Chapter 14
Alex went straight to the study, taking the long route so the girls would not see his face. The fire was low, but he did not stir it. He rested his hand on the back of the chair, then let it fall.
A maid had stopped by the door, and he had asked her to fetch his man-at-arms. Calum came a breath later, as if he had been posted near for this very reason. He shut the door and waited.
“MacGee sent a letter,” Alex said. “To her. Here.”
Calum’s jaw clenched. “What does it say?”
Alex drew the page from his coat and set it flat on the desk between them. “Read.”
Calum bent and traced the lines with his eyes. “Seems harmless enough,” he said. “I daenae see the problem.”
“Aye.”
“But timing is wrong,” he added. “He sent it the first few days after she got here? Something about it seems fishy.”
“Aye.”
Calum tapped the seal. “He names nay proof and gives nay ground. He says he is searching and asks ye to believe it.”
“Aye.”
“And he puts it under yer roof,” Calum said. “So if ye choose to strike him, folks will say ye kent he was trying to be civil.”
Alex’s gaze did not move from the page. “It is a shield,” he said. “Held high so we will strike low and look like fools.”
Calum leaned back. “It is dangerous.”
“I willnae be intimidated,” Alex said.
Silence held a line.
Calum studied him. “Do ye truly like her?” he asked.
Alex did not answer. He felt the no rise first, out of habit, clean and useful. It did not make it past his teeth.
“Protecting the traitor’s daughter may be a mistake,” Calum cautioned.
Alex lifted his head, and his gaze hardened. “Do ye think I cannae take a little war?”
“I think ye shouldnae have to,” Calum said.
Alex let out a breath. “Ye daenae like me fake bride, do ye?”
Calum’s mouth twitched. “I think ye shouldnae drag her and all of us into trouble if ye can help it.”
The room took the words and left them where they lay.
Alex folded the letter once more, neat along the crease, then slid it back into his coat.
“If he writes again,” Calum said, “we will be waiting. Perhaps we can learn more from whoever brings the letter the next time.”
“Aye,” Alex said.
“And her,” Calum continued. “What will ye tell her?”
“The last thing I want is to make her more worried than she already is,” Alex said. “Maybe I will just tell her to let the letters come to me first, so I can respond.”
Calum nodded. He did not move for the door. He watched Alex the way a man watches the edge of a blade he has used for years.
“If ye like her, say it plainly in yer head, then fight clean,” he said, voice low. “If ye daenae, let her go before this turns into a thing we cannae mend.”
Alex rested both hands on the desk and felt the wood under his palms. “Go see the posts set tight by the east wall,” he ordered. “I want a change at dawn.”
Calum held his eyes for a beat longer, then bowed his head and left.
The door clicked shut behind him, and the study went quiet again.
Alex crossed to the cabinet and pulled the stopper from the bottle. He poured whisky into a cup and did not bother with water. The first swallow cut a path. He stood by the table and looked at the chair where Calum had stood, then at the fire that had burned lower. He had not fed it yet.
He thought of Erica in the doorway after the girls had opened the door, hand on her chest, a smile that held. He thought of the way he wanted to kiss her back in the library and wondered what would have happened if the door hadn’t been unlocked at that moment.
He set the cup down and rested his fingers on the rim.
He could feel the old shape of himself, the one that held a house by force of habit, the one that slept in armor made of rules.
It worked. It had kept the girls from breaking.
It had kept him upright when the study window had stood open to winter.
He looked at his coat, where the letter lay. He had told Calum he would not be intimidated. It was true. Rage had come easily once. Now, it came with a cost.
He did not want another war. He wanted peace, inside his walls and outside them. He wanted a month to be a month, a lie to stay a lie, and the arrangement to go as smoothly as he could afford.
He lifted the cup again and drank. The second swallow sat warmer. The fire settled another inch. He did not feed it. He stood quietly and let the admission sit where it wanted.
Whether he spoke it or not, he was already across the line. And he would be damned to hell before he let anything happen to Erica or her mother under his watch.
He took a final sip, the determination sitting in his mind like the last stretch of his whisky. He did not want war, but he would fight if that was what he needed to do.
Erica sat by the window with her knees drawn close, chin on them, watching the moon hang low and bright above the stone walls.
The pane kept a thin chill from her skin, but not the restless churning in her chest. Sleep had evaded her again.
It felt like a small, stubborn thing that would not be coaxed.
The lock lifted softly, and Leah slipped in with a basket against her hip, already talking low about warmed water and fresh linens, about setting lavender in the brazier so the room would smell kinder. Erica nodded out of habit, then heard herself cut across the rhythm.
“Actually,” she said, turning her face back to the window. “I think I will go out for a walk.”
Leah paused. “At this hour, me Lady?”
“Aye.” Erica lifted a shoulder. “Fine night for one, do ye nae think?”
Leah glanced at the sky framed by the stone. “Clear enough,” she said. “I will fetch yer shawl and follow.”
“Nay,” Erica said gently. “It is fine. I will only go around the garden. Maybe the courtyard. I willnae be long.”
Leah’s lips thinned a little; worry set in there. “Very well. I will leave the candle by the door.”
Erica took the shawl from the hook and wrapped it tight around herself. “Thank ye, Leah.”
Leah hesitated at the threshold. “Ring if ye need me.”
“I will.”
In the passageway, Erica kept her steps soft.
The torches burned steadily in their brackets.
The castle had a rhythm at night that she had begun to learn.
She could hear a guard cough two passages over as the door behind her settled back into its frame.
She put her palm against the cool stone of the wall as she descended the stairs, then let it fall to her side.
Outside, the air kissed her face and steadied her breath. The sky stretched clean, and the moon threw a pale path along the gravel and made the herb beds into dark squares.
She drew the shawl tighter and crossed to the inner gate, where two guards stood. Their heads turned at her approach and dipped a fraction.
“Good evening, me Lady,” the taller one greeted.
“Good evening,” she answered. “How does the night go?”
“Quiet,” he said. “Save for the odd squirrel.”
“That is good to hear.”
They smiled with the brief ease of men pleased by small talk that held no trouble.
She moved on and cut through the path to the courtyard, counting her steps until the crunch of gravel beneath her feet gave way to the softness of grass. There, a bench waited in a pocket of shadow between two lanterns. She took it, lowered herself with care, and let her shoulders drop.
Crickets sang in the seams of the walls, and she could hear the air murmuring somewhere beyond the gardens. The sound held her for a while. She closed her eyes and tried to let the air scrub the last of the day from her mind. It almost worked.
“Evening, dear.”
Erica almost jumped out of her skin at the sound. She drew in a quick breath as her eyes flew open.
Grandmamma stood beside the bench, cane in one hand, amusement bright in her eyes.
“I am so sorry,” Erica breathed. “Ye gave me a fright.”
“Nonsense,” Grandmamma said, easing herself down with a small sigh. “If I cannae terrify folks at night, what is the point of reaching me age?”
Erica laughed, then let the sound fade. The lantern to their left chimed against its hook in a small wind.
They sat in a shared quiet that did not chafe. When Erica spoke, she kept her voice low.
“Alex told me about Isabella,” she said. “It was a tragedy.”
Grandmamma nodded. “Aye. Poor girl.” Her mouth pulled to one side. “She was a bad seed from the start.”
Erica glanced over. “From the start?”
“I watched her while he was at war,” Grandmamma said.
“He had brought her to me, thinking a young bride might like a bit of company. I saw what I saw. The glint in her eyes when she didnae get her way, the habit of putting folks in their place for sport.” She tapped her cane once against the stone.
“I warned him when he came home. He called it duty.”
“And he kept it,” Erica said.
“And more,” Grandmamma agreed. “He fulfilled it until there was nothing left to give. Lost an eye to it as well.” Her voice softened. “That is the thing folks forget about duty. It is a fine belt until it turns into a rope.”
Erica wrung her hands under the shawl. “He told me about the fight,” she said. “He told me how he was hurt. He didnae say what caused it, though.”
Grandmamma’s gaze sharpened by a hair. She turned her face to the moon and then back. “That isnae me secret to tell,” she said. “He will have to give ye that truth himself.”
Erica looked down at her skirt and smoothed it, though it did not need it. “Aye,” she said.
They let the silence breathe a little.
The lanternlight gave Grandmamma’s silver hair a pale ring. She leaned her cane against her knee and folded her hands.
“Ye came out here to think?” she asked.
“I came out here to stop thinking,” Erica answered. She smiled without any humor. “It didnae work.”
“It never does,” Grandmamma said. “Night gives ye the thoughts ye have pushed away all day.”
Erica huffed. “That sounds like a curse.”
“It is only a habit,” Grandmamma said. “The mind likes to balance its sums.”