Chapter 3 Nightingale
NIGHTINGALE
My consciousness returned in layers—warmth first, then weight, then the shocking realization that I was wrapped in Tag’s arms.
Though we were still in yesterday’s wrinkled, musty clothes, our bodies had gravitated toward each other’s in the night despite the layers of blankets between us.
His arm was draped across me, and my cheek rested against his chest, above his heart.
His breath stirred my hair, surrounding me with his unique and intoxicating scent.
For three years, I’d wanted exactly this, and now, I had it—except I didn’t, not really, because this was nothing more than survival, just two operatives sharing heat to avoid hypothermia.
His breathing shifted from the deep cadence of sleep, telling me he’d woken. I kept my own breathing steady, feigning unconsciousness, even as his body went rigid and the arm draped across me turned to granite.
The silence stretched between us—both of us awake, though I continued pretending otherwise—while his heartbeat raced faster than it should for someone just waking.
Then he moved, extracting himself from me and the bed with the kind of caution usually reserved for disarming explosives, the mattress shifting as his weight left it and cold air rushing in where his warmth had been.
I listened as he crossed to the hearth and heard the scrape of the poker against stone. When the flames caught and grew, I sat up and brushed my tangled hair from my face.
“Morning,” he muttered without turning to look at me.
“Morning,” I responded in an equally cold tone.
I swung my legs out of bed, and my feet hit the floor, frigid even with my socks on, making me regret leaving the blankets. I tried to smooth my pants that were creased beyond salvation and untwist my black shirt from around my torso, but both were a lost cause.
“Bathroom’s through there,” he said. “You can go first.”
I escaped through the door into a massive space that held a claw-foot tub that belonged in a museum and pipes that groaned when I turned the tap.
The mirror above the sink showed me how rough I looked.
There were dark circles beneath my eyes, and my hair was a nightmare of tangles.
The water that sputtered from the tap smelled faintly of iron, but I splashed it on my face anyway, then finger-combed my hair into submission while trying not to think about how Tag had pulled away from me like I carried something contagious.
When I emerged, he took his turn without meeting my eyes.
I used the time to fold the blankets and arrange them on the bed with their edges aligned—anything to occupy my hands, to avoid thinking about how different this morning was from what I’d conjured during the long nights when I allowed myself to imagine being in Tag’s arms. Rather than sleeping, I dreamed of his naked body against mine, him inside me in a way no man had ever been before.
Understanding how inappropriate those thoughts had been didn’t lessen the hurt of his inability to look at me.
The fire he’d rebuilt barely reached the corners of the room, and outside, wind whistled through gaps in the window frames.
When he finally emerged from the bathroom, he avoided my gaze completely, walking straight out of the room without a word and leaving me no choice but to grab my tablet and follow.
Our footsteps echoed as we descended the main staircase, passing portraits of generations of Cavendishes. Tag led with purposeful distance while I trailed behind, both of us maintaining an invisible barrier as carefully as if it were made of glass.
When we reached the bottom, he finally acknowledged my presence. “The kitchen should be this way,” he said, veering left.
We continued through the great hall, where soaring ceilings were crossed with massive wooden beams above a table long enough to seat fifty people.
Faded tapestries depicting hunts and battles covered the stone walls, flanking a fireplace large enough to roast an ox.
The air in the room tasted of dust and age, with an underlying dampness that probably never diminished.
The kitchen, when we found it, was a mix of medieval bones and Victorian updates.
Another enormous table, with scarred wood that had seen generations of meal preparation and a surface marked with knife scores and burns, dominated the center.
Copper pots hung from iron hooks, green with verdigris at the joints.
Against the far wall stood something I’d never encountered outside of BBC period dramas.
“Is that an AGA?” I asked, drawn to the massive cast-iron range radiating heat like a benevolent dragon.
“Old one, but functional.” The hinges squealed in protest when Tag opened one of its heavy doors and checked inside. “While terribly inefficient in the way it burns oil continuously, it provides a cooking surface and heats the kitchen, making this the warmest room in the castle right now.”
I held my hands toward it, and my fingers tingled as circulation returned.
“Wait here. I’ll bring everything in from the SUV.”
Rather than respond that I was capable of helping, I followed closely at his heels.
He scowled but didn’t speak as we hauled the bags inside, then unpacked those meant for the kitchen.
While Tag carried those containing clothing and incidentals upstairs, I filled a kettle from the tap that coughed and sputtered like the one upstairs had before flowing steadily.
I set it on the AGA’s hot plate, where it hissed, then found china cups, chipped but clean, in a cupboard and grabbed two tea bags that sat on the table, from those unpacked but not yet put away.
When Tag returned, he adjusted the dial of a radio whose plastic casing was yellowed with age. It crackled, then came to life on the counter, and a voice emerged through the static.
“As the onslaught of inclement weather strengthens over the North Sea, authorities warn of a potentially historic event. Coastal areas should prepare for extended power outages. All emergency services are currently suspended.”
“It’s getting worse rather than better,” I said as rain lashed against the windows with enough force to make the old glass rattle in the frames.
“Significantly. Which means we could be here longer than anticipated.”
I watched him remove the tea bag from his cup, place it in a spoon, and carry it over to a rubbish bin, all without as much as a glance in my direction. “I’ll see if I can locate the heating system. In the meantime, you should ensure we have adequate water if the pipes freeze.”
Before he could leave the room, a knock at the door made us both reach for our weapons—my hand found the grip of my Glock at my hip while Tag’s went to the knife at his belt.
“Expecting anyone?” I asked.
“While I advised against it, Renegade mentioned the caretaker and his wife might try to make their way here this morning,” he said, opening the heavy door. It groaned on hinges that probably predated the Industrial Revolution.
The couple on the doorstep looked like they’d stepped from a Highland romance novel with their weather-worn faces that had seen decades of Scottish gales, practical layered clothing, and the sturdy builds that came from lifetimes of physical work.
Beneath her knit hat, the woman’s gray hair was pulled into a no-nonsense bun, and the man wore a tweed cap that did little to shield him from the raging downpour they’d come through.
“Mr. MacTaggert?” The woman’s voice carried the musical cadence of the Scots, all soft consonants and rolled Rs. “I’m Mrs. MacLeod. This is my husband. Mr. Cavendish rang and said you’d need looking after.”
“Please, come in.” Tag stepped aside. “This is Ms. Nassar.”
“Call me Leila,” I said, moving to shake her hand.
The woman’s keen eyes took in everything—our rumpled clothes, the intentional space between us, and the tension thick enough to cut with one of the swords decorating the walls.
“You’ve found the kitchen, then. Good.” The basket she handed to me held fresh bread, milk in a glass bottle, eggs with bits of straw stuck to them, and a container of homemade soup that smelled delicious.
“Let me show you what’s what,” her husband said, motioning for us to follow.
The tour he led us on revealed how little of the castle was habitable. As Renegade had mentioned, the east wing, where we’d slept, had heat, mostly, though Mrs. MacLeod warned that the radiators were temperamental and liked to clang in the night “like the devil himself was trapped in the pipes.”
The west wing, she said, had been closed for the winter. When I peeked into one of the rooms, I saw the furniture was shrouded in dust sheets and the air was so cold my breath misted.
Mr. MacLeod stepped around me and pulled the door shut. “Best to keep this locked up tight. The west tower especially—it’s not just the cold, you understand. Structural concerns.” He tapped the doorframe. “We wouldn’t want either of you taking a tumble.”
Tag nodded. “Understood.”
The south tower was “best avoided unless you fancy falling through rotted floors,” though Mr. MacLeod mentioned that his grandfather had hidden whiskey up there during the war and some might be there if we were so inclined.
“You can get to the old cellars through here,” Mrs. MacLeod said, pointing to a door after we returned to the kitchen.
“Dangerous place, that,” her husband added.
“There’s a storage area I’ll show you, but don’t be goin’ beyond it.
” He shuddered. “My da lost a cousin down there in the fifties when it caved in. We’ve blocked most of it off, but you never know with these old places. I’d avoid them entirely if I were you.”
“I’d like to take a look at the generator,” Tag said.
“Aye, it’s this way.”
The door creaked open, and we made our way down the steep stone steps.