“Did she truly die by accident?”
Calum did not move for a heartbeat. Instead, he lifted his chin a fraction, suddenly gaining consciousness over a matter that didn’t belong to him.
“It isnae me place,” he said. “I apologize for overstepping?—”
She held his gaze. “Ye’ve started already. I am nae going to rest if ye daenae finish.”
“Aye,” he said, then softened his tone after a few seconds had passed. “Ye see, he never wished her harm, nay matter how much she deserved it.”
Erica felt the floor steady and tilt at the same time.“Deserved it.”
He grimaced. “I really daenae ken what is happening to me today. Ye must forgive me, me Lady.”
“What was she like? Isabella,” she said, her voice more plea than order.
Calum drew a slow breath, and she could see the uncertainty in his eyes. She almost felt bad about it, but she needed to know.
“She was volatile. Some days she would laugh at nothing, and other days she would bring the staff to tears for sport. She threw what lay near her hand and cut with words when hands didnae serve. She was violent more than once. He endured it because she was the maither of his?—”
He stopped. The pause was cleaner than the sentence.
“Hischildren,” he finished, careful now. “He wouldnae break the house to break her.”
Erica wrapped the shawl tighter, the passageway suddenly feeling colder. “So she tried to kill him?”
Calum shook his head. “He will have to give ye that truth. I can say only this: it came fast in the last hours and left him with a wound ye can see and one ye cannae.”
Erica looked down the line of torches, each flame small and honest in its bracket. Her mind tried to set what she had heard against the pieces Alex had given her. The stories did match, yet she couldn’t help but feel like there was still something she was missing.
Something else happened that night. Isabella died, and nobody seemed to want to tell her. Not even Alex.
“Ye feel less safe for knowing little, me Lady?” Calum asked.
“I feel like I ken less than I thought,” she said. “Which is worse.”
He nodded. “Ye wouldnae be the first.”
Silence fell again, and for a minute, she let it linger. Then she turned in the direction of the nursery.
“The children are safe, if that is what ye are worried about,” Calum said. “They are always safe.”
“Aye,” she said. “At least there is a comfort in that.”
He shifted his weight. “If ye would sleep, I can post a man outside yer door that ye trust.”
“I trust that ye will do what ye say,” she said. “I trust that he will, too. That is the trouble.”
Calum gave a small smile that did not reach his eyes. “As I said, he is a man of honor. He has always been. I’ve ken him since we were children.”
Erica did not know what to do with that. She only knew the ache in her chest had changed shape. Fear still sat there, but it was against something else entirely now.
Alex.
“Thank ye,” she said, “for telling me what ye could.”
“If I spoke out of turn, I most sincerely apologize,” he said.
“Ye spoke like a friend,” she assured him. “That is rare enough.”
