Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“Why does he nae wish to marry?”
The question had slipped past Edith’s lips as though she had no control over them.
Scarlett looked at her, stunned.
“What do ye mean?” she asked.
It was fair enough that she did not understand the question at once.
Edith had not meant to ask it so plainly either, but watching Aaron with the children had unraveled something in her that she could not quite gather back together, and she needed an answer. Anything to make sense of the feelings that had suddenly flooded her.
She opened her mouth to better phrase her question, but no words came out.
Foolish me.
Her gaze fell to her hands, and she dropped them to her sides, her fingers curling into the folds of her dress.
“Never mind.”
There was no way she could explain that the man over whom she had had countless sleepless nights, whose gaze she had avoided lest she feel embarrassed, whose every breath irritated her, and whose actions had sent her into a conflict of thoughts only days ago, was now confusing her even more.
How could she explain it to her friend?
Aaron was only playing with the children. It was no big deal. And yet Edith had imagined him as a father, and now she wanted nothing more than to know why he would not truly claim her or any other woman.
She wanted an answer so desperately that her chest tightened.
She turned to leave, feeling embarrassed, but Scarlett grabbed her hand, halting her. “Edith…”
Edith swallowed. “I…” she stammered. “It was foolish to ask. Pay me no mind, Scarlett.”
Scarlett exhaled, her eyes softening as she reached for her other hand.
“It wasnae foolish,” she said quietly, holding her gaze in a manner that slowly grounded her. “I will never think ye foolish, Edith. Ever.” She paused, squeezing her hands gently. “It is just… I have never questioned it meself.”
Edith blinked. Her eyes flitted across Scarlett’s face, and her chest eased slightly at the sincerity in her gaze.
“Ye should ask him,” Scarlett added. “Truly.”
She looked toward Aaron, her expression turning thoughtful in a way Edith rarely saw.
“Me braither has just…” Scarlett’s voice broke slightly, and she blinked, refusing to meet Edith’s eyes.
“He has always carried everythin’ alone.
Our faither died when he was barely a man, and he simply…
took it all on.” A sad smile touched her lips.
“The clan. The council. Me.” She paused.
“He is both me faither and me maither in a way.”
Edith said nothing.
They were true, the words that Scarlett had said. She had witnessed most of it herself, growing up alongside them.
“I suppose he never had the chance to simply be,” Scarlett said quietly. “And now, I fear he may nae ken how to.”
Edith exhaled, letting her shoulders drop.
For the past three weeks, she had only allowed herself to think of Aaron from a place of anger and spite. But now, for the first time, she thought of him in a different light.
Unlike his sister, she had barely known him outside of his lairdship. But even then, he had provided her with a roof over her head after her mother’s death and never demanded that she serve as a maid.
She thought of the past three weeks and how he had not once been cruel toward her.
He had spread out his plaid for her to sit, defended her honor before an entire hall of councilmen, and even though those were only for the sake of their betrothal, he had sat with her in silence on the floor of Scarlett’s old bedchamber.
These were not the actions of a man who only knew duty. These were the actions of a man who had forgotten how to be anything but who he had been all his life—a Laird.
She looked back toward Aaron. He was still with the children, though the game had shifted now. A small boy tugged at his sleeve, demanding he settle a dispute over whose turn it was to fight with a wooden sword.
It was as though he could sense her eyes on him. He looked up, their eyes meeting across the distance, and for the first time that day, neither of them looked away.
Edith exhaled slowly.
“Ye see it too,” Scarlett said quietly from beside her.
There was no seeing him differently. Aaron was still the Laird. Whatever was between them was still an agreement, and it would soon be over.
“Nay,” Edith said, though her voice lacked its usual conviction.
Scarlett simply smiled, saying nothing further.
The afternoon went by quickly, and Aaron watched it pass, resting against the trunk of the tree under which he had played with children he did not know.
It had been a spontaneous choice.
Caelan seemed to be struggling with them, so he stepped in, only intending to join for a few minutes. He had not expected the children to be so taken by him and him by them. But now that it was over, he couldn’t be more relieved.
He folded his arms across his chest, his brow rising slightly as a carriage approached them from a distance.
“Did ye send for a carriage?” Edith’s voice carried in the air, sounding slightly emotional. “Daenae tell me ye are leaving.”
“We arenae leaving,” Scarlett said, laughing softly. “Me husband merely needs to rest, as do I.”
“Perfect.” Edith’s face lit up. “I have already prepared yer chambers.”
Aaron scoffed. She had spoken those words as though she were the lady of the castle. And yet it did not annoy him.
The carriage pulled to a stop beside them, and Robert put his arms around Scarlett’s waist. He murmured something, drawing a playful laugh from her lips, before guiding her toward the carriage, leaving Edith to stare after them.
Perhaps the alliance hasnae been as terrible as I feared.
Aaron watched their carriage roll away across the amber fields, and soon, the only people who remained under the tree were him, Edith, Caelan, and Violet.
His brows arched slightly as Caelan approached Violet, just as music began to play.
Those two…
Violet smiled as Caelan approached her, and it became clear to Aaron that he had missed their first conversation at the very least.
Perhaps the lass is also taken by him.
She took the hand Caelan offered, and he gently placed his other hand on her waist as though he were afraid to break her, guiding her through a dance near the playing pipes.
The song was hardly meant for dancing. Their laughter rang loud as the steps became too fast for them to keep up.
Aaron rolled his eyes.
Nonsense.
Yet he was hardly able to look away.
He realized at that moment that he envied it—their smooth connection, their easy laughter, the helplessness with which they both looked at each other, though they had only recently met.
He frowned, pushing off the tree.
“Why do ye nae believe in it?” Edith’s voice came quietly beside him.
He started slightly, having not heard her approach. He turned. She had drawn closer than he expected, her expression unreadable in the dimming light.
“In what?” he asked.
She gestured toward Caelan and Violet, toward the easy laughter and careless dancing. “That,” she said. “Simple things. Joy.”
Aaron exhaled lightly, looking back toward the dancers rather than at her. “Distractions,” he muttered. “Temporary.”
Why is she asking me this?
There was something deliberate in the way she had approached him, something that suggested she had been thinking about this for longer than the moment required.
“Caelan seems quite taken,” she observed.
“Aye,” Aaron agreed. “He is.”
She studied him for a long moment, her gaze far too perceptive for his comfort.
“And ye?” she asked. “Ye could have any woman in the Highlands.”
“I daenae want any woman.”
The words left him before he had decided to say them, and he felt their weight the moment they landed, surprised at himself for having uttered them so bluntly.
Edith tilted her head slightly, something flickering across her face that he could not immediately read.
“That seems to be a common thing of late,” she said lightly.
His frown deepened. “What do ye mean?”
She hesitated, glancing briefly toward Violet before explaining, “Martin has the same preference. And poor Violet—”
“He fancied her?” The words came out sharper than Aaron had intended.
Edith blinked at the interruption.
If the healer had eyes for the maid as well, then Aaron would truly have to skin him alive. Him and Caelan.
“Nay,” Edith said. “She fancied him. Violet, I mean.” A small smile tugged at her mouth. “But I couldnae bear to see her hurt.”
She glanced toward Caelan and Violet again, her smile widening.
“Thank the saints, Caelan swept her off her feet instead.” She laughed softly, the sound warm and entirely unguarded. “I worried for nothing.”
So there is nothing between her and the healer?
The relief that washed over him was immediate and entirely disproportionate to anything he had a right to feel. He hated it.
Daenae ask her.
He fought against himself for clarity.
It shouldnae matter.
“Nothin’ between ye and the healer, then?” he asked before he could stop himself.
Edith looked at him, her expression soft. “Nay,” she said simply.
Something in his chest eased unexpectedly and completely in a way for which he had not braced himself.
He looked at her properly then, really looked, the way he rarely allowed himself to anymore, as though looking too long might reveal something he had spent weeks trying to keep contained.
The firelight from the nearby torches caught her face, the warmth in her eyes, the faint scatter of freckles across her nose that he had memorized despite every effort not to. Her lips were slightly parted, as though she meant to say something further and had decided against it.
For a brief moment, he considered telling her that he was nothing like the healer. That he had not meant the words he said, and that he indeed wanted a woman. That he only refused it because wanting things had always seemed far more dangerous than duty.
It doesnae matter. She will leave.
The harvest festival was near—a week, perhaps less now. The arrangement would conclude exactly as planned, and she would take her money and her freedom and the life she had built so carefully in her own mind far away from Hallow, far away from him.
“We should return,” he said, the words rougher than he had intended.
He half-expected her to argue the way she usually did, simply to prove that she could.
She did not.
“Aye,” she said quietly. “We should.”