Chapter 24
Night settled heavily over Kincaid Castle. The corridors were now hushed and hollow as if the stones themselves mourned. Davina could not sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Baird’s face, and heard the words that broke her heart.
Mayhap ye should stop reaching.
The words cut anew each time she remembered them.
At last, unable to bear the restless ache in her chest, she slipped from the chamber. The guards stationed outside the door looked startled, but she shook her head.
“I need only a walk,” she murmured.
They exchanged glances but did not stop her.
Perhaps even they could sense her heartbreak.
Davina’s footsteps echoed softly as she moved through the dimly lit hall.
Shadows gathered in the corners, stretching long across the floor, reaching for her like cold fingers.
She wrapped her arms around herself, wishing foolishly for the warmth of Baird’s embrace.
But warmth was the one thing he withheld.
She wandered until she found herself before a door she had not opened since the day of her arrival. It was the portrait room. Ailis had mentioned it once, in passing, how it held the likenesses of former lairds and ladies.
Davina hesitated only a moment before entering.
The chamber smelled faintly of dust and oil paint. Moonlight streamed through a high window, casting pale beams across rows of paintings, of faces long gone, yet forever watching.
Her gaze drifted until it snagged on a portrait hanging near the center.
Laird Alastair Kincaid… Baird’s father.
Davina stepped closer. The man in the frame was tall, imposing, his posture rigid as though carved from stone. His expression was severe, his mouth was set in a thin line, while his eyes were hard and cold. Even captured in paint, he radiated a chill that raised gooseflesh along Davina’s arms.
This was a man who commanded fear, a man who expected perfection, a man who had never known softness, and likely crushed it wherever he found it.
Davina swallowed, unable to look away.
Is this why Baird pushes me away? Is this the shadow he lives beneath every day?
She imagined a young Baird standing before his father, a boy yearning for approval, receiving only scorn; a son taught that vulnerability was weakness, affection a liability, love a threat.
Her heart clenched. Davina reached up, fingertips brushing the edge of the frame, not touching the painted man, but acknowledging him, nonetheless. Then, she stepped back, drawing a steady breath, only to turn around and leave the portrait room behind.
Her feet carried her toward the solar almost without thought.
It was the room where she and Baird had shared their first quiet moment, before everything tangled between them.
The door creaked softly as she entered. Inside, moonlight spilled across the table where her half-finished garden plans lay.
She traced the lines absently, imagining color and life blooming amid all this stone and sorrow.
The solar had once felt hopeful. That night, it felt like a place of unanswered questions.
She sank onto a cushioned bench near the hearth and pulled her knees close, resting her chin atop them. She stared into the darkened grate, where the ashes were cold and the last embers long dead. She felt much the same.
“I dinnae understand him,” she thought. “Nae truly. And I fear… I fear I’ll lose him before I ever truly had him.”
The quiet swallowed her thoughts. Outside, the wind howled against the tower walls. Inside, she curled in on herself, trying to find warmth in a castle that suddenly felt too big, too cold and too full of ghosts.
“Me lady?” Ailis called out softly, lingering in the doorway. “Ye are still awake?”
Davina lifted her head. She hadn’t realized how long she’d been sitting curled by the cold hearth. The moon had shifted across the sky. Her legs were stiff, and her fingers chilled.
“Ailis,” she breathed. “I… dinnae ken how long I’ve been here.”
“Oh, me lady…” She crossed the room and knelt beside her. “What are ye doing, sitting here all alone in the dark? Ye’ll catch yer death.”
Davina tried to smile, but it wavered and failed. “I couldnae stay in the chamber. I felt as though the walls were closing in on me.” She swallowed, feeling that same ache rising again. “And he… Baird, he… willnae speak tae me. He willnae even look at me.”
Ailis’s face softened. “Oh, me lady…”
Davina pressed her palms together, fighting for composure. “I dinnae understand him, Ailis. One moment he is warm, gentle even… and the next, he is locked away behind stone, as if I dinnae matter at all.”
Ailis did not respond at once. Instead, she eased herself onto the bench beside Davina. The quiet stretched, heavy but patient, before she finally spoke.
“He didnae have a good childhood, our laird.”
Davina turned sharply. “I’ve gathered that much. But what daes that have tae dae with him shutting me out?”
Ailis sighed. “Everything.”
Davina blinked. “Everything?”
“Aye.” Ailis looked toward the far window, as if seeing years long past. “The laird’s faither…
Laird Alastair… he was a hard man. Harder than stone, and twice as cold.
Expectations were all he ever offered his sons.
Praise was a foreign language tae him, and affection…
well.” She shook her head. “I dinnae think the man even knew the word.”
Davina’s heart squeezed. She whispered. “I saw his portrait tonight. He looked… stern.”
Ailis let out a humorless breath. “Stern is a gentle way tae put it.”
“What was he like?” Davina asked softly.
Ailis hesitated, then spoke with a quiet gravity that chilled the room.
“There was a winter, maybe fifteen years past, when a maid, wee Marion, slipped on the frost carrying a tray. The dishes shattered. She cut her hand badly.” Ailis’s jaw tightened at the memory.
“Laird Alastair made her finish serving the hall with blood dripping down her arm. He said mistakes had tae be carried, nae coddled.”
Davina’s breath caught. “That’s… monstrous.”
“Aye.” Ailis nodded. “He dismissed servants fer speaking too loudly. He struck a stable boy once fer laughing at the wrong time. Every man and woman in this keep walked on eggshells when he passed. We were all afraid of him.” She looked at Davina with steady, sorrowful eyes. “Now, imagine being his son.”
Davina’s thoughts flashed back to the portrait: the steel-set mouth, the cold eyes that judged even from paint. And then she imagined Baird as a boy, a little boy trying to stand straight, trying not to flinch, trying to earn approval that would never come.
“Good heavens,” Davina whispered, pressing a hand to her mouth. “What must that man have done tae his own child?”
Ailis touched her arm. “Our laird grew up believing emotions were dangerous. That vulnerability was a weakness his enemies would use against him and his faither would punish.” Her voice gentled.
“He’s spent his whole life living up tae the ghost of that man’s expectations.
Even now, after Laird Alastair is gone, I’m sure that he still hears that voice. ”
Davina closed her eyes, feeling the sting of tears. “Nay wonder he pushes me away.”
“He’s afraid,” Ailis said simply. “Afraid of losing those he cares fer, afraid of failing again as he failed his braither. Most importantly, I think that he is afraid that if he opens his heart even a little, he’ll prove his faither right.”
Davina turned, meeting her gaze. “His faither told him he was weak, didnae he?”
“Aye.” Ailis nodded. “And the laird has spent every day since trying tae prove he isnae.”
Davina drew a trembling breath. “I want tae help him. But I dinnae ken how.”
Ailis squeezed her hand. “Ye’ve already softened him, me lady. More than ye realize. But the rest… he’ll need tae fight inside himself.”
Davina looked down at her fingers, now interlaced with the maid’s warm ones.
“I only wish he’d let me stand with him,” she whispered.
Ailis offered a small, sad smile. “Give him time. That is all ye can dae.”
Davina nodded, though the weight in her chest remained. She leaned back against the cushions, her thoughts drifting once more to Baird’s father’s portrait and to the boy who had grown under that cold, merciless stare.
She would not abandon him to those ghosts. But she was still afraid that they might consume him, and her with him, before she ever had the chance to reach him.