Chapter 17
“Just go on and stir it. Do ye ken how?” Moira asked, shoving the long wooden spoon into her laird’s hand as if she were arming him for war.
Maxwell stared into the pot. The porridge was thick, simmering with slow bubbles. It smelled of oats and warm milk, plain as a winter morning.
“It is porridge,” he said flatly.
“Aye,” Mairi replied, apron tied high over her belly. “And it will scorch if ye stand there glaring at it.”
Moira leaned on the table, eyes bright with mischief. “We already learned the laird can slaughter a loaf. Let’s see if he can manage a pot.”
Maxwell tightened his grip on the spoon. “Nay one slaughters bread.”
Moira’s mouth twitched. “The bread would disagree.”
Ariella stood near the hearth with Isla, laughing softly at their bickering.
She wore a simple gown today, practical for work, and her hair was pinned back, though a few curls had escaped to frame her cheeks.
She looked warm, alive, woven into the kitchen in a way Maxwell still did not fully understand.
Mairi jerked her chin toward the pot. “Stir, me Laird. Clockwise. Steady-like.”
Maxwell obliged.
This, at least, was manageable. A simple motion. No slicing. No uneven wedges. No evidence of his incompetence in front of a tribunal of fearless women who treated him like another kitchen boy.
Moira watched his hand for an absurdly long moment, then sniffed. “He’s stirring like he’s interrogating it.”
Maxwell did not look up. “It is… resisting.”
Ariella laughed again, the sound striking him somewhere in the ribs. “It is porridge.”
Moira pointed the spoon at Maxwell like a judge’s gavel. “Porridge reveals character. A man who stirs too fast is impatient. A man who stirs too slow is lazy. A man who burns it is a threat to society.”
Maxwell continued stirring at a steady pace. “And what of a man who stirs correctly?”
Moira’s eyes narrowed. “Suspicious.”
Mairi cackled. “Leave him be. He’s doing fine.”
Maxwell glanced at Ariella. She was watching him with a look that was too pleased, too soft. As if seeing him in this ridiculous domestic battle meant something more than it should.
He cleared his throat. “Lady McNeill.”
Her eyes lifted. “Aye?”
He heard the slight breathlessness in her voice and pretended he did not. “Tell me more about yer parents.”
Moira’s brows shot up. Mairi’s ladle paused mid-air. Even Isla looked curious, as if she had never heard Maxwell ask anyone a personal question without it sounding like a demand.
Ariella blinked, then smiled cautiously. “Me parents?”
“Aye,” Maxwell said, stirring. “Yer maither. Did she… have healer’s hands?”
Ariella’s expression turned thoughtful. “Me maither?” She gave a small laugh. “Nay. Nae in the way Skylar does.”
Maxwell watched her face carefully, not missing the affection that softened her eyes when she spoke her cousin’s name.
Ariella continued, voice warming. “Me maither was… precise. She liked order. Rules. Quiet halls. She was the sort who could frighten a servant into polishing a floor twice without raising her voice.”
Moira made an approving sound. “That’s a fine skill.”
Ariella smiled. “It is, until ye are a child with mud on yer hem.”
Maxwell asked, “So she never tended to yer wounds?”
Ariella shook her head, amused. “The image of me maither healing a cut is so out of place I could laugh. She would have looked at the blood as if it were personally insulting.”
Maxwell heard the edge of fondness under her teasing, and something in him eased.
“But,” Ariella added, quieter now, “when I was ill, she did tend to me.”
Maxwell’s stirring slowed.
Ariella’s gaze drifted to the hearth, as if she could see the past in the flames.
“I grew ill when I was younger. A fever I couldnae get rid of. The kind that leaves a lass half-dreaming and frightened by shadows. Me maither always stayed by me bed. She pressed cool cloths to me brow. She sang under her breath when she thought nay one could hear. And she held me hand until morning. Every morning.”
Her voice softened further. “I remember waking and thinking she must have been the strongest woman alive, because she looked so calm. Like the fever couldnae touch me while she watched.”
Maxwell stared into the porridge as if it held answers.
Moira cleared her throat loudly, as if to push the air back into motion. “Right. That’s enough tenderness for one pot. Stir this way now, me Laird, or we’ll get lumps.”
Maxwell resumed the steady motion, but he could not shake the image. A mother holding a child’s hand through sickness. A quiet vigil. A softness hidden behind composure.
It was too familiar.
Ariella stepped closer, likely to check the pot, but she hovered near him instead. He could feel her warmth at his side.
“Me maither did nae sing,” Maxwell said before he meant to.
Ariella went still. “Nay?”
He swallowed, regretting the words and unable to take them back. “She spoke to me. When I was ill. She told me what herbs would cool the blood. What teas would settle the stomach. What poultices would draw pain from the joints.”
Ariella’s eyes widened gently. “She kent healing?”
“Aye,” he said, voice rougher than he intended. “More than most.”
Mairi softened, her hands pausing on her work. Even Moira looked away as if granting him privacy by force.
Maxwell’s throat tightened. He kept his gaze on the pot. “She was… skilled. Folk sought her. Nae because she was the laird’s wife. Because she had knowledge.”
Ariella’s voice came softly. “That is remarkable.”
“It is irrelevant,” Maxwell said at once, the old reflex snapping into place. He stirred harder, as if motion could erase vulnerability. “The porridge is ready.”
Moira stepped in, saving him. “Aye. It is. And for once, the laird did nae ruin something edible.”
Maxwell shot her a look. “Careful.”
Moira smiled sweetly. “Or what. Ye’ll stir me to death?”
The kitchen laughed again. Ariella included.
But when they finally stepped away from the hearth, leaving the women to their bustle, Ariella lingered beside Maxwell near the corridor, her expression quieter.
“Thank ye,” she said.
“For what.”
“For telling me that,” she replied gently. “About yer maither.”
Maxwell stared down the passage as if it were safer than her face. “Daenae make it into something it is nae.”
Ariella’s lips curved, not teasing this time. “I willnae.”
He nodded once, regaining his composure like armor settling back onto his shoulders. Yet he felt her hope like heat against his side, and it unsettled him more than any knife at the border.
Mairi ladled the porridge into bowls with the ruthless efficiency of a woman who fed half a keep before sunrise. She slid one toward Maxwell as if daring him to refuse.
He looked down at it.
Plain oats, a pat of butter melting into the surface, a drizzle of honey that caught the firelight. Simple food. Honest food.
Maxwell picked up the bowl and spoon and, without thinking too hard about it, sat at the long table right there in the kitchen.
The silence that followed was brief, stunned, and then shattered by laughter.
Moira clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, look. He’s domestic.”
Mairi barked a laugh so loud it startled the dog by the hearth. “The laird eating in the kitchen like a common man. Someone mark the day.”
Isla’s eyes sparkled. Ariella’s mouth fell open, then she laughed too, softer, as if she could not decide whether this was absurd or endearing.
Maxwell took a bite, unbothered. “It is food. I am hungry.”
Moira set her hands on her hips. “Hungry enough to sit with us?”
“I am sitting where the bowl is,” Maxwell said.
Mairi slid bowls toward Moira and Isla, then looked at Ariella. “Eat, lass. Ye’ll need it. Market day makes fools of everyone.”
Ariella sat, cheeks warm, and accepted her bowl. Her gaze flicked to Maxwell’s face, then away, as if she were still surprised he was here at all.
Maxwell ate slowly. The porridge was good.
Warming. The honey sweet without being cloying.
He realized, to his own irritation, that this was how breakfast should be.
Not a performance. Not a formal hall with cold stone and colder politics.
Just a table, a fire, voices that did not try to cut each other down.
Moira ate with gusto. “So, me Laird. How does it feel to be among the staff?”
Maxwell looked at her. “I have always been among the staff.”
Moira scoffed. “Aye, but usually ye stand like a specter in yer own keep. Today ye’re eating porridge with the rest of us. It’s unsettling.”
Maxwell nodded solemnly. “I aim to unsettle.”
Ariella made a small sound, half laugh, half gasp, as if she could not believe he said that.
Mairi leaned forward, eyes glinting. “If ye aim to unsettle, ye can start by washing a dish when we’re done.”
Moira slapped the table. “Aye! The laird will learn the true work of a clan.”
Maxwell lifted a brow. “I daenae wash dishes.”
Moira pointed her spoon at him. “Ye said ye aim to unsettle.”
Maxwell’s mouth twitched. “I didnae mean to that degree.”
Ariella laughed into her bowl, shoulders shaking. The sound warmed him in a way he did not name.
When they finished, Ariella stood at once, collecting bowls. “I can wash these.”
Mairi waved a hand. “Sit, me Lady, I will do it.”
Ariella shook her head, already moving toward the basin. “I want to.”
Maxwell watched her without meaning to.
She did not hesitate. She did not act like it was beneath her. She rolled up her sleeves, tied her apron, and began washing with practiced ease, speaking to Isla as she worked, listening to Moira’s complaints, laughing when Mairi teased her about soap.
The staff moved around her as if she had always been there. As if she belonged. And they looked at her with something that was not just respect, but affection.
Maxwell felt it like a weight in his chest.
She had stepped into his keep and made it warmer without demanding anything for herself.
When Ariella finished, she dried her hands and turned toward him. “There. Done.”