Chapter 22
She didn’t fully breathe until she reached her chamber door.
Inside, the room was dark. Clara hadn’t lit the lamps. The air was still. The bed was empty.
Cormac was gone.
Her chest tightened before she could stop it. She’d have heard something if he’d been caught. He must have slipped off. She wished he’d stayed long enough to say goodbye.
Would she ever see him again? Appearing on the estate in Athraith form was too dangerous, though she knew that wouldn’t stop him. It made her both fearful and hopeful.
Aoife shut the door softly behind her and sat on the edge of the bed, wrapping her arms around herself, trying not to think of Cormac lying there earlier.
She tried not to think of how badly she’d messed up.
Again. If she’d only waited, considered how best to use the knowledge Mrs Harrow had gifted her.
Why had she rushed off without thinking?
She fiddled with the bracelet Cormac had made for her. At least she still had their plan. If he could retrieve the barrel, that would be something.
***
By morning, a wet mist clung to the grounds, shrouding the trees at the edge of the garden. Aoife waited until the household stirred before slipping down the servant’s stair and out the side door. No one stopped her. No one seemed to notice her at all.
She reached the boundary where the formal gardens surrendered to the wild.
Her heart beat faster as she approached the thicket where the barrel was hidden.
Brambles dripped with rain. The earth was soft beneath her feet.
She could see, when she was still several paces away, that the barrel was gone.
Cormac must have taken it; no one else knew it was there. What if the soldiers had discovered it? She looked around, half expecting soldiers to appear amongst the trees, but there was no one there.
Aoife couldn’t imagine how he’d managed it with his shoulder the way it was, but they’d succeeded. After all these weeks, she’d finally found a way to get food to her people.
Halverton would be in his study at this hour.
Aoife waited, heart loud in her ears, for a moment to slip in and adjust the ledgers again.
Halverton stepped out; she slipped down the corridor and eased open the study door.
The room was dim, curtains drawn against the fog. On the desk, the ledger lay open, neat columns of numbers marching across the page. Its twin was closed underneath it.
She crossed the rug quickly and slipped behind the desk, scanning the page, looking for numbers that would indicate whether this was the ledger he kept for the empire or for himself.
“Looking for something?”
Her breath caught.
Halverton stood in the doorway.
He hadn’t raised his voice, but the quiet was worse. She forced herself to look up. “I wondered what you were reading, but this is all nonsense to me.”
He crossed the room without hurry, closing the door behind him. His gaze flickered to the ledger, then he smiled and shook his head. “Business of the county and estate. It is complicated.”
His tone suggested he had bought her lie. She slipped out from behind the desk to face him. “I came to speak with you.” The lie came easily, but now she’d said it she couldn’t think what on earth she might have come to speak to him about.
“Hmm.”
She met his gaze. “I wanted to ask about my family,” she said, blurting out the first thing that came to mind.
His expression softened. “Your family.”
“I was hoping I might see them.”
Halverton’s expression shifted, becoming warmer, almost fond. Light flickered through the gold in his eyes.
“And so you shall,” he said. “In time.”
Aoife kept her breath steady. “May I ask when?”
He stepped closer. A man entirely sure of his authority.
“Aoife,” he said gently, “you are becoming someone new. Someone better suited to her future. I am not sure it is a good time. It might disrupt all of our progress.”
Her stomach tightened.
His gaze drifted over her, her hair, her dress, the necklace he had given her lying against her throat. “You have made remarkable progress. Truly.” His voice dropped to an intimate murmur. “I would hate to waste it.”
Aoife could see he was thinking, and forced herself to wait patiently for what he would say.
“Perhaps it would be wise. It could be… instructive.”
“Instructive?”
“A test,” he said simply. “Can you remain as you are now, gracious, composed, refined, even in the company of those who knew you before? If so, it will prove to me that these changes are not merely affectations, but character.”
Aoife swallowed. “You want me to… prove myself.”
“I want you,” Halverton said, “to show me you understand what it means to step into a new life. A better life. Imagine the delight it will bring your sister to see you so transformed.”
The words were honeyed, but they stuck like pins.
Aoife forced herself to look hopeful. “Thank you,” she said. “I would do anything to see them.”
“I know.” He reached for her hand, lifted it, and brushed his thumb over her knuckles.
He released her hand with a quiet, satisfied nod. “You may go,” he said. “And Aoife—”
She paused in the doorway.
“Do not hide from the person you are becoming. She will serve you better than the girl I picked up out of the dirt.”
Aoife dipped her head, the picture of gratitude. She left his study with careful steps; the door shutting behind her like the closing of a vault.
***
Her father arrived at the manor two days later with Eoin and Maire.
The moment he saw her, he stopped short.
His breath caught. It had been barely two weeks, yet the dress Clara had altered now fit perfectly.
There was a softness to her cheeks, a weight in her frame.
Aoife fought tears at the sight of him, at the hollows in his face and the sharp bones of her siblings’ wrists.
When she knelt to hug them, she let the tears fall, disguising them as joy.
They sat together in the sitting room, dwarfed by its opulence. Her family’s threadbare clothes looked almost translucent beside the heavy velvet curtains, the marble hearth, the gleam of brass and silver. The upholstered chair swallowed little Maire whole; her feet dangled far above the floor.
Lord Halverton sat beside Aoife, his hand resting on her leg, light but possessive. The conversation stuttered along, awkward and shallow. Her father thanked him for his generosity, for taking Aoife in, and for the food sent to the village after the feast.
Aoife kept her eyes lowered, fingers laced tightly in her lap. Part of her was grateful her father knew how to play the game, how to survive a man like this. But another part of her burned with a quiet fury that he had to thank Halverton at all.
“How are your lessons?” Aoife asked her siblings, her voice soft.
“I can read now,” Maire announced proudly.
“You can read letters,” Eoin corrected, grinning. “Not whole words yet.”
Aoife smiled faintly, though her heart ached. It hadn’t been that long, had it?
She longed to ask about Cormac. Yesterday, she’d snuck into Halverton’s study again and changed another ledger line, taken a sack of grain from storage, but she hadn’t returned to see if it was missing yet.
She wanted to ask how he was, but she couldn’t risk it.
Not with Halverton watching her so closely.
Instead, she asked carefully, “And how is everyone?”
Her father hesitated. “Two more families have gone,” he said at last.
Halverton leaned forward, alert. “Which families?”
Her father paused. He looked at Aoife, who nodded minutely. “The Tanguys and the Lowens. They sailed for the New World last week.”
Aoife caught her breath. Good. Let them be far beyond his reach.
Halverton’s lip curled. “Fools,” he said. “Half of them die before the voyage ends. They pack those ships tighter than grain sacks. What parent risks their children like that?”
Parents who want them to live.
Her father nodded smoothly. “Quite right, my lord.”
Halverton reclined again, satisfied. “And what of Aoife’s friends?” he asked, pronouncing her name correctly for once.
“Cormac’s doing better,” her father said, then caught himself. “Oh, but of course, you wouldn’t know. He had an accident at the tannery. Hurt his shoulder. Riona says he can take the sling off in the next few days.”
Aoife’s stomach lurched. Would Halverton connect the dots? Of course he wouldn’t. In his mind, he’d shot a bear, not a man.
“Who is Cormac?” he asked, turning his head to her father, his hand tightening around her thigh.
“No one,” Aoife said quickly. She laid her hand over his, and he released his grip.
“Her best friend,” Eoin said at the same time.
Halverton’s eyes flicked between them. “So, which is it? No one, or your best friend?”
Aoife forced a smile. “No one. He was a friend. A good one. But I haven’t thought of him since I came here.”
“That’s not true,” Maire said indignantly. “You said you’d always be friends. That’s why you still wear his bracelet.”
Aoife froze. She tried to pull down her sleeve, but Halverton’s hand shot out and caught her wrist. He pushed her sleeve back, revealing the braided leather against her skin.
“This was a gift from him?”
“You’re hurting me,” she said.
He released her at once. “Take it off.”
With clumsy fingers, she fumbled to untie the knot. Aoife handed it to him, and Halverton crossed the room in silence. He stopped in front of the fireplace. The fire was out; the grate was cold. Without a word, he turned and walked out.
Maire frowned. “What’s he doing?”
Her father hushed her.
“But why did he take Aoife’s bracelet?”
“Because he’s jealous,” Eoin said matter-of-factly. “Like you are when Nessa plays with Vivi.”
Maire nodded gravely. “Because Vivi’s my best friend.”
“Exactly.”
“Oh,” Maire said. “Then he must like you very much.”
Aoife managed a smile. “That’s all right for children,” she said. “But not for adults. People aren’t possessions, Maire. No one gets to decide who you’re allowed to care about.”
Her father looked at her with quiet pride. Eoin and Maire seemed puzzled but nodded anyway.