Honeyed bread.
The very thing she yearned for each morning at breakfast. The very thing Halvard had said he would procure for her. He had remembered.
She swallowed the hard knot that had crawled up her throat. “Oh. Oh… bother.”
For a long moment she stood, staring at the plate, frozen. She was torn between confusion and something gentler. Something she did not want to feel.
She spun on her heels marching back out of the room carrying the plate with her.
She found him in his study, hunched over a map looking impossibly serious, until he spotted her at the door. His shoulders straitened as he stood to his full height, his expression hidden.
She held the plate out to him like an accusation.
“What,” she demanded. “Is this?”
Halvard blinked at her. “Bread?”
“Yes, I can see that it is bread,” she snapped. “What I am asking is why is it in our chamber?”
His jaw flexed. “Ye didnae eat dinner.”
“That is hardly an answer.”
He shrugged. She could see she was making him uncomfortable, awkward even. “I figured ye may want somethin’ sweet. I ken ye like yer sweet things.”
She stared at him. He stared at the map, avoiding her eyes.
The silence stretched between them, and slowly Elsie began to realize the truth. This was his way of apologizing.
It was a horribly awkward, unpolished Highland apology, but still, it was an apology.
Her anger cracked further.
“Oh,” she breathed. “You are trying to say you are sorry.”
His head jerked up. “I didnae say that.”
“No,” she agreed, stepping into the room and closer to him. “But you meant it.”
Elsie sat across from him and placed the plate between them on his desk. She tore a small piece of the sweet bread with delicate precision. Halvard grabbed a chunk like a starving animal. Their fingers brushing together in the process. Hers elegant, his rough.
She tried to ignore the trail of warmth that went down her spine.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
“It wasnae a hardship,” he grunted.
“It was still a kindness.”
He looked at her then, really looked. His eyes lingered on her face, her mouth, then her hair. Halvard looked at her like he saw something in her. Heat washed across his expression.
“Yer hair’s always perfect,” he said suddenly.
She reached up and touched the ribbon that held her hair in place. She had taken care to do her best to keep it in her usual style. A tight coil. A few strands always managed to get loose, but her mother had always insisted that a proper English lady always stay poised and put together.
Even though Elsie was not as perfect as her sister, Selene, she did try to do her best to maintain order and follow the rules where she could.
She blinked at him. “I beg your pardon?”
