Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Grisselle stood entirely still in the dark room, the distant roar of the tide below the cliffs filling the silence.
She remained with the taste of his mouth still burning on her skin, her mind spinning with a hundred questions she didn't know how to ask, yet her pulse was hammering a wild, frantic rhythm against her ribs.
She was here. She was home at last, far from the cruel wagers and the suffocating parlors of London, but as she looked out at the black, churning foam of the firth, she knew her sanctuary was gone. She was locked in a stone keep, bound by law, and she was utterly betrothed to a ghost.
The morning light that woke Grisselle did not smell of wet soot. It cracked through a slit in a sharp, clean spear of pale gold, illuminating the swirling dust motes above her head.
She sat up instantly, throwing back the heavy, coarse wool blankets. Her feet hit the bare stone floor, and for the first time in three long years, the stone beneath her soles did not vibrate with the distant, rumbling iron of London hackney coaches.
She ran to the window, leaning her elbows against the cold masonry, and let out a long, ragged breath.
Outside, the braes rolled away into a vast, unmanaged green that met an endless purple sky.
There was not a chimney, a brick, or a painted carriage in sight.
The wind came rushing off the high ridges, carrying the scent of wet gorse and wild thyme, slapping her face until her cheeks burned with a bright, stinging color.
"Finally," she whispered, her fingers gripping the stone.
She scrambled into her stays, not bothering to call for a maid, and pulled on her simplest wool gown, the one with the frayed cuffs she had refused to let her mother throw away.
Her hair, entirely freed from the pins that had tortured her in Mayfair, fell in a wild, copper cloud down her back.
She didn't touch a comb. She simply flung open her chamber door and stepped out onto the spiraling stairwell, wild with the sheer relief of having space to move.
"Well, ye're up before the crows," a cheerful voice remarked from below.
Grisselle looked over the stone banister. Isobel was standing three steps down, a wicker basket of dried lavender tucked under her arm. She was looking up at Grisselle’s bare face and uncombed hair with a look of immense satisfaction.
"Is it against the rules of the keep to breathe before the servants have swept?" Grisselle asked, leaning over the rail.
"Nae at all," Isobel laughed, shifting the basket to her hip as she climbed up to meet her. "Though Mistress Greer will likely accuse ye of stealing the morning air before she’s had her tea. Where are yer coats, sister?"
Grisselle looked down. "In the trunk. Where they belong until I am forced to look polite."
Isobel’s smile widened, her eyes gleaming. "Oh, we are going to get along famously. Come down to the hall. The old men are still sleeping off the malt from yesterday, which means we have at least an hour before anyone tries to lecture us on the line of succession."
"Does your brother sleep off the malt as well?" Grisselle asked as they descended together, her slippers hitting the stones in a quick, light rhythm.
"Alpin?" Isobel let out a short snort. "Alpin doesnae sleep enough to have a hangover. He was out of the gates before the fire was even laid. Gone to the shore, as usual."
Grisselle’s foot hovered over the next step before she forced herself to continue down. A small, sharp prick of annoyance flared right behind her ribs, her jaw tightening just a fraction.
The shore.
The memory of his mouth against hers—the salt, the heat, and then that immediate, freezing wall he’d thrown up between them—flashed through her mind.
"Does he always vanish when he has guests?" Grisselle asked, keeping her tone light and dry.
"Ye arenae a guest, Grisselle. Ye're the lady, a contract maybe." Isobel said, throwing her a sideways glance as they reached the bottom landing. "And when Alpin is troubled by a contract, he looks at the water until his ears turn blue. It’s his way of pretending the world isnae talking to him."
"He will find I am remarkably difficult to ignore," Grisselle muttered.
"Good," Isobel whispered, squeezing her arm quickly as they crossed into the wide, stone passage. "He needs someone who doesnae mind getting mud on their skirts to rattle his cage. I’ve been trying for ten years, but I’m his sister. He just grunts at me and buys me another horse."
The smell of toasted oats and sharp fat led them straight into the kitchen, where the true business of Herston Castle was conducted under a cloud of white flour and steam.
Mistress Greer stood before a massive iron griddle, a wooden spatula in her hand, her mouth drawn into a thin, straight line as she watched Senga struggle with a massive wooden kneading trough.
"Yield to it, girl!" Greer snapped, not looking back as the girls entered. "Ye're kneading dough, nae wrestling a calf. If the bread is heavy, Dougal will spend the whole noon meal complaining about his teeth."
"I can take a turn," Grisselle said, stepping into the warmth of the hearth.
Greer turned slowly, her narrow eyes fixing instantly on Grisselle’s bare arms and the wild thatch of her hair.
She gave a short, disparaging sniff that shook her apron strings.
"The London lady wants to touch the flour, does she?
Yer white fingers will be full of blisters before the first loaf is shaped. "
"My fingers have carried heavier things than a bit of yeast, Mistress Greer," Grisselle smiled.
Without waiting for permission, she stepped up to the long oak table, pushing Senga gently aside.
She rolled her sleeves up past her elbows, dug her hands deep into the sticky, pale mass, and drove her weight forward with a rhythmic, powerful heave of her shoulders.
Her grandfather hadn't just told her stories; he had made her work the croft whenever her mother wasn't looking.
Senga’s jaw dropped slightly, her red elbows remaining suspended in the air. "By the saints, she’s got a bit of muscle in her, mistress."
Greer watched the steady, practiced rise and fall of Grisselle’s back. The narrow, weighing look in the older woman's eyes didn't vanish, but the hard line of her mouth softened by a fraction of an inch. She reached out and dropped a clean, dry linen towel on the corner of the table.
"Daenae get the flour on yer skirt, me Lady," Greer grumbled, turning back to her griddle with a short grunt. "The Laird has enough expenses without having to buy ye another green dress because ye’ve ruined that one with lard."
Grisselle didn't look up, but her mouth curved into a small, silent triumph. "The dress is already old, Mistress Greer. A bit of lard might actually improve the shade."
Senga let out a muffled snicker behind her hand, which earned her a sharp smack on the shoulder from Greer’s wooden spatula. "Get the salt-fish from the pantry, Senga. And stop staring like an owl in daylight."
Isobel leaned against the larder door, her eyes dancing as she watched Grisselle work the dough into a clean, smooth ball. "I told ye, Greer. She isnae one of those southern girls who faints when a chicken loses its head."
"We’ll see what she looks like when the winter gales hit the East Tower," Greer said, though she set a small pewter mug of hot ale near Grisselle’s elbow. "Eat yer parritch when you're done with that trough, me Lady. Ye look like a gust of wind could carry ye straight over the wall."
"Thank you, Mistress Greer," Grisselle said, wiping a streak of white flour from her nose with the back of her wrist.
By midday, the kitchen was quiet, and the sun had climbed high enough to turn the green hills into a bright, blinding emerald.
Grisselle stood on the stone terrace outside the great hall, her arms resting on the ancient battlements, her eyes tracking the long, winding path that led down to the grey line of the shore.
The wind caught her hair, whipping it across her face, but she didn't pull it back. Her fingers pressed into the rough, salt-crusted stone of the wall, her eyes scanning the distant rocks where the white foam broke against the black cliffs.
There was no sign of a horse. There was no sign of a large, broad-shouldered man with a pale scar on his neck.
Grisselle told herself she was only counting the gulls, but her eyes kept dragging back to the same empty stretch of shore, and she caught herself twice straining to hear hoofbeats over the wind before she gave up pretending and simply watched the road.
"He willnae be back until the tide turns," Isobel said, appearing at her side with a basket of small, green apples. She offered one to Grisselle. "He’s been like that since we were small. The heavier the house feels, the longer he stays by the skiff."
Grisselle took the apple, biting into the sharp, sour skin. "He didn't buy a painting to hang in his hall; he brought a person. He might at least have the courtesy to tell me if I am expected to eat my dinner alone."
"Are ye angry because he left, or because of how he left?" Isobel asked softly, her eyes fixed on the distant water.
Grisselle stopped chewing, her jaw locking as she stared down at the green fruit in her hand. The memory of the East Tower—how close he'd come, the way his large hands had pinned her against the stone, and the sheer, terrifying speed with which he had frozen over afterward—rushed through her.
"I am not angry," Grisselle said, her voice dropping into that flat, hard register she used when she was cornered. "I’m not even bothered."
Isobel let out a low, knowing hum, her fingers tracing the rim of her basket.
"Alpin doesnae ken how to handle things; he cannnae fight with an iron hook, Grisselle.
He's spent ten years learning to master the sea and near nothing at all learning to master a room with a woman in it.
Ye're the first thing that's ever stood still long enough for him to have to try. "