Chapter 11
The knock on his study door that afternoon was sharp and quick.
Maxwell did not look up from the ledger in front of him. Ink blurred slightly where his quill had paused too long on one figure.
“Enter.”
The door opened. Finley stepped in, cloak damp at the hem, hair wind tossed, a folded scrap of parchment in his hand.
“A rider from the south road,” Finley said. “He was half dead from the speed he kept.” He lifted the parchment between two fingers. “This is for ye.”
Maxwell’s gaze dropped to the seal.
Hunter.
His jaw locked before he could stop it. “Leave it.”
Finley crossed the room anyway and set the letter on the desk. “He said he was told to put it in yer hand and nay other.”
“Ye have done that,” Maxwell said. “Go see that the man is fed.”
Finley did not move. “I will. After I ken what sort of fire this is going to stoke.”
Maxwell’s mouth thinned, but he broke the seal.
Ink slashed across the page in a hand he knew too well. Even before he read the words, he could feel the recklessness in the strokes, the frustration cramped into every line.
Brother,
Did you truly do it? Did you stand there and say the words the priest meant for me? Have you finally gone mad, or are you just that eager to tie me down by the neck?
I hear I am wed and did not even warm the lass’s hand. You would pick that way to steal my future.
Do not bother looking for me. I will not come back until you have lost interest in finding me a wife the moment I set foot over the threshold.
Hunter
No apology. No explanation for walking out on his duty, only wild resentment at the idea that duty might find him again.
Maxwell’s fist closed around the parchment, crumpling the lower edge.
For a moment the room narrowed to the small space in front of him. The fire at his back crackled. The distant sounds of the courtyard drifted in, muffled.
He saw Hunter at twelve, mud on his boots and mischief in his eyes, swearing he would never wear a sword because swords meant responsibility.
He saw him at fifteen, blustering through training, laughing off every reprimand.
He saw himself, younger and rawer, thinking he could shape the boy into something solid with enough pressure.
And now this.
“Does he say where he is?” Finley asked.
“Nay.”
“Of course not,” Finley muttered. “That would make things too easy.”
Maxwell smoothed the letter open again, as if a second reading might reveal some sense. It did not. The words remained the same. Sharp. Foolish. Afraid, though Hunter would never admit it.
“We still daenae ken where he is,” Finley went on. “We have lads asking quiet questions in every tavern within three days’ ride. A man like him leaves noise where he passes. We will hear more in time.”
Maxwell said nothing.
Finley shifted his weight. “For now, perhaps we let him be. Hunter has always had a way of finding his way home when his pockets are empty and his temper cools. Chasing him when he is set on running will only make him bolt farther.”
The thought scraped. Let him wander, while O’Douglas circled like a wolf at the edge of the trees. Let him drift while Ariella stood in the keep wearing a McNeill name Hunter had thrown aside like an old coat.
Maxwell folded the letter once, twice, until it was nothing but a small hard square. He set it carefully beside the blotter.
“See that the rider is paid and fed,” he said at last. “Then have the gate captain keep an eye on any stranger asking too many questions. If Hunter is spreading his name about, I want to ken who is listening.”
Finley inclined his head. “Aye, Laird.”
He paused at the door, looking back as if he wanted to say more, then seemed to think better of it. He slipped out quietly and pulled the door shut behind him.
Silence settled around them.
Maxwell leaned back in his chair. The rafters overhead swam in and out of focus for a moment.
Blast.
Blast himself, for thinking affection and stern words would be enough to make Hunter into the man their clan needed.
A light, quick knock sounded on the door.
“Come in,” he said, more roughly than he intended.
The door eased open.
Ariella slipped in, skirts whispering against the floor, cheeks faintly flushed from some exertion. She shut the door with care and leaned against it, studying him.
“Ye look haunted,” she said pleasantly. “More so than usual, I mean.”
He stared at her. Her eyes were bright. There was a smudge of flour on one wrist. She smelled faintly of herbs and bread.
Blasted beam of sunshine, this one. All the time. Even in his study, where ghosts preferred to sit.
“Have I interrupted a glower,” she continued lightly, venturing farther into the room. “Should I come back when the walls start weeping?”
“I am working,” he said.
“Of course ye are. I was just comin’ by to tell ye that the modiste dropped off the two dresses, and I’ve paid her half of the remainder…
contingent on the silk delivery at the end of the week.
” She came around the desk without waiting to be invited, peering at the ledger, at the folded paper on its edge.
“All this work. All the time. It is a wonder how ye keep it all straight… let alone how ye remember to eat.”
“I remember everything,” he muttered.
“It is the remembering to stop that concerns me,” she said.
He almost smiled. Almost. Then his gaze flicked to the letter, and whatever ease her presence had brought shrank back into its corner.
She followed his eyes.
“What is that?” she asked.
“Nothing’ that concerns ye,” he said.
She snorted softly. “Is that how we are going to play this. I ask, ye brood, and we pretend we agreed to share truths?”
He said nothing.
She reached out and, before he could stop her, plucked the letter from beside his hand.
“Ariella,” he warned.
She had already unfolded it. Her eyes scanned the lines, her mouth flattening as she read. By the end, one eyebrow had climbed nearly to her hairline.
“This is from Hunter,” she said.
“Aye.”
“And he is annoyed ye took his place at the altar.”
“Aye.”
She shook her head slowly, a derisive little sound escaping her. “What a little beast.”
Despite himself, a corner of his mouth tugged.
“He abandons ye, abandons his duty, writes ye this scrap full of sulking,” she went on, flicking the page, “and expects ye to feel guilty for it. If ye ever needed proof that I am the better bargain, there ye have it.”
The words were tossed like a jest, but heat flared in his chest anyway.
“Better bargain,” he echoed.
She lifted her chin, eyes dancing now. “Ye are lucky to have me, Laird. Hunter missed out. He could have had all this.” She gestured down the length of herself with such comedic pomp that he nearly laughed.
A short, unwilling chuckle escaped him.
She beamed as if he had presented her with jewels.
“There,” she said softly. “That is better.”
The knot between his shoulders loosened a fraction. He had not realized how tight it had grown until her foolishness pried at it.
She looked back at the letter, nose wrinkling. “He does not say where he is.”
“Nay.”
“That is careless,” she said. “Even for him.”
“He has always been careless,” Maxwell said. “That is the core of him. Light feet, light heart.”
“And ye love him,” she said quietly.
His jaw ticked. “He is me braither.”
“That is nae what I asked.”
He did not answer.
She leaned her hip against the desk, close enough that the fabric of her skirts brushed the back of his hand where it rested. “Are ye close?”
He stared at the grain of the wood. “We were.”
“Because ye are the older,” she said, “or because ye are all the other has.”
He let out a breath. “Both.”
She nodded, as if that made sense. “Frederick and I are close too. But he is forever trying to wrap me in wool and keep sharp corners from me. Even the truth, sometimes. He says it is because the world is hard enough without the pieces of it he can spare me.”
“He shields ye,” Maxwell said.
“Aye,” she said. “As if me being a woman makes me likely to shatter.”
“It is nae that,” Maxwell said before he thought better of it.
She tilted her head, curious. “Nay.”
“It is older braither,” he said. “Older sibling. We are raised to think we can stand between the younger and every blow. We daenae stop to consider what happens when we are nay longer there to catch it.”
She studied him, something softening in her gaze.
“Ye do that for Hunter,” she said. “Stand between him and blows.”
“Nae as well as I thought,” he said. “He still runs toward the nearest cliff.”
She hummed, fingertip tracing a knot in the wood. “Even if it means taking his place.”
He did not move.
She looked up, eyes meeting his. There it was again, that spark that had been plaguing him since the vows. Too bright. Too questioning. Too much.
“Even if it means standing where he ought to have stood,” she continued, very quietly now. “Even if it means marrying a lass he should have taken as his duty, nae leaving ye to patch the wound.”
The room seemed smaller suddenly. The fire louder.
He could feel her warmth through the space between them. Smell the faint hint of soap and flour and something he was beginning to think of as hers alone.
“Aye,” he said.
Her gaze dipped to his mouth for a heartbeat, then lifted again. The air thickened.
Her hand rose, hesitated in the space between them. He might have stopped her. He did not.
Fingertips brushed his cheek, lightly at first, then with more surety. The pads of her fingers traced the line of the old scar that carved from brow to cheek, the rougher skin there under her touch.
“May I ask,” she murmured. “About these?”
Something in him went very still.
Her touch gentled, as if she felt the change. “Or is that too much? Ye can tell me nay. I will nae break.”
Her thumb brushed once along the edge of the scar.
His hand closed around the arm of the chair until his knuckles whitened.
“They are nae… pretty,” she added softly. “But I have wondered if they still hurt.”