The silence that fell was heavier than the sky. She broke it first.
“I will pack when we reach the castle.”
His expression shifted in the space of a heartbeat, softer, younger, almost afraid. Then it shuttered again.
He gave a short nod. They mounted again and rode on, the wind colder than earlier.
At the gates, she slid down before he could reach for her, and she did not look back. She crossed the courtyard at a run and found her mother and Ava near the doors to the Great Hall. She threw herself into their arms at once, shaking with the woods still in her bones and the new wound he had put there.
Olivia held her tight while Ava whispered comforting words that did nothing. Eventually, Emma pulled away and climbed the stairs, needing to see the child.
In the nursery, Stella saw her and lifted both hands. “Ma-ma-ma.”
The small voice broke what was left of Emma’s pride. She gathered the baby close, kissed her warm forehead again and again, and said sorry for her curls because she could not say it to anyone else. Her cries faded into hiccups soon enough, but the pain did not ease one bit.
“I have to go for a little while,” she whispered. “I will come back if I can.”
The words tasted like lies. They tasted like hope, too.
She laid Stella in her cradle, tucked the blanket to her chin, and watched until her lashes drooped. Then she went to her chamber. She opened the small trunk and began to pack her clothes. One dress. Then another. She pressed down each one with a palm that would not stop trembling.
A ribbon went in.
A book.
Thebook.
Each small thing felt like a wire pulled tight through her chest. Her tears came quietly and steadily, and she did nothing to stop them.
Across the castle, Duncan shouldered into Jack’s chamber hard enough to rattle the iron lock. Jack sat on the edge of the bed, his hands clasped until his knuckles turned white, and his eyes hollow from the run and what he had done with his mouth on the ride home.
“What in God’s name is wrong with ye?” Duncan barked, stopping before him. “Speak.”
Jack’s jaw worked once, but no sound came out.
“Ye brought her back,” Duncan pressed, his voice low. “Yekilledfor her. Ye held her like a man who means to keep what he has. Now ye send her off as if she were a thief at the gates. Why?”
Jack kept his gaze on the flagstones. “She isnae safe here.”
“She isnae safe anywhere without ye.” Duncan took a step closer. “Do ye care for her or nae?”
Jack let out a slow breath. “Aye.”
“Then why would ye let her leave?”
Jack closed his eyes and saw the cut on Emma’s palm where the stone had torn it. He saw the spot on her cheek where a branch had scratched, and he saw Arthur fall.
The answer to Duncan’s question was simple. It was what he had been telling himself over and over since he got back to the castle with Emma.
“Because every man who hates me will try to hurt her. I willnae make a widow of a bride.”
Duncan stared at him, something akin to pity warring with anger in his eyes. “Ye cannae punish yerself for what other folks might do.”
“It isnae punishment,” Jack said. “It is mercy.”
“Mercy would be telling her the truth of what ye fear and letting her choose.”
Jack’s mouth tightened. “I have chosen for her.”
