Page 46 of Highlander Lord Of Vengeance

“What will that cost me?” Torrance asked but already knew.

“A wedding when I return.”

“Una was taken prisoner after a battle. She does not beg for freedom. She watches, listens, and she learns. I have no doubt she plans to attempt to escape one day.”

“Perfect,” Hakon said with a grin. “I want a wife who’ll keep me sharp. Just make sure she doesn’t escape before I return.”

“We’ll see what information you bring me.”

Hakon narrowed his eyes. “Careful, Torrance. I know how much you like games, but I didn’t ride all this way to play games.”

“And I won’t fail to keep my word,” Torrance warned.

“I want Una, no other. Don’t disappoint me, or you won’t like the consequences.”

Torrance leaned closer to Hakon and kept his voice low but powerful. “Don’t threaten me or you and your men will never make it home.”

The firein the hearth crackled softly, casting shifting shadows across the stone walls of Torrance’s bedchamber. Esme sat on the bench beside the hearth, a shawl wrapped around her, staring into the flames. She had no chance all day to speak with her husband to find out what he spoke with Hakon about. She feared her husband may have agreed to give Una to Hakon and it disturbed her to think that it could be Una’s fate.

The door suddenly swung open, causing Esme to hurry off the bench and turn to see her husband enter. He had a commanding presence that always managed to fill a room when he entered it. His broad shoulders were always drawn back, his chin held at a slight angle, and his distinct green eyes seemed to devour everything around him as if nothing could be hidden from him. She tucked her shawl tighter around her as if somehow it could shield her.

Torrance shoved the door closed as he said, “You should be in bed.”

“I wished to speak with you.”

“Did I just say you should be in bed, wife?”

She almost cringed at his familiar sharp tongue. This was when she thought herself mad for even considering Torrance was Ryland. But it still continued to nag at her. For now, she would be cautious and that meant knowing she would get nowhere arguing with him. And he certainly wouldn’t tolerate her disagreeing with him, so she dropped her shawl on the bench and took quick steps to the bed and slipped beneath the blankets.

However, she bravely said, “We can talk in bed.”

Torrance glanced her way, thinking how unwise it was to keep her in his bed, and yet how right it felt. Besides, with threats on both their lives, he felt better keeping her there with him. He also slept better with her cuddled against him. Though he was treading a very thin line with her and he wasn’t sure what would happen when it snapped.

Esme sat up in bed and tried averting her eyes as her husband shed his garments, but it wasn’t easy. He was a fine specimen of a man, strong and muscled, born of endless time on the practice field and in battle. She squinted for a moment, the fire’s light catching his naked body, highlighting it, and she thought there was something different about him, but she couldn’t quite grasp what it was.

Torrance turned his back on his wife, seeing how focused she was on him, and it wasn’t passion he saw in her eyes. She looked puzzled, and that was not good.

He dropped his garments on top of a wood chest and turned her attention elsewhere. “What did you want to talk about.”

Esme shook her head, clearing it. “Did you tell Hakon you would consider giving him Una?”

Torrance walked to the bed. “I did.”

Esme stretched out beneath the blankets as Torrance joined her in bed. “I don’t believe that is a wise thing to do.”

He turned his gaze on her, his brow lifted in challenge as he stretched out beside her. “Why not?”

“Hakon is not a good man. He may be useful, even honorable in his own way, but he’s cruel. You can see it in the way he looks at people, in the sharpness of his tongue, in how he enjoys being feared.”

Torrance’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile. “And Una is gentle and as sweet as a spring bloom?”

“You know she isn’t,” Esme said, worry in her words. “But that doesn’t mean she should be used to tame a brute.”

“I’m not using her,” he said, his voice firm. “Hakon asked for a wife. Una is no meek lass who’ll weep over harsh words. She’s sharp-witted, strong and, I suspect, no stranger to men like him. If anything, she might be the one woman capable of being his wife.”

Esme turned on her side to face her husband. “That may be, but just because she can fight him doesn’t mean she should have to. You don’t pair two blades and expect peace.”

Torrance turned his head toward her. “You see danger. I see potential. She’s spent her life wielding more than kitchen knives. She thrives on challenge, and she has no illusions about men or marriage.”

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