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His brows pulled down, though the smile remained in place. “Had I known I would end up wedding a Highlander, I would have taken more care to learn Gaelic. What was that?”

She opened her mouth again, but only a sob came out. Heat rushed her face. But embarrassment turned cold and breathless when he advanced.

He moved quickly, like a wildcat coming for its prey. Thinking only of escape, Rowena took a step back.

Her ankle betrayed her, sending her crashing to the floor and flailing at the couch for support that didn’t come.

Then he was above her, dark head and broad shoulders, pressing her to the stones by his mere proximity. The blood roared in her ears, her own sobbing filling them. She held up an arm to try to fend him off, but he didn’t grab it. Didn’t twist it behind her back.

He clasped her fingers with one hand and touched her face softly with the other. “Are you all right?”

His voice was smooth and so very English. A different tone. No threat in it.

But there had never been threat in Malcolm’s either, until there was.

He brushed her hair from her cheek. “Let me help you up. May I?”

Her ears strained for Gaelic words, Gaelic curses to bite their way through her heaving breaths and burrow into her mind. Her shoulders tensed, ready for gentle hands to turn hard and strike. To push her down.

They lifted instead, picking her up from the cold, hard floor and cradling her.

She was a child again for one blessed moment, a child in the arms of the Kinnaird before his affection had turned to hate. Safe. Protected. Loved.

A lie
. He wasn’t her father. He didn’t love her. And though he might protect her from one monster, who would protect her from
him
?

“You knocked the cushion from the sofa. I’m going to put you down on the bed, all right? I—”

Bed?
She cried out, flailed, pushed from his arms. Soft feathers caught her, but not before she felt her arm connect with something solid, before she heard a grunt of pain from him. She scrabbled to an upright position on the mattress and blinked the tears from her eyes.

He stood there with a hand to his nose, red staining it.

A whimper escaped even as she pushed herself as far from him as she could get, until her back found the wall. She had hurt him, had drawn blood, and he would punish her now. The only question was how.

With every second that ticked by, her stomach churned and knotted. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a handkerchief, dabbed at his nose. Then, inexplicably, crouched down beside the bed, so that he had to look up a bit as well as across the mattress. No anger burned from his eyes . . . but that only meant he was expert at hiding it.

His sigh sounded weary rather than exasperated. But that only meant he was disappointed in her. “I’ll not hurt you, Rowena. Never, never will I hurt you.” He rested one hand on the edge of the mattress and stretched out his fingers. “Please know that.”

Her ankle throbbed, demanding she stretch out her leg and let it rest. But she daren’t. If she did, he could touch her merely by shifting his arm.

He nodded toward the door. “I’m going to leave, all right? I’ll send Cowan back in.”

Cowan?
She pressed against the wall . . . then realized he meant Lilias. Still, she could say nothing, couldn’t even nod. Not until he’d stood, backed away, and slipped through the door.

Then the fear holding her taut snapped, and she sagged down to the mattress. The sobs overtook her again. Now what was she to do? She could hardly call him back in, though Lilias would probably insist she try. Would chide her for her foolishness. Would be as displeased as Father always was in everything she did or didn’t do.

“Rowena, lass. What happened?” Familiar hands nudged her up, a familiar worried frown looked down on her. Familiar eyes condemned her.

Was there no one left in the world whom she hadn’t disappointed? Too heavy to speak, Rowena pulled herself to the pillow and rolled onto her side, facing the wall so her injured ankle remained on top. And so she didn’t have to face Lilias.

Her cousin drew in a sharp breath. “Rowena! Ye . . . ye’re bleeding.”

Bleeding? Had she scraped her leg or something in her fall? She felt no pain beyond the ebbing throb of her ankle.

Lilias laughed and tugged on her shoulder until she rolled to her back and looked at her. Why did she look so happy at an injury? She beamed. “Lass, do ye hear me? Ye’re
bleeding
. Ye’re not with child! Praise be!”

Lilias embraced her, laughing again in her ear and murmuring more praises.

Rowena went numb. She should feel relief. And did—heaven knew she didn’t want Malcolm’s child.

But in that moment she knew without doubt that she had wanted
hers.
Someone to love. Life within. A future worth putting her hope in.

She squeezed her eyes shut and told herself to be grateful. To praise the Lord for His mercy.

But she couldn’t shake the thought that now she had no one to love her. No one to love. She was yet again only what she was—no more.

Not enough.

Brice waited in the hall for his wife’s door to open, turning his hat about in his hands. The others had already eaten, were already loading into the carriages. He’d had breakfast brought up, and some for Rowena as well. Not that he’d so much as spoken to her since last night. Not that she would have replied if he had.

His nose had a minor ache this morning, and his knees a matching one from spending his wedding night in prayer on the cold stone floor. But it had been necessary. Because no matter what Cowan murmured about embarrassing circumstances—which, granted, had brought heat rushing to his face—it wasn’t only that which had rendered his bride so panicked last night.

A fear of men in general, thanks to her father? Perhaps in part. But he suspected it wasn’t just that either. Not given how similar her reaction to him had been to her reaction to Malcolm Kinnaird the other day.

How, exactly, was one to ask one’s bride of less than a day if she had been attacked in the worst possible way by a brutish monster of a man, though?

One didn’t. That answer had come through quite clearly during the never-ending night. One didn’t push. One didn’t press. One didn’t insist on answers. One just silently proved that one was different. That one would never hurt, never take, never abuse. One waited.

And one prayed. One prayed that those embarrassing circumstances were truth and not lie, and that one hadn’t just agreed to bring a monster’s child into one’s lineage.

The door creaked open, Rowena and Cowan both coming out into the dim hall. The maid greeted him with a happy smile, the lady with a catch in her breath and a hitch in her step.

Sending a silent prayer winging heavenward, he came forward with what he hoped was an easy smile. He offered his elbow. “Good morning, darling.”

She hesitated a moment, but a prod from her maid made a smile stumble its way onto her lips. She tucked her fingers into the crook of his arm. “Morning, sir.”

“My wife oughtn’t to call me ‘sir’ or ‘Duke.’” He grinned and led her toward the end of the hall. “I would prefer Brice.”

She looked up at him with wide, cautious eyes. “Brice?” Had she even known his name? It had obviously been said in the marriage ceremony yesterday, but she had been shaking so, who knew if she even heard it. “’Tisn’t an English name, is it?”

The old contention made him grin. “No. It’s a Scottish surname—my mother’s. And I would be delighted if you would call me by it. I’m afraid that even after a year it feels odd sometimes to hear ‘Nottingham’ in my own house. That name belonged to my father for so long. . . .”

She nodded, and her shoulders relaxed one crucial degree. “Brice, then. I . . . I’m sorry. For my behavior, and for . . .” She glanced up at his nose.

He chuckled. “No permanent harm done. And I imagine one of these days we’ll think it a funny tale—that the bride socked the so-called charmer in the nose on their wedding night.”

Her eyes went even wider, and her cheeks went pale. “Oh, but it wasna my fist! And I didna mean—”

“I was only teasing.” He patted the fingers resting on his arm as they came to the staircase. She seemed steadier on her injured foot today, but the descent might be difficult. “Can you manage the stairs?”

“Aye.” But two attempted steps disproved her. All color fled her skin, and perspiration dotted her forehead, even with Lilias on her other side mumbling about “going all peely-wally again.”

Brice halted them all and looked down into Rowena’s face, begging her to trust him. “May I carry you down? I know that burly servant of your father’s has been doing so, but as I am the only one handy . . .”

Though she swallowed first, she nodded and even murmured, “Thank you.”

They were halfway down before he noticed that the family and guests had apparently
not
all loaded into the carriages. There they all stood by the door, at the bottom of the stairs, clapping and whistling like a bunch of hooligans.

Rowena turned her face into his chest and gripped the lapel of his coat. “Dinna tell them. Please. Just let them think what they will.”

It was nothing but pride that made relief trickle into his veins at that, he knew. Still. What business was it of anyone else’s? “I’ll say nothing, rest assured.” He gave her a conspiratorial wink and, when they reached the floor, set her carefully down.

She stuck close to his side as they navigated through the jesting, grinning collection of family and friends and servants out to bid them farewell. He relinquished her only long enough for his mother and sister to embrace her and then led her outside and to his shiny red Austin. The sun had made an appearance and gleamed off the chrome.

Rowena’s eyes gleamed with curiosity as they drew near. “I’ve never ridden in an automobile—Father despises the things. Is it yers?”

“Ours.” He opened the passenger’s door for her and helped her in. “I can teach you to drive it, if you like—after your foot has healed, of course.”

Her lips parted in surprise as she looked up at him from the plush leather seat. Her hat was at least five years old, her dress terribly out of mode . . . but with those soft brown curls framing her face and when her eyes were lit with something other than fear, she was rather adorable. He couldn’t help but smile.

“You would . . . I could . . . ? You’d trust me to handle it?”

A laugh emerged as he rounded the bonnet, pausing to turn the crank. With the lever in hand a minute later, he took his seat behind the wheel. “I’ve already taught Ella. The rudiments anyway, though she didn’t take to it as much as she’d hoped she would. I think she rather hoped to be as eager about it as our friend Brook, but she says she prefers being in that seat to this one.”

“Brook.” Rowena’s delicate brows had drawn together. “Did I meet her? Was she here last week when we came to call?”

“No.” He stowed the crank, flipped on the magneto, and turned the key. “But you will in a few days. We’re headed to her home in Yorkshire. Well, her father’s home. Whitby Park. She’s the Duchess of Stafford now, making her home at Ralin Castle in the Cotswolds. But they’re with Whit for the autumn. She and Stafford are among my dearest friends. They’re going to be so thrilled to meet you.”

The pronouncement did nothing to ease her frown. “I rather think your dearest friends will hate me.” She glanced over her shoulder, back to where the rest of them were getting into the carriages. Abbott was even now helping Miss Abbott up, the siblings both watching them with a fair dose of concern.

He might have to have another conversation with those two. Easing forward slowly to keep from startling her, he started them down the drive. “You’ve nothing to worry about from Brook and Stafford.”

Not after he explained things to them, anyway. But as he watched the delight come over his bride’s face as they picked up a bit of speed, he had to admit to some worry. Rowena had troubles enough she was sorting through—the last thing she needed was to be drawn into the tumult surrounding the Fire Eyes.

And yet the diamonds were even now among her things. He was driving her, even now, toward what he had planned to be a means of flushing Catherine Pratt into the open.

A few of his prayers last night had been on that subject as well, and on how much—if any—of the matter he should confide to his new wife. But the only sense he got was that he should trust her.

What exactly did that mean, though? Surely God wasn’t telling him to invite her into all his secrets, mere days after meeting her, and when she was struggling with so much of her own. He
would
trust her, of course. With all that mattered. With his family, his home, his future. Someday, with his heart.

But the diamonds, for all their being a part of the Nottingham rubies now, weren’t really
his
. Not his secret to tell. Not his treasure to entrust. Which the Lord certainly knew. His direction must mean something more, something else.

Neither of them spoke again as they cruised away from the Lodge and turned onto the road that would lead them southward, away from Loch Morar and out of Lochaber. But Rowena watched the scenery roll by, obviously straining for that one last look at Castle Kynn.