Da dinnae handle it all alone, he has his brothers, and I have mine, as well as my cousins. But Mum is his rock. During darkdays for our clan, I’d hear them talking quietly, their heads bent close and his hand on her waist.
Can I trust Sophie to do the same for me?
The endless pacing is making my leg twinge, and I sit down behind my desk, rubbing my thigh. Looking through the bank of security monitors here in the house, I pull the security feed from the hallway last night. Sophie was alone here after I had to leave. The unwelcome memory of Xenia’s question pops up.
“Are you sure Sophie doesn't have access to your study?”
There's no sound for the hall security monitor, but I watch her stop at the door of my study, putting her hand on the door knob, trying to open it. That must have been when Maisie and Arabella came over to fetch her, because she jumped half a foot, pulling her hand away from the door knob like it had burned her.
There's an unwelcome feeling in my chest, a chill that I thought was finally beginning to thaw. What was she looking for? She knew that my study was off-limits from her first day here.
My mobile buzzes angrily, it’s Maisie. Pinching the brow of my nose between my thumb and forefinger, I answer it.
“Ye still haven’t given Sophie her mobile back, have ye?” Maisie demands irritably.
“And hello to ye as well, sister dear,” I say sourly. “Always a pleasure.”
“Hello, brotherdearest.”Her tone drips with poisonous sweetness. “Could I trouble ye, beloved brother of mine, to return your wife’s mobile to her? I’ve been calling her half a dozen times a day with no answer, so I’m thinking you’ve got no plan to ever return it.”
I pull open the top drawer of my desk, and there’s Sophie’s mobile, blinking up at me accusingly. The battery is nearly drained, but I can see multiple missed calls. “Ye know it’s a common security procedure, lass. Xenia had to run a scan on her mobile. There could have been a tracking device, or someone might have cloned her data.”
“And did she find anything?”
“No.” It’s true. Xenia returned Sophie’s mobile to me the day after our hasty wedding. I’d put it in my desk drawer and forgotten about it.
“And yet still, with your overly authoritarian personality, ye decided ye must cut off your wife’s access to the outside world.” Maisie is silent for a moment before her tone softens. “Michael, you’re going to have to make a decision. Ye either believe that the lass you’ve known for ten years was unaware of her mother’s actions - desperate and understandable that they were - or ask yourself why ye married a traitor that you’ll never be willing to trust.”
I hate it when my excitable and wildly emotional sister makes sense.
“Did ye call Sophie’s mobile last night before coming over?”
“A’course,” she says. “I dinnae want to scare the hell out of her by just showing up. Of course, the poor lass still shrieked like a buggered goose when we came through the door. So give her the damn thing back.”
Ah. That’s why Sophie was trying to open my study door, she heard her mobile ringing.
“Also,” Maisie’s tone shifts to all business, “it’s your wife’s birthday at the end of the month. I’ll plan a get-together, ye being all busy and such, but try to pencil it in, aye?”
“I remember the day,” I say.
“Ye do?” She’s skeptical. “How?”
Running my thumb over my lower lip, I remember Sophie’s sweet, excited face from birthdays past. “Because every year on her birthday, she’d search through the house with a slice of her cake for me. A couple of years ago, she handed a plate to me and completely ignored Da. She was horrified when she realized it, though he was amused.”
“Ah, brother dear,” she says gleefully. “Are ye starting to realize the poor lass has been in love with ye forever? The two of ye are like Romeo and Juliet, except if possible, ye are even bigger eejits than that pair. We’ve all been waiting for ye to figure it out, ye know. It’s exhausting. The cousins keep making bets, money keeps changing hands and it finally took something terrible for ye to make a move. Smooth, that.”
“I’m hanging up, Maisie.”
“I’m just saying. We could have hit ye in the back of the head like a cricket bat and ye still wouldn’t have figured it out. We were all gettin’ concerned that maybe ye were a bit feeble-minded in that department. It’s about time that-”
Disconnecting the call, I go in search of my bride.
Just to see if she’s sore. Maybe she needs a bath to soothe her overworked cunny. I’d be delighted to bathe her.
Very thoroughly.
***
Feart - Scottish slang for afraid.
