Chapter 16
Early the next morning, Ava thought she could do him the favor this time around and be the first to appear. So she walked to his study and stood outside with one hand still lifted from the knock, and tried to compose herself as much as she could.
Now that they had settled into the one-hour-a-day arrangement, perhaps she had made enough of an impression to keep herself invaluable.
It was only a conversation. A few minutes. Some sign that the distance of the past days had an end she could see.
“Come in.” His voice carried through the door in the same even tone he used for everything.
Ava opened it just enough to look inside. He was sitting at his desk, with papers spread before him, his attention already fixed on them again.
“Me Laird,” she greeted.
“Ava.” He glanced up once, his eyes narrowed. “I am busy.”
The words were plain enough.
She might still have crossed the room if he had sounded merely distracted, but the look on his face stopped her. It was controlled. Closed off.
She didn’t need him to speak for her to know she was the very last thing he was expecting.
“I only wanted to talk.”
“I am sure it can wait.”
For a moment, silence hung between them.
Then he looked up at her again. “It can wait, can it nae?”
Ava felt the question land in her chest with a dull heaviness. She had come to him in good faith. She had only wanted to speak. Somehow, even that had become too much.
She nodded. “Of course.” She swallowed as hard as she could while trying to look anywhere but at his face and the dark circles beneath his eyes. “It can wait.”
He had already looked back down by then.
Ava closed the door with care and walked away before the hurt could show on her face. She kept her pace steady, though every step felt foolishly loud to her own ears.
She had not been scolded. She had not even been insulted. He simply saw her as an inconvenience he would deal with much later. By the time she reached Isobel’s room, the sting of it sat sharp behind her ribs.
Isobel was seated by the window with mending in her lap. She looked up at once.
“Well,” she remarked, “ye have the face of a woman who has either been offended or forced to drink bad broth.”
Ava shut the door behind her. “I would have borne the broth better.”
“That bad, then?”
“He is in his study.”
Isobel made a face that said enough. “A dangerous start already. Come sit. I have better conversation than me brother and better manners besides.”
Ava sat opposite her and tried to smile.
Mercifully, Isobel did not pry further.
“Did ye hear,” she asked instead, “that the daughter of Laird Kerr—”
Ava cocked her head. “Margaret?”
“Aye. Her. Apparently, she has been married for just three weeks and already quarrels with her husband?”
Ava narrowed her eyes, intrigued. “How in God’s name do ye learn about these things? Do ye receive letters from people every day detailing what is happening in their lives?”
Isobel shrugged. “I have me ways. Apparently, Margaret and her husband argued for a long time over the arrangement of their dining table. The maids thought they would burn the castle down with the way they kept screaming at each other.”
Ava let out a short breath. “Only the dining table?”
“Aye. It appears marriage has made her brave.”
Ava remembered Margaret. She and Isobel used to play with her when they were little. Margaret had always been so carefree and full of life. Her mother, on the other hand, had been quite strict. It was no surprise that Margaret had inherited some of those traits.
“Marriage has made her bossy,” Ava commented, eventually. “She merely has one man now who cannae escape it.”
Isobel laughed. “Poor soul. He used to look so proud of himself whenever she entered a room.”
“He looked proud because he thought himself chosen. He hadnae yet understood the terms.”
The conversation moved on from there with an ease Ava had missed all morning. Margaret’s ribbons. Margaret’s cooking. Whether she truly adored her husband or only enjoyed ruling a castle now. The sort of harmless gossip women could use to circle larger truths without naming them at once.
“At least she seems happy,” Isobel said.
“She seems settled,” Ava corrected.
“Is there a difference?”
She looked down at her hands. “I think there might be.”
The room fell quieter after that.
Isobel set the mending aside. “Ava.”
“What if I made a mistake by staying here?” Ava had not meant to say it so plainly. But once said, it filled the room at once.
Isobel’s expression changed, alarm first, then steady refusal. “Ye cannae think that.”
“Can I nae?” Ava asked softly. “He turns me away as if I were some small interruption to be put off until later. I daenae ken whether I am wanted here half the time, and that isnae a good way to start a marriage.”
Isobel leaned forward. “Listen to me. The maids like ye. They speak of ye when ye arenae there, kindly. Mrs. Patmore finds ye amusing, which is almost a miracle in itself, because she scarcely likes anyone. Ye have already made a place for yerself here, whether ye feel it or nae.”
Ava tried to take comfort in that. Some part of her did.
“And him?” she mumbled.
Isobel’s mouth softened. “Him, too. Though he is slower and far stupider about it.”
That coaxed the smallest genuine smile from Ava.
“Give him time,” Isobel advised. “He is a difficult man, but that doesnae mean he is an empty one.”
The words did not heal the hurt, but they gave Ava some relief.
Isobel must have noticed that, for she rose and held out her hand. “Come. Let us walk in the gardens before ye sit here making yerself miserable.”
Ava took it and rose. The sting of Ciaran’s dismissal still followed her, but now at least, she could do something about it.
For a little while, the gardens did what Isobel had promised they would.
They walked slowly at first, then more easily once the paths widened and the air felt less stuffy than it had inside the chamber. The flowers along the borders had begun to turn fuller in the afternoon light, and bees worked somewhere near the rosemary.
Isobel did not mention her brother again, a small feat Ava was immensely grateful for. Instead, she shook her head and cleared her throat. “Do ye remember when ye swore I had hidden yer ribbon and made the maids search for it?”
Ava let out a small laugh. “I was right.”
“Ye werenae. Bruce had taken it.”
“Bruce was yer accomplice.”
“He was a dog.”
“He was a criminal.”
“That is true,” Isobel relented. “But in that instance, he acted alone.”
Ava smiled widely. “Ye are shameless.”
“And ye are dramatic. Which is why ye made such a grand speech when the ribbon was found beneath the settee.”
“I was wronged.”
“Ye were seven, nae a vengeful soul.”
“What can I say?” Ava shrugged. “I had principles.”
Isobel laughed and looped her arm through Ava’s. The warmth of it helped. So did the absurdity of old arguments come back to life with their old certainty.
“And what of the time ye pushed me into the stream?” Ava asked.
“I did nay such thing.”
“Ye did. Ye said if I wished to claim the stone was steady, I ought to prove it.”
“Why did that feel so long ago?”
“I ken. We have lived different lives.”
“That we have.”
They went on like that for a while, from one memory to another, each small story leading naturally to the next. It did not erase the earlier hurt. It only gave it less room for a while. Ava felt herself loosening back into the person she had been before she closed the study door behind her.
By the time they turned back toward the castle, she could breathe without feeling the ache of the morning in her throat.
Then she saw him.
Ciaran stood near the edge of the path with Hector beside him. They were not near enough for Ava to hear their words, but near enough for her to make out the shape of the two men deep in conversation.
Almost like he sensed her presence, his head turned, and their eyes met.
The change in her was immediate and plain.
Hope rose so quickly that she almost hated herself for it.
One glance, and she was already thinking of crossing the distance between them.
Already thinking that perhaps the morning need not end as it had begun.
Perhaps she could go to him now, speak to him, and see what would come out of it.
Force the day into a kinder shape through sheer will alone.
“I am going to talk to him,” she declared.
Isobel followed her gaze and gave a small nod. “Aye.”
Ava took two steps, then stopped. That annoyed her more than if she had never moved at all.
She knew exactly what it was—a last burst of foolish self-consciousness.
She turned back to Isobel, irritated with herself. “Is there something on me teeth?”
Isobel blinked. “What?”
“Me hair, then. Or me face. Do I look strange?”
A look passed over Isobel’s face that would have become laughter if she had been less kind. “Ava, ye look perfectly fine.”
“Perfectly?”
“As near to it as any of us are likely to come in this life.”
“That wasnae the certainty I wanted.”
“It is the certainty ye are getting.” Isobel reached up and smoothed back a loose strand near Ava’s temple. “There. Now, go before ye invent some new flaw and lose yer nerve entirely.”
Ava gave a short breath that might have been a laugh if her pulse were not suddenly working against her. Then she turned back toward the spot where she had seen Ciaran standing.
Except he was gone.
She stopped so abruptly that the gravel shifted under her slippers.
Hector still stood there, half turned toward the path beyond. Ciaran did not. There was no sign of him except the empty patch of ground where he had stood a moment before.
Ava did not move.
But he was right there a second ago.
Isobel came up beside her but said nothing.
Her silence told Ava enough.
She could have called after him. She could have asked Hector where he had gone. She could have pretended it meant nothing, that he had simply remembered some duty and stepped away before she could reach him.
She did none of those things because she didn’t need to. Doing that would only delay the inevitable and put her in denial. The truth was sitting right in front of her, clearer even than the morning sun.
He was avoiding her.
Ava looked once more at the empty place where he had stood, then lowered her gaze.
The knowledge sat plain before her now. Heavy. Clear. Past argument.
When she had gone to his study, she had hoped she was imagining it. When she had spoken to Isobel, she still wanted a different explanation. Now, she had none left to borrow.
He was avoiding her.
“Ava—” Isobel’s voice rose behind her.
Ava shook her head almost immediately.
“Look, ye daenae have to—”
“Oh, trust me, Isobel, I understand yer brother perfectly. He doesnae want to see me.”
“I daenae think that is why. He probably had something urgent to do.”
Ava scoffed. Urgent. “We need to start calling it what it is, Isobel. Yer brother has grown tired of me.”
“Ava—”
“Let us walk back. I want to lie down.”
Isobel opened her mouth to speak, perhaps to protest, but then she seemed to think better of it. Now wasn’t the time.
“All right,” she said, and they both turned in the direction they had come from.