But instead, he’d let his guard down.
He pushed back his chair and stood. “Get some rest. Ye’ll need it. We start again at first light.”
The men rose, murmuring quiet acknowledgments before filing out into the corridor. Gordon lingered behind.
“Ye’re blamin’ yerself,” he said when they were alone.
Aidan’s eyes met his. “I’m blamin’ the man in charge.”
Gordon folded his arms. “She’s safe. That’s what matters.”
“Aye. Fer now.”
Gordon said nothing, only gave a slow, knowing nod before leaving him alone with the fire.
When the door shut, Aidan exhaled and dropped into the chair nearest the hearth. The flames threw shadows across the walls, long and shifting. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and pressed his hands to his face.
He could still feel the tremor in her body when he’d lifted her from the floor, the warmth of her breath against his neck when she’d whispered his name. She’d been terrified, and still she’d fought. He admired that. It was the same fire that had drawn him to her from the first moment, though he’d pretended it hadn’t.
But that night, something in that fire had changed. He had seen not just pride, but her vulnerability too—the kind that stripped a man bare if he let it.
He’d held her too close. Too long. He knew that. He could still feel the ghost of her weight in his arms, the scent of her hair clinging to his skin. He had to forget it, but desperately wanted to remember it.
Aidan let his hands drop, staring into the flames. He had fought battles that had taken half his men, faced storms that nearly drowned his fleet, but nothing unsettled him like the thought of that woman in danger.
It made no sense. He’d told himself from the start that she was Tòrr’s sister, a guest, a responsibility—nothing more. But when he’d seen that hut on fire, when he’d heard her scream, something inside him had gone cold and wild all at once. It had felt like losing breath underwater.
He rubbed the heel of his hand against his jaw, trying to chase the thought away.
It wasn’t supposed to matter. None of it was. He had built his life on control, on never letting the things he cared for become the things his enemies could use against him. He couldn’t afford softness. And yet?—
He heard her laugh in his memory, light and defiant, from that first night at Achnacarry when she’d mocked the size of his castle. He saw the way she’d stood her ground when he’d barked at her in the stables. No fear or flinch, only that fire.
That fire was going to ruin him. And though he would never admit it aloud, not to any man, not even to himself, he knew then with absolute clarity that he was already lost.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The great hall glowed with firelight and the soft hum of voices, but Aidan felt none of it.
The air smelled of roasted meat, wet wool, and smoke, a scent that clung to the walls even now that the storm had calmed. His men ate and spoke in low, rough laughter at the lower tables, their relief plain. The villagers had been fed, the wounded tended to. By all accounts, the night should have been one of quiet triumph—they’d stopped the fire before it reached the keep, no lives had been lost—yet the weight in his chest hadn’t lifted.
Alyson sat to his right, Sofia across from her, both dressed neatly for supper, their hair still damp from the baths and their faces pale from all they’d seen. They tried to smile when the servants filled their cups, but the smiles didn’t last. Catherine’s absence hung heavy between them, a silence that made the laughter and clatter around them sound distant and wrong.
After a while, Aidan set down his cup, his voice quiet but edged with something unspoken. “How is she?”
The sisters exchanged a quick look before Alyson spoke, her tone soft. “She didnae feel like comin’,” she said. “She’s still… a bit shaken.”
Sofia hesitated, fingers tracing the rim of her cup before she glanced toward him. “She blames herself, me laird,” she added, almost in a whisper. “Says if it hadnae been fer her, Edwin would never have dared somethin’ so cruel.”
Aidan’s fork stilled. He set it down slowly, the scrape of metal against plate louder than it should have been. “She said that?”
“Aye,” Sofia whispered. “She willnae eat. Keeps sayin’ it was her fault.”
Her fault.
The words burned hotter than the fire. He could still see her as she’d been only hours before—trembling, soot-streaked, coughing smoke and still fighting to stand. The idea that she could carry blame for that was enough to make his stomach twist.
He forced a nod and reached for his cup, though the wine tasted like ash. “She’ll come round,” he said quietly. “She only needs rest.”
