CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE #2
Several men glanced up. Grizel’s expression changed by a fraction, as if she had expected resistance and found invitation more difficult to answer.
Then she crossed to the table and stood beside him.
If Drummond meant to make her the center of his claim, then every man under Malcolm’s roof would learn where she stood before the first true blow fell.
“What is that?” he asked, nodding to the list.
“Names of workers from the outpost and nearby cottages. Who has kin inside the castle, who needs bedding, who can still work, and who shouldnae be allowed to pretend they can.”
Tavish made a faint sound that might almost have been admiration.
Malcolm took the list and looked it over.
Grizel’s mind gathered disorder and made it change its shape.
She had noted injuries, households, tools lost, stores spoiled, and which displaced workers had fishing knowledge useful for lower tide watches.
He ought not to have felt pride. Pride implied claim, and claim was precisely the thing Drummond had made poisonous. Yet there it was, low and fierce in his chest.
He handed the list to Duncan. “Use this. Eilidh gets the household names. Tavish, assign able workers where she marked them.”
Tavish accepted the list from Duncan and gave Grizel a short, respectful nod. “Aye, me lady.”
Her gaze flickered. She was not used to being obeyed without argument. Malcolm found he liked watching her learn it.
The meeting lasted another half hour. Grizel remained quiet after giving her list, but her silence was not absence. When the men finally dispersed, they carried the letters, the lists, and the weight of the day out with them.
She was standing near the side of the table, with one hand resting lightly on the chair back. In the candlelight, the soot on her cloak looked darker, and the tiredness around her eyes more pronounced. She was looking not at him, but at the map.
“Is everything happening because ye are trying tae protect me?”
Malcolm’s first response was anger, not at her, but at Drummond.
He set both hands on the table and forced his voice level. “Nae.”
She looked up at him. Malcolm looked back down at the map because it was safer than looking at her face.
“Drummond would have become a problem whether ye stood here or not. Men like him dinnae remain contained. They grow where others leave them room. He challenged the marriage because it served his pride. He struck the outpost because he wanted tae test me response. He will use the Crown if steel fails him, and steel if law moves too slowly.”
“And me?”
He closed his hand around the edge of the table.
“Ye,” he said, “are simply the reason he had tae move sooner than he wished.”
Grizel’s expression did not break, but something in it drew inward.
Malcolm cursed softly and straightened. “That isnae blame. If I blamed ye, I would say so.”
“I ken.”
“Dae ye?”
“Aye.”
“Then dinnae stand there wearing guilt that belongs tae him.”
Her lips parted, but no answer came at once.
Malcolm dragged a hand through his hair and turned away before he said too much too poorly. “Christ, ye are difficult tae protect.”
Her brows lifted. “I beg yer pardon?”
He should have stopped. He did not.
“Difficult,” he repeated. “Impossibly difficult. Ye dinnae behave predictably. Ye dinnae remain where placed. Ye walk intae war rooms, outposts, storms, corridors, councils, storage passages, and trouble with the same expression, as if the world is meant tae make way because ye have decided tae understand it.”
Her mouth twitched.
Malcolm stared at her. “This isnae amusing.”
“Nae,” she agreed, though the twitch became something more dangerous. “Nae entirely.”
Her smile threatened to appear fully now, despite the smoke, despite the day, despite the dead men whose names would have to be spoken to kin before nightfall. It was not heartlessness. Malcolm knew that. Grizel’s humor was a blade she used when feeling too much would cut deeper.
“Ye are worse,” she said.
“I am entirely predictable.”
“Nae, ye are entirely controlled. That isnae the same thing.”
He folded his arms. “Explain this dangerous nonsense.”
“You pretend ye are practical when really ye are afraid. Ye pretend ye are commanding when ye are worried. Ye pretend ye are arranging defenses when ye are putting every stone, man, road, and message between me and harm.”
His expression cooled because it had to. She stepped closer because she had never valued self-preservation properly.
“And ye are worse,” she continued, “because ye pretend ye dinnae care.”
Inside Malcolm, some old, locked door took the blow of her words and shuddered in its frame. He looked at her. She did not retreat. That was the trouble with Grizel. She said dangerous things and then stood before the wreckage as if truth ought to be survived simply because it had been spoken.
“I care… efficiently.”
For one heartbeat, Grizel stared at him. Then she laughed, and the sound went through Malcolm with ridiculous force.
“That may be the most impossible thing ye have ever said.”
“I doubt that,” he replied, smiling as well.
Malcolm looked at her, and he knew that if war had begun because Drummond would not release his claim, then Malcolm would end it because some things, once under his protection, were no longer claims at all.
They were vows waiting to be spoken before the sea, the sand, and the entire world.