Page 11 of The Icy Highlander's Bride
"It was wrong of her," Daniel said, standing up to show his displeasure. He caught the little girl peeking out from Cameron's shoulder, though she still held on to him tightly. "Apologize, Skye."
Daniel knew his voice was too loud, his tone too imposing. He knew how to speak in a voice that cut across the room in council meetings. He knew how to intimidate grown men into listening to him. He had no idea how to communicate with a little girl.
But Skye listened to her father. She might not show him her dress or run to him to be spun in the air, but she knew how to listen to him. So the girl saw him as something to be feared, it seemed.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled, turning her large, round eyes to the housekeeper.
Immediately, Cameron stepped in to cut the tension. Daniel begrudged him the way he could easily smile at the girl, tugging on one of her braids to make her smile.
"Ye must nae tire Silvers out, little fox." Cameron bounced the girl on his hip as he used the nickname he gave her for her auburn hair. "Otherwise, she willnae allow us to have sweets after dinner."
Skye smiled at her uncle, and Daniel saw the love between them. He should have been pleased that his daughter had such a good relationship with her uncle, but it only made him angry. Angry at Cameron or Skye or himself, he wasn't sure.
Daniel cleared his throat and raised his eyebrows at Cameron, trying to bring him back on task. He nodded toward Silvers, and Cameron gave Skye a final squeeze before placing her down on the ground. He nudged her toward the housekeeper, and the little girl slowly walked toward her, giving her father's chair a wide berth.
"Yer torture will end soon, Silvers," Daniel assured. "We appreciate yer stepping in after the previous nanny left, but we ken it has been long enough."
"It is no trouble, Me Laird," Silvers answered.
But Daniel recognized the strained words of someone who was lying. The old woman was well past the age she should be chasing after children, and everyone in the household knew it.
"Nevertheless, I have found someone else."
The old woman looked up at him with surprise, but it wasn't her expression that stuck in Daniel's mind after this conversation ended. Instead, he was struck by the wide-eyed stare of his daughter. He didn't expect her to understand this adult conversation, but there she was, clearly taking in this new information. For the second time that morning, Daniel realized how much the child was growing up.
"A new nanny, Me Laird?" Silvers asked as she shooed Skye out of the hall.
Daniel shook his head. "Nay. I found meself a bride. Or rather, she found me."
The overcast sky was a perfect foil for Lana's mood as she pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders. She felt empty of tears, and she was left with a churning stomach, almost overwhelming her every time she thought about her fate.
She had left her room in the hopes that her usual route around the castle would calm her, but it was having the opposite effect. Instead of finding peace, Lana imagined everything she was about to lose when she was sent off to live in another man's castle.
She started in the stables, shoving aside the heavy barn doors to say good morning to the horses. It was early enough that the stable hands were still asleep, and Lana was always delighted to be the first person to greet the animals on a new day. The horses would snort and sniff her hands and her pockets, seeking out the treats she often brought to them.
This morning it was kitchen scraps she had taken from the cook. The woman often set them aside for Lana, knowing she would soon sneak down to find whatever she could for the animals.
"Good morning, Clover," Lana said, resting her hand on the horse's long nose.
She held the curls of carrot peel out to him and felt the soft warmth of his lips against her palm.
"Good morning, Sunshine."
The horse was Lana's favorite, the mare she had ridden since she was a child. When asked what she wanted to name her, a seven-year-old Lana had looked up to the sky before christening the horse.
"A perfect name for our Lana's horse," her father had said. "Our little sunshine girl."
Thinking about her father made her spiral further into sadness. The man had been a kind and loving force in her family, keeping them all together, but a violent murder in the woods had torn her family apart in an instant. Her father was gone, and her brother had acquired a nasty scar across his face. Now, when she looked at her brother, she saw a permanent reminder of everything her family had lost.
"Are ye hungry, little ones?"
The hayloft was the home of a litter of kittens Lana had discovered a few weeks ago. She had followed the little mewing sounds until she saw them there, feeding from their exhausted-looking mother.
Lana brought them milk in the morning and other treats she knew the kittens would enjoy, though their diet mostly consistedof birds, as evidenced by the feathers she found scattered around the hay.
She sat down as two of the kittens, almost fully grown now, padded toward her. She breathed in the sweet scent of the hay and felt the stalks poke into the back of her legs through her skirts as she pulled a kitten up to her chest.
"I daenae want to leave ye," she whispered.
