Chapter 14
Ciaran came for her exactly when he had said he would—right at the ringing of the bell.
That, more than anything, unsettled Ava.
She had half expected a delay, an interruption, a practical excuse that would let him honor half of his promise at the very most. Instead, he appeared at the appointed hour with all the controlled composure he could muster.
The sight of him standing there, waiting for her, sent a quick, unwelcome awareness through her before a word had even been spoken.
Suddenly, the memory of their wedding crashed over her.
He had kissed her. That fact sat between them at once, though neither brought it up.
“Me Lady,” he greeted.
“Me Laird.”
The formality nearly made her head ache.
It was too correct, too measured, too clean after everything that had happened between them.
He might as well have bowed over a treaty rather than come to fetch the woman he had held in his arms with his hand on her neck and his mouth on hers.
Yet she was also absurdly pleased that he had come at all, which only worsened her mood.
He offered his arm. “Are ye ready?”
With one loud exhale, she took it.
They began walking in silence, their steps punctuated only by the gentle breeze surrounding them. The castle stood behind them in all its ordinary morning business, servants moving in and out, smoke rising, men crossing the yard with purpose.
Ciaran led her beyond the more public parts of the grounds and onto a path that opened into quieter stretches of land where the air felt cleaner and the world less crowded by eavesdropping walls.
At first, they spoke of nothing that mattered.
He pointed out the boundaries of the estate with the concise clarity of a man who knew every field, rise, and path. Ava listened and answered where it was called for.
The farther they moved, the more the walk itself seemed to loosen something within them.
Indoors, Ciaran’s reserve could fill a room until it felt like another piece of furniture, heavy and impossible to shift.
Out here, with open fields on either side and the sky above them, that same reserve sat differently.
It was less oppressive and more like something she could feel comfortable in.
He still spoke little, but when he did, there was less effort in it. He sounded more natural discussing a slope that turned marshy in poor weather than he ever did standing rigid in a chamber trying to pretend he was not affected by her.
Ava found that quite pleasant. It wasn’t the most obvious thing in the world, but it wasn’t too subtle either. It helped her realize that she needed to stop bracing for his silence and finding a way to fill it.
The path before them twisted around a rise and opened into a broader stretch where the morning lay clear and mild across the grass. Ava tipped her head back without thinking, taking in the expanse of sky above them.
Ciaran noticed. “What is it?”
She lowered her gaze again. “Nothing.”
He made a quiet sound that suggested he didn’t believe that, but he didn’t press her.
Ava hesitated. It would have been easy enough to let the moment pass. To return to neutral things. Yet the morning had become too still for pretense, and something about the openness around them made speaking feel less dangerous than it might have back inside the castle.
What did she have to lose anyway? She might as well open her mouth.
“Me ma used to tell me that a comet would return one day,” she said slowly, surprised by how stable her voice sounded.
Ciaran glanced at her, though he did not interrupt.
“She spoke of it when I was very young,” she went on. “As if it were the most certain and marvelous thing in the world. It wasnae even like she kent precisely when it would come, but she believed the heavens were vast enough to hold such returns, whether we saw them or nae.”
The words sounded stranger out loud than they had in her own mind all these years. Still, now that she had begun, she did not want to stop halfway and leave it sounding like childish nonsense.
“I have always wanted to see it, ye ken,” she murmured. “And it isnae just because it would be beautiful, though I daresay it would be. But because it feels…” She paused, searching for the right words. “Because it feels like keeping faith with her.”
That made him look at her properly.
Ava kept looking ahead, suddenly aware that she had stepped somewhere far more personal than she intended when the walk began. Yet retreating now would only make it worse.
“She dreamed of it,” she said. “And I think some part of me has held onto the dream because she did. Like letting it go would mean I had let go of more than some random bright thing in the sky.”
The path crunched softly beneath their shoes, and the wind rustled the grass.
She let out a quick, self-conscious sigh. “I ken. Saying it out loud… it sounds quite foolish, does it nae?”
“Nay,” Ciaran replied, his voice unwavering.
Ava looked at him then. His face was still composed, but his attention had changed. Sharpened, perhaps. Or deepened. She did not know how else to describe it other than to say that he was listening in a way that made her feel the words had weight once spoken.
“Ye see, me ma wasnae exactly the easiest person to relate with. She often got lost in her own world.”
“Really?”
“Aye. She had her own way of speaking about things,” Ava said more quietly. “She could make anything sound like the very best thing in the world.”
“And ye kept it,” Ciaran noted.
Ava looked up at him. “What?”
“Her enthusiasm,” he clarified, not breaking a beat. “It is clear from the way ye speak most times that ye share this feature with yer ma as well.”
Ava swallowed thickly and turned her eyes to the distant cluster of trees that stood just a hair away from the loch. “I have never really thought about it like that.”
“Daenae worry. I daenae think it will be easy for ye to let her go. Ye’re doing all of this for her, are ye nae?”
“For her,” she agreed. Then, after a beat, she exhaled. “And perhaps for meself as well.”
Ciaran did not respond, but the silence that followed was not the strained one from earlier. It felt different now and even more attentive. Ava felt it without needing to look at him again.
They continued walking side by side, the path stretching ahead, the grounds open and quiet around them. Ava became aware with growing certainty that the air had shifted without her noticing.
This was no longer merely about honoring her terms. She had come expecting controlled politeness and perhaps a little discomfort. Instead, she had told him something she had carried for years and found that he could listen to her without making fun of her.
Why had she even expected him to make fun of her in the first place? Was she that inexperienced when it came to companionship with a man? Or was she just treading the path based on Ciaran’s reputation? Was him being attentive worse or even better?
She could not yet decide which, and for a little while after, neither of them spoke.
Eventually, Ciaran turned to her, almost as if the thought had escaped him before he had fully decided whether to keep it.
“I have a telescope in me tower.”
Ava blinked. What?
She turned her head to him, wondering if her mind was playing tricks on her. He did not just say—
“What did ye just say?”
Ciaran narrowed his eyes. “Did ye nae hear me?”
“Nay, I didnae.”
He brought his forearm to his chest, and Ava saw the faint outline of the bandage around his shoulder. “Something tells me ye did.”
“Maybe I did. Maybe I didnae. I want ye to repeat it.”
Ciaran shrugged, exhaling as loudly as he could. “I said… I have a telescope in me tower.”
So her mind had not been playing tricks on her. That was exactly what he had said, and it was what she had heard.
The words were so unexpected that for a moment, she only looked at him. “A telescope?”
He kept looking ahead. “Aye.”
That was all. He didn’t offer any explanation or attempt to make the fact less strange than it sounded.
A part of her was beginning to understand now that it was his way of talking. He didn’t use twenty words when only two would do. Yet, for some reason, the admission landed with surprising force.
It was not the object itself that surprised her, though she had not expected such a thing from him.
It was the picture that formed in her head.
A solitary man in a tower, watching the night sky, keeping a private habit no one had thought fit to tell her about because no one likely imagined there was such a thing to tell.
For a man known for being severe, the picture felt almost intimate.
Ava found herself smiling before she meant to. “I would never have guessed.”
The corner of his mouth twitched slightly. “Most people wouldnae.”
“Nay, they wouldnae.”
For a moment, she tried to imagine it clearly. Ciaran in his tower alone, looking upward through glass and brass toward the same heavens her mother had taught her to dream about.
The image should have felt odd. Instead, it felt reasonable in the strangest way, that a man like Ciaran would have quite an odd hobby.
How could something make sense and no sense at the same time?
“Me mother would have liked that,” Ava said.
“The telescope?”
“The idea of it.” She glanced up at the sky again. “That a man who looks as though he might distrust every soft thing in the world still keeps a way to study the stars.”
He gave her a look at that, not offended but not amused either. More as if he had not expected to be read so neatly and did not entirely care for it.
“It serves practical uses as well,” he pointed out.
“Of course, it does.”
That made him breathe out something close to a laugh.
The sound was so small that she might have missed it if she had not been listening to him with far too much attention already. She said nothing about it. Instead, they just walked on.
Ava did not press him with foolish questions about how often he used it or whether he watched the stars alone or what first made him want to do such a thing. The moment felt too finely balanced for that.
He had given her a nugget, and she sensed that taking it too greedily might snap whatever had opened.
Still, the knowledge remained between them and felt heavier than anything.
She understood why he did that at the end of the day. She had spoken of her mother and a dream held for years, and he had felt it was only reasonable to reveal something about his private life.
Ava grew aware of him beside her in a new way then. He was not just the man she had married or even the man who had kissed her so fervently the other day. Rather, he had become more present. More approachable.
She kept her hands folded before her because she did not trust them to stay still.
The path narrowed slightly where grass pressed close to stones, and when they rounded a stand of low shrubs, his arm brushed hers for the briefest instant. The contact was nothing, yet her whole body noticed it.
She did not know whether he felt the same thing until she saw him look away. Was he as affected by that light touch? Was he avoiding her eyes because of it?
She didn’t have the time to answer these questions when Ciaran looked toward the sky and swallowed, too abruptly to sound natural. “The light is dimming.”
Ava followed his gaze. The light had dimmed a little, yes, though not so much that their walk needed to end.
“I daenae see how—”
“We should go back.”
There it is.
Ava felt his withdrawal at once, quick and clean.
“All right,” she relented.
He steered them toward the castle.
They walked back side by side the way they had come, yet nothing felt quite the same. The path was the same. The grounds were the same. But Ava carried the sharp knowledge of what had nearly happened without either of them moving so much as a hand toward the other.
He had stepped away from the moment because it had become too much for him. That certainty settled in her with every step as they returned to the warm castle walls.
It was quite damning that whatever he was trying to keep shut inside himself was being pressed harder each time they were left alone together, whether in a chamber, by a bed, or under open sky.
By the time the castle rose before them, Ava knew one thing with painful clarity—Ciaran was far from unaffected.
She had thought the Silent Death would have no fears, but it was clear that he was just as vulnerable as any other man.
She just needed to find that side of him.
And she most definitely would.