“Please excuse me,” she said, voice soft and even.
She did not look at her mother or even at him again. She just left the hall with measured steps, each one counted, each one held steady.
She turned away from the main stairs and took the smaller, older one, which smelled faintly of lye and wool. Leah caught up with her at the landing with a basket on her arm.
“Ye didnae eat much, me Lady,” she remarked.
“‘Tis all right, Leah. I feel full already.”
“Are ye sure, me Lady?”
“Aye. I will take a walk later this afternoon around the garden,” Erica answered. “I would like ye to join me.”
Leah considered that and nodded. “Aye. ‘Tis nay problem at all.”
Later that afternoon, they stepped into the courtyard. The air was clean and cool, but despite that, the knot in Erica’s chest had not loosened. She breathed past it and set her pace to the straight paths between beds. She asked Leah about the lilies along the east wall. Leah answered, quick and sure.
At that moment, Erica was grateful that her maid liked to give detailed answers. It saved her from having to speak and helped her focus on her voice and exactly what she was saying.
Leah spoke about which roots liked shade, which stalks needed stakes. Where a patch had been pulled and replanted because someone had ignored the rot last year.
“Ye saved this bed,” she said, tipping her chin toward the place where Erica had knelt days before. “The garden would have remained disorganized if ye hadnae stepped in.”
“It was nothing,” Erica said.
“It wasnae nothing,” Leah countered. “When ye become the lady here, ye will do even more. Clan MacMillan couldnae ask for better.”
Erica’s teeth caught her tongue. She tasted copper but said nothing. She bent to pinch a browned leaf, as if the small act required her whole attention.
Leah did not seem to notice the tightness in her shoulders. “I have a list for the gardener,” she went on. “If ye wish to add?—”
“Later,” Erica said, not unkind, only too quick. “Let us walk a bit more.”
They rounded a clipped hedge, and the yard opened ahead of them, hard-packed earth marked by feet and blades.
The training yard.
Of course. Why didn’t she think before crossing to this part of the castle?
Hewas there.
Good God.
Men formed a loose square under Alex’s orders. She watched for a brief moment as he moved among them, checking grips and shifting stances by the wrist or shoulder, all while saying very little. When he did speak, men straightened as if a rope had lifted them.
Erica remained frozen where she stood. The knot in her chest pulled tight again. She took in the line of his back, the tilt of his head, the way he favored his left when he stepped in to duel.
Suddenly, the image of his body in the lake at night flashed through her head.She pushed it away immediately before it could go too far.
“We should turn around,” she said.
Leah blinked at her. “Is something amiss?”
“I forgot something,” Erica blurted. “In me room.”
Leah followed her gaze toward the yard. Alex had just shifted a guard’s elbow and said something Erica could not hear. The man nodded once, took a breath, and tried again.
“If ye want me to fetch it,” Leah offered, “I can go and?—”
