At last, he nodded. “All right.”
He stepped back and turned for the door. Then he paused and waited, almost in anticipation.
Kristen felt the pause like a hand on her spine, even though he did not touch her. The lock lifted, and the door opened.
Before she could properly exhale, he was gone.
Silence filled the room as she lay down on her side without untying her gown, pulled a pillow into her arms, and held it as if it might keep her ribs from opening. Tears came again, this time a bit quieter. They slid down her temple into her hair and cooled there.
Maggie climbed up with a grunt, circled once, and pressed her warm back to Kristen’s shins.
Kristen curled her toes under the dog’s fur and breathed against the linen. She tried to sleep, but sleep evaded her.
The ache had edges now. It did not surge. It sat heavily, and she knew more than anything that it would be there in the morning.
It didn’t matter anyway.She had made up her mind, and while it wouldn’t ease the hurt, it would keep her in place until she was ready to heal.
Neil stood in the corridor with his back to the wall and watched servants file in and out of the chamber. A maid hurried past with a neat stack of folded dresses. Another followed with a small chest that he knew held Kristen’s books. He saw the blue ribbon Kristen had bought for Anna, and the carved horse Finn chewed on whenever he was nervous.
Each piece left the room, and it felt like someone was tearing stones from the foundation of his life.
He did not cross the threshold. Kristen had asked him to leave. He would not step back in and make it harder. He stayed where he could hear the soft murmur of her voice as she directed the maids, and the little rise and fall of Anna’s babble, and Finn’s higher tone as he asked where they were going.
The sounds pricked at him.
A maid passed by with a bundle of shawls. “Me Laird,” she said, bowing her head.
He gave a short nod in response, his chest feeling both hollow and heavy.
He had buried a brother in truth if not in the ground. He had lost the last scraps of his childhood. Now his wife was walking away with the only light left in his bleak world.
He pressed his hands flat against the cold stone behind him in a bid to quell the thrum in his blood.
The door opened wider, and Kristen stepped into the corridor with Anna in her arms. The girl’s cheek rested against her shoulder, her jaw slack with sleep. Finn walked beside her with his fingers curled into Maggie’s fur. The dog kept pace at Kristen’s knee, her eyes fixed ahead as if she had decided that wherever her mistress went, she would follow.
Neil straightened. “Kristen.”
She did not look up. Her gaze was fixed on a point at the far end of the corridor. It was the look of someone who had marked a line she could not afford to cross. If she met his eyes, she might falter.
Finn glanced between them. It was clear he could feel the tension in the air, even if he did not understand it.
“Are ye nae coming with us?” he asked.
The question landed clean, and Neil felt it slide under his ribs. He drew a breath that did not fill his lungs.
Kristen tightened her hold on Anna. “Come along, Finn,” she said gently. “We talked about this, remember? We are visiting Uncle Murdock for a while.”
Finn’s mouth turned down, but he nodded and kept his hand in Maggie’s coat. The dog gave a soft whine and pressed closer to Kristen’s leg. Neil reached out and stopped short of the hem of Anna’s blanket. His fingers hovered, then fell.
“Be safe,” he said.
The words were sand-dry.
Kristen’s mouth opened as if a reply rose and caught. She closed it again and moved away. Her shoulder brushed past his arm. He caught the clean scent of soap from her hair and the tang of iron that lingered from the night before. She did not slow down as the servants fell into step behind her.
Neil followed at a distance as far as the main doors and stood there while she crossed the courtyard. The early morning light lay still on the stones, and the remnants of the cèilidh were gonefrom the courtyard, almost like it never happened in the first place. There was no laughter or music, only the steady shift of guards, the low voices of men who had seen too much, and the shape of a waiting carriage with lanterns still lit.
A footman lifted the step, and another checked the straps that held the trunks. Davina stood near the bottom of the stairs with her hands clasped tight and her eyes red. She looked as if she knew there had been a break, though not where the crack began. Kristen did not look at her either. She only walked to the carriage as if pulled to it by a tether.
