Now she leaned closer, whispering, “Is it wrong that I find it endearing?”
“What? That I’m learnin’ proper manners, or that ye’re pickin’ up the bad ones?”
“Both,” she said with a mischievous tilt of her lips.
He almost kissed her then and there—damn the hall, damn the people—but instead he cleared his throat and said gruffly, “Eat.”
Elsie tried to hide her smile behind her cup of mead.
“So pleased tae see the laird lookin’ brighter,” Elsie then heard a young maid nearby whispering to another warmly. “He hasnae been this at ease since afore Lady Bonnie?—”
Elsie froze. Halvard felt it, much like the draft coming in through an open window, chilling him to the bone, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand straight. His shoulders locked instantly, tension snapping through him like a bowstring pulled too tight.
The hall seemed to dim around him, the voices suddenly muffled. Elsie didn’t look at him directly, but he saw her spine straighten, saw the faint, involuntary tightening around her mouth.
She tried to hide it, but her features, usually soft, delicate, twisted into a grimace.
The servant girl stopped mid-sentence, glancing at Elsie and Halvard from the corner of her eye. Color rose to her cheeks,painting her face red with embarrassment, and after that, she kept her lips tightly pursed, as if afraid what else might come through them.
Halvard exhaled slowly, dismissed her with a sharp nod. The maid, realizing her mistake, scurried off in panic. Beside him, Elsie pretended to focus on her plate, pushing a bit of lamb around with her fork. She didn’t ask, didn’t dig, didn’t press for gossip or demand answers.
He didn’t know if he preferred this over her asking. He didn’t know if he wanted her to be curious or if he preferred the silence, not having to talk about Bonnie.
But he should. He should tell Elsie about her if he was going to give in to his desires, as Sten had told him he should.
He leaned closer, his voice low. “Elsie?—”
Elsie looked up at him, her brows gently raised, and Halvard swallowed in a dry throat. Words gathered on his tongue—heavy, overdue, tangled with shame and things he had never said aloud.
“I should tell ye… what happened. With Bonnie. Ye deserve?—”
But just then, a shout tore through the hall.
“Me laird! Me laird!”
A soldier burst through the doors, breathless, pale, his eyes wide as if he had seen a ghost.
Halvard stood instantly, his chair scraping back. “What is it?”
“It’s… the prisoner, me laird. The one from the attack, he—” The man swallowed. “He’s dead.”
The hall went utterly silent around Halvard. Every pair of eyes turned to the solider who had delivered the message, who was standing still, heaving as he tried to catch his breath.
Next to him, Elsie’s face paled.
“How?” Halvard snapped.
“We… we dinnae ken. He was alive nae an hour ago. Now he’s gone.” The soldier’s voice shook. “There’s… somethin’ ye need tae see.”
Halvard’s jaw clenched. Rage, cold, sharp, and lethal, burned in his gut.
Has someone silenced him?
Halvard knew damn well who wanted the man dead before he could speak. But how could Harcourt or one of his people have infiltrated the castle? Halvard had made sure to tighten thesecurity around the walls, and he was certain no one could have slipped past his defenses.
Could it be they had been too harsh on the man? Could it be that he had simply succumbed to his injuries?
That, too, seemed unlikely. They were always careful to push, but not enough to kill. They needed any information the man could give. They wouldn’t have risked him.
