Page 2 of The Laird’s Sinful Claim

The carriage lurched to a stop, jolting her forward. Her father merely gave her a cutting glance before descending first, not bothering to offer his hand. He never did. Elinor gathered her skirts and stepped down onto the frozen ground, her eyes sweeping the manor's entrance. Light spilled from the windows. Men's voices drifted out: laughter, the clink of glasses. The sounds of commerce.

Do any of you have daughters? Will you think of them tonight while you stand in rooms like this, deciding which girl is worth the most coin?

"Lord Royse!"

The voice made her stomach clench before she even turned to see who spoke it.

Sir Edmund Langley strode toward them, his crimson cloak billowing behind him like a banner of war. His face was flushed, his jaw tight, and his blue eyes were fixed on her father with an intensity that made her take an instinctive step back.

Not fear. Calculation. Edmund Langley angry was Edmund Langley unpredictable.

"Langley." Her father's tone was flat, dismissive. "I did not expect to see you here."

"Did you not?" Edmund's smile was sharp as a blade. "When I heard whispers of this gathering, I thought surely I had misheard. Surely Lord Thomas Royse would not be so foolish as to parade his lovely daughter before every fortune-hunter and titled scoundrel north of London."

"My affairs are no concern of yours."

"They became my concern when you refused my suit." Edmund's gaze shifted to Elinor, and she met it without flinching.

Let him see that she was not some trembling thing to be fought over.

"I offered marriage to your daughter, my lord. An honorable arrangement. Alliance with my family's name and resources. And you spat on it."

"Your offer was inadequate."

"Inadequate?" Edmund's voice rose, his control slipping. "I offered you a generous settlement, Royse. Lands in Sussex. Connections at court. A bride price that would have cleared half your debts, with the remainder held in trust for your daughter's security. What more could you possibly want?"

Elinor's chest tightened. So that was why her father had refused. The trust. The protections Edmund's marriage contract would have provided, protections that would have kept the money from her father's hands.

Her mother had wept with relief when Edmund came calling, had spoken of it as deliverance. But Elinor had seen the way Edmund looked at her. Like a possession he intended to own completely. Marriage to him would have been trading one prison for another.

"Your offer," her father said coldly, "came with too many conditions. Too many restrictions on how the funds could be used."

"Restrictions meant to protect your daughter!"

"I don't need you to protect her. I need coin." Her father's fingers tightened on her elbow. "And this gathering will provide it without your meddling contracts and trust provisions."

The truth settled over Elinor like a wet blanket. Her father saw only limits. The portions of the bride price he could not immediately touch. The funds set aside for her use rather than his.

This gathering offered no such protections. Just a sale, clean and simple. Here, he could sell her outright and walk away with a purse heavy enough to pay his debts and keep him in wine for years, while she became the property of whoever paid could afford his price.

Edmund's voice dropped to something dangerous. "You would sell her like livestock rather than see her properly wed?"

"I would see her placed where she brings the greatest advantage to her family." Her father's hand closed around her elbow, fingers digging through the fabric of her sleeve hard enough to bruise. "Now step aside. We have business within."