Chapter 6
The small carriage rolled under the arch and eased to a stop.
Through the window, Erica saw a yard that moved with purpose.
Men crossed from the gate to the store with tools in their hands.
A woman shook linen by the well, and a young boy shot out in front of the wheel, a blur of bare legs.
His mother dragged him back fast, hugged him once, then turned and curtsied to the carriage.
“Forgive us, me Lady,” she said. “He runs before he thinks.”
“It doesnae matter,” Erica said through the open pane. “He is safe.”
The woman smiled in relief and pulled the child close.
The image held for a breath, then Erica’s world rushed back. Her fingers twisted together in her lap. She forced them flat, and they curled again.
The past days blurred, the firelight, the blood on packed earth, the bargain spoken at the edge of the meadow. Now, the stone walls were real and near.
Doubt flooded in hard.
“What if he is a monster?” she said, voice low.
Her mother shifted on the seat to face her. “Ye saw him cut,” she said. “That doesnae make him a monster.”
“What if it does?” Erica whispered. “What if the man who drew so easily cannae be reasoned with in the day?”
Her mother held her gaze. “Ye asked for his shield. He gave it.”
“Shields can turn into cages.”
“Ye daenae ken that.”
“I ken how men change when doors close,” Erica said, the words sharp with old lessons. “What if I traded one predator for another? What if Laird MacGee only looked like the worst, and this one is worse for being careful?”
Her mother reached across and took her hand. “Erica,” she said, soft and firm. “There is nay sense in fearing what cannae be undone.”
“That doesnae make it easier.”
“Nay,” her mother said. “It makes it clear. We are here now. We will face what comes. Together.”
Erica looked at their joined hands. The grip steadied her more than the words. “And if I was wrong,” she said. “If I judged him by how he stood in the ring and missed what he is inside.”
“Then we will leave,” her mother said. “Or we will endure. We have done both before.”
“Do ye trust him?”
“I trust what I heard ye say about him,” her mother said. “Ye are an excellent judge of character, Erica. Ye said he believed ye and didnae take his cut for show. He set his body between ye and a hand that meant harm. That counts.”
Erica breathed once, deep enough to push the ache down. “And if he asks for more than I can give.”
“Ye will say nay,” her mother said. “And I will say nay with ye.”
Erica nodded. She loosened her fingers and laced them again. “Aye.”
“Good,” her mother said. “Lift yer chin. Ye daenae owe them fear.”
The door opened, and the driver lowered the step. Cold air slipped into the carriage.
Erica smoothed her gown, checked the tie on her cloak, and stepped down first. She turned and offered her hand. Her mother took it and came down steadily.
They crossed the threshold, and the castle hall swallowed them whole. The stone walls rose high, and the banners hung in clean lines. Erica studied the light and how it fell from narrow windows in pale bars that marked the floor. It was quite fascinating.
The space was colder than Bryden and quieter, as if sound learned to keep itself small. Servants stood along the walls. They kept their eyes on their work until the moment Erica lifted her head. Then they looked, quick and full, and looked away a beat late.
Erica felt each gaze. She straightened without thinking. Shoulders back. Chin level. If she were to be weighed, she would not shrink for the scale. The beat of her heart steadied under her palm. She let the hall be what it was and refused to make herself less inside it.
The last thing she was was less.
She cleared her throat, feeling the slow wave of despair start to dissipate. At least until she saw him.
Alex stood halfway down the hall, near the table, his weight even and his stance quiet. He did not fidget. He did not pretend not to look. He simply waited.
The sight settled something that had been off its mark since the carriage turned through the gate. It unsettled her, too. The memory of his blade on the festival ground sat beside the way he held still now and made both true at once.
He stepped forward as they came, and Erica felt the hall draw a breath that did not sound like a breath at all.
“Welcome to MacMillan,” he said.
His voice carried, clean. The words were formal, nothing more.
He took her hand and did not squeeze hard.
Erica swallowed, wondering what he was about to do. She didn’t have to wonder for long. He lifted her hand and set his mouth to her knuckles—a brief touch, plain and public.
It wasn’t exactly intimate, but it felt definitive in a way. Like this was his way of marking his territory, out here in the open for his servants to see. The claim, spoken without saying it.
A ripple went through the edges of the room, the kind that would come when people would agree to hear what they had already heard.
Erica kept her expression steady. She felt the weight of that small act move across the hall and settle into corners. She let it do what it was meant to do.
“This is me maither,” she said, grateful that the word fit in her mouth. “Lady Bryden.”
Her mother curtsied, smooth and spare. “Me Laird.”
Alex lowered his head in respect. “Me Lady.”
Erica watched his face for the flicker that would give her something to brace against. She saw none. He gave her mother the courtesy due and did not dress it up.
For the first time since Bryden dropped behind her, a breath eased in her chest. It was not comfort, but it was a start. She held her mother’s hand for one more second, then let go and stood where she was meant to stand.
She opened her mouth, about to ask a question she wasn’t really sure about, when footsteps thundered down the side passage.
Two small girls burst into the hall, hair flying, voices tumbling over each other. They skidded to a stop when they saw Erica and her mother.
Alex turned. One look from him and they straightened, cheeks flushed, hands smoothing their dresses as if they had practiced the gesture a hundred times.
“Slow,” he said. “Ye ken the rule for the Great Hall.”
“Aye, Da,” the one with braided red hair said.
“Aye,” the other one, with loose hair, echoed, though her eyes still danced.
“Erica,” Alex called, looking straight at her. “These are me daughters, Bettie and Katie.”
“I see.”
Erica felt the tension in her shoulders ease a notch. Authority sat quiet on him, and the girls trusted it. She also noticed that they didn’t exactly fear him. Which meant he couldn’t be that bad, at the end of the day.
She shared a brief look with her mother, who remained standing in the corner, before the girl with the braids stepped forward first.
“I am Bettie,” she said, careful. “This is Katie.”
Katie clung to Bettie’s sleeve and peered up at Erica like a small hawk trying to see everything at once. “Are ye the lady from the festival?” she asked in a rush, then bit her lip.
Erica knelt without thinking, so she was at their eye level. “I am Erica,” she said. “Ye can call me Erica, unless ye wish otherwise.”
Katie’s fingers unhooked from Bettie’s sleeve. “Do ye like dogs?” she blurted.
“Aye,” Erica said, a smile growing on her face. “Most of them. I like the ones that come when ye call.”
“They never do,” Bettie said solemnly.
Erica smiled. “Then we will learn how to make them listen.”
Katie laughed at the notion. The sound was light and unguarded. Erica’s chest loosened another notch she had not noticed.
“Do ye like stories?” Katie asked. “Da says that numbers come first, but we think stories should come first.”
“Numbers help ye count buns,” Bettie said, as if that settled the case.
“I like both,” Erica said. “If ye finish numbers, I will tell ye a story tonight.”
Katie’s eyes widened. “Truly?”
“Aye.”
A cane tapped on stone, breaking the moment of connection she was having with the children.
She looked up and caught an older woman stepping into view.
She was dressed in a grey wool gown and held on to the can as firmly as she could.
Her eyes were the same color as Alex’s, light green, and her hair shone bright silver in the gleaming light.
Erica could have sworn the older woman was trying to burn a hole in her dress.
“That is Grandmamma,” Katie whispered in her ear.
“I see,” Erica responded.
“We call her Grandmamma. So ye have to call her that too,” Bettie whispered in turn.
Alex’s grandmother drew closer, eyes bright, mouth curved in welcome that did not hide the sharpness behind it.
“What a bonny sight,” she said, and came forward with both hands out. “Lady Bryden. And Lady Erica, I assume. Ye are very welcome.”
Erica rose and curtsied with her mother’s steady presence beside her. “Thank ye.”
Grandmamma’s gaze flicked from Erica’s hem to her face, then to the way Erica stood half a step between her mother and the room. Approval flickered so quickly it could have been a trick of the light.
“We have rooms aired,” she said. “Hot water. Bread in a moment. The road takes its due. We feed what it took.”
“Ye are kind,” Lady Bryden said. “We are grateful.”
“Kindness is cheap when it keeps a castle steady,” Grandmamma said, and kissed the air near each cheek with brisk affection. “Girls, show that ye ken yer manners.”
Bettie and Katie curtsied, quick and proud.
Alex looked at his grandmother. “I will show Erica to her rooms,” he said. “She needs rest.”
“Aye,” Grandmamma said, watching both of them with a mind that missed little. “We will leave ye to it. Girls, with me.”
Katie opened her mouth to ask for something, but Bettie squeezed her hand, and the question shrank to a grin. They followed their grandmother toward the side door, eyes cutting back over their shoulders as if a story might fall from the arch.
Alex lifted a hand toward the inner passage, and Erica guided her mother with a palm at her elbow and followed.
The corridor quieted the hall to a murmur. A maid carried a jug the other way and dipped into a neat curtsy without spilling a drop.
Erica kept her back straight and her breathing even. The newness of the place pressed close, and it soothed her, the way order ran like a thread through every step.
They reached a chamber with a small antechamber and a fireplace laid but not lit. Alex opened the door and stood aside. Erica led her mother in first and closed the door behind her. She then turned once they were alone in the passageway.
“This is fake,” she said. The words came out faster than she meant. She kept going. “And fake means fake. Nay touching. Nay confusion.”
Alex folded his arms and leaned his shoulder against the frame. He listened without blinking. “Good,” he said. “We agree.”
The answer stole the argument she had braced for.
She found a steady tone. “We keep it so.”
“Aye,” he said. “We will. Now, hear the rest. We need to be convincing.”
“Convincing how?” she asked, though she knew.
“In the hall. In the yard. In any room that carries words to ears that want them,” he said. “Ye take me arm when I offer it. Ye sit where I put ye. Ye speak when it helps and keep still when it doesnae. That is the shape of it.”
Her chin lifted. “I willnae be made a puppet.”
“Ye wouldnae last the week as one,” he said. “Then again, I daenae mean to control ye. I only ask for sense. We will set the measure before we cross a room. After that, we keep to it.”
The fire in her chest cooled to something firm. “Tell me what ye need to ken for yer house to make room for us.”
He nodded once, as if she had chosen the right road at a fork.
“The girls keep lessons after the morning meal,” he said.
“They will test ye. Answer everything they ask as simply as ye can. They can be a bit overwhelming, but they mean nay harm. If ye daenae ken a thing, say so. Grandmamma runs the table. She will make ye feel welcome while taking yer measure.”
“Is that what she was doing back in the Great Hall?” Erica asked, folding her arms. “Taking me measure?”
Alex laughed. “When she starts, ye will ken.”
For some reason, the words felt like a threat, but he either didn’t notice or simply refused to acknowledge it.
“Ye ken, when ye said ye had daughters, I thought they were bairns. What if they get hurt by this development? They seem mature enough to understand what is going on.”
A brief chuckle escaped Alex’s lips. “Trust me when I say this, Erica. Hearing the council ask for an heir every week hurts them more.”
Erica absorbed the response without flinching. “I see,” she repeated. “Very well.”
After a brief moment of silence, Alex knew the only question that remained in her mind. It would be odd if she weren’t thinking of it in the first place.
“The girls’ maither,” she asked eventually, before the quiet could turn heavy. “Do they speak of her?”
“Sometimes,” he said. “They ken she is gone. They also ken I daenae fill the space by talking it to death.”
“How do ye manage alone?”
“I have help,” he said, his tone smooth like it was the most casual thing in the world. “And I work.”
She nodded. “For their sake, someday ye might consider a real marriage.”
“Nay,” he said immediately. “Me daughters are enough.”
The finality closed that door with a clean click. She did not touch it again.
“Well then, I intend to treat them as me own.”
“Ye daenae have to.”
“I ken, which is why I want to. Is that going to be a problem, me Laird?”
Something about her being defensive of his daughters made something shift inside him. What it was, he didn’t know yet.
“Well?” she prompted, her voice clear. “Will it be a problem?”
“Nae at all,” he said. Approval moved through his voice without warming it.
Her mother opened the door behind them and stepped into the hallway, freezing the conversation between them.
“I will lie down for an hour,” she said. “If either of ye need me, call.”
“We will,” Erica said.
Alex stepped back from the door, making space. Distance restored. “Ye should rest,” he said to Erica. “Dinner is prompt here. Daenae keep me waiting.”
It was not a threat. It landed like a rule that had kept this house steady for years.
He reached for the latch.
“Alex,” Erica called.
He paused.
“Thank ye,” she said. “For letting it be easy.”
He tipped his head, not a bow, not a dismissal. “Keep it easy, and ye will find this house is fair.”