Chapter 8
The doors opened wide, and Alex looked up out of habit. He expected formality and nothing more, but his breath left him clean. Erica stepped into the hall in a green dress that seemed to catch the firelight.
“What the—”
Firelight found the color and held it. The cut sat right on her shoulders. The green in her eyes shone brighter with the dress, and he caught himself holding his breath longer than he had intended.
She looked ethereal, like a fairy from a storybook.
He felt the sharpness of his own reaction and tried as much as possible not to let it move his face. Across the board, Grandmamma’s eyes cut from Erica to him. She did not blink, and he knew she saw more than he wished.
Erica crossed the hall at a measured pace, and he watched as she greeted the first servant.
“Thank ye, Morag,” she said to the maid holding a jug of water. “Ye kept it cool.”
Morag smiled, surprised to be noticed. “Aye, me Lady.”
A boy with trenchers passed.
“What is yer name?” Erica asked.
“Ewan,” he said.
“Good speed, Ewan,” she said. “Be careful.”
He nodded, pleased and clumsy, and missed the corner anyway by a hair. She did not laugh. She merely moved on.
“Fergus,” she said at the sideboard, “ye keep a tidy board. Our steward back at Bryden could take a lesson or two from ye.”
The steward gave a brief bow. “We try.”
“Ye succeed,” she praised.
Alex watched the trail she left. Small words and simple praise. Names gathered and held. She did not play grand. She did not pretend this was her house. She acted as if she meant to live in it with care.
She had only been here for two nights, and she already knew the names of most of the servants.
This is nay ordinary woman, is she?
The thought lingered in his head until she reached the table.
The girls slid half off the bench without meaning to. Alex lifted his hand a finger width, and they sat again, bouncing once on the wood.
“Good evening,” Erica greeted, soft for the space between them.
“Good evening,” Bettie said. “Ye are on time.”
“I try,” Erica said.
“Will ye sit by us?” Katie asked, already scooting over.
“She will sit where she wants to,” Grandmamma said pleasantly.
Erica did not flinch. “I will sit where I want to.”
Alex stood up because the hall was watching.
“Welcome to dinner,” he said for any ear that had not yet believed the day. He touched the back of the chair to his right and watched as she took the seat without fuss.
The first bowls came out. Bread, broth, and a joint of ham. He reached for the knife and cut meat for the girls before he slid it onto their trenchers. They took it with quick thanks, eyes already back on Erica.
“Did ye see the garden?” Bettie asked.
“Aye,” Erica said. “Leah walked with me. She kens her plants.”
“Leah is the best,” Katie declared. “She can make the small white ones grow even when it is cold.”
“Sweet rocket,” Erica said.
Katie blinked. “Aye.”
Alex kept his eye on his plate and listened.
Erica’s voice held no tremor, and the laughter that came at the right places did not sound strained.
She tilted her head to hear the children’s fast stories and did not turn away until the end.
Then she slipped into conversation as if the seat had been waiting.
The warmth unsettled him more than any argument would have. He had planned for a woman who would need steadying. He had not planned for this level of ease.
Calum sat down and watched the scene with his usual calm. When he caught Alex’s eye, he raised a brow a fraction. Alex answered with nothing.
“Tell her about the pup,” Bettie said to Katie.
“There is nothing to tell except that he is a bad dog. He steals our boots,” Katie said. “Da says he will be a thief if we daenae set him straight.”
“Then keep yer boots off the floor,” Erica advised. “He cannae steal what he cannae reach.”
Katie looked at Grandmamma, impressed, and the older woman allowed the edge of a smile.
A captain down the table raised his cup. “To the house,” he said.
Alex lifted his. “To the house.”
Erica matched them with a nod, no show. “To the house,” she echoed, then drank.
Alex noted the way Calum watched her over the rim of his cup. He was certain to hear from him later.
The board relaxed a little. At some point, a maid spilled a drop near the salt. She flinched, then saw Erica’s hand rise to steady the trencher and breathed again.
This was what normalcy should look like, and yet it was anything but.
“Ye came across the pass without trouble, Lady Bryden,” Grandmamma said, her voice mild. “That road has a long memory.”
“Aye,” Lady Bryden said. “We took it slow.”
“Well, I always say better slow than dead.”
“Ye are kind to say so.”
Alex let the light talk run without interjecting. He carried on with meat and bread and emptying a cup on a schedule while keeping his face even. He did not let his eye slide to the doorway to check for new eyes or touch his jaw.
Grandmamma, on the other hand, chose her time. She folded her hands and set them on the board neatly, then looked down the length of it as if speaking to the hall rather than to two people.
“So,” she said. “When are ye planning to wed?”
The table stilled, and the knives paused. A cup settled on wood and stayed in Calum’s hand.
Alex reached for his own cup and bought himself a breath. He did not answer a question he had not set. The heat in his neck was old, the kind that came when a plan met a wall.
“And will there be a betrothal cèilidh?” Grandmamma added, all ease. “Folk like a dance if they can eat after.”
Erica went very still. He did not look at her fully. He saw enough in the line of her shoulders. He had known she could carry the story, but he had not planned for his own house to press this fast.
“Nay,” Erica said. Too quick.
The word hit wrong. A shift ran the length of the table. It was small. It was felt. Suspicion sharpened in the gap.
Erica dropped her gaze to the knife by her plate, then raised it again, trying to catch up. “There is nay need for such fuss,” she said, softer.
It did not land well.
Grandmamma’s eyes narrowed. Not in anger, but in thought.
The captain who had toasted the house took a slow sip, and Calum’s mouth pulled tight, then eased. The girls looked from one face to another with the quick instinct of children who live in rooms where quiet questions change what happens next.
“I would like to collect flowers for the wedding,” Katie announced brightly, as if a simple solution could set the board right.
The line of tension cut, clean and deep.
Erica paled, then pushed back from the table so smoothly that it took a second to read it as retreat.
“Excuse me,” she said. “I need a moment.”
No one moved to stop her. That would have made it worse.
Alex watched as she stood up and stepped away. She walked to the arch without hurry. She did not look at him. She did not even look at the door.
He watched her go, feeling the tightness in his chest gain a new weight.
The lie had always been his to carry. Watching it sit on her like that set the cost in a different place. The room pressed in with a different kind of noise.
He set his cup down and did not let the sound ring. He did not look at Grandmamma. He did not look at Calum. He kept his face steady while he counted the steps to the arch.
Then he rose to his feet, unable to bear it anymore.
“Ye shall need to excuse me as well.”
The passageway cooled fast, the stone wall holding the day’s chill. Erica kept walking steadily until the stairs came into view. She was about to quicken her pace when she heard the footsteps close behind her.
“Erica.”
She stopped, feeling her breath grow uneven. She folded her arms to keep her hands still as she turned.
Alex stood a few paces away. His voice was controlled, yet a line ran under it. “Why did ye run?”
“I didnae run,” she said. The quick lie tasted wrong. “I just left before I said something I couldnae take back.”
His jaw worked once. “What did ye want to say?”
She shook her head. “I daenae ken. That I hate this?” It came out sharp. “That I hate lying to them? That I hate sitting there, pretending it is easy, when it is anything but?”
He swallowed but said nothing in response.
“And I hate that I need yer protection because men like Laird MacGee are fully convinced that I deserve to be with them?” she added, voice lower. “I hate that I couldnae do this on me own.”
The words cost her. She looked away and found no comfort in the flat wall.
“I lied, too,” he said. “Do ye think I enjoy sitting there, letting them believe something that we both ken isnae real?”
She faced him again. “Ye could have fooled me, Alex. Ye seemed to be very comfortable with it.”
“Nay. I did it to protect ye,” he said. He took a step closer without seeming to choose it. “That is the whole of it.”
She laughed once, humorless. “Protect me, aye. By turning me into a story.”
“What would ye suggest, then?” he asked, raising his hands in despair. “Because I cannae think of anything else. Do ye want this to be real?”
She blinked. “What?”
“Do ye want all of this to be real? The betrothal, the marriage, all this charade?” he repeated, knowing full well that she had heard him the first time.
“Real,” she said slowly, as if the word needed weighing.
“Aye,” he said. “Even if it is only for a while. Would that make it easier?”
She stared at him. The corridor felt smaller by a span. “Easier for who?”
“I daenae ken, Erica!” he responded, his voice lacing the edge of frustration. “For both of us?”
Erica laughed. “Really? That is yer solution?”
“If ye have something better, I am all ears.”
She groaned. “That is nae the point. The point, Alex, is that even if this were real, people would still find it hard to believe. Ye ken that nay one expects a laird like ye to get with a woman like me,” she said, heat rising. “They will talk in every corner.”
“The daughter of a traitor?” he asked, his voice as calm as the walls around them.
“Aye,” she said, the word a flinch and a fight both. “And a woman near twice the size of half the pretty lasses waiting to be chosen. I ken what I look like. I ken what I carry. I am nae a soft tale that fits a feast.”
His gaze did not slip, even though the slightest smile threatened to spread across his lips.
Is that really what she is worried about?
“Now would be a good time to say something. Please?”
“Well then, hear this. I daenae court soft tales. I court the truth. Ye stood in a ring where men watched for weakness, and ye didnae give them any. Then ye walked into a dining hall that weighs every breath, and ye kept yer shoulders up. That is what I see.”
She shook her head. “Aye. I am certain that is what ye will see for the rest of the month.”
“If it is,” he said, “then it suits me.”
“It doesnae matter if it’s nae real. Do ye nae hear me? We havenae even started, and I am already tired of lying.”
“It can be as real as we make it,” he said. “Or as false. Choose.”
She lifted her chin. “If I choose real, what then? Do ye kiss me in there when Grandmamma watches? Do ye let the girls think they are getting a maither? Do ye ask me to play Lady to the guards and servants around the castle?”
“Ye can pick and choose what duties ye would like to fulfill. To everyone in the castle, ye are to be me wife. Ye daenae have to worry about anything else,” he said. “In public, we make it clean. In private, we keep clear.”
She blew out a breath that shook a little. “It willnae be easy.”
“Nothing worth holding is easy,” he said.
She tried to laugh and failed. “Listen to us. Ye sound like a priest.”
He did not smile. “I sound like a man trying to keep ye safe without insulting ye.”
“And I sound like a woman who cannae stand needing anyone,” she said.
“Aye,” he agreed. “Ye do.”
They were too close now. The torch bracket at the bend threw a low light that lit one side of his face and left the other in shadow.
Erica felt the pull of him, unwelcome and undeniable. He looked at her mouth for the briefest breath, then back at her eyes, as if he had caught himself at a drop.
Her arms were still folded. She could feel the strain in her shoulders. She let them drop because holding so tight made her shake. She felt Alex’s gaze as he watched the motion.
“Ye are a hard man,” she said.
“Aye,” he said. “And fair.”
She tried to smile. “Fair is worse. It leaves me with less to hate.”
He moved then. Not suddenly or out of roughness. He lifted his hand, and his knuckles traced the side of her face, featherlight, as if testing if she would flinch. She did not. He slid his fingers to the back of her head and drew her in.
“Is this what ye want?” he asked, so close that she felt the words.
She did not step back. “Alex…”
She hated and loved the word at once.
“Ye want this to be sure we are doing the right thing?”
He leaned in even further, and his breath fanned her face. Her knees weakened.
This wasn’t part of the plan.
“Alex—”
“Ye want to be certain, do ye nae?” he cut her off. His voice was lower now. Softer too.
They weren’t in public. They didn’t have to do this.
Erica told herself that over and over until he closed the space between them and sealed his mouth over hers.
The kiss was not rough, but it was not soft either. It was the kind of kiss that said, This is the ground, and this is how we stand on it. Her hands rose to his chest, but she did not push him back. When he lifted his head an inch, neither of them moved.
They did not step back. The line between them had shifted.
She knew it. And something told her that he did as well.