Chapter 18
That evening, Violet carried John into the library, trying to prove that her choice was sensible.
The household needed silence after the wedding. Even John needed some silence after being passed to too many arms, admired by too many guests, and discussed by too many people who thought a baby could not hear if his future was being weighed aloud.
Lachlan’s presence had made breakfast feel uneven beneath her feet. Connor had clan matters to manage, guards to order, letters to answer, and a brother to watch.
All of that was true.
None of it explained why she could still remember Connor’s hands on her skin almost all the time now.
The library was quiet, and it provided her with just the silence she needed. The morning light fell through the high windows and rested over shelves crowded with worn leather, old paper, and dust that smelled faintly warm.
There was a chair near the window, a small table with a lamp, and a stack of books that looked as if no one had opened them or even tried to arrange them for years.
It was nothing like Connor’s study. His study smelled of ink, whisky, power, and the kind of silence that she absolutely didn’t trust herself around, especially since the night of the wedding.
Violet settled into the chair, with John tucked securely in the crook of her arm. He blinked up at her with solemn displeasure, then worked one fist free of his blanket as if preparing to lodge a complaint.
“I ken, right?” she said. “This castle is far too full of complicated men.”
John waved his fist.
“Exactly.”
She reached for the nearest book and found a heavy travel account with a cracked spine and a title that promised rivers, passes, mountains, and roads she had never seen.
A strip of blue cloth was tucked in her sleeve, brought from her chamber by habit more than purpose.
She opened the book to the first page with one hand, using the cloth as a marker.
“Ye will understand very little of this,” she told John. “That makes ye an ideal audience. I have met grown men with worse habits.”
John kicked beneath the blanket.
“Aye, I ken. Ye are already more attentive than most of them.”
She began to read.
The prose was dry, the type of writing that made even adventure sound as if it had been measured and weighed before being allowed onto the page.
She gave the mountains a grave voice, the river a grand one, and the weary traveler a tone so full of grievance that John stared at her mouth in apparent astonishment.
He made a small gurgling sound.
Violet paused. “Was that approval or criticism?”
His eyes closed for one hard blink, and his feet kicked again.
“Approval, then. Very generous.”
She read another passage, changing the writer’s complaints about poor roads into a tragedy fit for a king. John’s fist found the edge of the blue cloth and caught it. Violet laughed before she could stop herself.
“Oh, ye villain. Ye cannae handle that properly.”
John tugged with a strength that could only be regarded as ambitious by someone fond of him. The cloth slipped from the book and fluttered onto his blanket. His mouth opened, and he let out a delighted little sound, soft and bright and alive.
Violet froze at the joy of it. Then the ache followed.
Jane should have heard that.
Jane should have been here in some quiet corner of the room, laughing at Violet for reading a travel account to a baby who was more interested in food than geography.
Jane would have tilted her head, eyes warm, and said that Violet had finally found a listener who could not argue back. She would have reached for her son and learned the shape of his laugh.
Violet looked down at John until the page blurred.
“Oh, ye clever little thing,” she whispered. “Jane would have loved that sound.”
John kicked again, entirely careless of her grief. That was the cruelty of babies. They went on living with no respect for the broken hearts around them.
Violet adjusted his blanket, smoothing it under his chin. His fingers still gripped the blue cloth. She let him keep it.
“I will always make ye smile,” she told him softly. “No matter what stern lairds and badly written books try to do to us.”
John answered with another small sound. Violet’s smile trembled, then grew steady.
A voice suddenly came from the doorway. “Ye shouldnae lie to him.”
Violet jumped so hard the book nearly slid from her lap. Heat rose in her face before she even turned. She had been too absorbed in John, in Jane, in the warm little fist wrapped around blue cloth, that she had not noticed Connor intruding on her refuge.
He stood in the doorway, one hand resting lightly against the frame.
He had not closed the door behind him. That detail reached her before his expression did.
He had entered carefully, leaving the door open, leaving her the dignity of propriety even while he disrupted the only peace she had found all morning.
Her heart skipped a beat at that thought, and she hated it, so she corrected it with temper.
“Do ye make a habit of appearing in doorways like that?”
Connor stepped further into the library. “Well, I daenae make it a habit. I only do that when someone is lying to bairns.”
“I was making a promise.”
“A dangerous one at that,” he responded, his voice gentle, even though his face was unreadable.
Violet lifted her chin. “What lie?”
“That ye will always make him smile.” Connor’s gaze dropped briefly to John, and something in his face shifted when the baby clutched the blue cloth harder. “When he is a lad of fifteen, I suspect neither of ye will think the other amusing.”
“And ye ken this from yer long history of raising sons?”
“I ken this from having been fifteen.”
“That explains a great deal.”
His mouth twitched slightly, almost a smile, though he did not let it fully form. He walked further into the room, his boots quiet on the floorboards, his presence shifting the air without demanding it.
Violet held John closer and hated that the gesture felt less like defense and more like preparation.
Connor looked at the open book. “What are ye reading him?”
“A travel account.”
“That isnae a good idea.”
Violet shrugged. “What can I say? He has excellent taste. Also, he cannae flee.”
Connor nodded. “It was quite wise of ye to choose an audience without the strength to escape.”
“He is developing strength,” Violet argued. “He stole me marker.”
Connor’s gaze lowered to the blue cloth in John’s hand. His humor softened at the edges. He did not ask about it. She was grateful and unsettled in the same breath.
At that moment, John made another small sound, and Connor’s attention fixed on him. Violet tightened her hold on the baby and looked back down at the book, though the words had ceased to mean anything.
John blinked at him, then kicked once beneath the blanket as if Connor had failed some private inspection.
“He likes ye,” Violet observed.
Connor looked at the baby with suspicion. “He has poor judgment.”
“He is an infant.”
“That is what I said.”
That surprised a laugh out of her before she could guard it.
Connor’s gaze flicked back to her for a moment, and the laugh turned awkward in her throat. She quickly looked down at John and adjusted the blanket that did not need adjusting.
Connor crossed to the chair beside the window and sat.
That unsettled her more than if he had remained standing. Standing would have made him a laird entering a room to inspect it. Sitting made him part of the quiet. He rested one forearm on his knee and offered John a finger with solemn care, as if conducting a grave negotiation.
John seized it.
Violet stared before she could help herself.
Connor’s hands were large, blunt, and capable in ways she understood too well.
She had seen them hold a sword. She had felt them on her waist, her sleeve, her hair.
Yet with John, the strength softened. His fingers stayed still, allowing the baby to grip them easily.
Even his shoulders relaxed by a fraction, though his face remained stern enough to frighten a lesser child.
John gurgled.
“Aye,” Connor murmured. “I ken. Women laugh when they should take warnings seriously.”
Violet narrowed her eyes. “I am right here.”
“I noticed.”
“Oh, I am sure ye did.”
Connor’s mouth twitched faintly. “He will be trouble.”
“He will be curious,” Violet corrected. “That is a good thing.”
“Curious lads climb walls, break windows, and test orders to see if the people around them will punish them for it.”
Violet shifted in her seat, managing to contain a small smile. “Well, me parents were thrilled with two curious daughters.”
Connor looked at her. “Were they?”
“Aye.”
“Then they were brave people.”
She shook her head. “Nay, they were loving people.”
Connor shrugged. “I suppose that is something I was missing. Ye see, in me home, without a system, war erupted.”
Violet rolled her eyes before she could stop herself. “Ye make childhood sound like a siege.”
“It often is.”
“He is a baby holding yer finger, Connor. At present, his greatest act of rebellion is stealing a blue cloth.”
“Rebellion begins somewhere.”
She looked at John, then at the old travel account lying open across her lap. The page had bent beneath the weight of the blue cloth being tugged away, and an inked sentence about mountain roads sat ignored near her knee.
“Ye cannae raise a child to never lose control,” she argued.
“Aye, ye can.”
“Ye can raise him to fear mistakes.”
“Better that than burying him because no one taught him consequences.”
The words were too grim for the soft light and John’s small fist.
Violet’s irritation faltered. Connor looked down at the baby still gripping his finger, and something flashed across his expression too quickly for her to catch.
“That is a hard thing to say over him, do ye nae think?” she huffed.
Connor’s gaze returned to her. “I am well aware control has its limits.”
Her breath caught because his tone changed the room more than the words did.
“Connor,” she said. “Control isnae just something ye can summon.”