“No, no, I’m lucky,” Leah insisted quickly. “It’s everything I have ever wanted. To be free. I will be able to do whatever I like, be away from my father, and write my books.” She tried to smile as she glanced at the cavernous ceiling. “I shall have to collect cats, I think. Magnus said there are several of them living around the castles. Perhaps I can tame one.”
Katie was still frowning at her as they walked on for a little while until they finally reached the kitchens, which were just as big and imposing as all the other areas of the castle.
Every room seemed to reiterate to Leah that she was going to be living there alone with no one to talk to.
And how will our separation work when we have a child?Will we send the baby back and forth between the castles on weekdays?
She felt anxiety rising in her chest, and she tightened her hand on Katie’s arm.
“Come,” Katie said, pulling her over to the kitchen table. “I’ll wager there’s a dram or two in this place.”
She had a mischievous look on her face, and Leah laughed at her as she scurried about the room, opening all of the cupboards.
“Katie!” Leah protested as her friend started rifling through the pantry.
“It is your castle—the lady of the castle receives what she desires.”
With a triumphant shout, Katie pulled out a bottle of whisky that looked as though it hadn’t been drunk for centuries.
She managed to uncork it using a knife from the kitchen drawer and poured them both a dram into two metal tankards she found in a box.
“If I die from drinking this, it will be your fault,” Leah scolded, but she did take a sip all the same. She looked at the bottle and raised her eyebrows. “It’s excellent. I wonder how long it has been here.”
“Who cares?” Katie said in a most unladylike fashion as she knocked back her glass in one swallow. The coughing fit that followed was rather satisfying to watch.
“You have never tried whisky before, have you?” Leah snorted as her friend gasped and spluttered, pushing the cup away with some vigor.
“Urgh! No. How do you drink that?”
Leah felt the whisky trickle down her throat, the warmth hitting her stomach in a pleasing shower of drops.
“Easily,” she said with a wink, taking another sip, “and slowly.”
Katie cleared her throat to dispel the coughing fit and shook her head, wiping her eyes as she gathered herself. It was only when she reached for the bottle and poured Leah another dram that Leah looked at her in surprise.
She knew her friend had something to say by the way she was staring at her.
“Spit it out,” she urged wearily.
“Are you happy?” Katie asked. “You seemed happy at the wedding, and I thought… but now you do not seem as content.”
Leah shook her head with a sigh and looked around her at the huge kitchen. It would soon be bustling with staff making endless meals that she would be eating alone in that vast dining hall.
“I think I have been naïve in my assumptions,” Leah admitted.
“How so?” Katie asked, looking around them. “You do not think he will honor this?”
“No,” Leah replied softly. “I think that hewill.”
Her voice was so low that Katie had to lean in to hear her.
“But that is a good thing, is it not? I thought that you were relieved that he was not trapping you into a traditional marriage.”
“I was—Iam,” Leah said in frustration. “Or I thought I was.”
She drank the rest of the whisky and stood up, needing to move as she considered the truth of her predicament.
“I was simply happy that he was not going to be Wellton at first. That was the truth of it. I hated the idea that my father was going to marry me off to some aristocrat he befriended at his club thirty years ago. Marrying Magnus was a way to get back at him. I know my father looks down on Daphne for marrying Oskar and has no time for Scottish society. I thought he would be furious, and that was enough for me.”
