Chapter 12 #3
Isla snorted into her cup. Melodie pressed her lips together very hard.
Mrs. Donnan watched the exchange over the rim of her mug, saying absolutely nothing, which Chloe was beginning to recognize as the highest form of praise the old woman possessed.
For an hour, the noise drowned out the ache. She laughed where the stories warranted, drank her ale, and let the life of the castle wash over her.
But as the night deepened, the kitchen fire began to die back into gray ash.
Every time the ancient structure above them groaned under the wind, every heavy footstep in the distant corridors, every door that slammed shut against the gale, Chloe felt her gaze pulling toward the ceiling.
Her ears strained for the heavy, rhythmic thud of a particular pair of boots.
He had said he would come in the mornings. He had not said a damn thing about the nights.
Duncan continued talking and stood up to demonstrate, gripping his notched practice blade with exaggerated gravity.
“The wrist,” he said, rotating it slowly. “Tyler made me do it fourteen times. Fourteen. Before the sun was even up.”
“And did it work?” Chloe asked.
Duncan considered this with great seriousness. “The fourteenth time, aye.”
Isla made a sound that was not quite a laugh or a scoff, but contained elements of both.
Melodie leaned toward Chloe, lowering her voice to the register of a woman imparting something genuinely important. “How is wee William’s teethin’, me Lady? Cook has been soakin’ a crust of bread in honey for him. She’ll nae admit it, but she has.”
“Better some nights than others,” Chloe said. “Last night was a good one. He only woke twice.”
“Only twice,” Melodie repeated.
“It gets better,” Chloe said kindly. “Eventually.”
Melodie did not look convinced.
“Me Lady.” Isla set down her cup. “Is it true? About the vault?”
Chloe looked at her. “The vault?”
“The Laird’s vault.” Isla’s eyes gleamed. “The men say there are barrels down there that have been agin’ since before any of us were born. That he opened one once for a visiting earl, and the man wept.” She leaned forward. “Actual tears, me Lady.”
“I wouldnae ken anythin’ about a vault,” Chloe said mildly.
Isla narrowed her eyes. “But ye’ve been in the distillery.”
“I have.”
“And?”
Chloe took a long, slow sip of her ale. “The copper pot was very impressive.”
Isla's groan was loud enough to startle Melodie.
“She’s protectin’ him,” Isla announced to the room at large. “She’s already protectin’ him just after a fortnight.”
“Isla,” Mrs. Donnan said from the end of the table, without looking up from her mug.
“Have ye tasted the fire-water then, me Lady?” Isla pressed, her eyes gleaming with gossip.
“Once,” Chloe said, the memory of the distillery flaring hot in her throat, the scent of peat smoke and man suddenly overwhelming her senses. “But I did nae drink it.”
Isla looked personally insulted by the revelation, while Mrs. Donnan let out a low, dry sound that sounded suspiciously like a choked laugh. And still, the stone stairs leading back up to the great hall remained dead silent.
Chloe had known, when she marched down to the kitchens, that Edward would not follow her here.
She had not expected him to. She had fled to the lower depths because the alternative was sitting alone like a painted doll in a massive chair, staring at a full goblet of wine, and she refused to let him turn her into a victim.
She was not that woman. She had never been that woman. She had spent ten years standing in brilliant, crowded rooms where no one saw her, yet she had kept her soul intact. She could do it again for forty more years if the earth required it of her.
But as she sat on the hard kitchen bench, the cold truth settled into her veins.
She was starting to care.
That was the terrifying, inconvenient reality she had not prepared for.
She knew how to manage distance; she had been kept at arm’s length by her father her entire life.
She was an expert in surviving isolation.
What she did not know how to handle was the sudden, sharp ache that tightened her throat every time she heard Edward’s voice.
Christ, what is happenin’ to me?
She was not prepared for the way her pulse raced when he delivered those dry, careful sentences that barely concealed the raging torrent beneath his skin. She was not ready for the absolute tenderness that broke through his stone mask every time he looked at his brother’s orphaned boy.
She had not expected to care whether he took his place at the supper table. But she did. She cared enough that it made her angry.
Isla was asking her another question about the weavers in the glen. Chloe forced her mind back to the heat of the kitchen, delivered an easy answer, and kept her hands perfectly relaxed around her cup. She did not allow a single tremor of her frustration to show on her face.
High above them, the fierce Highland wind battered the stone battlements, howling through the empty, freezing corridors of the castle.
No footsteps came down the stairs.