Chapter 9
The passageway was still cold, and the flickering lights showed the rough line in the stone and the dust along the base.
Erica kept her back to the wall for a breath, then made herself move.
She was the first to step away. Not because she was finished. But because she was not.
If she stayed one heartbeat longer, she would say a thing she could not unsay, or do what was not hers to do. The last thing she wanted to do was make this more complicated than it already was.
She put a pace between them. It felt thin and false and needed. Her hands curled into fists at her sides until her nails bit her palms, and she felt the walls suddenly close in on her like she was doing something wrong. Something she didn’t want to get caught doing.
This was nothing but a result of their proximity. It was just heat and anger knotted with excitement. Nothing more. She made herself believe it because the other possibility would be way too daunting to face.
Alex had not moved, and she still felt him in the space, quiet and steady. His breathing was even. She hated the way his waiting pulled at her.
She lifted her chin and forced calm into a voice that did not want it.
“This isnae what it looks like,” she said. The words scraped on the way out. “It was a mistake because we simply got carried away.”
Silence pressed in, but she carried on before the weight could tip her back toward him.
“The plan was to only do that in public if necessary. This… This was unnecessary.”
She tried to soften the edges but failed. She added the line that cut clean because it was honest.
“Let’s nae make this complicated, me Laird.”
The words were steady, but the cost was not. Something inside her had flinched. She did not name it. She would not even give it a chance to grow.
Alex shifted a fraction, boot leather creaking. She did not let him speak. That was the part she would not risk. If he put reason to what had passed between them, she would listen, and then she would break her own sense. She could not afford that in a house with so many eyes.
She turned. “Good evening,” she said, flat and formal, and walked away.
Each step weighed more heavily than the last. She squared her shoulders and held her head high. A corner came. She rounded it and let the wall take him out of her sight.
She could hear voices ahead. She slowed down without meaning to and strained her ears.
Servants. Two of them by the arch where the passage narrowed. They spoke low, the way folks do when they have no wish to be cruel, only to place new pieces on a board they live on.
“Did ye see her at the dining hall? She is bonny,” one said.
“Aye,” the other said. “Ye think she might truly be the new lady?”
“It is hard to ken. Do ye think it will last?”
“Who kens?”
They fell silent as she moved closer, but she kept her eyes on the far end of the hall. She did not make them kneel with an apology or question what they were talking about. No, that was not her way. She would not teach fear where she needed steadiness.
A guard at the stairhead looked at the wall with great interest, which told her enough. Nothing here went unseen. Every movement seemed to be seen by something or someone. And now a part of her wondered if anyone saw what had happened between her and Alex.
She rounded the next corner and found the short passage to her chambers. The firelight burned low, and a slow draft moved along the floor.
That helped. It kept her aware of something other than the memory of his hand on her jaw. She tried to breathe on a count. In for five, hold for three, out for five. The count stuttered, and she fixed it by force.
At the next bend, two scullery girls passed by with a bucket between them. They saw her and dipped their heads, still walking, the way trained hands do when every minute matters.
“Good evening, me Lady,” one said.
“Aye,” Erica said. “Mind yer backs.”
They smiled, a blink fast, and were gone.
The ordinary motion steadied her more than any speech might have. She was not a tale here. She was work to do and rules to hold. She would be that and let the rest die in the corner where she had left it.
The kiss was a mistake, and that was as much attention as she was going to give it. If she starved the moment of thought, it might disappear, and she may not even remember it anymore.
She reached her door and stopped to take a breath. This part of the castle was even colder and darker than the others. She made a mental note to remind a maid or guard to have more lights around here.
As she reached out to twist the knob, a shadow moved at the far end. A maid stood there, the slight one from the gardens.
Erica narrowed her eyes. No, that wasn’t Leah. It was someone else. Someone she didn’t recognize. At least not yet.
“Do ye need anything, me Lady?” the maid asked carefully, ready to fetch or be scolded if she had chosen the wrong moment.
Erica looked at the sprig, then at the maid. The choice came clean. She needed to root herself in something she could hold.
“Aye,” she replied. “Fetch Leah.”
The maid nodded and scurried away.
Later that evening, Leah lit a taper and set it on the small table by the bed. The chamber was quiet. From the window, the inner yard looked like a square of dark, the well a darker ring inside it.
Erica stood with her hands on the sill and watched the shape of the space all around her settle for the night.
“Shall I bank the fire, me Lady?” Leah asked.
“Aye,” Erica said. “Leave a small glow. I rise early.”
Leah moved with quick care. She checked the jug and set a clean cup beside it. She folded the extra blanket at the foot of the bed.
“What soaps do ye like?” she asked lightly. “We have rosemary and plain lye for most. If ye prefer lavender, we can fetch it from the stillroom. Or if ye want a scent from the market, I can ask for it on the appropriate day.”
“Rosemary is fine,” Erica said. She kept her eyes on the yard and felt the small comfort of the question. “If the stillroom can spare it. Daenae trouble the market.”
“It is nay trouble,” Leah assured her. “I run errands for me aunt sometimes. I can pick it easily.”
Erica turned a little. “Truly, it isnae necessary. I can manage without. Thank ye for asking.”
Leah’s mouth curved. “Aye.” She smoothed the top sheet. “Do ye want a warm stone for yer feet?”
“I am warm enough,” Erica said. “Thank ye, Leah.”
“Aye.”
“Sit a moment,” Erica said, turning to face her fully. “Ye have been on yer feet since I saw ye in the garden.”
Leah glanced at the door and then sat on the edge of the chair. “Only a moment,” she said. “Morag will call me if I linger too long.”
“Tell me how the night runs here,” Erica demanded. “I watch, but I would rather learn from a mouth that kens.”
Leah settled her hands in her lap. “Curfew bell at ten,” she said. “Gate barred then. The yard guard turns on the hour. Calum—”
“Calum,” Erica repeated.
“Aye.” Leah nodded. “The Laird’s man-at-arms. He takes the first round or last, depending on what the Laird has him doing.
Kitchen girls pull the bread for dawn in the middle of the night, and the kennel boy takes care of the dogs and their pups.
If ye need hot water after the bell, ye can send for me anytime. ”
“Good,” Erica said. “Thank ye.”
Leah rose as if the act of giving plain help had lightened her a shade. “Do ye need anything else, me Lady?”
“Nay,” Erica said. “Only sleep.”
Leah picked up the taper and brought it closer to the window so the glass showed a low reflection. Erica’s face looked back faint, the green dress half hidden by the robe she had put on against the chill. She did not stare at herself long. It never helped.
“Is something amiss, me Lady?” Leah asked gently.
“Nay,” Erica said, keeping her voice soft. “I just never thought I’d be in a place like this.”
She looked out again. The yard had a pattern she could read now.
A man crossed from the postern to the corner of the keep and spoke to the guard there. The guard listened, nodding once, then twice. He moved off on a line that would take him to the far stairs.
Leah smoothed the blankets, pleased to have a thing to fix that stayed fixed. “Ye will be the lady of the castle soon,” she said. “Ye have more power than ye ken.”
Erica breathed in and out slowly. “Aye,” she said. “Somehow, I daenae doubt that.”
She watched the man linger a moment longer by the corner. She recognized him from the set of his shoulders. It was the same man who had stood with Alex in the field. The one who did not waste words.
His man-at-arms. Calum.
He lifted his face to the window, as if the quiet had drawn his eye. Their eyes met. He gave a brief nod, and she returned it. The understanding seemed to run clean. Perhaps a bit cleaner than she would like to admit.
If Alex were to inform anyone of their arrangement, it had to be his man-at-arms. She recognized the eye contact for what it was. She would not do anything that made his job harder, and he would not let anyone make hers impossible.
He turned away as Leah set the candle down and stepped back.
“I will leave ye to yer rest,” Leah said. “If ye wake and need anything, knock once on the steward’s door. Fergus may growl at first, but he will definitely attend to ye.”
Erica smiled. “I will.”
Leah curtsied and left, gently closing the door behind her.
The chamber filled with the small sounds of the night, reminding Erica of what life was like back at Bryden. It was almost the same. She recognized this night as every other night. Most of the maids have gone to sleep early so they can wake up before dawn. That was how it worked here.
She took off her robe and dress and set both on the chest, then she folded her stockings and laid them by the fireplace to warm again in the morning.
She washed her face with cool water and dried it with the cloth Leah had set out.
Her hands smelled of rosemary now, and it calmed her more than she wanted to admit.
She slid between the sheets and lay on her back. The ceiling was a low plane of shadow. She counted to keep the thought from rising.
Ten breaths.
Twenty.
It did not change the pace of her heart.
Great.
She reshaped the thought into a list of things she would like to do tomorrow.
Up here, she wouldn’t have to face anyone except Leah and perhaps her mother. Perhaps she could write Hilda another note as well and learn how the castle was doing.
She closed her eyes. The thought of activities kept her grounded for a while. However, before she could stop it, the thought she had been trying to push down rose behind it like a tide.
She could still feel how close her back had been to the stone wall and how warm Alex’s presence had been. The way his voice had deepened when he asked if she wanted it to become real. The feel of his knuckles against her cheek.
She turned on her side and pressed her fingers to the bone under her eye as if she could press the memory out through the skin.
This was not what she had agreed to. This was far from what was arranged in the first place.
For the love of God, an arrangement like this was already complicated enough without her putting feelings in the mix. Now here she was, rolling around on her bed, unable to sleep because she kept coming back to that exact moment.
“Good God,” she whispered.
Her heart still beat fast, but she kept her eyes closed and chased the darkness.
The last image that slipped under her lids was not of the ceiling. It was of him. And the last image she saw right as she drifted into sleep was that of his face, looking down at her.
Smiling.