Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Great Hall was louder than ever.
Edith understood why the moment she stopped in the doorway. The preparations for the harvest festival had begun, and the castle had started to fill with clansfolk in preparation for the coming weeks.
The benches were packed, and the tables were loud with overlapping conversation. The scent of roasted meat and fresh bread filled the warm air, tangled with the smell of ale.
Aaron caught up with her in the doorway, and she stiffened. As they walked together into the Great Hall, every head turned toward them.
Edith kept her chin level, her etiquette lessons kicking in. Whatever she felt on the inside had no business appearing on her face in a room full of people watching for weakness. And today, she felt a great deal on the inside.
Her skin broke out in goosebumps as Aaron’s hand came to rest on the small of her back.
Such audacity.
She straightened, acting as though all was well as he guided her toward the high table. It did not matter. It was all just a performance.
She sat beside him, folded her hands in her lap, and breathed.
It will all be over soon.
The noise gradually resumed around them. Servants moved between the tables, cups were refilled, and the fire at the far end crackled steadily against the stone.
Edith reached for her goblet and drank. The pouch was still tucked in her pocket, the weight of it pulling down on her heart more than it did the fabric.
She stared down the table, her gaze fixed on nothing in particular as the matter slowly clouded her mind.
He wasnae wrong to give it to me.
The money was part of her agreement with Aaron—a part she took as seriously as her lessons with the healer because it mattered to her future. And yet she could not help but feel something tighten in her chest.
It felt wrong. Much more so because of how he had given it to her. When he had given it to her.
She bit her bottom lip, her fingers tightening around the goblet in her hand. She could still taste him on her lips. She could still feel his hand on her skin.
His fingers had squeezed her arm as if he could not stop himself. And with those same fingers, he had pressed the pouch into her hand as though she were a stranger with whom he was conducting business.
Perhaps that is what it is.
Her heart hollowed at the thought, the same way it had the moment she understood what the pouch was.
Perhaps all they had was truly just an arrangement. Two outings, two lessons, and the money to seal the deal.
A breath escaped her as she lifted her goblet to her lip, taking another sip of the ale.
I truly am a fool.
The liquid burned down her chest, but she did not show it.
She had known exactly what this was, and somewhere in between the fields, the stair landing, and the corridor outside her chamber, she had let herself forget it.
She had let herself feel things she had no right to feel for a man who had made his intentions clear from the very beginning.
Aaron was keeping his word. It was her foolish heart that had made it into something else.
Her goblet soon emptied. She placed it slowly on the table in front of her, and a servant refilled it before she could ask.
“Thank ye,” she murmured without looking up, her attention now fixed on Aaron and the conversation he was having with one of the councilmen.
A smile touched his lips at something the councilman said, and she looked away at once.
Of course. It doesnae mean a thing to him that we kissed.
Her jaw tightened as she promised herself one thing in that moment. She would not fall for any more distractions. Their arrangement would remain what it truly was—a deal, far removed from matters of the heart, and an obligation to perform for the next two weeks.
It will all be over soon.
Her attention returned to the hall as the servants served another round of roasted meat.
Edith reached for her cutlery as soon as a plate was placed in front of her. She was going to fill her mind with something, and if it could not be Aaron, then it would be good food.
She had barely finished chewing her first bite when her ears caught a murmur.
“Lowborn, they say…”
Her jaw tightened. She paused, listening more closely to the ripple of whispered conversation from somewhere near the middle of the hall, where a cluster of newcomers had gathered.
“I cannae imagine what possessed the Laird.”
She kept facing ahead, taking another bite.
“Perhaps it is her looks,” someone said.
“What looks?” Edith’s chest tightened at that. “Many ladies boast of a better face.”
It was the first thing that truly vexed her.
She had never been one to dwell on vain things such as beauty, but she knew full well that she could hold her own in any room, even if she was not born noble.
Surely they cannae say the same.
“She must have seduced him somehow.”
She considered stealing a glance at the source of the murmur, but before she could, Aaron’s hand lifted beside her. She glanced at him, but he was not looking at her.
“Play,” he ordered the piper, and the hall stilled, the murmurs ceasing at once. “A song for me future wife.”
The first note rose slowly, soft and low, filling the hall the way dawn filled a room gradually and then all at once. The melody was a Highland air, old and familiar, the kind that had been played at celebrations and gatherings since before any of them had been born.
Aaron turned to look at her, and she started slightly. His expression was unreadable, as it so often was. But the look in his eyes was not. He did not need to say a word, although his message was clear—no one would speak against her while she sat at his side.
Her chest filled again as she held his gaze, and this time, she couldn’t help but feel his authority burning through her.
She looked away, breaking eye contact just as the same emotions she’d just sworn off began to resurface.
Nay, I cannae allow it.
The music filled the hall around her, warm and unhurried. She kept her eyes on the candle in front of her and focused on breathing evenly, the way Martin had taught her to focus when something required steadiness she did not feel.
Separate yerself from what ye feel.
It was good advice. It was considerably harder to apply when the cause of her inner turmoil was sitting six inches to her left, entirely composed, as though ordering a piper to silence an entire hall on her behalf was simply another evening in his life.
Perhaps it was.
Perhaps that was precisely the problem.
She thought about the cottage waiting for her in her mother’s village. The herbs she would grow. The people she would treat. The life she had been building in her mind since she was old enough to understand that healing was the one thing she wanted badly enough to wait for.
That life was still there. Still waiting. Two weeks away.
She held onto it carefully.
The medallion lay cool against her collarbone, Scarlett’s weight against her skin, and the pouch sat in her pocket, where she had tucked it and not moved it since.
She should want to leave. She wanted to. But she also did not want to.
She stared at her plate.
Two more weeks, she told herself. Then it will be over.
She was no longer sure whether that thought was a comfort or not.