Chapter 16
Cameron
Two in the Morning and the Scent of Thyme
I can’t sleep.
I tried.
I genuinely tried.
I went to bed the moment I got back to my room, stared at the ceiling for forty-five minutes, then attempted the breathing technique Connor once recommended.
It accomplished absolutely nothing except irritating me even more because I couldn’t seem to breathe correctly according to his instructions—which, incidentally, are completely ridiculous.
Now it’s two in the morning, and I’m lying on my bed in my room at the castle, hands tucked behind my head, methodically analyzing the disaster that was tonight.
Dinner was supposed to be a dress rehearsal.
A test run for our plan.
A warm-up before tomorrow’s market, where we’re officially supposed to launch Operation Romantic Ghost Couple.
Except we revealed nothing.
Performed nothing.
Executed nothing.
And yet my entire family looked at us as though we were already together.
I replay the evening on a loop.
Clementine’s hand in mine when we walked in.
Our legs brushing beneath the table.
The moment I complimented her stew in front of everyone like an idiot who had never eaten decent food in his life.
Connor watching us with that predatory grin that never signals anything good.
Maggie trapping us into letting Clementine stay the night.
That was her goal all along.
Trap us.
Move dinner to Friday night with three hours’ notice so we’d have no time to prepare anything, then strand us here until morning.
My grandmother is a military strategist disguised as an adorable elderly Scottish woman.
I try to turn all of this into a marketing failure.
A communication issue.
Bad timing.
But even my own metaphors sound hollow.
Because the real problem is that I didn’t need to pretend tonight.
I just...
Spent time with her.
And it felt natural.
Far too natural.
I let out a sigh and sit up.
Lying here isn’t helping.
My brain has categorically refused to power down.
I head downstairs to the kitchen for a glass of water.
And find her there.
Clementine is standing in front of an open cabinet, wearing pajamas and an oversized borrowed sweater that’s clearly too big for her, searching the shelves with the intense concentration of someone looking for something very specific.
She hasn’t heard me come in.
I clear my throat.
She jumps violently and spins around, one hand pressed to her chest.
“Cameron! You scared me.”
“Sorry.”
We stare at each other for two seconds.
Her hair is down.
She looks tired.
“You can’t sleep either?” I ask.
Brilliant, Cameron.
Absolutely brilliant.
Clementine shakes her head.
“Impossible. My brain refuses to stop.”
“Welcome to the club.”
She offers a faint smile and turns back to the cabinet.
“I was looking for spices to add to my herbal tea. Something to quiet all the thoughts running in circles.”
“Good luck. I’m not sure Mrs. Finley keeps calming herbal remedies between the canned beans and pickle jars.”
Clementine closes the cabinet with a sigh.
“I brought what I need. If you want, I can make some for both of us.”
“You carry herbal tea in your purse?”
“Always. You never know when you’ll need an Emergency Overheated Brain Tea.”
I raise an eyebrow.
“That’s really what you call it?”
“Of course. It makes it easier to remember.”
She shows me a small packet resting on the counter.
While she searches through Mrs. Finley’s spice collection, I sit at the kitchen table and try not to think about the fact that we’re alone at two in the morning in a sleeping castle after an evening where my entire family looked at us like we were already a couple.
“It’s a recipe I developed a few years ago when I was in school and couldn’t sleep after particularly intense days.”
She begins assembling ingredients with precise, methodical movements.
Watching her is strangely soothing.
I find myself studying her hands as they measure, pour, and stir.
There’s something hypnotic about the way she moves.
“Lemon balm. Chamomile blossoms. Lavender flowers,” she says as she adds each ingredient.
Then she picks up the small packet.
“And this,” she says, sprinkling a pinch into the teapot, “is wild Highland thyme. I gathered it near the manor the other day. It grows everywhere. You’ve probably seen it—little clusters with pink flowers. It’s pretty. And it smells amazing.”
She pours hot water over the herbs.
The fragrance slowly begins filling the silent kitchen.
“Do all your mixtures have names?” I ask.
“Obviously.”
She smiles while gently stirring the infusion.
That’s the exact moment a voice behind us makes both of us jump.
“My goodness... that smell...”
We turn at the same time.
Mrs. Finley is standing in the doorway wearing a robe and slippers, her gray hair pinned into a bun despite the fact that it’s two in the morning.
She’s looking at us as though we’ve summoned a ghost.
No.
Worse.
She’s looking at the teapot as though it is the ghost.
“Mrs. Finley,” I stammer. “We’re sorry. We didn’t mean to wake you—”
But she isn’t listening.
She slowly approaches the teapot, inhales deeply, and closes her eyes.
“Lemon balm. Chamomile. Lavender... and wild Highland thyme.”
She opens her eyes and fixes Clementine with an unsettling intensity.
“How do you know this recipe?”
Clementine blinks in confusion.
“It’s... my recipe. I created it.”
Mrs. Finley slowly shakes her head.
A strange smile touches her lips.
Emotional.
Nostalgic.
“My grandmother worked at Fraser Manor when she was young, you know. Before it was abandoned. She was one of the kitchen assistants.”
My pulse accelerates.
Clementine stands frozen, the teapot still in her hands.
Mrs. Finley lowers herself into a chair at the kitchen table as though her legs can no longer support her.
“She used to tell me stories about Mairenn Fraser. The lady of the manor. The whole village looked down on her because she came from a modest family, but my grandmother adored her. She always said Mrs. Fraser was the kindest person she’d ever known.”
I glance at Clementine.
She’s completely motionless.
“Mrs. Fraser prepared this tea every evening. Exactly this one. The same herbs. My grandmother passed the recipe down to me before she died, but I never made it myself.”
She inhales again with her eyes closed.
“The smell... it’s exactly the same as the kitchen in my grandmother’s house.”
Silence settles over the room.
I don’t dare move.
I barely dare breathe.
“Mairenn Fraser made it for Mr. Fraser on the nights he struggled to sleep. He worked constantly—first building the manor, then maintaining the estate. She said it was her way of taking care of him.”
Mrs. Finley looks at both of us.
Her eyes shine in the dim kitchen light.
“My grandmother used to tell me that Mrs. Fraser knew all the old Highland beliefs. According to her, wild thyme was associated with two things in the Highlands: love... and death.”
A chill crawls down my spine.
I don’t believe in ghosts.
I don’t believe in mystical coincidences.
I believe in storytelling.
Marketing.
Well-crafted narratives.
But sitting here at two in the morning in the silent kitchen of a Scottish castle, breathing in the scent of an herbal tea made from a recipe that’s a century old, I’m suddenly not entirely sure what I believe.
Clementine gathers herself and sets the teapot on the table.
“Young women used to carry sprigs of it to attract love,” Mrs. Finley continues. “And it was planted on graves as well. It was considered a powerful herb. One that connected the living and the dead. One that made feelings eternal.”
She studies Clementine with an expression I can’t decipher.
“Mrs. Fraser gathered the wild thyme herself from the hills surrounding the manor. She believed it was important that it came from their land. She said it made the bond stronger.”
Clementine swallows hard and takes a seat.
“My grandmother always told me that the Frasers of the manor loved each other with a simple, enduring love. The kind that doesn’t make a lot of noise but survives the years. She said you could see it in little things. Like this tea. Like the thyme Mrs. Fraser gathered every week from those hills.”
Mrs. Finley rises, retrieves two mugs from a cabinet, and pours the tea with slow, deliberate movements that feel almost ceremonial.
She slides a cup in front of each of us.
“Do you know what the older women in the village used to say?”
Neither of us answers.
“They said that making Highland thyme tea for someone else is never insignificant.”
Her gaze moves between us.
“It’s a way of saying: I take care of you. I want you to stay.”
She gives us both a small smile.
“Goodnight, you two. Sleep well.”
Then she disappears up the staircase, leaving us alone in the kitchen with two steaming mugs and the weight of a revelation I’m not entirely sure I understand.
Silence stretches between us.
I stare down into my cup.
The scent of thyme overwhelms everything else.
“You invented the exact same recipe,” I finally murmur.
Clementine stares at her tea without touching it.
“It’s just a coincidence. Calming herbs are... it makes sense to use those ingredients.”
“Wild Highland thyme gathered near Fraser Manor is a coincidence too?”
She doesn’t answer.
Something tightens in my chest.
A question I shouldn’t ask.
A question I’m going to ask anyway.
“Who did you gather it for, Clementine?”
Her eyes snap to mine in surprise.
“What?”
“You carry it around in your bag. You made it tonight. Here. In the castle kitchen. Who do you usually make it for?”
She hesitates.
“Myself. When I can’t sleep. I told you that.”
“And tonight?”
Silence settles again.
“Tonight... I don’t know. I just wanted to do something. Something normal. Something that would calm me down.”
I lift my cup and take a sip.
Warm.
Comforting.
Wrapped in that unmistakable thyme fragrance.
“Mairenn Fraser made it for Brodie. To help him sleep. To take care of him.”
Clementine says nothing.
“And tonight you just made it for both of us. In the kitchen of a castle where we’re trapped after a disastrous dinner during which my entire family looked at us like we were already together.”
“Cameron...”
“We don’t need to pretend anymore, Clementine.”
She looks at me.
Her eyes shimmer in the dim light.
“What?”
“Tomorrow. At the market. In front of the village. We don’t need to act like we’re possessed by Brodie and Mairenn.”
I set my cup down.
The words leave my mouth before I can stop them.
“Because I think we’re already repeating their story.”
Silence crashes down after that.
Heavy.
Filled with everything we haven’t said for days.
Clementine looks down into her tea.
“Do you really believe what she said?” she whispers. “About thyme and... love surviving through the years?”
I look at her.
At her loose hair falling over her shoulders.
At the oversized sweater slipping over her wrist.
At her slender fingers wrapped around the mug as though she’s trying to absorb its warmth.
“Mairenn Fraser gathered thyme from the hills to make tea for the man she loved,” she says softly.
Clementine takes a sip.
Then another.
She doesn’t look at me.
“We should go to bed,” she finally says.
“Yeah.”
But neither of us moves.
I glance toward the window above the sink.
Outside, the world is still dark.
The castle sleeps.
The village sleeps.
And we’re awake, sitting in a kitchen that doesn’t belong to us, drinking a tea that Mairenn Fraser prepared a century ago for a man who built a manor for love.
“Cameron?”
I look back at her.
“Yeah?”
“What do we do now?”
I could talk about the plan.
About tomorrow’s market.
About strategy.
About controlling the narrative.
About all the marketing concepts I spent hours developing.
Instead, I tell her the truth.
“I don’t know.”
Clementine nods slowly.
As though that’s exactly the answer she expected.
She finishes her tea.
I watch her rise and rinse the mug in the sink with precise, careful movements.
Then she turns toward me.
I lift my eyes to hers.
“Goodnight, Cameron.”
“Goodnight, Clementine.”
She leaves the kitchen.
Her footsteps echo softly up the staircase.
I remain where I am, my mug still half full in front of me.
The scent of thyme lingers in the air.
I think about Brodie Fraser sitting in his own kitchen a hundred years ago, drinking the same tea prepared by the woman he loved.
I think about Mairenn gathering thyme from the hills because she wanted it to come from their land.
I think about Clementine, who did exactly the same thing.
Maybe the truth is already there, suspended between us like the scent of thyme in this silent kitchen.
Or maybe I’m simply exhausted and my sleep-deprived brain is playing tricks on me in the middle of the night.
Either way, I’m enjoying this little game with Clementine far more than I should.
And the idea of beating my grandmother at her own game is undeniably appealing.
The trick will be making sure I don’t fly too close to the sun.
Because sometimes, when you play too long, you end up becoming trapped by the very thing you created.