Page 19 of The Highlander's Auctioned Hellion
Callum nodded, still disquieted by the urge he had to get closer to her. He wanted to smell her scent again, as he had done when she alighted from the carriage. It was like wild heather on a heath at dawn.
It has been too long since I’ve been with a woman. Any woman! That’s why me body cannae control itself. Pull yerself together, Callum.
“And another thing,” he said firmly, as her eyes moved back to his, delicate eyebrows raising in query. “I dinnae wish to speak to ye unless it is absolutely necessary.”
He kept his tone authoritative, even as his usual control felt as if it was slipping through his fingers. There was a part of him that already wanted to ignore his own rule in that regard. He wanted to follow her from room to room, to make sure she was happy here.
He dug his nails into his palm so hard he felt the skin break.
Lydia stilled. Her confusion was growing like a petal unfurling on a flower stem.
“You don’t wish to speak to me?” she asked. “But you want us to be married!”
“Aye, well, this isnae goin’ to be a traditional marriage, nae like yer wee friends in London and their romantic fairy stories. You are in the north now. This is an arrangement that’ll work for us both, and that’ll be the end of it. Besides, I can hardly keep ye herewithoutmarryin’ ye, the villagers would talk.”
“I—” her mouth opened and closed several times, her fidgeting becoming more agitated as her fingers began twisting in front of her.
The sight of her distress made his skin itch, and he sighed in exasperation.
“Listen, lass. Ye needed me to escape, and I needed someone to take care of the bairns. See it as useful for both of us. Ye get away from yer idiot of a father, and I give me nieces a mother again.”
“What happened to their parents?”
“Never ye mind,” he growled, the intensity of his anger surprising him as it rose inside like a snake as he fought an urge to hurl a chair across the room.
Me braither finally knew I told the truth, and he died of a broken heart. That’s what happened.
He waited for Lydia to cower in the face of his temper, shrinking from him like many grown men had done before her. Callum did not need to shout or raise his voice to make his point known. He spoke softly and clearly, and people had a habit of doing his bidding.
But his bride did neither of those things. She straightened her shoulders defiantly, then crossed her arms over her chest like a petulant child. It looked as if she were seconds away from stamping her foot.
“If you wish me to raise the children, do you not think I deserve to know who I am replacing?”
“Ye are doin’ what I tell ye to do. That is all ye need to ken.”
“Is that so?” she snapped. “Well then, I have some rules of my own.”
Callum scoffed. “Ye dinnae get rules in me castle, lass. That’s nae for ye to dictate.”
She stepped forward, eyes flashing, and for the first time, Callum saw what she might look like when she lost her temper.
He couldn’t look away.
“Are you saying that whatever happens in this castle must be approved and decided by you? Because I have lived in a house like that all my life, and I will not be commanded like some servant by my own husband, no matter howconvenienthe might be.”
Callum was stunned as a rush of amusement skittered through him for the first time in months.
It wasn’t that what shesaidwas funny, but anyone defying him was very amusing indeed. The fact that the person doing it was five feet tall and a third of his size was even more comical to him.
How long has it been since someone told me I couldnae dae somethin’?
Biting his tongue, he waved a hand vaguely at her and shrugged his shoulders as if he were indifferent to anything she might say.
“Very well, lass, what are yerrules?”
Lydia cleared her throat, alarmed when the Laird chose that moment to stand at his full height and move toward her.
Is he trying to intimidate me into silence? I will not allow it.
