CHAPTER THIRTY
“The salt stores cannae be kept beside the ceremonial linen.”
Grizel looked from the list in her hand to the man who had just spoken, then to the open storeroom door where two lads were attempting to carry a chest between them.
“No,” she agreed. “They cannae.”
Ciaran Fraser grinned as if she had given him a victory rather than the most obvious answer in Christendom. “Good. Then we are allies already.”
“I wouldnae declare alliance so quickly. I have only agreed that salt and linen are poor companions.”
“A beginning is a beginning.”
He leaned one shoulder against the doorframe and glanced down at the tablet of wax in his hand.
He was not a MacAulay, though he had been in the castle long enough now that the household had begun to move around him without suspicion.
He had come two days earlier with three riders from the Salt Coast, carrying messages from Laird Fraser, two sealed accounts, and the sort of cheerful competence that made older women trust him and younger men resent him at once.
He was fair where Malcolm was dark, easy where Malcolm was severe, and spoke as if every room might be improved by his comfort in it.
Everywhere, ceremony and siege folded into one another until neither could be separated cleanly.
Wedding linen lay beside spare bowstrings.
Dried flowers waited in a basket next to bundled arrows.
A carved chest meant to hold bridal cloth had been moved twice because it stood too near a stack of shields.
“Lady Grizel?”
She turned. Ciaran had come closer while she was studying the hall. He held out the wax tablet.
“This tally is wrong,” he shook his head.
She took it from him and frowned at the markings. “It isnae wrong. It is unfinished.”
“Ah.” His smile deepened. “That is a much more elegant way of being wrong.”
Her mouth twitched. “If ye have come all the way from Fraser lands merely tae insult me accounts, I shall be disappointed. I hoped yer usefulness would extend farther.”
“I’ll have ye ken that me usefulness is a thing of legend.”
“Among whom?”
“Me mother, mostly.”
Despite herself, Grizel laughed. It was a small sound, quickly caught, but it escaped her before she could make it dignified. The women near the cords glanced over. Ciaran looked delighted with himself.
“There,” he commented. “Now we are truly allies.”
“Because ye made me laugh?”
“Because ye looked as if ye had forgotten how.”
Grizel looked down at the tablet again. The scratches of numbers blurred for a heartbeat before settling. She had not forgotten how. She had merely learned, in recent weeks, that laughter could be a dangerous habit. Malcolm noticed it too easily. Tavish exploited it too freely.
“Ye mistake me,” she said lightly. “I laugh often.”
“Dae ye?”
“When people are amusing.”
“Then I shall try harder.”
“Please dinnae. This hall suffers enough confusion.”
He laughed at that, not loudly but warmly, and leaned nearer to point at the tablet still in her hands. His shoulder came close enough to brush the edge of her sleeve.
“There,” he said, his finger hovering over the wax. “The fish stores. Ye’ve counted what is already here, but nae what came from the northern landing this morning.”
“I was told those barrels hadnae yet been inspected.”
“They have. I watched it done.”
“And did ye also watch them marked?”
“Aye.”
“Then why did ye not add them yourself?”
“Because I feared ruining yer elegant system.”
She looked at him. “That is another way of saying ye did not understand it.”
His grin flashed. “Aye, but with more respect.”
Grizel gave the tablet back to him. “Then add four barrels and write them under inspected stores, nae incoming goods. Incoming goods arenae yet trusted.”
“Because goods are dishonest?”
“Because men are.”
Ciaran laughed again. “Now that I understand.”
He bent to mark the wax, and Grizel became aware of Malcolm before she saw him. That was becoming a deeply inconvenient talent.
He stood near the far archway with Tavish at his side and two senior men behind him.
He had plainly come in during the exchange and just as plainly decided not to interrupt it.
His face revealed nothing. His gaze moved once across the room, taking in cloth, barrels, women, servants, lists, the great disorder of preparation, and finally, Grizel standing beside Ciaran Fraser with barely an inch between them.
There was no anger in him that anyone else could have named. That was how Grizel knew there was a great deal of it.
“Me lady,” Ciaran said, unaware of the precise manner in which his life had just become briefly more interesting, “if ye want those benches moved before supper, I can have the lads begin now.”
“Nae yet,” she replied with her eyes still on Malcolm. “If they are moved now, they will only be moved again when Eilidh realizes she preferred them where they were.”
From across the hall, Eilidh looked up. “I heard that.”
“I intended ye tae.”
Ciaran made a small sound of amusement. “Brave woman.”
“Efficient woman,” Grizel corrected.
He angled his head toward her again. “Then tell me where efficiency wants me next.”
The words were innocent. Still, he was too near when he said them, and too comfortable in saying them. Grizel did not feel threatened. She did, however, feel Malcolm’s silence move across the hall like a drawn blade.
She looked back at Ciaran. “Efficiency wants ye tae take three lads and move the spare grain from the southern store tae the inner pantry. Have someone check the lower hinges first. The door sticks in damp weather.”
Ciaran blinked. “Ye noticed that?”
“I notice doors I may need tae shut quickly.”
His expression shifted, the levity easing into something more respectful. “Aye. Then I will see it done.”
“Thank ye.”
He bowed slightly. “For ye, me lady, I suspect half the castle would become useful if asked prettily enough.”
Grizel lifted one brow. “Then I shall continue asking directly, since it has worked thus far.”
That earned another smile from him. “As ye command.”
He moved away, calling for three lads as he went. The hall resumed its commotion at once, though with a different tone now. Work expanded to fill the place his conversation left behind.
Malcolm remained by the archway. Tavish looked from Malcolm to her and then very wisely developed an urgent interest in the ceiling.
Malcolm crossed the hall without hurry. That was worse than if he had stalked. As he came nearer, people shifted from his path with the instinctive obedience of those who knew storms need not shout to be weather.
“Me laird,” she greeted him.
His eyes dipped briefly to the list, then returned to her face. “Come with me.”
“Is something wrong?”
“Nae.”
The answer came too smoothly. Grizel nearly smiled.
“Then why must I come with ye?”
“Strategy.”
“Strategy,” she repeated.
“Aye.”
“What sort of strategy?”
“The sort better discussed elsewhere.”
It was a perfectly reasonable answer. It was also, in every particular, nonsense. Malcolm could discuss strategy in a burning courtyard with enemies at the gate and a wounded man shouting into his ear. He had not suddenly become delicate about walls.
Behind him, Tavish coughed once.
Malcolm didn’t turn. Grizel looked from one brother to the other, then back to Malcolm.
His face had still not altered. That was the most damning part.
A guilty man might fidget. An uncertain one might overexplain.
Malcolm merely became more Malcolm, as if command could bury every other feeling beneath stone.
Unfortunately for him, Grizel had become quite accomplished at reading cracks.
“Very well,” she acquiesced, and handed the folded list to Eilidh as the woman passed. “If Ciaran returns before I dae, tell him the grain is tae be moved only after the hinges are checked.”
Malcolm’s jaw moved once.
Eilidh accepted the list with a glance too quick to be innocent. “Aye, me lady.”
Malcolm turned without waiting to see if Grizel followed. Naturally, she did. Refusing would have been childish, and besides, she was far too curious to do anything so petulant as to remain behind.
They left the lower hall and entered the passage beyond, where the noise dulled behind thick stone.
Malcolm walked at her side, not ahead. That was its own confession.
When he wished to command, he led. When he wished to guard, he matched pace.
At present, he seemed determined to pretend he was doing neither.
Grizel allowed three turns of the corridor to pass before speaking.
“Ciaran Fraser is useful.”
“Aye.”
“Helpful, even.”
“Aye.”
“And polite.”
Malcolm said nothing.
She looked up at him. “Dae ye object tae politeness?”
“Nae.”
“Only usefulness, then?”
His eyes cut briefly toward her. “I object tae neither.”
“How generous.”
His mouth did not move, though something in his eyes might have done if he had not killed it quickly. “Ye seem… comfortable with him.”
There it was. Grizel felt a wicked warmth move through her, utterly inappropriate given the state of the castle, the threat of war, and the fact that she had spent the morning counting dried fish beside bridal cloth.
“With Ciaran?” she asked, because she was not a good enough person to spare him.
Malcolm looked straight ahead. “Aye.”
“He is easy tae speak with.”
“So I saw.”
“He has a pleasant manner.”
“I heard.”
“And a useful memory for stores.”
“No doubt.”
She let the silence stretch. It lasted six steps before Malcolm ruined it.
“He stands too close.”
Grizel turned her face away, to hide her delight.
“Does he?”
“Aye.”
“I hadnae noticed.”
That was a lie, and a poor one, but Malcolm deserved to suffer it.
His gaze lowered to her. “Ye notice everything.”
“Then perhaps I noticed and was untroubled.”
That struck its mark, although he didn’t show it. Malcolm would likely keep the same expression if a cannon fired beside his head. But his silence sharpened, and his stride slowed just enough that she knew she had found flesh beneath armor.
They passed beneath an arch where the corridor narrowed.
Grizel felt the brush of his sleeve against hers.
It was nothing, less than Ciaran’s earlier nearness, in truth.
Yet her body, treacherous creature that it was, knew the difference.
Ciaran’s closeness had been merely space poorly managed.
Malcolm’s near touch unsettled the breath in her lungs.
“Are we truly discussing strategy?” she asked.
“We are walking toward the map room.”
“That wasnae me question.”
“I required yer counsel.”
“On strategy.”
“Aye.”
“And that need struck ye precisely when Ciaran Fraser stood beside me?”
His jaw tightened again.
She smiled now, unable to help it. “Malcolm.”
“What?”
“Ye are worse at lying than ye are at flirting.”
He stopped. So did she. The corridor around them fell strangely quiet, as if the castle itself had leaned nearer to hear what disaster she had chosen to create next.
Malcolm turned toward her with great care. “I am nae flirting.”
“Aye, and that is the problem.”
The words left her more softly than she intended. There had been room for jest in them when they formed in her mind. By the time they crossed her lips, the jest had thinned into something more honest and therefore less safe.
Malcolm’s gaze dropped to her mouth. It was enough to make the narrow corridor tilt beneath her feet.
Grizel forgot that there were servants in the castle, men on the walls, allies in the hall, war moving toward them, and a wedding being assembled out of linen, salt, strategy, and stubbornness.
She forgot that Malcolm MacAulay had built his whole life around control.
She forgot that she herself had once demanded terms, distance, safety.
All she knew was that he stood before her in the pale corridor light, close enough that she could see the faint line of weariness at the corner of his eyes and the hard restraint in his mouth, and she wanted, shamefully, to be the reason that restraint failed.
His hand lifted and his fingers almost touched the loose strand of hair near her cheek. Grizel did not move away.
Malcolm’s expression changed at that. Something darkened in him, not with anger now, but with hunger hidden behind quiet force. His gaze held hers, and the air between them seemed to narrow to a single breath.
If he kissed her there, in that corridor, with dust in the light and the hall still echoing behind them, she would not stop him and he knew that.
His fingers lowered before they touched her. The loss of that near touch was absurdly sharp.
“We are expected in the map room,” he said instead.
Then he turned and continued walking. For a moment, she merely stared after him, torn between outrage, amusement, and a longing so inconvenient she would have liked to set it down somewhere and come back for it when life had become less complicated.
She followed, as she knew she would.