“These candles should nae have been in yer room nor the dried meat, and the silver spoon belongs in the dinin’ hall.” Iris leaned forward. “Why?”
Fenella’s defiance cracked, and she fell to her knees, tears streaming down her cheeks. “It’s me daughter, me lady,” she said quietly. “She’s with child, and her husband... he doesnae provide well. I just thought... a few small things...”
Ah.
Iris felt her anger soften into understanding. “Why dinnae ye come to the Laird? Ye ken he would understand if yer family needs help.”
“And admit I couldnae take care of me own? Let everyone ken me daughter married a worthless man?” Fenella’s pride was evident in every word.
Iris was quiet for a moment, thinking. “Here’s what we’re goin’ to do. Ye’ll return everythin’ ye’ve taken—all of it. And ye’ll apologize to Cook because she asked ye, and ye denied it. Ye forced her to speak to me, so she wouldnae be suspected.”
Fenella nodded miserably.
“But,” Iris continued, “I’m also goin’ to arrange for extra supplies to be sent to yer daughter, officially. From the Laird’s stores as a gift to celebrate the comin’ child.”
The woman’s eyes filled with tears. “Me lady. I daenae ken what to say.”
“Then daenae say anythin’. That’s what family does,” Iris said simply. “And we’re all family here, arenae we?”
Iris almost teared up when Fenella jumped to her feet and kissed the back of her hand.
Later, as Iris walked through the castle, she felt a strong sense of satisfaction. This was work that mattered, problems she could actually solve. She couldn’t help reflecting back to how different life was for her than it had been back at her parents’ castle. With the thought came the worry for Lydia. How was she? When would she send her word of her welfare?
“The clan’s talkin’,” Aliana said with a smile as she curtsied and joined her, forcing Iris’ thoughts back to the present. “About how ye handled Fenella and about how ye spent the mornin’ in the kitchens. They’re sayin’ ye might be exactly what this place needs.”
“Are they?”
“Aye, and me lady?” Aliana’s eyes twinkled. “They’re also sayin’ the Laird came back from yesterday’s ride lookin’ like a man who’d been struck by lightnin’.”
Heat flooded Iris’s cheeks. “I daenae ken what ye mean.”
“Daenae ye?” Aliana laughed. “Half the castle saw him standin’ in the courtyard after ye left, starin’ after ye like he’d never seen a woman before.”
He called me a distraction, Iris remembered.Said this couldn’t happen again.
But maybe, just maybe, he was having as much trouble forgetting that kiss as she was.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Is he gone yet?”
Iris peered around the corner of the stone corridor, her heart hammering as she watched Elijah’s broad form disappear down the main staircase.
Two days. Two days since that kiss at the river, and she’d managed to avoid being alone with him completely. She rose only after hearing his boots on the stairs, took her meals when she knew he’d be busy with clan business, and retired to their chambers well before he returned each evening.
Their chambers.
The thought still made her stomach flutter with both anxiety and fear.
She waited until the sound of his footsteps faded completely before letting out a sigh she did not know she had been holdingand stepping out from her hiding spot behind the thick stone pillar. The corridor was finally empty, and she could make her way to the kitchens without?—
“Me lady?” Aliana’s voice came from directly behind her, making Iris jump nearly out of her skin. “Were ye... hidin’?”
Iris spun around, heat flooding her cheeks as she found her maid standing there with an armload of fresh linens, one eyebrow raised in obvious amusement.
“I’m nae hidin’,” Iris said quickly, standing straighter and smoothing down her skirts as if she’d been doing something perfectly normal instead of lurking behind pillars like a common thief. “I’m just... bein’ cautious.”
“Cautious of what? Yer husband?”
