“How have I never noticed the stars on the ceiling? Who carved them there?”
“Her.”
She turned to him. “Her?”
He turned his face towards her. “Isabella.”
“Oh,” Erica said, her voice soft.
He understood the regret she felt for bringing it up at that moment.
“‘Tis all right,” he soothed, a low pant escaping his lips. “She was me own loss. All the time. The cost of duty. The cost of patience. I stood for it because I thought that was what a man should do, and it nearly tore me apart.”
She kept watching him.
“It is a good thing I daenae intend to marry again,” he said. He kept his voice even, as if tone could turn truth into sense. “I cannae survive that twice.”
She did not flinch or even try to argue. “I suppose that kind of response isnae over exaggerated,” she said softly.
He sat up and reached for her gown. Then he helped her into it with careful hands, almost like a man who could not bear to see her cold. He tied the laces neatly.
Erica stood still under his hands, head bowed so he could reach. When he finished the last tie, he cupped her cheeks. Her palms rose to his wrists and wrapped around them before she knew it.
“Thank ye,” she said.
This was the moment. The moment he should have stepped back.
For some reason, he did not. Instead, he leaned in and kissed her again, slow and sure, as if that could fix what words never would.
At that moment, the door clicked and creaked open. Grandmamma stood there, cane in hand, eyes wide with shock that looked wrong on a face that had seen everything.
For a heartbeat, no one moved. The air felt thin.
Alex moved toward her. “Ye didnae knock.”
“Forgive me,” she said, recovering her breath. “I’m sorry. I came to see Erica. I saw how distraught ye were when ye had entered the castle, and I thought?—”
“Ye thought what?” His voice rose. “That ye could walk in whenever ye pleased?”
“I said I’m sorry,” she repeated, softer now. Her gaze flicked from Erica’s laces to Alex’s face, then back again. “But this changes things.”
“Nay,” he snapped. “It changes nothing.”
Grandmamma straightened. “It changes everything. Ye cannae do that to a lass and then speak as if it were air.”
He held her stare. “Do what?”
“Kiss her,” she said, sharp but not cruel. “Touch her like that and think the clan willnae expect a chapel door to open soon after.”
He let out a mirthless laugh. “It was nothing. Just a kiss.”
Grandmamma’s eyes narrowed. “It didnae look like nothing.”
“It was. And it is none of yer business anyway,” he said.
Erica stood very still, hands folded tight to keep from shaking. She watched them like a woman at the edge of a cliff, feet apart, the wind hard against her face.
Grandmamma shook her head. “As a woman, it is me duty to protect the lassie. Move up the wedding. Ye can say what ye like, but this house has eyes, and ye ken it. If the betrothal stands, then act like it.”
