Chapter 11
The nursery smelled of warm milk and damp woodsmoke.
Chloe stepped over the threshold, and Mrs. Donnan looked up from the cradle with the expression of a woman who had not expected company and was not entirely sure she welcomed it.
“Me Lady.” She straightened. “Is somethin’ wrong?”
“Nay.” Chloe crossed to the cradle. “I couldnae sleep.”
Mrs. Donnan watched her with careful eyes. “Most ladies who cannae sleep ring for their maid.”
“I am nae most ladies.” Chloe looked down at William, who was working himself toward a proper cry, his small fists batting at the air. “He has been at this long?”
“A wee while. He is hungry, I think, or his gums are troublin’ him again.” Mrs. Donnan paused. “I can manage, me Lady. Ye daenae need to.”
“I ken I daenae need to.” Chloe reached into the cradle and lifted him, one hand beneath his head, one at his back. William’s fussing stuttered and almost stopped. “That is nae why I am here.”
William turned his face toward her neck, his fist finding the fabric of her dress and gripping it. He was warm and solid and entirely trusting, the way only something very small and very helpless could be.
“What does he need?” Chloe asked, her voice steady.
Mrs. Donnan blinked, momentarily paralyzed. “His porridge, me Lady, but…” She glanced at the earthenware bowl on the table, her hands hovering as if unsure whether to hand it over or shield the child from the master’s new wife.
Chloe did not wait for permission. She stepped forward and picked up the bowl herself.
Dragging a low wooden stool close to the hearth, she sat down, settling the warm bowl in her lap and lifting the small horn spoon.
Mrs. Donnan did not move. Chloe could feel the woman’s eyes tracking the fluid, practiced movement of her fingers, waiting for the high-born Lady O’Brien to make a mess of it.
William looked up, his watery blue eyes wide and skeptical.
“Aye,” Chloe murmured, keeping her voice low and rhythmic. “I ken, little bairn. Ye daenae ken me either.”
She offered the first small spoonful.
William did not hesitate. With a sharp exhale, he spat the porridge directly onto the dark wool of her sleeve.
A choked sound came from the doorway. Not quite a laugh, but dangerously close.
Chloe snapped her head around to find Duncan, the young stable boy, hovering at the threshold.
His face was twisted into a valiant but utterly unsuccessful mask of respect; he had one dirt-stained hand clamped over his mouth, his eyes bright with the agonizing effort of containment.
Beside the cradle, Mrs. Donnan stiffened so sharply.
Chloe looked down at the pale smear of oats on her sleeve. Then she looked back at William, who stared up at her with a look of smug satisfaction that would have looked right at home on a grown laird.
“Well,” Chloe said, a dry corner of her mouth twitching upward. “At least the lad has spirit.”
A choked sound came from the doorway. Not quite a laugh, but dangerously close.
Chloe snapped her head around to find Duncan, the young stable boy, hovering at the threshold with an armful of split logs for the hearth — sent up, no doubt, the moment someone noticed the nursery fire burning low.
His face was twisted into a valiant but utterly unsuccessful mask of respect; he had one dirt-stained hand clamped over his mouth, his eyes bright with the agonizing effort of containment.
“Pardon, me Lady. I didnae mean…”
“Daenae,” Chloe interrupted gently, the tension leaving her shoulders. “It was funny.”
She wiped her sleeve clean with a cloth, scooped another small portion of porridge, and tried again.
This time, she was patient. She held the spoon steady, letting the boy track the movement, waiting until his small mouth parted on its own.
He took the food. Reluctantly, as though granting her a massive favor, but he swallowed it.
“There we are,” she whispered.
Mrs. Donnan let out a long, quiet breath, her posture loosening slightly.
It was slow, deliberate work. William possessed incredibly specific opinions about the pace, the temperature, and the exact angle from which the spoon approached his face.
“He has rejected that spoon twice already this morning,” Mrs. Donnan said from across the room, without looking up from the linens.
“I noticed.” Chloe adjusted the angle. William’s eyes narrowed. “He has strong opinions.”
“Aye. Gets it from his uncle.”
Chloe glanced up. Mrs. Donnan kept her eyes on the shelf.
By the time the bowl was half-empty, William’s eyelids had grown heavy, the dark lashes fluttering against his cheeks. His fussing stopped, replaced by a soft sigh. When Chloe set the bowl aside, he made a tiny sound of protest.
“He’ll do that,” Mrs. Donnan said. “Wants to be held after. Always has.”
Chloe slid her hands beneath him and lifted him without being asked, tucking his head against the crook of her shoulder, her body falling into a slow, instinctual sway. He was heavier than she expected for something so small. Warm and entirely real.
“Ye’ve done this before,” Mrs. Donnan said. Not a question.
“Ten years in service.” Chloe pressed her cheek briefly against the soft top of his head. “A great many bairns.”
Mrs. Donnan was quiet for a moment. “He has nae been held like that in a while. Nae since his mother left.”
The tight, defensive coil in Chloe’s chest loosened without her permission.
She was still standing by the hearth, swaying in the quiet rhythm of the room, when a sound echoed from the stone corridor outside.
A footstep. Heavy. Deliberate.
Then, absolute silence.
Chloe turned her head toward the door. The arched entryway was empty, but Mrs. Donnan was staring at it with a look that sat somewhere between deep reverence and relief. A beat later, a voice drifted through the opening, low, rough, and spoken more to the shadows than to anyone else.
“William.”
Chloe recognized the sharp tone of correction before she even understood the context. A second later, the voice of a kitchen maid echoed from the hallway.
“Pardon, me Laird. Are ye visitin’ wee Will?”
“William,” Edward repeated, his voice dropping into a gruffer, unyielding register.
Chloe’s arms tightened just a fraction around the sleeping baby. She kept her eyes locked on the empty doorway.
Edward stepped into the frame a moment later, his massive shoulders filling the space entirely.
He had clearly just come from the stables; his dark plaid was damp from the mist, and the smell of leather and fresh earth clung to him.
His boots were caked with dried glen mud.
The moment his pale blue eyes met hers, the atmosphere in the nursery grew tense.
Mrs. Donnan set down the linens without a word, dropped a quick curtsy toward them both, and slipped out through the far door.
He had been standing in that corridor for longer than he cared to admit. She was certain of it.
“I didnae expect to find ye in here,” he said, his voice flat.
“Nay,” Chloe replied evenly, her body continuing its gentle, rocking motion. “I expect ye didnae.”
She turned her back to him, focusing entirely on the baby, who was fighting sleep with a stubbornness that clearly ran in the O’Brien bloodline. She was not going to make it easy for Edward to retreat into his shadows.
A long, agonizing moment passed. Then, without an invitation, Edward’s heavy boots clicked against the floorboards as he stepped fully into the room.
He did not come near her. He moved to the far side of the nursery near the narrow window, his back half-turned as he stared down into the courtyard, doing a poor job of pretending she was merely a coincidence.
“Ye could just say good mornin’,” Chloe said.
“I was passin’ through.”
“Through the nursery.”
“Through the corridor.”
“The corridor that leads nowhere except the nursery.”
He said nothing. She turned back to William with the spoon.
“He spat his porridge at me,” she offered into the silence.
“Aye.” Edward did not look away from the window. “He has opinions about porridge.”
“He has opinions about everythin’. The spoon, the angle, the temperature.” She glanced down at her sleeve. “And apparently me clothin’.”
“He did it to me the first time as well.”
Chloe looked at him. “What did ye do?”
“I stood there.”
“And?”
“And he did it again.”
She bit the inside of her cheek. “So yer solution was to stop comin’.”
His jaw shifted. “Me solution was to send for Mrs. Donnan.”
“Aye.” She let the small word cut through the heat of the room. “And yet Mrs. Donnan tells me ye daenae cross this threshold often.”
His jaw shifted, his eyes narrowing as he stared out the window. “Mrs. Donnan talks too much.”
“Mrs. Donnan talks exactly as much as is useful,” Chloe countered pleasantly, her voice laced with a quiet challenge. “Which is more than can be said for some.”
He snapped his head around, a sharp, dangerous look flaring in his eyes.
Chloe did not flinch; she held his gaze steadily, her heart tripping against her ribs.
William chose that exact moment to let out a long, warm exhale against her collarbone, shifting his weight as he finally surrendered to sleep.
“He’s goin’ down,” she whispered, her voice dropping the sharp edge.
She walked slowly to the wooden cradle, the one Angela said he had built with his own scarred hands, and lowered the boy with agonizing care.
She held her breath, her movements slow and deliberate, holding him until she was certain the wool blankets had claimed him.
The boy sighed, rolling onto his side, his tiny fist curled beneath his cheek.
Chloe stood up and let herself breathe.
When she turned, Edward was watching her. The intensity in his pale eyes was scorching, but to her utter surprise, he was the one who looked away first, his gaze dropping to the floorboards.
“Ye’ve done that before,” he said. It was not a question.
“I was a maid for ten years,” she answered softly, moving a step closer to him but keeping a respectful distance. "Lady Jenny's house. Ye learn the way of bairns quickly there, or ye learn it at two in the morning while scrubbing the floor."
Edward was quiet, his chest rising and falling beneath his damp plaid. “What was it like?”
The question was dull, spoken like a cold business deal, but it was still a question. He looked at the cradle, his large hands gripping his own arms so hard that his knuckles turned white. He was trying to understand her.
“Well,” Chloe said, her eyes fixed on the child’s sleeping face.
“A bairn’s wants are plain. He cries when he’s hungry, he cries when he’s hurtin’, and he laughs when ye please him.
Ye always ken where ye stand with a wee one.
” She glanced up at him through her lashes. “I cannae say the same for grown folk.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. It was not a full smile, but it was the ghost of one. A sudden, sharp softening of his hard features that he ruthlessly pulled back before it could fully form.
“Ye have a remarkably sharp tongue for a lady who should be tryin’ to make a good impression on her laird,” he murmured, his voice dropping into a lower register.
“I stopped tryin’ to make a good impression…” Chloe whispered, her eyes locked onto his. “Around the hour ye chose to sleep in a hard wooden study chair for the third night runnin’.”
“I have work to attend to,” he said, though he did not move an inch.
“Aye. Ye always have work.”
She watched him closely. His broad shoulders had dropped, losing the rigid posture of a man about to flee.
“He likes ye,” Edward said, his voice barely audible over the crackle of the hearth.
“He spat on me.”
“He spits on everyone he deems worthy.” A small beat. “He bit me once.”
Chloe blinked, her lips parting. “He bit ye?”
“His gums are harder than iron.”
A laugh escaped her before she could choke it back. A quiet, genuine sound that bubbled up from her chest, breaking the heavy air. She pressed her fingers to her lips a second too late.
Edward snapped his gaze back to her, visibly startled by her laughter.
For a brief, fleeting moment, his expression was completely unguarded.
His eyes softened, a raw, desperate hunger flashing through the blue depths—so intense it made her breath hitch.
Then, just as quickly, it vanished, locked behind his fortress walls.
Chloe turned toward the cradle to hide the flush creeping up her neck.
“He needs consistency,” she said, her voice trembling slightly before she steadied it.
“A bairn this small needs the same faces about him, the same voices, day in and day out. It’s how he learns the world willnae drop him again.
” She paused, taking a breath. “He kens yer voice already, Edward. He just doesnae hear it often enough.”
Edward said nothing, his face returning to stone.
“I ken ye carry this clan on yer back,” she said, keeping her voice gentle.
“Every life in this glen, every harvest, every decision, I daenae pretend to understand the weight of it.” She looked at him over her shoulder.
“But that bairn is eight months old, and he is yer own blood. He willnae remember these mornings, but his body will.”
A pause. “Ten minutes, Edward. That is all I am askin’. Ten minutes in the mornin’ so he kens yer voice when ye walk through the door.”
“Ye speak to me as though I am one of yer servants,” Edward said.
Chloe turned her full body to face him. He was staring at her now, his pale eyes giving away absolutely nothing, yet revealing far too much of the torment inside him.
His arms were still crossed, but the tension had bled from his frame.
He looked like a man standing on the edge of a precipice, waiting for something to push him over.
“Nay,” she said, her voice dropping into a soft, fierce whisper. “I speak to ye as yer lady.”
Edward held her gaze, the heat between them rising until her skin tingled. She refused to look away.
Slowly, deliberately, he uncrossed his arms. He stepped toward the doorway, his stride measured and heavy. He stopped at the threshold, his massive frame blocking out the light from the corridor. He did not look back.
“I will come,” he growled low. “In the mornings.”
He vanished down the hallway before she could even draw breath to reply.
Chloe turned back to the cradle, her knees feeling strangely weak. William slept on, entirely unbothered by the storms of the adults above him.
She stood there, listening to the heavy, rhythmic thud of Edward’s boots fade into the distance, leaving the nursery quiet once more.
But the air felt different now. Something fundamental had shifted in the stone of Castle O’Brien.
Something she did not have the words to name, and was not sure she was ready to face.