Page 57 of The Highlander’s Defiant Bride

She had hurt him with her betrayal and was determined to do everything in her power to show him he could trust her once more. The music swelled, and she was pulled into a more frenetic pace. Destiny drew in a long breath, leaned her head back, and allowed herself to simply live in this moment.

*

The garden pulsed with life as the pipes skirled, and the drum beat a steady rhythm. Cameron watched as his people ate, danced, and laughed. For the first time in weeks, the tightness in his chest eased. The clan looked less like a people bracing for war and more like what they truly were—families, kin, souls who deserved peace.

And then he heard it.

Destiny laughed.

The sound startled him. He had heard her speak in anger, in sorrow, in measured reason, but never had he heard that bright, unguarded music spill from her lips. It struck him like sunlight breaking through storm clouds, piercing and warm. Without meaning to, he found himself smiling, his heart lifting in response.

But as quickly as the warmth came, he caught himself. He forced his shoulders stiff again, his expression schooled back into restraint. It was not so simple. Things between them were not what they had been before her would-be betrayal.

A shadow lingered in his memory; the night he had nearly lost her trust to her father’s command. She had stood between him and that prisoner, torn between her loyalty to the Munros and the poisonous grasp her father still held over her. She had almost undone everything he had fought to protect.

Cameron wanted to trust her again; God help him, he did. But something held him back, a shadow that would not lift.

It was her father.

The scout he had sent returned before dawn, bringing news Cameron had half expected and wholly despised. Alexander Gunn had ridden straight back to the Mackenzies. Not into hiding. Not away from danger. He had chosen his side, and it was not his daughter’s. Gunn was already preparing to bargain again, to trade allegiance for coin and protection, as though Destiny were no longer part of the reckoning.

That knowledge settled heavily in Cameron’s chest. He had seen enough to know the man cared nothing for her safety. Gunn had treated Destiny as currency, not kin, something to be spent when it suited him. And yet, despite all of it, Cameron sensed that some part of her still clung to the man. Not to his schemes or his threats, but to the fragile truth that he was her father.

That was what frightened Cameron most. Not that Destiny was weak, but that she was not yet entirely free. Blood bound her still, tugging her backwards, even as she tried to step forward. Perhaps it was because her father was the last living tie to the world she had known before Foulis, before Cameron. The last thread connecting her to a life already gone.

And Cameron could not help but wonder, if pressed again, whether she would be able to sever it. That doubt lingered, quiet and dangerous, even as he stood beside her and willed himself to believe.

Music swelled, laughter rose, and his gaze was drawn despite himself. Destiny moved within the circle of dancers, her smile unguarded, her eyes bright with a joy that seemed almost unfamiliar to her. For a fleeting moment, she looked free, lighter than he had ever seen her, as if the burdens she carried had loosened their hold. Cameron’s hand tightened unconsciously on the hilt of his sword. He realised then that he wanted—nay, needed—that laughter to belong here. To belong to Foulis. To belong with him. But doubt whispered still.

Could he truly trust her? Could he give her his heart while the spectre of her father lingered between them, tugging at loyalties even she might not yet fully understand?

His chest ached with the weight of it, desire braided tight with caution. Every instinct urged him to step into the circle, to take her hand, to claim that laughter and make it his own. Instead, he remained where he was, rooted in place, torn between the pull of her joy and the shadow of betrayal that had not yet released its hold.

As the sun began to dip towards the hills, the music died down, and families began drifting back towards the safety of the keep. Children yawned against their mothers’ shoulders, their laughter fading to murmurs. The day had given them a measure of peace, and that was something.

Cameron lingered at the edge of the garden, watching Destiny as she bent to gather a basket left on the grass. Stray wisps of hair had slipped free from her plait, golden in the last rays of light. He thought again of her laughter earlier, the brightness of it. The memory stirred something sharp and sweet in his chest.

She caught him watching.

Straightening, she lifted the basket to her hip and smiled faintly. “It was a good idea, was it not? For a little while, they forgot the Mackenzies. I even forgot them myself.”

Cameron’s lips twitched into the ghost of a smile. “Aye. You were right. They needed it.” He hesitated, then added in a lower voice, “I needed it.”

Her eyes softened, and for a moment he thought she might step closer. He felt the urge to close the space himself, to tell her how her laughter had shaken something loose inside him. But the words stuck in his throat, caught by the memory of her father and the shadow of her near betrayal.

Instead, he cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders. “You have given the clan peace and joy, and a small measure of hope, Destiny. For that, I am grateful.”

Something flickered in her gaze. Hurt, perhaps, at the formality of his words.

She shifted the basket against her hip and nodded. “Hope is what we all need, Cameron. Even you.”

He almost said, Especially me, but the confession caught and withered before it reached his tongue. He only inclined his head, letting the silence stretch between them until the moment passed.

Together they walked back to the keep, side by side but not touching, their steps matched yet divided by the unspoken. Her laughter still rang in his ears, sweet as sunlight, and he longed to believe in it. But trust was not so easily restored, and the weight of her father’s betrayal still lay between them.

*

The glow of the day lingered in her body long after Destiny returned to the keep. She had parted with Cameron belowstairs and carried her shawl back to her chamber. The sound of children’s laughter and the drone of the pipes still echoed in her ears, but what stayed with her most vividly was Cameron’s face as he had watched her dance. For a heartbeat, his eyes had softened, unguarded, as though she had reached him.