Page 61 of The Highlander's Auctioned Bride
Harris came forward and took her elbow, helping her into the chair outside her door.
“Dinnae ye wish to ken where he is. Are ye nae worried?” she persisted.
Harris glanced up the corridor. “I have kent the laird for many years, m’lady. He’s difficult to kill”
She scoffed. “And if a man with a crossbow shot him in the head from a rooftop?”
“Then I pity the man,” Harris said candidly. “Crossbows are tricky beggars to fire straight.”
He looked pointedly at her leg, and she rubbed it absently. It was aching more now that she had put some weight on it, but she was still too frightened to sleep. James had gone out to look for the man.
Where dae ye even begin in a clan of this size? He could be anywhere. He might be gone for days!
“What are ye doin’ out of bed?” came a weary voice from the end of the corridor.
Harris spun round as Maisie rose abruptly to her feet, crying with pain as her leg spasmed and she collapsed back into her chair. James was at her side in seconds, there was blood on his shirt and sweat beading his forehead.
“Are ye hurt?” she asked, her fingers clutching involuntarily in his léine.
“I am all right, lass, ye should be restin’.”
“Och, ‘restin’’’ he says, when he has gone out to get himself killed.”
“That was the other man,” James said bleakly, and he and Harris exchanged an unreadable look. Maisie shivered; she hoped she would never know what it was to take another’s life.
“Who was he?” she asked.
“He didnae say. I tried to get it from him, but he came at me with a dirk. Didnae hesitate, but it’s a damned shame. Dinnae ken how we will ever find the blaggard now.” There was a vein pulsing in his forehead. “We have to find whoever did this and kill him,” he spat. “I willnae have ye threatened like this by anyone. Ye have done nothin’ wrong!”
“James, calm yerself. Ye have barely slept. Ye need to get some rest.”
“She’s right,” Harris said softly, his gaze understanding and solemn. “Ye should get some rest. I willnae leave the door unmanned for a moment, and ye can rest easy.”
James put a hand on Harris’s shoulder, squeezing it gratefully, and offered his arm to Maisie. She rose, limping on her bad leg, and he took her back into his room.
She could feel how tense he was, his muscular arm corded and strong beneath hers.
He lowered her gently down onto the bed, covering her with a loose blanket. Maisie felt his fingers curl into hers as he sat beside her, his face closed off and unhappy.
“I shouldnae have killed him. We dinnae ken any better who is after ye.”
“We will find them,” she said sincerely.
“We?” He looked back at her curiously. She felt her anger return as she thought he was suggesting she was incapable of helping—but then she looked at his eyes and she realized there was hope there.
He wanted her advice. He wanted her help, the idea that she would assist him seemed more like a comfort to him than an inconvenience.
She squeezed his fingers. “Of course.”
His shoulders relaxed as some of the weight of responsibility lifted from his shoulders.
“When did ye first take up the position of laird?” she asked.
There was a softness about his face in the firelight, something unguarded and vulnerable. She wanted to capture it to help her understand more about this giant of a man, who somehow, at that moment, looked so small.
“Eighteen,” he said but scoffed the words out as though they were a jest. “Me faither wasnae capable for a lot longer than that, though. I had to pick up the slack from the age of fifteen.”
“Ye could have chosen to continue as a lad, let yer faither make his mistakes.”
