Uncle Callum and his big mouth.
“He is a little upset wi’me.”
“Oh?” he said, sliding the dainty teacup toward me.
Something fluttered beneath my chest—a small, unwelcome shift I refused to name.
“He didnae like that I left wi’oot saying goodbye,” I admitted.
“I see,” he murmured, lifting his own cup to his lips.
I placed the list between us on the table, a practical barrier.
Business. That was safer.
But he kept those darkening blue eyes fixed on me, refusing to glance at the list until I said every word aloud.
And that sound—that strange, soft purr rolling from his chest—should have sent me running straight for the Lowlands without stopping to pack a crust of bread.
Yet it didn’t frighten me.
It eased something inside me.
Warmed something.
Resonated in a place that did not belong to me at all.
A response that was mine… and not mine.
I don’t ken how long the meeting lasted, nor could I remember a single thing we discussed. My mouth had spoken, aye, but my mind had wandered somewhere far from the dining room.
When I slipped out and closed the door softly behind me, the echo of that sound lingered in my chest.
A faint vibration.
A pulse that wasnae my own.
And beneath it all, I still felt the weight of those piercing blue eyes.
Aye. I was cursed.
Or worse—he’d bewitched me wi’dark seelie magic.
? ? ?
The day grew stranger and stranger. Beneath the vinegar, lye and lemon, another scent threaded the air—faint, warm, and wholly out of place.
A fragrant musk.
Rich earth.
And something I couldn’t name at all.
A restlessness stirred beneath my chest, sharp as a prickle and twice as irritating. It made me jittery, on edge. The clatter of a bucket, the crack of Uncle Callum’s hammer—every sudden sound had me jumping like a skittish hare.
By the time my work was finally done, I practically fled the manor. My feet carried me faster than reason, faster than pride, straight back toward the croft.
Yet even as I reached the door—breath misting in the cold air—I felt it.
