Chapter 17
Violet smoothed her sleeve for the third time the next morning while Hannah watched her from beside the waiting horses.
“Ye look tired,” Hannah noted quietly.
Violet smoothed the cuff. The stitching was neat enough, though she found fault with it because fault was easier than thought. “It was a wedding. I was expected to look awake for too many hours.”
“That isnae what I meant.”
“I ken.” Violet plastered on a bright smile. “I chose to answer that one instead, just because.”
Hannah’s expression softened in a way that made Violet’s chest tighten. Her sister stepped forward and hugged her hard, heedless of the gown, the sleeve, and the careful shape Violet had made of herself for the morning.
“Write to me,” Hannah murmured into her shoulder.
“I will.”
“Soon.”
“I ken what soon means.”
Hannah sighed. “With ye, I am never certain.”
Violet gave a small laugh, and it nearly broke in the middle. She held Hannah for one moment longer than dignity allowed, then let go before either of them could make the parting worse.
Aiden waited with the reins in hand, giving them privacy without pretending he was not listening. When Hannah stepped back, he came forward and took Violet’s hands in his large, warm ones.
“MacBain’s doors are open,” he said. “Always.”
Violet smiled at him. “I ken.”
“Well, Violet, kenning and using are different matters.”
“Ye sound like Hannah.”
Aidan laughed. “That is the wisest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
This time, her smile came easier and hurt more.
Aiden bent and gently kissed her brow, then released her. The horses carried them away through the courtyard, with Hannah turning once in the saddle to look back. Violet lifted a hand and kept it raised until they passed beneath the gate arch.
When they were gone, Moore Castle seemed to become larger.
The stones had always been high and the walls always thick, the corridors full of men who moved as if silence were discipline.
Yet with Hannah’s sharp eyes gone and Aiden’s quiet steadiness riding away beside her, the place settled around Violet with a new weight.
Lady Moore.
The title felt less safe in the morning light for some reason.
Moira stepped out of the castle with John wrapped close against the cool air. He fussed, his little face scrunching up with dissatisfaction at the world. Violet took him at once, grateful for his warm weight.
“We shall be very calm,” she told him, smoothing his blanket. “One of us must be, and ye are clearly unsuited for the task.”
John caught her finger in his tiny fist.
Violet looked down at him and breathed more steadily. “Aye, that is fair. Hold me accountable,” she said, before carrying him to the breakfast hall.
The sight that greeted her made her stop just over the threshold.
Connor sat at the table with Lachlan near him, their plates abandoned, their cups half full.
Alex stood at the edge of the room, appearing careless until she noticed that his gaze rested more on Lachlan’s hands than on his face.
Moira moved toward the sideboard, where christening clothes lay ready beside a tray.
For one strange moment, the room resembled a family.
Then Connor looked up.
Memory struck before Violet could prepare herself—his hands careful on her sleeve, his mouth on her throat, his voice asking whether she could not or would not. It caused enough heat to bloom in her face.
She quickly turned her attention to Lachlan because he was dangerous in a different way, and for this morning, looking at something different felt safer.
Lachlan rose. His smile was tired and warm enough to hint at old grief.
“Lady Moore,” he greeted. “Violet, if I may?”
Her throat tightened at hearing her name from someone who had known Jane alive. “Ye may.”
Connor’s chair creaked faintly, but she did not look at him. Moira drew nearer with the linen.
“The christening clothes are ready for Master John, whenever the priest is called.”
Master John.
The name sat gently in the room.
Violet looked down at the baby. “With the christening so near, we should decide whether we are keeping his name as John.”
Lachlan’s gaze slid to the baby.
“Everyone has called him John because we needed to give him a name,” Violet explained. “It began as a practical thing. But perhaps it need nae remain only that.”
She looked at Lachlan. His fingers had tightened slightly around his cup.
“Would it trouble ye if we kept it?” she asked.
For a moment, Lachlan seemed to forget the cup in his hand, the food cooling in front of him, and Connor sitting close enough to hear every breath.
“John,” he said quietly. “Jane mentioned that name once.”
Violet went still. “Aye, she did.”
“Aye.” His mouth tightened. “I had forgotten.” He looked back at her.
“She laughed when she said it. Told me a boy named John might have good sense, or at least sound like he did.” His voice thinned, then steadied badly.
“She said it was plain and good. A name a boy could grow into without being burdened by it.”
Violet’s eyes stung. John’s small fist tightened around her finger as if he meant to hold her where she was.
“Jane would have liked it,” she said.
Lachlan looked away too quickly.
From the head of the table, Connor spoke. “Then John it is.”
His firm tone settled the matter.
John made a small, offended sound, and Moira’s mouth curved.
“He seems to approve,” she chuckled.
Alex raised his cup. “He approves of being fed. Let us nae give him wisdom too early.”
Violet almost turned to see whether Hannah had heard the dry comment, but the space beside her where Hannah would usually stand was empty.
Right.
The old instinct hurt more than she had expected.
She adjusted John’s blanket and looked at Lachlan again. “How long will ye remain?”
Lachlan glanced at Connor, before his smile returned, lighter than his eyes. “As long as I’m allowed.”
Violet tried to ease the awkwardness before it sharpened. “That is a dangerous answer in this castle.”
“A week, then,” Connor interjected, his voice calm. Too calm. “Thank ye for visiting, Brother,” he added, rising. “Now if ye’ll excuse me.”
Lachlan’s smile flickered, and Alex went very still. Moira lowered her eyes to her hands.
Violet held John closer as Connor left the room, unsure why a moment that had reminded her of family now reminded her of stepping too close to a blade.
Connor stepped into the passage beyond the breakfast hall before his temper settled properly and back into normal.
The door closed behind him, cutting off the small sounds of breakfast—Moira’s movement near the sideboard, Alex’s low voice, John’s brief fuss, and Violet murmuring something to the baby as lightly as she possibly could.
The sound of her voice made something inside him loosen.
Even through oak and stone, her voice found him.
He should have been thinking of Lachlan’s stay and the incoming christening. The thought of letting his brother breathe too long inside Moore Castle without a man watching both hands and every cup he lifted made him feel a bit terrified.
Instead, he saw Violet’s face when Lachlan had spoken of Jane.
He saw the way the relief had softened her. Real relief. The kind he had not been able to give her because he had never known Jane as anything more than a dead woman, a scandal, a wound left in a nursery.
Lachlan had offered Violet a memory Connor could not command, and Violet had accepted it in front of him with John in her arms and grief in her eyes.
Then he remembered the way Lachlan had reacted at the word we. Our decision. Our bairn. Our name. Our Jane.
Connor’s jaw locked.
“Brother,” Lachlan called after him.
Connor stopped at the corner. A guard nearby straightened and pretended that he had heard nothing.
Connor did not turn at once. “I gave ye a week. Daenae try to shorten it before the first meal is over.”
Lachlan’s footsteps slowed down as he drew closer. He smelled faintly of ale already, though the morning was hardly old enough to forgive it. “Still generous, then.”
Connor turned. “Nay. I am just still impatient.”
Lachlan smiled. The expression sat easily on his face, which made it less trustworthy. He leaned one shoulder against the wall, then seemed to think better of looking too careless and straightened. His eyes were clearer than they had been the night before, though his focus still shifted too often.
“Do ye want her?” he asked.
Connor went still. “What?”
“Violet,” Lachlan clarified, his voice low. “She must have come here for John. Imagine me surprise when I arrived to find out ye married her. It would cause doubt in anyone, so I am asking again. Do ye want her?”
Connor let a brief silence settle between them before he spoke again, keeping his temper in check. “That is a poor question to ask a man about his wife.”
“It shouldnae be if the answer is simple.”
“It is complicated.”
Lachlan gave a tired laugh. “That means aye, and ye resent it.”
Connor stepped closer. “Ye’re still early here, Brother. Mind yer tongue.”
“I am trying,” Lachlan said. “It keeps finding interesting things.”
That old habit was there, the easy reach for charm whenever danger stood too near. Connor had once known how to read it as mischief. Now he read it as evasion, and the change sat badly in his gut.
“She is me wife,” he said, too quickly.
Lachlan’s eyebrows rose. Connor hated him for noticing.
“And that is why I asked,” Lachlan said. “A man may marry a woman for heirs, money, land, peace, spite, or poor judgment. Wanting her, on the other hand, is another matter.”
Connor glanced toward the guard. The man stared ahead with painful discipline.
“Walk,” he ordered.
Lachlan obeyed for three steps, then matched Connor’s pace through the side passage toward the study. The further they moved from the breakfast hall, the quieter the castle became.
Connor looked ahead, noticing the way the morning light fell through narrow windows and caught the dust in the air. He heard the faintest sound behind them, perhaps Violet laughing softly at John.
“When I first met Jane,” Lachlan said, “she was the only thing that made sense.”
Connor’s mouth tightened. “I assume Jane wanted ye back.”
Lachlan’s smile fell. For a moment, his face had no defense on it. “Aye, for a little while.”
“And then?”
“Then I proved poor at being the man she thought I was.”
Connor did not look at him. He did not want the honesty. It asked him to remember that Lachlan had not always been like this. It asked him to consider whether Violet looked at him with some belief he had no right to receive.
“Jane believed men could be better than they were,” Lachlan continued. “It was a dangerous kindness.”
“Kindness didnae save her.”
“Nay.” Lachlan swallowed. “Nor did I.”
That should have ended their conversation. Connor should have sent him away, ordered a guard to watch him, and returned to work. Yet Lachlan kept walking beside him like a ghost Connor had allowed past the gate.
“She looks at ye,” Lachlan noted.
“Most people look at me when I stand in a room.”
“Nay. It would be worrying if most people look at ye the way she does.”
Connor’s eyes narrowed.
“And daenae get me started on the way ye look at her. I’m saying this as someone who has only been here for two days,” Lachlan said.
Silence settled between them again.
Connor should have let it punish him. Instead, Violet’s name hung between them, and Lachlan’s damned eyes stayed too clear.
“We agreed to lead separate lives, with only an hour a day together for the bairn’s sake,” he grunted.
Lachlan studied him. “In the same castle?”
“Aye.”
“With the same bairn?”
Connor’s jaw tightened. “Leave it.”
“Sounds like a lie both of ye are trying to survive.”
The words struck too hard.
Connor thought of Violet in the study, trembling, and of her mouth finding his after every proper answer failed. He could order watch rotations, christening preparations, locked gates, letters answered, guards assigned, and servants warned.
What he could not order was Violet’s silence into an answer that satisfied him.
“Let the matter rest,” he said.
Lachlan lifted both hands. “As ye wish.”
“That would be new.”
Lachlan’s smile flickered. “Aye, I suppose it would.”
He stepped back with a readiness that felt too easy, then turned toward the breakfast hall.
Connor watched him go and caught the shift in his shoulders before he reached the door, the slight looseness that meant the charm had cost him.
Alex came from the opposite corridor, as if he had been summoned by suspicion alone.
“I still daenae completely trust him,” Connor said before Alex could speak. “I ken he is me brother, but he might still be a risk. Wouldnae be too bad to just keep an eye on him.”
Alex nodded once. “Aye.”
Connor remained in the passage after Alex left.
From the breakfast hall came Violet’s voice again, low and warm as she spoke to John.
What in God’s name are ye doing, Connor?
He had no answer.