A tether to pull her closer.
“Ma wife, three bairns, and ma nephew,” he said with a grin.
Only a nephew?
“What about Euphemia’s parents?” I asked.
His grin fell.
The warmth drained from his eyes in an instant.
“Ma brother an’his wife are dead,” he said quietly.
But grief wasn’t what struck me.
It was the look he gave me—sharp, pointed, unmistakable.
Accusation.
Directed straight at me.
The Englishman.
It hit me all at once.
It wasn’t my charm she rejected.
It wasn’t propriety.
It wasn’t shyness.
Euphemia hated me because I was English-born.
A hollow ache carved itself under my sternum. It was Wulfric’s sorrow.
“I’m sorry to hear this,” I said stiffly.“Yes. Invite your family. Speak to Graham about arranging a larger croft.”
Callum blinked, surprised by how quickly I’d agreed. Then his grin returned—broad and genuine.
“Aye. Thank ye,” he said, backing out of the room with surprising lightness for a man of his size.
The door clicked shut behind him.
Silence pooled around me. Thick, heavy and unkind.
She hates me, I told Wulfric.
He said nothing.
And somehow, his deliberate muteness stung most of all.
It was time—past time—to write to my father and give him a thorough update on the progress I had made.
For weeks I had avoided corresponding with my parents out of sheer, childish stubbornness. Pride, distance, resentment… I’d used every excuse not to put pen to paper.
But after learning Euphemia was an orphan—and that my own people might have played a part in her family’s suffering—the weight in my chest shifted.
Heavier.
