Not like a guest.
Not like a girl unsure of her place.
But like someone who belonged.
He stopped in the archway just outside the great hall, watching her without meaning to.
She didn’t notice him.
She moved from servant to servant, offering help, asking after their tasks, adjusting the angle of a banner here, smoothing the edges of a tablecloth there. She offered smiles, encouragement, little jokes that made shoulders loosen and hands work faster.
She spoke to the candle-maker, inspecting the new centerpieces.
She spoke to the seamstresses, admiring their repaired tapestries.
She even advised Mairi to shift the soup kettle nearer the hearth so it would stay warm longer during the feast.
And their clansmen watched her with a growing quiet respect.
Not because she commanded it.
But because she inspired it.
She didn’t hover or demand or posture. She simply was a soft force of nature whose influence threaded seamlessly into the keep.
Maxwell found himself standing there too long.
Finley came up beside him. “Ye watching her?”
Maxwell didn’t answer.
Finley snorted softly. “She’s making the hall look… different.”
Not weaker.
Better.
Ariella bent to shift a stack of plates into better alignment. The motion revealed a glimpse of her throat, soft in the afternoon light.
Maxwell’s jaw tightened.
He forced himself to look away and resumed barking orders.
But she lingered at the edge of his awareness like warmth on cold skin.
She looks as if she’s lived here her whole life,he thought.
And then, begrudgingly,
What she told her brother was true. She has been respected here.
And he realized suddenly that shebelievedit too.
That stirred something in him, but he pushed it aside and drowned himself in work.
“All barrels counted,” he muttered, tallying the numbers. “Every crate sealed and marked.”
Finley leaned over his shoulder. “Ye mean to take inventory of the air next?”
