Page 38 of A Virgin for the Icy Highlander
“I pray you never have daughters,” she snapped. “Or if you already do, that they never have to hear such unpleasant words from their mother. You are a woman. I’m surprised you would be so damning of your sex, when you ought to know full well just how capable we are. We are the ones who create lairds and kings and warriors and those who change the world. We are the ones who make life. And you had better hope that I don’t feel the urge to inform the Laird of what you have said about his daughter.”
The seller paled as fear flashed in her eyes. “Ye wouldnae.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Grace countered. “He deserves to know if there is an unkind opinion in his clan, doesn’t he?”
“Ye can have any jewelry ye like,” the woman offered, sweeping her hand across the display of beautiful things. “Ye can have whatever ye please for nothin’, so long as ye dinnae say anythin’ to the Laird. Of course, I didnae mean it. It was yer Englishness that made me forget meself for a moment, that’s all.”
Grace sniffed. “I don’t want your jewelry now, Madam. It would be tantamount to a bribe, and I’m an honest person.”
“Please, consider it a gift,” the seller said in desperation. “Whatever ye like.”
There was no possible way that Grace would even consider accepting the jewelry, now tainted, but shedidsee an opportunity before her. It sounded like this woman knew something of the history that Grace had been banned from knowing. Perhapsthatwould be a suitable exchange for her silence.
But that would be equally bad. If Hunter wants me to know something, he should tell me himself. I shouldn’t pry.
Shewantedto hear it from Hunter. She couldn’t fully explain it, but she believed if he told her everything from his own kissable mouth, it would be a turning point for them. A show of mutual respect and trust.
For what was a marriage, even a convenient one, without those two things?
“I won’t say anything,” she told the woman curtly. “But let this be a warning that you ought to be more careful about what you say about that sweet girl in the future.”
The seller took a slow, relieved breath. “Thank ye, miss. Thank ye, a thousand times. Aye, I will be more careful. I didnae mean what I said in the first place.”
Grace didn’t believe that, but she had lost her desire to continue her hunt for the perfect gift. Her mood had soured. Her heart wished she were back at the castle, playing with Ellie, seeing Hunter. Perhaps it was for the best to keep Ellie behind the safety of those walls, if the world outside was just going to be unkind to her.
But that is no life at all.
She knew, keenly, what it felt like to be a prisoner in one’s own home. The one thing that had made her realize that she hadbeen a bird in a gilded cage was coming to Horndean, where freedom had not merely been within her reach, but had been encouraged.
“Come on,” she said, ushering her two friends away from the jewelry stall and down the thoroughfare of the market to where the sellers and buyers thinned out.
She hadn’t caught the name of the village, but it was a quaint place of slate-roofed cottages, charming shops, a thatched inn where the sound of a fiddler drifted out onto the streets, and an air of good cheer. All the buildings were constructed from the beautiful, gray-quartz sandstone that she had never seen until she came to Scotland—quite a contrast from the yellowed variety of England.
“Shall we have an early luncheon?” Lilian suggested, pointing to the inn.
Grace shook her head. “I think we ought to return to the castle. I don’t think we would be welcome in there.”
“Grace, you can’t listen to the gripes of one person,” Maddie said, putting a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “When or if you marry the Laird, the clan will come around to the idea of you. They won’t be able to reject you. It’s impossible.”
Lilian nodded. “Especially when they see how much the Laird likes you. They will like you too, following the example of their leader.”
“I don’t really know that Hunter likes me,” Grace said, her voice a little sharper than she had intended. “It is pointless to believe that this arrangement is anything but practical—it is a solution to two problems, nothing more. It isn’t the beginning of an epic romance. It isn’t poetic. Our arrangement isn’t… anything. And I’m sorry to be so blunt, but the more we speak about it, the more I lose heart.”
She refused to show, even to her dearest friends, how hurt she truly was by Hunter’s dismissal.
The pair of themhad choices, however tenuous. Maddie would undoubtedly find a way to be a scholar. Lilian would certainly be permitted to stay at Horndean to look after the girls. Grace had no options left aside from this marriage to Hunter. And shedidn’t want to start wanting more than he was willing to offer, in case it, too, began to feel like no option at all.
I can’t risk this going awry because of a brief kiss.
“It doesn’t have to benothing. It canbesomething,” Maddie said, regardless. “It can all change with today’s emotion.”
Grace frowned at her friend. “What do you mean?”
She should have said, “Were you not listening to a word I just said?” but curiosity had a way of getting the better of her. Besides, she had already succeeded in coaxing out two emotions.
“There is a particular… mood that gentlemen have been known to get into when they are angry,” Maddie replied. “You must understand that this isn’t just any anger, though. It is a particular kind.”
Grace blew out a breath through her nose. “Maddie, I don’t want him to be angry.”
