“Ye daenae rule a castle by being dumb. Plus, I read some of these books for Stella.”
Emma’s lungs seized. “Daenae tell me ye read these books for yer child.”
“Nae all of them,” he responded. “Sometimes I read Ramsay’s songs first, then the gentler pieces, though she likes the sound more than the sense. When she hears the line repeat, she laughs and tries to say it back.”
Emma turned her head a little at that, trying to imagine him reading to Stella by the fire in the Great Hall. The picture was so breathtaking that she couldn’t speak for a beat.
He stepped around her and took down a small, worn book.
“Here,” he said. “Drummond. Read the first line.”
She opened it at a marked page and found the line he meant. Her voice stayed low, careful not to push too deep into the silence.
The poem was about sleep and mercy and how the two of them can be intertwined. She could feel Jack’s eyes on her the entire time as she read, and it unsettled her. Eventually, she closed the book and met his gaze.
“Ye ken these better than I do.”
“I ken what I have needed.” He shrugged. “Some men keep hounds to cool their tempers. I keep pages.”
She tried a smile and found it held. “Ye surprise me.”
He placed the book in her hand again, this time letting his fingers touch hers a breath longer than necessary. “Good,” he said. “I wouldnae like to be plain.”
She swallowed. “And what is it ye expect me to do here, exactly?”
“Choose something,” he suggested. “Show me what ye love. Or what ye think ye might love one day.”
She let out a laugh, quiet and short. “That is a trick question.”
“It is a fair one,” he said.
She turned back to the shelves to hide the heat on her face. Then she moved along the wood and stopped at a thin volume with no title on the back. When she eased it out, she found a small collection of Sìleas na Ceapaich in a careful hand, the Scots on one page and the Gaelic on the other.
She ran a finger over the neat letters. “Who made this copy?”
“Me maither’s nurse,” he replied. “Her braither wrote the Gaelic down. She wrote the Scots beside it for the castle.”
“It is fine work,” Emma said. “A lullaby here.”
“Aye,” he said. “We sing that one to Stella as well.”
Silence fell over them for a moment, and at that point, Emma could almost hear her own heartbeat. She knew Jack had moved closer because the air shifted. She did not step away. She told herself she did not need to turn, and she did not. She kept her eyes on the page and felt him in the small space at her shoulder.
He was there. Like an angel on her shoulder. Or the devil, depending on how the night went.
“I suppose I have underestimated ye a lot.”
“Ye thought I had little time for words,” he said softly.
“I did,” she admitted. “And I suppose I was wrong.”
He let that hang between them. “Could ye be wrong about anything else, Emma?”
She let the book close in her palm. “Perhaps.”
“What else will I need to prove?” he asked.
She kept her eyes steady on him. “Ye are really serious about this, are ye nae?”
