He watched the twins tear across the courtyard with shrieks that cut the air clean. Bettie darted behind a low pole and popped out again with triumph bright on her face. Katie, on the other hand, chased hard, caught her sister’s sleeve, then lost it when a loose ribbon slipped free. They circled back toward Alex, both talking at once, their hands flying and their voices hot with pleas.
“Come play with us, Da,” they demanded.
“Next time,” he said for the third time, palm lifted. “Ye will run me into the ground.”
They both groaned, and for a second, he thought they would drag him out of his seat. Instead, they spun away and sprinted for the shade of a fig tree, where other children had started a game that somehow involved pebbles.
Grandmamma sat near him in a carved chair, cane set across her knees, eyes sharp and pleased. The late morning light cast a mild warmth over the yard, and aclinksounded somewhere beyond the arch, where a lone guard was checking his kit.
“It was only meant to last a month,” Alex said.
Grandmamma looked at him without surprise, the corners of her mouth curled up as if she had heard him long before he spoke. She did not rush him.
“She needed protection,” he went on, “and ye ken the council was pestering me to take a wife. I needed that to stop as well. It was meant to be uncomplicated.”
“And now?” Grandmamma asked softly.
He watched the girls link hands and spin until they staggered. “Now, feelings are involved.”
Grandmamma’s hum carried no scolding. “Love comes from the places we least expect.”
He snorted. “Aye, I have heard the songs.”
She cocked her head. “This isnae a song.”
He rubbed his thumb over a callus at the base of his sword hand. “It was a clean thing at the start. A bargain. A month to settle the yard and shut mouths. Then she would go home safer than she came. I keep me word, so I intend to keep this one as well. I like plans that I can control, Grandmamma. Ye ken this very well.”
“But this plan has begun to control ye,” Grandmamma noted.
He gave her a sidelong look. “Why do I have the feeling that ye kent all of this before today?”
“Why do ye think the girls locked ye in the library?” She did not hide the pride in her voice.
His brows rose. “That was ye?”
“Me dear,” she said, easing one hand to her cane as if it were a scepter, “I am an old woman. Age gives me advantages ye daenae ken how to defend against.”
He gave a dry breath of a laugh. “I will remember to guard the nursery door.”
“Please daenae,” she said. “The castle needs a little mischief. It keeps blood moving.”
Across the yard, Bettie tripped. Katie grabbed her elbow and held her up until the wobble passed. Both girls looked over to make sure he had seen, as if approval were part of the game. He lifted two fingers in a small salute. They answered with grins that flashed and vanished.
Grandmamma followed his gaze. “Ye do well by them.”
“I try,” he said.
“Trying is work that turns into a habit and then becomes yer life.” She rested her cane again. “Do ye want this life with the lass in it, or do ye want the look of it without the risk?”
He felt the question in his stomach. “I can protect her. I can protect the castle.”
“That isnae what I asked.”
He kept his eyes on the paving stones, on the line where the sun broke across them. “I cannae love again, Grandmaither. Ye ken that.”
Grandmamma watched the twins whirl. “Ye saidcannae. Ye didnae saywillnae.”
He did not take the bait. “It is the same for me.”
