Chapter 5
He walked ahead of her, keeping the pace steady.
The corridors were quiet, most of the household long since cleared from the main passages. A torch burned at each turn. He knew this route without thinking about it and did not slow, but he listened for her footsteps behind him to confirm she was keeping up.
“The great hall is below the west stair,” he said. “Meals are taken there. Breakfast at first light, supper before dark.” He turned at the second corridor without breaking stride. “The household runs on a set order. Ye’ll learn it quickly enough.”
He stopped before the door and pushed it open, then stood aside.
He watched her face turn even whiter, if that was possible, and her step falter, but she stepped past him into the room.
He let his gaze move over her once, the road-dirty hem, the travel-stiff set of her shoulders, the cloak they had given her that was two sizes too large.
Then he crossed to the far side of the room and pulled the cord for the household bell.
“Ye’ll have a bath drawn,” he said, his back still to her. “Hot water. As much as they can carry.” He turned then, unhurried, and looked at her directly. “I want to see what color yer skin is beneath all that grime.”
She went very still. Then crimson flooded her neck.
There it is.
The stillness revealed everything her face was trying not to show. He could see it now—she had been braced for this since the kirk. The fine trembling she was working hard to hide, the deliberate hold on her composure—it was not comfort.
He moved to the chest along the wall and opened it. Inside, the clothes she prepared before her arrival, folded carefully, were arranged. He lifted the top garment and placed it on the bed without ceremony. Cream linen, soft, edged at the collar with a narrow band of lace.
“Wear that one tonight,” he said. “I like me women soft.”
“Then ye should have married a different woman,” she said. “I’ve been scrubbin’ floors since I was old enough to hold a brush. There isnae a soft thing left about me.”
Something shifted in his expression. Not displeasure exactly. Something closer to reassessment.
“We’ll see,” he said.
She held his gaze without flinching. “Aye. We will.”
He crossed the room and stood before her, close enough that she watched him register that she had not stepped back. He let the silence sit for a moment before he spoke.
“Ye were brought here to be me wife, lass,” he said. “In every sense. That must be understood.” He kept his voice level, the same tone he used at the head of a council table.
“Ye are here to be Lady O’Brien. To run this household with quiet efficiency.” He paused. “And to be me wife. All of it. Nae one part of it.”
She was looking at him now the way she had in the kirk.
Good.
He stepped back and moved toward the door.
“I will return after yer bath,” he said.
He did not need to look back to know she had begun to tremble again. He pulled the door closed behind him.
She watched the door close, hating her emotions for being so obvious.
Chloe realized she was still standing in the same spot where he had left her, with her nails biting into her skin.
Her finger ran over the fabric. Cream linen. Soft, just as he had described it. The lace at the collar was delicate, the kind crafted with patience and care. She had laundered garments like this for other women her whole life, but she had never worn one.
I like me women soft.
She pressed her hands together and waited for the servants.
At that moment. There was a soft knock on the door before it was pushed open.
They came quickly, four of them with curtsies, nods, and curious glances, carrying the water between them in practiced silence.
They filled the tub near the fire and set out a cloth.
One of them poured something from a small jar, filling the room with the subtle scent of rosemary.
They left without a word. She was grateful for that. She did not know how she would have responded to them.
She undressed and stepped in.
The water was hot. She felt it move up against her skin and had to hold herself back from sinking into it, from letting her eyes close.
She resisted the urge to let her shoulders drop, and her mind go quiet, as it always did in warmth.
She did not allow it. She sat upright, reached for the cloth, and began washing with the same efficiency she always did, working from the top down. Practical, purposeful, not lingering.
He said he would return. He must nae meet me without clothes on.
She washed her hair quickly, working the rosemary through it until her scalp tingled. The smell lingered on her fingers afterward, clean and sharp. She inhaled deeply, focusing on that scent and nothing else. Not on the sleeping gown. Not on the bed. Not on what he had said to her.
She got out of the tub, dried quickly, crossed to the bed, and picked up the gown with two fingers, uncertain what to do with the luxury of it, or the implication of wearing it.
She put it on. It felt soft against her skin, and she hated how good it felt after a week on the road. She found the shawl folded on the chair, pulled it around her shoulders, and held it there with both hands crossed at her chest.
Then she sat on the edge of the bed and waited.
She heard him while he was still on the other side of the door—the quiet shift of the latch, the confident weight of his steps on the floorboards. He entered without hurrying and closed the door behind him. He looked at her. She pressed the shawl closer and noticed the tightening of his jaw.
“We share this room,” he said. “From tonight.” He stated it as a fact, delivered it, and filed it. He moved toward the other side of the bed, and she watched him, every muscle in her body wound tight to the point of aching.
She nodded. She was not sure she had done it until she saw him register it and turn away.
Breathe.
She moved to her side of the bed and lay down on top of the covers, hands folded at her stomach.
She stared at the ceiling and kept her breathing slow.
Now at the edge of the mattress, she listened to the heavy sound of his boots hitting the floor, one after the other, followed by the shift of his weight settling onto the bed beside her.
She closed her eyes and waited.
The fire popped once in the grate. Nothing happened; he did not touch her. She opened her eyes.
He had turned away from her. His back was to her, broad and still, and his breathing was already settling into the long, even rhythm of a man who had decided to sleep.
As though there were nothing else to decide.
As though she were not lying two feet away with every nerve in her body braced for something that was not coming.
She let out a breath so carefully it made no sound.
He is nae goin’ to. Nae now at least. Dear God, thank ye.
Relief flooded her so completely, she almost wept. But a moment later, she realized she was not sure what it meant. Would he come later in the night? Would he give her time? Or was this some kind of game to make her even more anxious before striking?
After a long moment, she pulled the covers up and lay very still.
The room was still. The fire burned lower. Next to her, he breathed slowly, unaware of the turmoil inside her.
Every small shift of the mattress felt enormous. Every thought arrived louder than the last. She was lying beside a man whose name she had learned three hours ago, in a castle she did not know, carrying the weight of a child she had not known existed until tonight.
Sleep did not come for a long time.
When it finally did, it came quietly, without warning, and the last thing she was aware of was the steady sound of his breathing and the smell of rosemary still caught in her hair.
Chloe woke to gray light and silence.
For one disoriented moment, she had no recollection of where she was. Then everything came into focus in one maddening rush. The unfamiliar stone, the dark beams crossing above her, her father, the wedding… the laird. The weight of it settled back into place.
She was at Castle O’Brien, in her husband’s bed.
Slowly, she turned her head.
The other side of the bed was empty. The covers were pulled back neatly, the pillow undisturbed, as if he had never been there at all. He had gotten up and gone without waking her. The relief that washed through her was so sharp it was almost painful.
He didnae even look at me, she thought. Nae once he had made his point.
She was not sure what she had expected, but it was not that. She was conflicted about whether to feel grateful or hurt.
She lay still for a moment, simply feeling that relief and letting the tension drain from her limbs without the need to perform for anyone. It was a brief, stolen moment of peace before the reality of her new life at Castle O’Brien rushed back in.
Then, she sat up.
The fire had burned down to ash overnight.
The room was colder than when she fell asleep, and the cream gown felt thin against it.
Her clothes from yesterday were gone, though she did not know when they disappeared, and her traveling bag was placed near the wall with a few belongings she had been allowed to bring.
She ignored the chest where the cream gown had emerged from and pulled out her best dress from Jenny’s household. She dressed quickly, pulling the simple seaweed-colored gown over her head and fastening the rope at her chest.
The room looked different in the morning.
Larger, somehow. More like a room a laird would own, if she used Jenny and Thomas’s room to compare.
She took it in properly for the first time: the heavy, dark wood, the tapestry along the far wall, the narrow window that looked out over the east courtyard, where two grooms were already moving between the stables below.
Her stomach released a deep rumble.
Her eyes went to the bell cord hanging near the door. The laird had used it last night. Dark rope, a brass fitting at the top, positioned at exactly the right height for a woman who had never once had to think about what she needed because someone had always been there to ask.
She crossed the room and stood in front of it.
It would take just one pull. Someone would come. That’s what it was there for. She knew this. She had responded to numerous summons using the same method before.
This is ridiculous.
She had spent fifteen years learning where the kitchens were in every house she had ever set foot in. She was not going to stand in a room and ring a bell, then wait to be brought things like a woman who had forgotten how to feed herself.
She found the shawl from last night, wrapped it around her shoulders, and opened the door.
The corridor was long and completely unfamiliar. She turned left because the light was better that way and moved quietly, listening for the sounds a kitchen made—the low thud of work, the smell of something warm, and the unique noise a household produced before it had fully woken up.
She had begun to walk confidently when the sound of someone clearing their throat caused her to stop. She turned.
“Me Lady.”
A young woman stood at the far end of the corridor, slightly out of breath, her cap slightly crooked. She could not have been more than twenty-five. Small and quick-looking, with large eyes that showed her alarm, even though she tried to keep a calm demeanor.
“Me Lady,” she said again, dropping into a curtsy that wobbled slightly at the bottom. “I am Melodie. I am yer maid. I am so sorry, I should have been there when ye woke. I checked the room, but… I hurried after ye.” She stopped herself. Steadied. “Ye shouldnae be in the corridor alone.”
Chloe blinked. “I was lookin’ for the kitchens.”
Something close to distress flickered across the girl’s face.
“Aye,” Melodie said carefully. “I can take ye. I will always take ye, me Lady, wherever ye need to go. That is what I am here for.” She hesitated, and then, as though she had decided honesty was the only path left to her, she added, “If the Laird were to see ye wanderin’ the corridors alone, he might think I wasnae doin’ me duties properly. And then he might…” She stopped again.
“Dismiss ye,” Chloe said.
Melodie’s hands found her apron and gripped it. She looked at the corridor once, then back at Chloe.
"Aye," she said, so quiet Chloe almost missed it. "It is possible, seeing as ye are the Lady now."