CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The following day, Grizel went to Malcolm’s office with three questions, two lists, and the faintly ridiculous hope that he might receive them as if she had some right to bring them.
She should have known better than to trust hope. It had always had poor manners.
The door stood half-open. Inside, Malcolm sat behind the great table with papers spread before him, a map weighted beneath one hand and a sealed letter beside the ink. He did not look up immediately, and that alone told her enough.
Still, she stepped inside.
“There are matters regarding the wedding preparations,” she began, before courage could turn sensible and abandon her.
“Eilidh says the linen for the final rite must be chosen by tomorrow, but Fenella insists the old store cannae spare the finer cloth. Also, if Father Branan requires witnesses from Calder, then we must send word at once, and I would rather decide the wording before?—”
“Nae now.”
The words cut through hers cleanly. Malcolm finally looked up. His gaze came to her as if dragged from elsewhere, still dark with whatever burden had been laid upon him before she entered.
“I cannae deal with wedding linen and priestly preferences at this moment,” he told her. “There is clan business that needs me attention.”
Wedding linen and priestly preferences.
The smallness of the words struck harder than she expected.
Grizel’s fingers tightened around the folded lists. “These arenae merely preferences.”
“Then give them tae Eilidh.”
“I have spoken with Eilidh.”
“Then Fenella.”
“She sent me tae ye.”
His jaw flexed. “Then tell Fenella I have greater concerns than cloth.”
The room went very still. A sharper woman would have answered.
A safer woman would have retreated at once.
Grizel did neither immediately. She had come prepared to argue over stores, witnesses, ceremony, and the thousand small details that made a marriage real before other people.
She had not been prepared for him to make her feel foolish for caring about them.
Malcolm looked back down at the map. “Leave it for later.”
Later.
As if there would always be later, as if time were not already pressing them from all sides. Her throat tightened in disappointment that she didn’t want to feel.
Anger would have served her better. Anger was clean. Anger gave the hands something to do, the mouth something sharp to say. But what rose in her instead was hurt, quiet and humiliating, because some treacherous part of her had expected him to make room for her voice.
She lowered the lists.
“Very well,” she said.
Malcolm’s eyes flicked up. Perhaps he had expected argument. Perhaps he had braced himself for it. The absence of it seemed to strike him more keenly than any rebuke might have done.
“Grizel—”
“Nae,” she cut him off, but it was done softly enough that the word barely conveyed its intention. “I understand.”
That was a lie. Or rather, she understood too well.
Duty came first. Clan came first. Threat came first. She had known what sort of man he was when she had chosen him.
Malcolm MacAulay did not set aside danger because a woman came through his door with wedding matters and too many hopes hidden beneath practical speech.
But understanding did not make the dismissal gentler.
She inclined her head, more formal than she had meant to be. “I shall nae trouble ye further.”
His expression tightened. “That isnae what I said.”
She wanted to believe him. She wanted to forget his words from a moment ago, but that would be betraying herself.
“It was near enough,” she replied instead.
For a moment, neither of them moved. The office felt suddenly too small and too cold. The space between them, which had so often seemed charged with all the things they refused to name, now stretched wide enough to remind her that she still had a door through which to leave.
Grizel turned before he could see too much in her face. She heard his chair shift behind her, not enough for him to stand, only enough to reveal that he had thought of it.
Perhaps that ought to have mattered. It did not.
She walked to the door with her lists still in hand and her spine held straight.
At the threshold, she paused for the briefest moment.
She didn’t look back, but still, some foolish, aching part of her wanted him to stop her, to say her name not as warning, not as command, but as if he regretted the wound he had caused.
He said nothing. Swallowing heavily, she walked on, leaving him to his maps, his letters, his clan business, and all the heavy duties that had built him into the man he was. She did not begrudge him those things. She could not. They were part of him.
But she couldn’t help wondering if she would find a place to stand among them, if not precisely by his side, at least alongside him in her own independence.
That night, a storm came down like judgment from the heavens.
It began with wind worrying at the shutters, then rose into something violent enough to make the whole castle brace itself.
Rain struck the stone in hard silver sheets.
The sea beyond the walls roared as if it had climbed the cliffs and meant to tear the keep apart by hand.
Grizel had thought herself accustomed to storms. She had been wrong.
At Calder, storms came over hills and moors, cold and grey and bitter. Here, they came from the sea with teeth and claws.
She stood among a gathered cluster of women, servants, and two frightened children in one of the inner rooms. Water had already begun to creep beneath one outer passage door, and men moved in and out, carrying ropes, boards, and lanterns whose flames fought wildly behind horn panes.
Then Malcolm appeared. He filled the doorway with rain darkening his coat and wind still seeming to cling to him. He crossed directly to her.
“Come with me.”
She stiffened. “Where?”
“Me quarters. The western rooms are more sheltered.”
A woman nearby glanced up sharply. Grizel felt the heat rise to her face at once, despite the cold.
“That is hardly proper,” she whispered.
A crash sounded somewhere above them. Dust sifted from the beam overhead. One of the children whimpered.
Malcolm’s eyes didn’t leave hers. “Neither is being crushed under falling stone.”
It was difficult to argue with that. She gathered what dignity she could and followed him.
The corridors were chaos. Wind shrieked through cracks in the shutters.
Water ran in thin streams along the uneven floor.
Twice Malcolm set a hand near her back, not quite touching, guiding her around broken debris and men hurrying with tools.
Each missed touch unsettled her more than the storm.
The memory of his earlier dismissal still lay between them, creating distance, but the sight of him now, utterly focused on getting her somewhere safe, made anger harder to hold.
That irritated her. Everything about him irritated her, especially the fact that her fear receded when he was near.
His chamber was warmer than the corridor, though not by much. A fire burned low in the hearth, fighting the damp that pressed at the walls. The shutters were barred, but rain battered them so hard they trembled in their frames. The room smelled of cedar, smoke, wet leather, and him.
That was the worst part. It felt like stepping into a private truth she hadn’t yet discovered.
Malcolm shut the door behind them. Grizel stood near the fire and pulled the shawl closer around herself.
“Well, this is exceptionally unromantic.”
He looked at her. She thought he would not answer. Then he removed his soaked coat and tossed it over a chair.
“The weather doesnae concern itself with romance.”
“Nae,” she said, glancing toward the shutter as another gust struck it. “Clearly it concerns itself with murder.”
That nearly brought a smile from him. Before anything more could pass between them, the door opened without warning.
Tavish came in carrying a lantern, wearing a grin that was entirely inappropriate. “Ah, there ye both are. Safe, sheltered and… alone. How fortunate.”
Malcolm’s expression went flat. “Leave.”
“I have only just arrived.”
“Then ye may enjoy the novelty of leaving quickly.”
Tavish looked at Grizel. “Has he been charming? He gets surly in weather.”
“He gets surly in all conditions,” Grizel said before she could stop herself.
Tavish’s grin widened. “Good. Ye have noticed.”
Malcolm took one step toward him. “Tavish.”
“I came tae report that the lower east passage is cleared, the children are moved, and nae one has died, though Angus may claim otherwise because his favorite barrel split.” He paused, eyes bright with wicked amusement. “Also, I wished tae see if ye required a chaperone.”
Grizel choked on a laugh. She tried to stop it, truly she did, but the sound escaped her anyway, startled and breathless. Tavish looked delighted. Malcolm looked at her, and his gaze warmed the room even more than the fire.
“Out,” Malcolm ordered Tavish.
Tavish raised both hands. “As ye command, brother. I shall leave ye tae discuss roof damage, morality, and other dry subjects.”
“Now.”
“At once.”
He backed out so slowly and with a bow so exaggerated Grizel nearly laughed again. Then the door shut and the room seemed to shrink around the silence he left behind.
Outside, the storm raged on. Rain hammered the shutters. Wind keened around the castle walls. But inside Malcolm’s chamber, all of it felt distant, as though the walls had thickened and left only the two of them in the world.
Grizel became aware of the firelight, of the way Malcolm stood between her and the door, with his shirt darkened at the shoulders from rain. He looked rougher than usual, more dangerous and more real.
She should have remembered the hurt from earlier. But it had changed shape. It was no longer cold. It had warmed into something tender and angry and impossible to hold without burning herself.
“I didnae mean tae laugh,” she confessed through a shy smile.
“I ken.”
“He is impossible.”
“Aye.”
“Ye should discipline him.”
He shrugged. “I try.”
“Ye fail.”
His mouth moved slightly. “Often.”
The small almost-smile undid more of her anger despite her. She looked away, toward the bed, and realized her mistake at once.
It was large, dark, carved and unmade only slightly, as if he had left it in haste when the storm worsened. In a handful of days, this room would not be forbidden. That bed would not be something she must avoid looking at. This chamber would not be his alone.
The thought passed through her with a shiver that had nothing to do with cold.
“Are ye afraid?” he asked, as if able to read her mind.
Grizel turned back to him, too quickly. “Of the storm?”
“Nae.”
Her breath caught. There it was again, that terrible habit he had of stripping language down until there was nowhere left to hide.
She folded her fingers into the shawl. “I dinnae ken.”
His gaze held hers, steady and dark. “That is an honest answer.”
Another gust shook the shutters violently. Grizel flinched despite herself. Malcolm moved toward t her instinctively. He stopped close enough that warmth reached her before his hands did.
“I shouldnae have dismissed ye earlier,” he said.
She went still.
“Nae,” she agreed. “Ye shouldnae have.”
His jaw tightened. “There was business?—”
“There is always business.”
“Aye.”
“And there will be after we are married.”
“Aye.”
The word landed between them, heavy and plain.
Grizel’s throat tightened. “Then where am I meant tae stand, Malcolm?”
The question left her feeling exposed. She regretted it the moment it left her lips, but he did not look away.
His gaze moved over her face, and whatever he found there seemed to pull something loose in him. The control he wore so ruthlessly, cracked at the edge.
“Beside me,” he murmured.
Her heart struck once, hard, then, he reached for her. His hand came to her cheek with such restrained care that it hurt more than force would hace. His palm was warm, slightly rough, smelling faintly of rain and leather. His thumb brushed the edge of her jaw, and Grizel forgot how to breathe.
The room blurred at its edges. There was only him, the dark intensity of his eyes, the heat of his body and the sound of rain hammering the world outside while his touch held her still.
Then, Malcolm kissed her. It was not the light, courteous touch of a man testing permission. It was restraint breaking.
His mouth took hers with a hunger so carefully restrained that it unsettled her more than any loss of control could have done.
Grizel made a small sound against him, shocked by the force of it, by the taste of rain and smoke on his lips, by the sudden, dizzying truth that she had wanted this long before she had dared even think of it.
Her hands caught in his shirt. That was all the answer he needed.
His other arm came around her waist and drew her closer, and the shawl slipped from her shoulders to the floor.
She felt the hard strength of him through the damp linen, the heat of his chest against hers, the steady power of the body she had tried so carefully not to admire.
The kiss deepened, and with it the storm outside seemed to fall away.
There was only Malcolm’s mouth moving over hers, his hand at her back, and the rough sound he made when she kissed him in return.
She rose into him, her fingers tightening in the cloth at his shoulders.
Her body betrayed her with a softness that should have frightened her and instead made heat rush through her blood.
His hand slid from her cheek into her hair, loosening pins, cradling the back of her head as though he meant to hold her there against every force that had ever tried to take her.
She had been claimed before in words by Drummond, by her father’s fear, by circumstance. This felt nothing like that. This felt like choosing and being chosen in the same breath.
Malcolm broke the kiss only enough to breathe, his mouth still near hers, his forehead nearly touching her own.
She opened her eyes. He was looking at her as if she had undone him. A tremor moved through her. His arm tightened around her.
“Cold?”
She shook her head.
A dark flicker moved through his eyes.
“Nae,” he said softly. “I didnae think so.”
The words touched her almost as intimately as his hands.
Her face warmed, but she did not pull away. That was perhaps the most dangerous thing of all. She stayed there, close against him, breathing the same air, feeling the thunder through stone and the beat of his heart beneath her hand.
In days, she would be his wife.
In days, this chamber would not be forbidden.
In days, the distance between them would no longer be protected by custom, doors, or restraint.