Chapter 10
Chloe was already on her third loop of the garden path when she noticed the roses.
They were planted too close to the far wall, too ambitious for the Highland climate, and the earth had made them pay for it year after year. Half had rotted back into the gray soil. The other half had grown thorny, stubborn, and wild.
She stopped in front of them and looked at what was left standing.
Aye, I ken the feelin’.
Chloe walked past them for twenty minutes, her boots clicking against the gravel. She did not see a single petal.
She turned at the wall and marched back toward the fortress.
Duncan, the young stable boy, crossed the yard balancing a heavy wooden bucket against his hip. He shot her a quick glance, his eyes darting away. Chloe ignored him. She reached the perimeter wall and turned again.
Her mind spun on a single loop.
What comes next?
Not today, today she could survive. But what about tomorrow?
What about the day after that, or the forty or fifty years of days stretching out before her in a castle of freezing, drafty stone?
She belonged to a man who would rather twist his spine into a knot sleeping in a hard wooden study chair than share a bed with her.
Where was she meant to stand? What was she meant to do?
She reached the wall and turned.
“If ye keep that up, lass, ye’ll wear a trench straight through the stone.”
Chloe stopped short. Angela sat on the low bench near the iron gate, a thick wool shawl hugged tight around her shoulders. A cup of steaming tea rested between her palms, the vapor rising into the crisp air. She was watching Chloe with a wry, knowing smile.
“How long have ye been sittin’ there?” Chloe asked, her breath hitching slightly from the pace.
“Long enough to see ye try to walk a hole through the earth.” Angela shifted sideways, her skirts rustling against the frost-bitten stone as she patted the empty space beside her. “Sit down before ye drop.”
Chloe sank onto the bench. The stone was cold, striking right through the layers of her wool petticoats.
The garden fell silent, save for the wind whistling through the high battlements. Angela offered the cup. Chloe shook her head, her hands tightly clasped in her lap to hide their trembling.
“He doesnae tell people things,” Angela said quietly, staring into her tea.
Chloe had not asked a thing, but her sister-in-law read the silence perfectly.
“In case that is the ghost ye’re tryin’ to outrun.
He doesnae explain himself, he doesnae answer questions he deems foolish, and he has been that exact way since I was old enough to crawl.
” She tightened her grip on the warm earthenware.
“It is nae personal, Chloe. I need ye to ken that.”
Chloe looked at the jagged rose thorns scraping against the mortar. “It feels personal.”
“I ken.” Angela paused, her smile fading into something softer, heavier. “But it isnae. It is simply how he learned to survive a father who was a monster. He has nae yet worked out that survivin’ and livin’ are two different things.”
Chloe did not answer. The wind swept through the courtyard again, forcing the wild rose canes to claw at the stone. She swallowed the lump in her throat and leaned in just a fraction.
“What is he like?” Chloe whispered. “When there is no one watchin’.”
Angela stayed quiet for so long that Chloe turned to look at her. The other woman’s gaze was fixed on the horizon, her eyes distant.
“Better,” Angela said at last. Her voice was barely a murmur over the wind.
“He is so much better than he kens. When William’s cradle arrived from the carpenter, Edward spent three nights in the workshop buildin’ a new one entirely from scratch.
He didnae trust the carpenter’s joints to keep the bairn safe.
He never told a soul.” She cut a look at Chloe.
“That is the man he is when the world turns its back. A man who builds cradles by candlelight and expects nay praise for it.”
The cold of the bench seemed to melt away, replaced by a sudden, strange ache in Chloe’s chest. She pressed her palms flat against her thighs.
She pictured Edward, his massive frame, his hands thick and heavily scarred from a brutal youth, bent over raw timber, carefully measuring each piece so the small boy would not fall.
“And the boy’s mother?” Chloe asked softly. "Is she… was she someone he loved?"
Angela's face shuttered, gentle but final.
"That isnae mine to tell ye, Chloe. Ask him yerself, if ye ever get him talking long enough."
Chloe wanted to press for answers. She was eager to demand the truth about the woman who had left such a mark on this household, but she bit her tongue instead. She stood up, shaking out her heavy skirts to get the circulation going in her legs.
“Where does he go in the evenings?”
A small, conspiratorial smile tugged at Angela’s lips. “The distillery. The old storage croft behind the kitchen block. Follow the smell of peat smoke and the rot that makes yer eyes water.” She tilted her chin up. “Are ye goin’ to confront him?”
“I am goin’ to find out what me purpose is in this place,” Chloe said, her jaw tightening.
She left Angela by the gate and followed the outer wall.
The scent hit her before she even reached the timber structure.
Thick, heavy peat smoke, laced with a sharp, sweet heat that bit at the back of her throat.
The distillery door was massive, hanging crookedly on rusted iron hinges. She pushed it open.
The room inside was small, dark, and stiflingly warm. A roaring fire burned beneath a massive copper pot still that glowed like a setting sun in the dim light. At the far end of the room stood Edward.
His back was turned to her. His linen sleeves were rolled up past his elbows, revealing the thick, corded muscle of his forearms and the faint, pale scars of old wounds.
He moved with a slow, unhurried grace she had never seen before.
His broad shoulders relaxed. His jaw was entirely unclenched.
Here, free of his Lairdship’s armor, he appeared younger. Vulnerable, almost.
Then, the floorboard creaked under her boots.
The change in him was instantaneous and violent. Chloe watched his shoulders snap back, his large hands freezing over a wooden barrel stave. In the span of a single breath, the careful, cold machinery of the Laird of O’Brien assembled itself right before her eyes.
He turned around, his blue eyes hard as flint in the shadows. “Ye’re lost.”
“I am nae.” Chloe stepped into the room and pulled the heavy door shut behind her, sealing them into the hot, intoxicating air. The scent of wood, smoke, and pure alcohol wrapped around her like a blanket. “Angela told me ye spend yer nights here.”
She crossed the room, her eyes tracking the gleaming copper and the neat rows of oak barrels aligned perfectly against the stone wall. “What are ye makin’?”
Edward watched her. It was that sharp, assessing gaze she was growing to hate, the look that tried to dissect whether she was mocking him or truly curious. Chloe did not flinch. She met his stare evenly.
“Dram,” he said flatly. He turned back to the barrel, dismissive.
“I can smell that much, Edward. I mean, what kind? How do ye do it?”
He grunted, his thumb tracing the seam of a wooden stave. “Pot still. Malted barley. We dry it over peat smoke to give it the bite.” He checked the iron hoop holding the wood together. “Then time. It takes time.”
“How long?”
“Depends on what ye want from it,” he muttered, still refusing to look at her. “A young dram is sharp. It burns the throat because it has nay patience for what it is yet. But leave it in the dark long enough, and it becomes somethin’ entirely different.”
Chloe watched his scarred fingers work the wood. They were incredibly steady, infinitely patient. “Do ye sell it to the clans?”
“Nay.”
“Then why make so many barrels?”
“Because it is useful to have somethin’ in this life that requires patience.” He spoke without inflection, but the words hung heavy in the warm air between them.
Chloe crossed her arms, her chest heaving slightly against the tight laces of her stays. “What do ye actually want from me, Edward?”
The tool in his hand hit the wooden shelf with a sharp clatter. He turned his full, towering height toward her.
“William,” he said, the word cutting through the steam. “That is all I require. The boy needs a mother who stays. Someone consistent.”
The bluntness of it stung, cutting through her defenses. “And his birth mother?”
A dark shutter slammed down over his features. “She isnae here.”
“Where is she?”
“She isnae here,” he repeated, his voice cracking like a whip.
Chloe stared at him, the heat in the room suddenly making it hard to breathe. She wanted to push, but the raw wall he had just thrown up warned her away. “So that is the whole of it? I am to care for William, and nothin’ more?”
“Aye.”
“And the rest of me days?”
“Are yer own to waste.”
She nodded slowly, her lips pressed into a firm line. The fire popped beneath the copper still, sending a shower of orange sparks against the hearth. She looked at the carefully arranged tools, the perfectly kept room, and thought of the cradle he had built in the dark.
“Can we spend time together?” she asked suddenly. “The four outings the ones me father read out from the contract, the day he told me about ye. Can we begin them?"
Edward’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“Because I am bound to ye for the rest of me days,” she said, taking a deliberate step closer. “And I would like to ken the man I share a name with. That is all.”
She watched the words land. His jaw tightened, a muscle leaping along his cheekbone. He was misinterpreting her, reading some hidden malice or manipulation into her request. His expression settled into a cold, flat mask.
“Four,” he growled. “Nae a single one more.”
“Four. Thank ye.” Chloe let out a breath, a small, genuine smile breaking across her face.
Edward moved. He did not rush, but his long strides closed the distance between them until he loomed directly over her. The heat radiating off his body blended with the warmth of the distillery, trapping her in the shadows.
“Ye’ll regret askin’,” he whispered, his voice dropping into a rough, dangerous register. “There’s nae a warm thing left in me to find; I’d only waste yer time.”
Chloe refused to give ground. She tilted her chin up, her eyes locking onto his intense gaze. “I think ye tell yerself that tale to make people flee before they can learn the truth.”
His eyes darkened, fixed entirely on her mouth. He was too close. The scent of him, man, peat smoke, and sharp alcohol flooded her senses.
“Keep yer distance from me, Chloe,” he commanded, his breath brushing her cheek. “I am nae a man built for soft things. I will nae pretend to be gentle for the sake of yer feelings.”
“I didnae ask for soft things,” she breathed, her voice turning thick as the air between them. “I asked for honesty. Where do ye sleep at night? Why do ye treat our chamber like a prison sentence?” She stared into his tormented eyes. “What are ye so afraid will happen if we are in the same room?”
Edward reached past her to grab a tool from the shelf behind her shoulder. At the exact same instant, Chloe turned to give him space, but there was none.
His broad chest slammed flat against her shoulder. Chloe’s hand flew up, her palm pressing hard against his shirt to steady herself. Beneath her fingers, she felt it. The slow, massive thud of his heartbeat. It was not racing. It was steady, heavy, and terrifyingly powerful.
Edward went absolutely rigid.
Whatever words he had been forming died in his throat. His lips parted slightly, his chest hitching as he stopped breathing altogether. Without a word being spoken, his large hand gripped her waist, his fingers digging into the fabric of her gown.
She did not pull away, and he did not move either.
He stood there, his chest still pressed against her shoulder, his hand at her waist, his face inches from hers, close enough that she could feel the warmth of his breath and smell the peat smoke on his skin.
His eyes dropped to her mouth and stayed there.
She felt her own breathing go unsteady.
His grip tightened, just fractionally, and she felt it move through her entire body.
Then his jaw set. He released her and stepped back, the cold rushing into the space where he had been. He turned away and picked up the tool he had reached for, setting it down on the barrel with more care than it needed.
“Go to bed, Chloe,” he said. His voice came out rough. Scraped clean of everything that had just been in his eyes.
She stood where she was for a moment, her palm still warm from his heartbeat, her lips parted around words she could not find.
Then she smoothed her skirts, crossed the distillery floor, and walked out into the night alone.
She pressed her back against the cold stone wall outside and stood there until the shaking stopped.
He had wanted to kiss her again.
She was certain of it. And she was entirely uncertain what to do with that knowledge.
She pushed off the wall and walked back to the castle.