Did not linger.
Did not look at her the way he had before. Neither with hunger nor with warmth. Not with the faint softness she had seen inhim when he held Mairi’s baby, or when he had laughed in the kitchens.
He turned as if the conversation had ended the moment he had delivered his information.
“Maxwell,” Ariella said before she could stop herself.
He halted again, back still to her. “Aye?”
She hated that he did not face her. “Is there anything specific that ye want me to say to Frederick?”
A pause.
“Nay,” he said. “Yer brother will do what he will do.”
Her heart tightened. “That is all, then?”
“That is all,” he repeated, and his voice did not soften.
Ariella’s fingers curled at her sides, hidden in the folds of her skirts. “Ye think he is prepared?”
“We will see,” Maxwell replied.
She tried again, quieter. “And ye. Are ye prepared?”
His shoulders shifted. He did not turn, but she could hear the grim certainty in his voice. “I am.”
Ariella flinched at that. Not because it was harsh, but because it sounded like something he had told himself too many times.
He left the solar without another word.
When the door shut, the room felt colder, even though the fire still burned.
Ariella stood for a long moment, staring at the place he had been. Her pulse thudded hard in her ears, and not only because of the mention of war. There was something else. Something personal.
She told herself it was because he was busy.
She sat again, forcing her hands back to the ledger as if the ink would steady her mind. It did not.
The letter to Frederick took longer than it should have.
Ariella pulled out fresh parchment and dipped her quill, then stared at the blank page until the ink drooped from the nib.
What did she say to her brother.
Dearest Frederick, the man I married is preparing for war, and I have never felt so alone in a castle full of people.
She swallowed and began again.
She wrote once, then crumpled the paper before the ink dried. Wrote a second time, more controlled, more proper, and still it sounded wrong. Too cheerful. Too stiff. Too much like she was pretending.
On the third attempt, she forced herself to write simply.
That she was safe.
That the keep was strong.
That Maxwell was preparing carefully.
