Chapter 24 #2
“Me Lady, is everything well?” she asked, voice low.
“Aye,” Erica said. “I was just passing by and thought to look in. Daenae mind me.”
“They sleep quite hard after a long day,” the nurse said. “The Laird had them in the yard half the morning.”
Erica smiled. “I noticed.” She drew the blanket over Bettie’s bare heel and stepped back. “Thank ye. Rest if ye can.”
“I will, me Lady,” the nurse said, already setting the embroidery aside.
Erica slipped out, and the passageway beyond felt much longer now. Shadows ran straight along the floor, and her steps made a soft scrape. She tried to breathe steadily and keep to the main path. However, the low crack of a settling door somewhere ahead made her stop.
She turned toward the sound and took a step, then another. A broad shape filled the corner just as she moved into it. She drew in a sharp breath, jerked back, and met a solid chest.
Hands caught her elbows with sure care.
“Easy, me Lady.”
Calum’s voice set everything back in place, and she let out the breath she had been holding.
“Ye nearly took ten years off me life, Calum,” she said lightly.
He let go at once and stepped back so she could see him properly in the firelight. His red hair shone briefly, but her eyes remained on his face. His expression sat between apology and alertness.
“Forgive me. I should have called out.”
They stood there for a moment while the passage grew calm again.
Erica rubbed her arms beneath her shawl and tilted her head. “Are the halls always this quiet so late?”
“Aye,” Calum said. “By design, when we can help it.”
“Because of the note,” she said.
“Because of the note,” he agreed. “And because it makes sense.”
She looked past him toward the turn that led to the outer stairs. “He doubled the guards.”
“I tripled them in places,” Calum revealed. “We take protection seriously here. We watch the inner yard, the gate, the wall walks, the kitchens, and the stables. We check hands we ken and names we daenae. If a shadow moves wrong, one of the men will see it.”
“I see. That doesnae terrify me at all,” she said dryly.
Calum laughed under his breath. “There is comfort in caution, if ye live with it long enough.”
“And what about him? Has he slept?” she asked.
“Nae much,” Calum replied, nodding like he understood exactly who she was referring to. “He has been driving the men hard. They can hold a line half asleep by now. He will push them until they can do it in their dreams.”
Erica nodded. A man did not earn a reputation like Laird MacMillan’s if he hadn’t put in the work in the first place. This was also part of the work. Or so she had assumed.
Calum studied her for a moment. “Forgive me if I speak out of turn,” he said, “but I mean to offer me congratulations.”
She blinked. “On what?”
“The wedding,” he said, as if it were something casual. “Folks around the castle speak about it. The idea of a new lady. A different one. The girls are practically floating in excitement. Everyone is happy for ye and the Laird.”
Erica looked down at her hands. “I said nothing.”
“Aye,” Calum said gently. “But there is nothing else to say other than aye, is there?”
She did not trust herself to answer.
The silence stretched out again, and Calum nodded, as if he understood exactly what she was thinking.
“He is cold,” he said after a moment. “But daenae let that overshadow the fact that he is dutiful as well. Ye cannae find a man more honorable.”
“That is exactly what frightens me,” she whispered before she could stop herself.
Calum’s lips thinned. “Honor binds people, but I suppose people forget it cuts as well.”
“I just wish he could offer more,” she said, the truth slipping out with her breath. “Be more present. I wish I didnae have to guess.”
Calum nodded. “‘Tis because he isnae over his first wife.”
Erica swallowed. For some reason, the word wife changed the air.
“Did she truly die by accident?”
Calum did not move for a heartbeat. Instead, he lifted his chin a fraction, suddenly gaining consciousness over a matter that didn’t belong to him.
“It isnae me place,” he said. “I apologize for overstepping—”
She held his gaze. “Ye’ve started already. I am nae going to rest if ye daenae finish.”
“Aye,” he said, then softened his tone after a few seconds had passed. “Ye see, he never wished her harm, nay matter how much she deserved it.”
Erica felt the floor steady and tilt at the same time. “Deserved it.”
He grimaced. “I really daenae ken what is happening to me today. Ye must forgive me, me Lady.”
“What was she like? Isabella,” she said, her voice more plea than order.
Calum drew a slow breath, and she could see the uncertainty in his eyes. She almost felt bad about it, but she needed to know.
“She was volatile. Some days she would laugh at nothing, and other days she would bring the staff to tears for sport. She threw what lay near her hand and cut with words when hands didnae serve. She was violent more than once. He endured it because she was the maither of his—”
He stopped. The pause was cleaner than the sentence.
“His children,” he finished, careful now. “He wouldnae break the house to break her.”
Erica wrapped the shawl tighter, the passageway suddenly feeling colder. “So she tried to kill him?”
Calum shook his head. “He will have to give ye that truth. I can say only this: it came fast in the last hours and left him with a wound ye can see and one ye cannae.”
Erica looked down the line of torches, each flame small and honest in its bracket. Her mind tried to set what she had heard against the pieces Alex had given her. The stories did match, yet she couldn’t help but feel like there was still something she was missing.
Something else happened that night. Isabella died, and nobody seemed to want to tell her. Not even Alex.
“Ye feel less safe for knowing little, me Lady?” Calum asked.
“I feel like I ken less than I thought,” she said. “Which is worse.”
He nodded. “Ye wouldnae be the first.”
Silence fell again, and for a minute, she let it linger. Then she turned in the direction of the nursery.
“The children are safe, if that is what ye are worried about,” Calum said. “They are always safe.”
“Aye,” she said. “At least there is a comfort in that.”
He shifted his weight. “If ye would sleep, I can post a man outside yer door that ye trust.”
“I trust that ye will do what ye say,” she said. “I trust that he will, too. That is the trouble.”
Calum gave a small smile that did not reach his eyes. “As I said, he is a man of honor. He has always been. I’ve ken him since we were children.”
Erica did not know what to do with that. She only knew the ache in her chest had changed shape. Fear still sat there, but it was against something else entirely now.
Alex.
“Thank ye,” she said, “for telling me what ye could.”
“If I spoke out of turn, I most sincerely apologize,” he said.
“Ye spoke like a friend,” she assured him. “That is rare enough.”
He lowered his head. “Rest if ye can, me Lady.”
He stepped past her, feet soundless for a man his size, and disappeared toward the nearest stairs.
She stood a moment longer in the thin light, listening to the small sounds the castle made when it settled for the night.
Calum’s words echoed in her head, simple as they were.
He never wished her harm.
She was volatile.
He endured it because she was the maither of his children.
He wouldnae break the house to break her.
Erica had thought pain was the whole of Alex’s past. Tonight, she couldn’t help but wonder if that was not the case.
Alex’s past was not merely painful. It was dangerous. And she understood now that she did not yet know the cost of loving him.
Or what wrath it might incur.