Chapter 21
For three days, Ava kept the door shut.
Ciaran knocked each morning and evening. Sometimes he spoke her name first. Sometimes he only struck the wood with his knuckles and waited. She never answered. Once, she stood close enough to the door to see the line of light under it darken with the shape of his boots and still said nothing.
The room grew stale around her. Her wedding things had long since been put away.
The fresh gowns Isobel had sent in lay folded where they had been set.
Food came and went in trays she scarcely touched.
She slept badly, woke with her throat dry, and sat for long stretches looking at nothing while her mind ran in circles around the same few facts.
MacKenna Castle had been set on fire. No one had told her whether her father lived or not, and the same man who had carried her bloody from an attack and held her with such care one moment had turned hard the next and told her she would obey him.
The hurts would not separate cleanly. Fear for her father kept tangling with anger at Ciaran until she could not pull one free of the other.
When he knocked, it only made it worse. His voice through the wood was controlled every time.
“Ava.”
“Open the door.”
“Ye must eat.”
That one almost undid her because it sounded so much like him—care shown in the shape of an order.
She pressed both hands over her face and stayed silent.
On the fourth morning, she heard his knock again and did not move from the chair by the bed.
“Ava.”
Nothing in her softened.
The handle turned down and then up. He was trying the door only to prove to himself that it remained locked. She could picture his face too easily, the set jaw, the controlled impatience, the strain he would never willingly bring into words.
Then another voice came, sharper and feminine. “Leave off.”
Ava lowered her hands.
There was a pause outside. Then Ciaran spoke, his voice flat enough that she knew exactly how annoyed he was. “Isobel.”
“Aye, me. And ye may stop standing outside her door like a jailer.”
“I am making certain she has food.”
“And doing a poor job of being welcome company while ye do it.”
Silence followed that.
Ava rose and came nearer, not enough to cast a shadow beneath the door, only enough to listen.
“Ye cannae hurt her again,” Isobel chided, her voice clear despite the piece of wood between them. “She is too nice for that.”
A small sound came from Ciaran, not quite a laugh, but near enough that Ava almost saw him in front of her. “Too nice?”
“Aye.”
“She has been a full hellion with me since the day I met her.”
“Are ye proving me point for me, Brother?”
The answer came too quickly for Ava to stop the small breath that escaped her. It was the first amused sound that had escaped her in days.
Outside, Isobel knocked once. “Ava?”
Ava paused.
“He is gone already. ’Tis just me at the door. Open it, please.”
Ava hesitated only a second before lifting the bar.
Isobel slipped inside at once and shut the door behind her. She took one look at Ava as Ava moved to the bedpost and her expression changed. The sharpness she had used on Ciaran vanished as she crossed the room without ceremony and caught Ava’s hands in hers.
“Oh, ye look dreadful.”
“I feel worse.”
“I can believe it.”
That directness helped. So did Isobel’s hands, warm and real and steady after days of being alone with fear.
“What is the news?” Ava asked. The question tore out of her before anything else could. “Tell me at once.”
Isobel squeezed her fingers. “Yer father is alive.”
The relief hit so hard that Ava had to sit down at once. The air left her lungs in a whoosh, and her knees trembled. She bowed her head and covered her mouth with her hand while the room blurred for a moment.
“Safe?” she whispered.
“Aye. Shaken, and I expect in a temper, but alive. A messenger came. The castle is lost. There was too much fire and too little time. But yer father is already on his way here.”
Ava squeezed her eyes shut.
MacKenna Castle was gone. The rooms where she had grown up, the corridors, the tower, the old, worn places of her childhood—all of it was either blackened or fallen.
The loss hurt sharply. Yet beneath it, stronger for this one moment, came pure relief.
Her father lived.
He was riding toward her.
She would see him again.
When she opened her eyes, Isobel was still there, watching her with quiet concern.
“I didnae ken how much worse it might be,” she rasped.
“I ken.”
“I kept thinking of him there alone.”
“He wasnae alone. He had men with him. And now he is coming here.”
Ava nodded, though tears had begun to well up in her eyes despite herself. She dashed them away with more irritation than grace. “I hate crying.”
“I ken.”
“I hate nae kenning.”
“Trust me, I ken that too.”
For a little while, they sat together in silence. Isobel stayed beside her and did not fill the room with false comfort. Ava breathed more evenly by degrees. Her father was alive, but MacKenna Castle was gone. One grief had made room for another.
Eventually, Isobel spoke. “He has been trying to see ye.”
Ava’s mouth tightened. “I ken.”
“He has brought food twice.”
“That doesnae mend anything.”
“I agree.” Isobel’s voice stayed gentle. “It doesnae.”
Ava rose and began to pace because sitting had become impossible again. The relief over her father had loosened her tongue along with the rest of her. She crossed to the fireplace and back, then to the window and back again.
“The fire isnae the only reason I have been miserable.”
Isobel said nothing. She only waited.
Ava let out a short, angry breath. “I daenae even ken why I expected anything else. He told me from the beginning what he wanted. A wife to fill the place. A body when he required it. Distance everywhere else. I heard him say it with me own ears.” She stopped and looked at her friend.
“Then he gave me reasons to think he might mean something different, and the moment I truly needed comfort, he turned into a commander instead.”
“Ava.”
“He did.” Her voice shook now from the strain of finally saying it out loud.
“He spoke as if me father nay longer mattered because he had decided he owned the right to protect me. I could hardly breathe because I was afraid. I thought me father was dead in that moment, Isobel, and somehow, he made it into a lesson. I daenae think I can ever forgive him for that.”
The words hung in the air.
Isobel stood and came closer. “Ye werenae wrong to feel hurt.”
Ava let out a mirthless laugh. “That is generous of ye, given that he is yer brother.”
“It is truthful of me, and something tells me that is what ye need at the moment.”
That pulled the corner of Ava’s mouth upward for half a second before it fell again.
Isobel touched her arm. “Ye had a misunderstanding. That is all. Daenae turn this into proof that ye were foolish to hope in the first place.”
“How can I nae?”
“Well, dearie, hope isnae foolishness. Especially here.” She looked around the room as if the whole castle could testify. “The maids like ye. Mrs. Patmore—that woman has made a practice of disliking nearly everyone for twenty years—thinks ye are amusing. The castle has taken to ye already.”
Ava felt something inside her loosen slightly. “Aye, but the castle isnae me husband.”
“Nay,” Isobel agreed. “He is far harder to impress.”
Ava let out a breath and dropped into the chair again. “I am so tired of nae understanding him.”
“That I believe.”
She looked up. “Was I wrong to stay?”
Isobel crouched in front of her so they were at eye level. “Nay.”
The answer came at once, with no soothing delay to weaken it.
“Nay,” she said again. “Ye werenae wrong to stay. Ye were hurt by a man who doesnae ken how to understand fear without being commanding about it. That is his failing, nae yers.”
Ava looked at her and felt fresh tears sting her eyes.
When the knock came again, firmer this time, she turned her head sharply. Isobel rose. Both women knew who stood outside.
The lock lifted before Ava could answer, and Ciaran came in carrying a tray.
The sight of him ignited her anger anew.
He had not waited for permission. He had not sent another servant.
He had come himself, his broad shoulders filling the doorway, a bowl and cup balanced in his hands as if the simple fact of bringing food gave him the right to cross the threshold she had kept shut against him for days.
She rose at once. “I suppose ye have come to order me to eat again, me Laird?”
The question came out sharp and cold. She wanted it to wound him. She wanted him to hear exactly what sat under it.
His gaze went to her face first, then to the untouched tray from earlier, then back again. He shut the door behind him with his foot and set the fresh tray down on the small table near the bed.
“If that is what makes ye eat, then aye.”
Isobel made a quiet sound under her breath.
Ava barely heard it. Her whole attention had narrowed to the man standing in her room as though the days of closed doors meant nothing.
“Ye had nay right.”
“I had every right,” he countered. “Ye have shut yerself away and barely touched yer food.”
“Then ye should have stayed away with the rest of yer good ideas.”
The words landed hard. She saw that much in the brief stillness of his face. It did not stop her.
“Perhaps ye were right from the start,” she added. “Distance was the best thing ye ever offered me.”
Isobel moved then, slow and careful. “So, there is something I need to do back in me room,” she ventured. “So I will leave ye to it.”
Ava did not look at her. Ciaran did not either.
Isobel crossed the room, squeezed Ava’s shoulder in passing, and slipped out. The click of the door closing behind her made the room feel smaller at once.
Ava folded her arms tight across her chest. “I willnae stay near ye just so ye can order me around again and call it protection.”
Ciaran did not answer immediately. That made her angrier.
“Well?”
His voice, when it came, was level. “Eat first.”