Page 61 of The Wolf Laird's Obsession
The council had finally adjourned, yet the old men’s voices still echoed in his skull like the buzzing of midges that plagued the summer months.
It had been a long evening. After the tense dinner, where every glance across the table had felt heavy with unspoken words and simmering heat, Rowan had hoped for some peace. Instead, the council meeting had dragged well into the night.
“Ye were quiet in there,” Ewan noted. “More than usual, I mean.”
“There was nothin’ to say,” Rowan grunted.
“Nothin’ at all?” Ewan’s mouth curled into a smile that usually preceded trouble. “The Mad Laird gathers men on our border, and ye have nothin’ to say about it?”
“I said what needed to be said.” Rowan’s jaw tightened as they walked, the muscle ticking beneath his scarred cheek. “Let him gather if he wants to gather. Let him march if he wants to march. He will find MacLaren steel waitin’ for him, and that will be the end of it.”
Ewan huffed a laugh that echoed off the stone walls. “Aye, there is the Rowan I ken. For a moment there, I thought marriage might have softened ye.”
Rowan stopped walking and turned his head slowly to his friend. His expression did not change, but his eyes must have flashed, because Ewan held up both hands in mock surrender with a grin that said he knew exactly what he was doing.
“I said nothin’,” he insisted. “Nothin’ at all.”
“See that ye daenae.”
Ewan reached the study door first and pushed it open without ceremony. “After ye, me Laird.”
Rowan stepped inside.
And stopped where he stood.
Sorcha sat at his desk with her back to him, her fair hair loose and spilling over her shoulders in waves that caught the firelight and turned the color of honey and gold. She had not heard them enter, too focused on whatever occupied her hands. Her head was bent low, her shoulders hunched in concentration.
When Rowan stepped closer on silent feet, he saw exactly what she was doing.
She was carving.
A little wooden horse rested in her palm, already taking shape beneath the blade of her knife.
Behind him, Ewan cleared his throat.
Sorcha started so badly that the knife slipped in her grip. She spun in the chair, her eyes wide and her cheeks flushing a deep shade of pink.
“Me Laird.” She set the knife down on the desk and half rose from the chair, her movements jerky with nerves. “I didnae hear ye come in. I didnae mean to intrude. I only came in to find a quill.”
Rowan said nothing. He simply stared at her.
“The quill, I mean,” she continued, her words tumbling out faster than usual. “Flora misplaced hers somewhere in the keep, and I needed one for the letters I have been meaning to write.To me braither, mostly, to let him ken that I’m fine. Nae that he doesnae already ken, but I thought it would be proper to write it down anyway, and the fire was warm in here, and I only meant to stay for a moment…”
She was rambling. Rowan had never heard her ramble before, not once in all the days since she had arrived at the castle.
“The fire was warm,” she said again. “I only meant to rest for a moment. I didnae mean to fall asleep, and I didnae mean to make meself comfortable in yer study without askin’ permission first. I ken that this is yer space, and I shouldnae have assumed that I was welcome here.”
Ewan’s mouth twitched with barely suppressed amusement. “A quill, was it?” He glanced at the wooden horse still sitting on the desk, then back at Sorcha’s flushed face. “That is a fine quill ye have there, me Lady. I have never seen one shaped quite like that before.”
Sorcha’s flush deepened to the color of roses. “I… The quill is… That is to say…”
“She fell asleep,” Rowan said flatly.
Sorcha’s head snapped toward him, her eyes wide and startled, but then she gathered herself in the space of a single breath.
“The fire was warm,” she said again. “I only meant to rest for a moment.”
Ewan looked between them with his eyebrows raised high on his forehead, and the silence stretched out between the three of them until it became almost unbearable. Then he let out a low laugh and shook his head.
