Page 153 of Auctioned to the Cruel Highlander
He had no answer he wished to give her. Not one she deserved to hear, and not one he meant to confess, so his gaze drifted toward the window.
Light lay soft across the courtyard below as the afternoon had gone mild and utterly bright. On the grass near the lower path, Ava lay stretched with her face turned up toward the sun, one arm bent near her head and the other flat in the grass. He could see her full figure from where he stood, doing nothing but basking in the sun.
It felt like a rare thing to see Ava doing nothing. Since she had arrived, all she had done was come up with terms or defy him in any way she could. Now, she was simply there. Atease.
“Ah,” Isobel said softly, her voice bringing him back to the present.
That one small sound pricked deeper than her earlier scolding.
He turned away from the window at once. “Daenae start.”
The corner of her mouth curved, not into a smile, but into something sadder and more knowing. “I wasnae going to say anything.”
“Good.”
“Because ye would hate to hear it spoken aloud?”
His expression cooled. “Ye grow tiresome. I can see where ye got that now. Living in the same castle with her for years has made ye quite the most insistent person.”
“And ye, Brother, continue to grow transparent,” she retorted.
For a heartbeat, neither of them moved. Then Isobel’s gaze flicked to the window and back again.
“What threatens ye?” she asked, and for once her voice held no accusation. “That she is troublesome? Or that she may fit here too well?”
Ciaran said nothing.
Isobel let out a breath, as if she had expected nothing else. “Ye need nae answer me.”
“Nay,” he uttered. “I daenae.”
She studied him one moment longer, then moved toward the door. “Tomorrow will come, whether ye hide from it or nae.”
He did not stop her.
When she had gone, the room felt too still.
Ciaran remained where he was. He did not turn back to the window. He did not even go down to the gardens. He justremained where he was, determined to enjoy his last moments of true freedom.
Tomorrow, Ava would become his wife. And his refusal to approach her, once so neatly defended as practicality, now felt less like strength than the last stubborn act of a man who knew too well that the walls he had built were no longer standing untouched.
The lass outside the window was holding a hammer, and he needed to make certain she never succeeded in breaking down those walls.
CHAPTER 8
The next morningcame before Ava could even blink. And before she could blink some more, she was in front of a mirror, preparing for a wedding.
A part of her still hoped, at least to some extent, that all of this was a dream. That in a few minutes or even now, she would wake up in her room back in Fraser Castle and tell Isobel about the utter nightmare she had where she had almost married her brother.
But she knew that wasn’t happening, because this was too real to be a dream, and she had no choice but to go through with it.
Isobel stood behind her, fastening the last laces of her wedding gown as carefully as she could.
The room held the small, intimate noises of dressing, linen shifting, a box lid being set aside, the faint clink of pins. It shouldhave felt peaceful. Instead, it felt fragile, as though one wrong word might split the whole morning open.
Isobel exhaled. “She would have hated missing this, ye ken. Millie wasnae one to miss out on whatever scandal she could set her eyes on.”
Ava looked at her reflection, then down at her hands folded too tightly in her lap. “Yer sister is perfectly fine where she is. I am certain she wouldnae do anything to betray her calling.”
