“Then we will leave,” her mother said. “Or we will endure. We have done both before.”
“Do ye trust him?”
“I trust what I heard ye say about him,” her mother said. “Ye are an excellent judge of character, Erica. Ye said he believed ye and didnae take his cut for show. He set his body between ye and a hand that meant harm. That counts.”
Erica breathed once, deep enough to push the ache down. “And if he asks for more than I can give.”
“Ye will say nay,” her mother said. “And I will say nay with ye.”
Erica nodded. She loosened her fingers and laced them again. “Aye.”
“Good,” her mother said. “Lift yer chin. Ye daenae owe them fear.”
The door opened, and the driver lowered the step. Cold air slipped into the carriage.
Erica smoothed her gown, checked the tie on her cloak, and stepped down first. She turned and offered her hand. Her mother took it and came down steadily.
They crossed the threshold, and the castle hall swallowed them whole. The stone walls rose high, and the banners hung in clean lines. Erica studied the light and how it fell from narrow windows in pale bars that marked the floor. It was quite fascinating.
The space was colder than Bryden and quieter, as if sound learned to keep itself small. Servants stood along the walls. They kept their eyes on their work until the moment Erica lifted her head. Then they looked, quick and full, and looked away a beat late.
Erica felt each gaze. She straightened without thinking. Shoulders back. Chin level. If she were to be weighed, she would not shrink for the scale. The beat of her heart steadied under her palm. She let the hall be what it was and refused to make herself less inside it.
The last thing she was was less.
She cleared her throat, feeling the slow wave of despair start to dissipate. At least until she saw him.
Alex stood halfway down the hall, near the table, his weight even and his stance quiet. He did not fidget. He did not pretend not to look. He simply waited.
The sight settled something that had been off its mark since the carriage turned through the gate. It unsettled her, too. The memory of his blade on the festival ground sat beside the way he held still now and made both true at once.
He stepped forward as they came, and Erica felt the hall draw a breath that did not sound like a breath at all.
“Welcome to MacMillan,” he said.
His voice carried, clean. The words were formal, nothing more.
He took her hand and did not squeeze hard.
Erica swallowed, wondering what he was about to do. She didn’t have to wonder for long. He lifted her hand and set his mouth to her knuckles—a brief touch, plain and public.
It wasn’t exactly intimate, but it felt definitive in a way. Like this was his way of marking his territory, out here in the open for his servants to see. The claim, spoken without saying it.
A ripple went through the edges of the room, the kind that would come when people would agree to hear what they had already heard.
Erica kept her expression steady. She felt the weight of that small act move across the hall and settle into corners. She let it do what it was meant to do.
“This is me maither,” she said, grateful that the word fit in her mouth. “Lady Bryden.”
Her mother curtsied, smooth and spare. “Me Laird.”
Alex lowered his head in respect. “Me Lady.”
Erica watched his face for the flicker that would give her something to brace against. She saw none. He gave her mother the courtesy due and did not dress it up.
For the first time since Bryden dropped behind her, a breath eased in her chest. It was not comfort, but it was a start. She held her mother’s hand for one more second, then let go and stood where she was meant to stand.
She opened her mouth, about to ask a question she wasn’t really sure about, when footsteps thundered down the side passage.
