Page 22 of The Highlander’s Defiant Bride

Cameron remained at the head of the table, stacking parchments and reports, the set of his shoulders relaxed now that the meeting was done. He looked utterly at ease in this room of power, and she hated how much she admired it.

At last, she found her voice. “Why did you do that?”

He glanced up, one brow lifting. “Do what?”

“You agreed with me. In front of them.” Her words tumbled out sharper than she had intended. “You made me part of the decision. You made me . . . visible.”

He studied her, dark eyes searching her face. “Because you were right.”

She blinked, stunned. “You could have said the same in your own words. No one would have questioned you.”

“True,” he allowed, a faint curve tugging at his mouth. “But they will learn faster to trust you if they hear the sense from your lips. A laird’s wife is not only for show, Destiny. She must stand beside him, not behind.”

Her chest tightened, heat rushing to her cheeks. Beside him. Not a pawn. Not a debt. Not a body in a bed. A partner. The word pulsed through her, foreign and dizzying.

“You do not know me,” she whispered.

“I know enough.” His gaze was steady, unflinching. “You have a mind sharp as any blade. And you have the courage to speak, though you fear to be heard. I would be a fool to silence that.”

Her throat went dry. In the past, her father met her ideas with suspicion, control, even scorn. But never respect. And certainly not the faint warmth that flickered in his voice when he said her name.

She drew in a shaky breath, trying to hide the way her heart raced. “Do not think me flattered. I spoke only what was just.”

Cameron stepped closer, not so near as to touch, but enough that the heat of him wrapped around her. “And that,” he said softly, “is why I listened and why a messenger has been sent to the Mackenzies this very day.”

Destiny’s breath caught. She forced herself to hold his gaze, though it made her chest ache. The air between them hummed with something she could not name, something she did not want to name.

She turned abruptly, gathering her skirts. “Respect will not change what this marriage is.”

“Perhaps not,” he said behind her, his voice low and calm. “But it may change what it becomes.”

The words chased her all the way back to her chamber, warming her skin, unsettling her heart. Destiny feared he was right. She wanted their marriage to be more than a blending of clans and a potential hope for peace with the Mackenzies. She wanted so much more.

Chapter Seven

The gardens lay beyond the inner courtyard, tucked between the keep and the outer wall. Though small compared to her father’s lands, they held a kind of austere beauty, with rows of herbs, a cluster of apple trees, and neat beds of leeks and onions. The morning air was sharp with the scent of damp earth and rosemary.

Destiny wandered the gravel path slowly, her fingers brushing the tips of lavender stalks as though their fragrance might calm her racing thoughts. The murmur of men training in the yard echoed faintly through the stone walls, but here it was quiet enough to think.

And thinking was precisely what unsettled her.

They called her husband the Butcher. She had heard the name of Cameron’s father and his eldest son whispered in her father’s hall, spoken with equal parts dread and grudging respect. Men who slaughtered Mackenzies without mercy. Men who broke clans with the force of their swords and their wills.

And yet, Cameron had not shown her that side of himself. Not once. He had been firm and commanding, but never cruel. He had granted her space, allowed her voice to be heard in the council chamber, even looked at her as though she were more than a pawn. Was it all a mask? Was he waiting until her defences lowered, until she trusted him enough, before revealing the part of himself that had earned him such a name? He spoke of peace with a steadiness that surprised her, and her marriage had been woven into that design. Destiny wondered which side of him would prevail . . . the butcher she had feared, or the peacemaker she was only beginning to glimpse.

Her hand tightened around a sprig of thyme, crushing it between her fingers, releasing its sharp scent. She did not notice the gardener until he rose from where he had been bent over a bed of onions.

Destiny startled, then offered a small smile. “Mr Muir, I did not see you there. Forgive me, I am intruding on your work.”

“Nay, milady. The garden is for all,” he said, straightening with a grunt. He was older, stooped, with a leather cap pulled low and dirt caked beneath his nails. “Keeps the kitchen full, the men fed. Would ye like that tour of the gardens now?”

“Nay. I do not wish to disturb your hard work.” But perhaps there was something he could do for her. Biting her lower lip, she hesitated, then asked the question that pressed too heavily to keep inside. “Tell me . . . my husband, the laird. Why do they call him the Butcher?”

Mr Muir’s brows rose, and for a moment he seemed to weigh whether he ought to answer at all.

Then he glanced around, as though to be sure no one else listened. “The young laird carries a great burden given tae him by his father. The elder laird was a brutal man. ’Twas during the battle at Evanton,” the gardener said slowly. “The Mackenzies raided our lands, slew women and bairns. The elder laird struck back hard. Showed no mercy. Not tae the raiders, not tae those who harboured them. Blood ran deep that day.” The gardener rubbed at his hands, as though trying to work the memory away with the dirt. “The younger laird fought at his side. Many say they both earned the name there, and it clung tae them both after.”

Destiny’s mouth went dry. “And you? Do you believe it of the younger laird, of Cameron? That he is brutal?”