“Oh, he would pass me a knife emphatically when I tried to take his plate before he had finished,” she said. “Not quite the same thing.”
The kettle began to hum. She poured, the kitchen filling with the familiar scent of leaves and comfort. When she placed the cup infront of him, his shoulders dropped a fraction as he wrapped his fingers around the warmth.
They sat side by side on the long bench, not opposite. It happened naturally. The table was pushed against the wall opposite the range, and there was more light on that side. Still, Isla felt the choice when their elbows came within easy reach of touching.
Edward sprawled, without quite meaning to. One leg stretched out under the table, crossing the other at the ankle. His shirt pulled slightly across his shoulders as he settled. He looked, in that moment, utterly unlike the polished duke at Wexford or the sharp officer in a storm. He looked like a man simply worn out.
Isla sat stiffly erect at first, cup held in both hands, eyes fixed on the steam. It took a few sips before the hot liquid began to thaw the knot in her throat. They ate and drank in easy silence at first. It was the kind of food that cared nothing for titles. Candlelight burned low in a stubby pair on the table, throwing long shadows and turning the edges of the room into soft obscurity. Isla shifted her foot to plant it more comfortably. Her toe brushed his boot.
She froze. So did he. The contact was small, leather against leather but the awareness of it spread up her leg in a slow, undeniable line. She ought to have whispered an apology, moved away, reasserted the careful distance they had been so determined to maintain. She did not move. He did not, either. The pressure remained, slight but constant. Not pressing.Simply there. A point of quiet connection under the table where no one could see.
Edward set his empty cup down. “You were born in Perthshire,” he said, as if the question had been turning over in his mind for some time. “Near the seat?”
“Aye.” The word slipped out before she remembered to temper it for London. She smiled faintly. “Yes. Strathmore sits in the lowlands, but the Highlands breathe down its neck. You cannot call yourself a Lowlander with a straight face when the glens stare at you from the window.”
“Tell me,” he said.
She turned her head to look at him properly. “About what?”
“About Strathmore. About Perthshire. About the place that has you looking like …” He stopped, searching for a word that would not sound dangerously like admiration. “… like you have lost more than stone and timber in that fire.”
Her throat tightened again. She swallowed it down. Talking was better than imagining smoke curling under doors and around the portraits in the great hall.
“The hills go on forever,” she said slowly. “Rolling and then suddenly sharp, folding in on themselves in ways that never sitstill. You think you know a path and then you turn a corner and the whole land has changed its mind.”
He listened, turned slightly toward her now, his cup forgotten.
“In winter,” she went on, “the snow lies like a blessing and a warning. You cannot tell where the road ends and the moor begins, so you learn to trust the line of a fence, the shape of a tree. The woods …” She smiled, far away. “We had a stand of old pines in one valley. Moira swore the trees moved at night. That they shifted closer to the house when the wind blew from the east, listening for gossip.”
“And did they?” he asked.
“They creaked gossip,” she said. “That is near enough.”
He huffed a small laugh.
“There are burns,” she said, closing her eyes for a moment to see it properly, “that cut through the land so cleanly you can hear the water from half a mile away but not see it until you are on the edge, looking down into the rocks where it has carved its home. Children learnearlynot to run ahead in those places. My knee has scars enough.”
He glanced, involuntarily, at the skirts that hid those knees. “You fell?”
“I climbed,” she said. “And the rock disagreed.”
Her foot pressed, just a fraction more firmly, against his. Not deliberately. Simply because the memory had moved her, and her body moved with it. His boot did not retreat.
“On some mornings,” she said, “the mist settles in the glen and will not lift. You ride out and the world is only ten yards in any direction. Horses snort at ghosts in the fog, and Moira says you must name your fear out loud so the spirits don’t guess and learn to twist it. So we would ride and shout nonsense at the air. ‘I am afraid of porridge,’ I would yell. ‘I am afraid of clean stockings.’ She would cuff me for cheek, but she laughed.”
“Moira?” Edward asked.
“My governess. And my friend. When Alistair became duke … well, lets just say I was less one friend.”
Edward watched her as she spoke, something loosening in his face. “You make Strathmore sound like a storybook,” he murmured.
“It is not,” she said. “There is mud and hunger and men who drink more than they work. There are winters that make you choose between feeding the sheep and feeding yourself. But …” She spread her hands, searching. “Even then, the land holds you.You look up and the hills are still there, unchanged by your little victories and disasters. They do not care if you are duchess or dairymaid. You belong to them, not the other way around.”
He fell quiet. The kitchen’s low noises stepped in around them.
“I wish …” He stopped.
“What?” she prompted.
