham name.”

And the fashionable set would feast on the tatters of her composure for breakfast. But he could handle them too. “It’s just trappings, Rowena. Clothes and jewels and the number of footmen one employs. I’ll give you those things.”

“’Tis more than that, and we both ken it.”

“We can handle it. Together.” He held out a hand, palm up.

Rather than putting her fingers onto it, she stared at him. “Why do ye want to? Why do ye want to help me? I’m nothing to you.”

True . . . until the Lord’s words had overtaken his thoughts ten long minutes ago. Until then she had been only a girl he might be asked to help. Until then, the feeling that he was to pay attention and be ready to assist had been vague and open to interpretation. But it was different now. Now he knew the Lord had far more plans for them than an hour’s conversation. And though he couldn’t yet tell
why
God wanted them together . . . well, the Lord saw what Brice didn’t. He always had a purpose. Brice would simply have to discover what it was. “You’re something very special to me now, darling. You’re the one God made very clear I should have and hold until death parts us.”

“God did?” Her voice went weak, her eyes wider. “Why?”

Ah, and there was a piece to that puzzle. Most people in his acquaintance questioned
that
he heard from the Lord, not
why
he heard a particular thing. But she didn’t doubt him. Beneath the hurt, beneath the feeling of unworthiness, she obviously had a pure faith. “You’ll have to take that one up with Him. I never presume to know His reasons at first, though they usually become clear. He led me to my dearest friends, away from what would have proven disastrous matches. I trust Him to lead me here too.”

At last, with a long breath that must have bolstered her a bit, she slid her fingers onto his palm. “Verra well, then. I fear ye’ll regret it, but . . . I’ll trust Him too. I’ll be yer wife.”