Chapter 7
For the next hour, Gwen watched Forbes MacLeod become someone she hadn’t expected.
He listened to her mother explain the Bishop family’s herbalist traditions with the kind of focus that made her warm. Not polite, glazed attention. Real attention. The kind that noticed details and stored them away for later.
And his gaze kept drifting toward her.
She caught it: quick looks when her mother was speaking, his eyes sliding toward her and then away again. His focus tracking her hands when she moved herb bundles aside, lingering on her fingers as she absently braided a lavender stem.
If he kept doing that, she was going to need a protection charm for her dignity.
It was different from how Mason had studied her. Mason had treated her like a specimen—something to be documented and categorized. Forbes looked at her like she was... interesting. Worth figuring out. Like he actually wanted to understand, not just analyze.
The realization hit her sideways: He’s not here to use me for research.
And that was unexpected. Because if he wasn’t here to study her, then he was here because he wanted to be. Which meant this was real. Which meant she needed to actually pay attention to what she was doing here.
Unexpected, she thought. And worth noticing.
“It sounds almost like a science,” Forbes said at one point. “Very systematic.”
“All good magic is systematic,” Iris replied. “But it’s also intuitive. You have to feel your way into it as much as think your way through it.”
“Ah.” Forbes’s lips twitched. “So there’s a method tae the herb explosions?”
Gwen shot him a look. “I’ll have you know that was one time. Today.”
“Twice,” her mother corrected mildly.
“You’re supposed to be on my side.”
Forbes was smiling now—that real smile she’d glimpsed on the tour, the one that transformed his face from carefully composed to genuinely warm. “I appreciate a scientist who’s honest about her data.”
“I’m not a scientist. I’m a historian who occasionally sets things on fire.”
“Even better.”
The banter felt easy. Natural. Like they’d been doing this for years instead of days.
That was worth noticing too.
Forbes’s expression shifted then, a decision forming behind his eyes. “Could ye... show me? Demonstrate something simple?”
His voice had lost that careful academic neutrality. This was genuine curiosity, no pretense.
Gwen considered him. A week ago, she’d have said no—would have protected herself from the judgment of yet another academic who’d dismiss what he couldn’t understand.
But Forbes had defended her on the tour.
Had listened to her mother with real attention.
Had looked at her research notebooks like they were treasure.
“Fair warning,” she said. “My magic runs hot. Small-scale work is... unpredictable.”
“I’ve survived worse than unpredictable magic.”
“Have you, though?”
“I once attended a faculty meeting at Edinburgh that lasted four hours and involved three separate fistfights over footnote formatting.” His eyes glinted. “I think I can handle a candle.”
Gwen laughed despite herself. “Fine. But if your eyebrows get singed, that’s on you.”
Her mother’s eyebrows rose. “The protection charm? For safe travels?”
“Why not?” Gwen gathered the necessary supplies—a small white candle, a pinch of sea salt, a sprig of rosemary. “It’ll either work or it’ll be educational. Either way, Forbes gets data.”
She arranged the items on the kitchen table, aware of Forbes watching her every movement. He’d moved closer—not touching, but near enough that she caught his scent: cedar and old paper and something warm underneath.
His cologne should not be allowed around open flame or vulnerable witches.
“The idea,” she explained, “is to create a protective influence that travels with the person. Extra luck, I suppose you could say. The challenge is that my magical signature is about six times bigger than this spell requires, so...”
“Fire hose, teacup?”
“Exactly.” She lit the candle. “Let’s see what happens.”
She sprinkled the salt in a small circle, held the rosemary over the flame while speaking the traditional words her grandmother had taught her.
For a moment, everything felt right—the warmth of the candle, the scent of the herbs, the subtle shift in the air that accompanied working magic.
Then the flame flared—not guttered, flared—shooting up a good six inches before the candle snuffed itself out entirely, leaving a curl of smoke and the acrid smell of singed rosemary.
Gwen checked Forbes immediately. He was fine—staring at the smoking candle with an expression of pure fascination.
“Well,” she said dryly, “at least your eyebrows survived. That’s trial forty-four, for the record. Still no luck with small-scale work.”
“That was—” Forbes shook his head slowly. “The air changed. Right before the candle went out—the air got heavier. Charged.” His gaze found hers, steady and intent. “Tell me ye felt that too.”
“Of course I felt it. That’s the problem—I’m generating plenty of power, just no precision.” She frowned at the smoking candle, already mentally noting the variables. “Though the flare was bigger than usual. Notable.”
“Notable?” Forbes stood, moving around the table toward her. “Ye just made the air pressure in this room shift with nothing but herbs and words, and yer response is notable?”
“What would you prefer? Dramatic gasping?” Gwen raised an eyebrow. “I’ve been doing this my whole life, Forbes. The explosions stopped being surprising around age twelve.”
“But—” He stopped close enough that she had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes. “That was real.”
“Yes.” She held his gaze steadily. “It was.”
Forbes was silent for a long moment—the stillness of a man reorganizing his understanding of the world.
“That shouldnae have happened,” he said finally. Not murmured. Said. “By any framework I ken.”
“And yet it did.” Gwen kept her voice gentle. “You felt what you felt. I’m not going to argue you out of it or into it. That’s your choice to make.”
His face changed. Not quite belief—not yet—but openness. Willingness to consider.
“Aye,” he said softly, meeting her eyes. “I felt it. I doonae ken what tae do with that information yet, but I felt it. And I’m no’ going tae pretend I didn’t.”
The honesty in those words—the willingness to sit with uncertainty rather than explain it away—made warmth spread through her.
“Most people would be rationalizing by now,” Gwen said softly.
“I’m no’ most people, Gwen.”
He said her name like it mattered. Like she mattered.
“I’m starting to notice,” she heard herself say.
His smile was slow and devastating.
The kitchen had gone very quiet. Even the October wind had stilled outside the windows. And Gwen realized she was in unfamiliar territory here. Not the magical kind.
The feelings kind.
Huh, she thought. Didn’t see that coming.
Before she could examine that thought further, Gordon’s voice drifted in from the hallway: “Iris? The lamp in my study just flickered out. And did the temperature drop, or is it just me?”
The moment broke. Forbes stepped back, though his eyes lingered on Gwen for another heartbeat.
“The wiring in this house is older than I am,” Iris said, but Gwen caught the sharp glance her mother shot toward the window. The way her hand moved—almost unconsciously—in a warding gesture. “Though the weather has been strange today. Pressure changes, maybe.”
Or something else, Gwen thought, remembering the heaviness she’d felt during the charm. The way the air had seemed to thicken, like something was pressing against the edges of the room.
Gordon appeared in the doorway, shaking off whatever chill he’d felt. “Good to meet you properly, Forbes. Come back anytime—Iris loves having someone new to lecture about herb lore.”
“I heard that,” Iris called.
“You were meant to, dear.”
Forbes smiled—a real smile, not the polite public version—and Gwen felt that flutter again. The complicated one.
“I’ll walk you out,” Gordon said, gesturing toward the door.
Forbes nodded, but he didn’t move immediately. Instead, he looked at Gwen with an expression that made her pulse skip.
“Wednesday,” he said. “After yer tour. Nine o’clock?” A pause, and then—quieter, with a hint of something that might have been hope: “Unless ye’d prefer eight. Give me an extra hour of yer time.”
“If you keep trying to negotiate my schedule,” Gwen said, “I’m going to think you like me.”
Forbes’s eyes held hers. “I dinnae think that’s in question anymore.”
The words landed like a stone in still water—soft, but with ripples spreading outward.
“Nine is fine.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
Then he was following her father to the door, leaving Gwen standing in the kitchen with the scent of rosemary and smoke lingering in the air and her heart doing complicated things in her chest.
She could feel Iris’s eyes on her.
“He’s intense,” her mother observed once the men’s voices had faded.
“He’s a writer. They’re all intense.”
“Not like that, they’re not.” Iris began gathering the scattered supplies, her movements deliberate. “That man looks at you like you’re the most fascinating thing he’s ever encountered.”
“He looks at historical documents the same way.”
“No, sweetheart.” Iris paused, a bundle of rosemary in her hands. “He doesn’t.”
She set the herbs down and crossed to where Gwen stood, touching her daughter’s cheek with gentle fingers.
“Be careful with that one, Gwen. Not because you can’t handle him—but because you might actually want to keep him.”
The words settled into Gwen’s chest like a blessing and a recognition all at once.
From the front hall, she heard Forbes’s voice—low, easy, thanking her father for the welcome. Then the door opened and closed, and he was gone.
She stood in the kitchen surrounded by the familiar scents of her family’s magic, processing what had just happened.
Forbes MacLeod had felt her magic. Had looked at her like she was worth understanding. Had chosen to sit with uncertainty instead of explaining it away.
Had told her—out loud, with witnesses—that liking her wasn’t in question.
And she—despite caution, despite history, despite every logical reason to keep her distance—found herself looking forward to Wednesday.
Interesting, she thought.
Very interesting indeed.