Chapter 7
The library was the first room in the castle where she felt like she could breathe.
The shelves, though not large, extended from floor to ceiling on three walls. The west-facing window let in late-afternoon light at an angle that warmed the floor. Chloe discovered the room by accident, following a corridor that ended there, and she stayed because she did not know where else to go.
She had chosen a book at random and sat with it open in her lap for the better part of an hour. She had not read a single page.
The knock at the door was light.
“I am nae interruptin’?” The woman who stepped inside looked younger than Edward by several years, dark-haired like he was, but with a face that had not been taught to keep itself still.
She looked at Chloe with open curiosity, took in the unread book, the untouched cup of tea gone cold on the table beside her, and said nothing about either.
“I am Angela. Edward’s sister.” A pause.
“I owe ye an apology before anythin’ else. ”
Chloe blinked. “For what?”
“I wasnae at the ceremony.” She settled into the chair across from her with a directness that felt entirely unself-conscious.
“I only learned of the weddin’ this mornin’.
Me brother has a gift for keepin’ things from people until there is nay longer any point in tellin’ them.
” She looked at Chloe steadily. “I thought I would come and find ye before ye had to find me.”
“I appreciate that,” Chloe said. “Both the apology and the findin’.”
Angela smiled then, quick and genuine. “Good. We have started well.”
She looked around the library first, giving Chloe a moment that felt deliberate.
“Have ye eaten today?” Angela asked.
“Aye. Melodie brought somethin’ this mornin’.”
“What did she bring ye?”
“Porridge.”
Angela made a face. “She brings everyone porridge. It is what she does when she daenae ken what else to do.” She tucked one leg beneath her on the chair.
“The cook makes bread with dried fruit and honey on Tuesdays. Ye should ask for it specifically, or ye will never see it. He only makes it if someone asks.”
“I will remember that.” The corner of her mouth lifted before she thought to stop it. Something about Angela made her feel warm inside.
“And the soup at midday is always better than whatever appears at supper. I daenae ken why. I have never managed to get a straight answer about it.”
Chloe felt the uncertainty in her shoulders come down a fraction.
They talked about food for a while. Angela told her which dishes were worth eating, which to avoid, and why, while Chloe listened, asked questions, and shared small stories, like what Jenny’s cook made on cold mornings or a particular way of preparing oats she had always liked.
She shared these carefully, watching Angela’s face for any sign that she had said too much or revealed too much of her past life.
The shift did not come.
Angela listened, appearing genuinely interested.
“Do ye ken anyone here?” Angela asked after a while. “Outside the castle, I mean. Anyone at all in this part of the country.”
“Nay,” Chloe said.
“Anyone ye could write to? From before? I ken yer father brought ye for the weddin’.”
Chloe thought of Jenny. She would have to try to send a letter, hoping it would arrive safely.
“Perhaps,” she said.
Angela looked at her for a moment with a steadiness that reminded her, briefly and uncomfortably, of her brother.
“Well,” she said, and her voice was easy again. “Ye ken me now. That is somethin’ at least.”
Chloe nodded, her mind going back to Isla’s words that she would like the laird’s sister. She found that she did.
“Have ye met William yet?”
Chloe stared at her. “Who is William?”
Angela's mouth opened on an answer, then stopped halfway to it. "The bairn." A careful beat. "Edward's raising him as his own. That's as much as I can tell ye, the rest isnae mine to say."
Chloe said nothing. The library was very quiet.
Angela set both feet on the floor and sat forward. “He did nae tell ye.”
It was not a question.
“Come,” Angela said, already standing. “I will take ye to the nursery. Ye should meet him now than find out any other way.”
“Are ye sure? Will it nae be better if the Laird…?”
“Me brother?” She gave a small smile. “He probably doesnae remember that he has nae told ye about the bairn. Come, then.”
Chloe followed her up two flights of stairs and through a narrow corridor that smelled of warm milk and beeswax. The nursery door was ajar. Angela pushed it open and stepped aside.
The room was neither big nor small. It was softly lit with the usual nursery items arranged neatly throughout. A cradle sat near the window, with a child inside.
Eight months old at most. Round-faced and impossibly small, one fist slowly moving through the air above him as if testing whether it was solid. He turned his head at the sound of their entering, and his eyes moved, unfocused, searching.
Chloe’s feet carried her closer before she realized what she was doing.
She looked down at him. His hand opened and closed at nothing. His face scrunched with the effort of trying to find something to hold onto.
Chloe stared down at the baby, unable to look away.
He stretched a small fist toward nothing, searching, and the sight of it stirred something in her chest she had not expected to feel. He was so tiny. So completely unaware of the contracts, the kirks, and the men who had arranged the world around him without asking anyone.
The anger, when it came, was not for him.
Nobody asked if I wanted a husband.
Nobody asked me if I wanted a bairn.
Nae at any point, not once, have I been asked anythin’ by anyone.
But the bairn’s fist opened and closed in the air above him, patient and unhurried, and she could not stop watching it.
Angela appeared beside her. “He is a good bairn. Quiet mostly.” She looked at Chloe’s face. “Do ye want to hold him? Ye look uncertain. It is all right if ye have nae held one before; I can show ye.”
She had cared for small children before. That was not the problem.
She reached into the cradle anyway and lifted him, one hand beneath his head, one at his back, the way her hands still remembered from years ago without needing to be told.
William stopped fussing immediately. He leaned against her chest, his fist clinging to the fabric of her dress. He was warm, solid, and completely trusting, the way only something very small and helpless could be.
Her throat tightened.
William turned his face toward her neck.
She felt the damp press of his cheek, the particular weight of him settling as though he had decided she was solid enough to rest against. His fist loosened and then tightened again in the fabric of her dress, slow and rhythmic, the way she had seen babies do when they were close to sleep.
She stood very still and let him.
What if I fail this innocent bairn?
The thought came quietly, which was worse than if it had come loudly.
What if she was not enough, or was too much, or kept repeating the very things she had spent her whole life being shaped by without realizing it?
Her father had looked at her and seen a number.
Her mother had looked at her and hidden the truth about who she truly was all her life.
Even those who took care of her had kept things from her.
She looked down at the top of his head. The soft, dark cap of hair. The perfect curve of one ear.
He has done nothin’ wrong. He deserves better than someone who is already afraid of him.
She handed him back to Angela with care, ignoring the confusion she saw on her face.
“Thank ye,” she said, and her voice came out steady. She was grateful for that. “I have to go now.”
Without waiting for Angela’s reply, she left the nursery.
The corridor outside was busy with the household’s late afternoon activity.
Two kitchen girls with their arms full paused to stare as she stopped, asking them for the Laird’s study.
They pointed her in the right direction, exchanging glances.
She nodded and walked past them. A stable hand crossing from one doorway to the other stepped back to let her through. She did not slow down.
She had not asked for this life. She had not asked for the kirk, or the contract, or the man who slept in his study rather than beside her.
All of it had arrived without her consent, and she'd been expected to absorb each piece quietly, in order, the way she'd absorbed everything else handed to her since she was fifteen.
The bairn was different. He hadn't been part of any arrangement made against her; he'd simply reached for her and trusted her without condition. That, she found, she could not simply absorb.
Well, I am done absorbin' quietly.
She quickened her pace toward the east corridor and found the study at the end of it. She did not knock.
Edward was alone in the room, sitting at his desk. There was a document open in front of him, a second one weighted at the corner with the flat of his hand. He looked up the moment the door opened.
The surprise was there and gone in less than a second, replaced by something colder than she had ever seen on a human being’s face.
No one walked into this study uninvited. That much was plain.
For a moment, she faltered, but the anger still raged, pushing her forward.
“Why did nay one tell me about a bairn?”
Her voice came out level. She had not expected it would. She pressed on before he could speak.
She stopped in the center of the room. “Why did nay one tell me about the bairn?” she repeated. She needed him to know the distinction; she was talking about his son.
Edward said nothing. He looked at her with a stillness that was control.
“Ye have a child in this castle,” she said. “Ye brought me here, stood beside me in that kirk, and ye didnae think once to mention it.”
“The child needed a mother.” He said it the way he might have said the field needed a fence. Flat. Decided. “That is why ye are here.”