“Sit,” Mairi would order, pointing to a stool. “If ye daenae sit, I’ll throw flour at ye.”
Ariella would sit, and Mairi would shove food into her hands as if feeding her could fix everything.
Sometimes she took her food to the small library tucked away from the noise and movement, where the world felt briefly manageable.
It was there she found the books.
They were old, bound in cracked leather, written in careful hands. The lineage of Clan McNeill. Names, dates, marriages, deaths. Battles fought and lost and won. Alliances forged andbroken. Notes written in margins by people who had lived through decisions that shaped lives.
Her name was there now, the ink fresh.
She traced the letters once, fingertips lingering as if touch could make it real. Then she closed the book and opened another.
She learned the names of men long dead who had stood on the same walls she now walked. Of women who had married into the clan and left their own marks in quieter ways. Of lairds who had fallen in battle and those who had outlived their enemies by patience alone.
She found a passage about a laird who had married in wartime, his bride arriving like a peace treaty bound in silk. The margin beside the entry held a short note, very clearly written in a woman’s delicate script.
He never learned to look at her when his mind was on war.
Ariella’s throat tightened.
She wondered who updated the books.
And then she wondered if Maxwell knew she had found them.
Each day, she carved out time for it. Not out of duty, but out of something like longing. If she could not reach her husband, shewould at least know the ground he stood on. If she could not be held by him, she would hold his history instead.
The Hendry family tried to fill the noticeable space he left as well.
Isla came often, sometimes with Ewan in tow, sometimes with news from the village.
“Old Tam says he saw O’Douglas scouts near the ford,” Ewan announced one afternoon, as if he were delivering news to a council.
Isla cuffed his shoulder. “Old Tam sees ghosts in puddles.”
“He does nae,” Ewan protested.
“He does, Ewan. Ye should stop breathing life into that old man’s nightmares,” Isla insisted. “Though, in this case, he might be right anyway. Have ye told anyone?”
Ariella tried to smile. “He’s just told me. Thank ye, Ewan.”
Ewan puffed up. “Aye.” Then turned and stuck his tongue out at his sister.
Callum stopped by the kitchens more frequently, checking on supplies, joking too loudly, as if sound itself were armor against fear.
“Moira,” he said one day, leaning on the counter. “If ye keep glaring at the flour like that, it’ll refuse to rise out of spite.”
Moira snorted. “If it refuses to rise out of spite, I’ll just toss it out and start a new loaf. One more pliant and obedient.”
Callum laughed, but his eyes kept flicking toward the door.
And Mairi.
Mairi was in the kitchens again as well with her baby wrapped around her tightly.
Ariella loved the child. She did.
But each time she held the small, warm weight, something twisted painfully inside her. She watched Mairi soothe him with a murmured word, watched Callum hover with the fierce devotion of a man who had nearly lost everything, and felt the ache settle deeper.
