Chapter Seventeen
The next days passed in uneasy calm.
Claire spent hours in the bailey with Maddy and the women of the keep, her hands busy even when her mind refused rest.
“A wee bit more flour, m’lady.”
She grabbed a handful and tossed it on top of the ragged dough.
Maddy tsked. “Have ye never made bread before?”
“Nay,” she confessed.
“Och. Weel, let me show you.”
The women taught her how bread was coaxed from stubborn dough. “Watch yer gown, mind. Ye’ve made a mess of it.”
The lad carrying water in from the well laughed. “’Tis on yer nose, m’lady.”
She wiped her nose and winked at the lad.
“Ye’ve made it worse.”
Startled, she dropped the dough onto the floor. There stood Lachlan, leaning against the door jamb. Claire brushed her hands over her skirt and tried to wipe her face clean.
He laughed. Something so robust, it filled the bakehouse. Maddy joined in as did the lad.
Claire fisted her hands at her waist and scowled.
“Now, now, m’lady,” Maddy said as she stooped to pick up the soiled dough. “’Tis no worry at all. I’ll take over the bread duty.”
With one last chuckle, Lachlan tipped his head toward them and left the bakehouse.
“Now, what can we do with ye?” Maddy said as she pivoted to view what chores needed to be completed.
Before the afternoon faded into evening, Claire learned how herbs were hung to dry in careful bundles, how the women spoke in half-finished sentences and understood one another all the same. She listened more than she spoke.
It should not have mattered to her.
None of it should have mattered.
And yet, the rhythms of Raven’s Berry had begun to settle into her bones—quietly, stealthily, as though the place were claiming her without permission.
The scent of woodsmoke clung to her gowns.
The sound of children’s laughter carried farther here, sharper and freer, like arrows loosed without fear of where they might land.
Even the wind felt different—less polite, more honest.
Alive.
It unsettled her more than she cared to admit.
Because it would be far easier to dismiss it all—this place, these people, him—if she did not feel the pull of it.
If she did not find herself watching Lachlan when he crossed the yard, noting the way others moved around him—not with fear, but with trust. If she did not notice how often his gaze lifted toward the hills, how his shoulders never quite relaxed, how even in stillness he seemed braced for impact.
And if she did not still feel the echo of their kiss.
She had told herself it meant nothing.
A moment. A lapse. A consequence of proximity and heightened circumstance.
She repeated it often enough it should have become true. It had not. Something had shifted.
And she did not yet know how to set it back.
Beneath the surface of daily life, tension coiled tighter with each passing hour.
Warriors drilled longer in the training yard, their movements sharper, less like practice and more like preparation. Messengers came and went at all hours, their horses lathered, their faces drawn. Conversations and movement ceased when she neared.
They were not unkind.
They were guarded.
And Lachlan—Lachlan watched the hills.
Always the hills.
Claire found him one afternoon on the ridge above the loch, where the land opened wide and the wind moved unimpeded, tugging at her hair and skirts as though urging her back.
He stood as he often did now—still, intent, as if he could will the distance to reveal its secrets.
Or its dangers.
“You look like a man waiting for thunder,” she said.
He did not turn. His gaze remained fixed on the distant passes, where the land narrowed into shadow and uncertainty. “Aye, English Rose.”
She stepped closer, following his line of sight, though she saw nothing but quiet hills and shifting light. “And is the thunder likely to arrive?”
He scrubbed his hand over his face. “Soon.”
The word settled heavily between them.
Claire folded her arms, less for warmth than to contain the unease rising within her. She had sensed it—the tightening of the air, the unspoken anticipation, but hearing it named gave it weight. Gave it shape.
Made it undeniably real.
“Then perhaps,” she said, keeping her tone even, controlled, “you should finally tell me what storm I have wandered into.”
For a moment, she thought he might deflect again—offer some half-answer meant to soothe rather than inform.
Instead, he spoke. “Your father,” he said quietly, “has promised land and gold to any man who brings ye back to England. Your betrothed is verra vexed at ye.”
She jerked back as if she had been struck.
Not because the proclamation surprised her. But because it did not.
Of course. Of course, her father had turned her absence into a transaction, a problem to be solved, a loss to be reclaimed with sufficient incentive. It was how he understood the world, through bargains, through leverage, through control.
Still—there had been a small, foolish part of her clinging to hope.
No. She crushed the thought before it could fully form.
“And if they fail?” she asked, her voice steadier than she felt.
Lachlan’s jaw tightened, though his gaze never left the horizon. “They are to bring proof of your death according to your betrothed.”
Silence fell as dread skittered up her spine.
The wind moved between them, sharp and cold, as if it, too, carried judgment.
Claire felt the truth of it settle—not as shock, but as something quieter, more insidious. A confirmation of what she had always known and never wished to name.
She had never been the point.
Only the piece.
Anger came—but not the hot, impulsive kind she might once have felt. This was colder. Deeper. A slow-burning clarity.
She thought of England—of polished floors and measured conversations, of expectations dressed as affection, of safety purchased at the cost of obedience.
She thought of Raven’s Berry—of rough stone and open sky, of people who spoke plainly and stood where they belonged, of a man who did not hide the danger from her even when he could have.
And she understood, with startling precision, the difference between being valued—and being owned.
“My father never did enjoy losing bargains,” she said at last, her tone edged with quiet steel.
It was all she gave him.
But inside, something had already begun to shift—not toward fear.
But toward decision.
# # #
Telling her had been necessary.
Watching the truth settle in her eyes was worse than any blade.
Lachlan had faced steel without flinching. Had stood in the path of men who meant to kill him and felt only the clean, familiar edge of instinct.
This—this was different.
There had been no outward break in her. No sharp intake of breath, no faltering step. Lady Claire Ashford stood as she always did—composed, controlled, every inch the lady she had been raised to be.
But he had seen it. The shift. Not in her posture—but in her eyes.
Something went quiet in her gaze then shifted to hard.
And Lachlan would have taken a dozen wounds over being the man to place it there.
Claire stood beside him on the ridge, the wind catching her cloak and pulling it back like a banner, as though the land itself sought to claim her.
For a long moment, she said nothing.
Then she broke the silence. “You should send me away.”
The words were calm. Reasonable. As though she spoke of the weather.
“Nay.” He did not hesitate. Did not soften it. Because anything less would have been a lie.
“You know it would solve many problems.” Her voice did not rise, but there was something beneath it now—something sharper. Not fear.
Clarity.
A kind of ruthless logic he recognized too well.
“Aye,” he said with a tip of his head. “T’would.”
He turned then, finally looking at her. The wind had pulled strands of her hair loose, setting them in motion around her face. She did not seem to notice or care.
“And it would create worse ones,” he added.
Claire held his gaze. She did not look away. Did not yield the moment as she might have once, when their conversations had been edged with deflection and careful distance.
Now, there was no distance. Only truth.
“Because you believe my father would rather me dead than for him to be considered disloyal?” she asked.
There it was.
No ornament. No pretense.
Just the heart of it.
Lachlan clenched his fist in frustration, the answer settling in him like stone. “Aye.”
He watched for the reaction then—for fear, for anger, for anything. What he saw instead unsettled him more.
Understanding.
His English Rose drew a breath, slow and measured, as though fitting this truth into a place already prepared for it.
“Then you believe,” she said quietly, “I am safer here.”
The words should have been simple. They were not. Because there was weight in them now.
Choice and consequence.
Lachlan stepped closer before he could think better of it, pulled by something he no longer pretended to control. His loyalty remained with his clan. His people. Those who relied on him. Their very lives relied on his leadership. Making hard decisions and even harder actions.
And yet, this woman continued to consume his thoughts—all of his thoughts. Aye, life would be easier if he let her go. Allow his brother to take her and deliver her back to England where a gentile woman such as her belonged.
’Twould be better for his people.
“Aye,” he said again, lower this time, unable to stop himself. “With me.”
The wind rose around them, carrying the distant echo of the sea and something wilder beneath it.
Claire’s gaze flickered—not away, but deeper, as though searching for something in him.
Trust. Perhaps. Or truth.
“And what of you?” she asked. “Am I safe from you as well?”
The question struck harder than any accusation.
It was not cruel. `It was honest.
Lachlan stilled. For a moment, he said nothing. Because he could lie to her. He could give her the answer she should want—the answer a gentleman would give. But he had never been that man. And she deserved more than comfort built on falsehood.
“Nay,” he said at last.
The word settled between them, stark and unyielding.
Her expression changed as though she had expected no other answer.
Lachlan held her gaze, every instinct at war within him. “I am the danger as well, Claire,” he said, his voice rougher now. “Just not the kind ye think.”
The admission cost him more than he would ever allow another to see. Because the truth was simple. The world closing in around them would take her life if it could.
But he—he might take everything else.
And the worst part of it was how fiercely he wanted to.