“Slowly. With care. Ye’re already doing quite well.Ilike ye, and so does Old Fergus.” Moira grinned at her.
Lilliana smiled softly. “I’m being serious.”
“So am I, me dear. With how ye care for the sick with patience and understanding, they’ll be eating out of yer hand faster than a thought.”
Lilliana gave her an earnest look. “Even if the clan accepts me, I’m not sure Kayden ever will. I don’t want to keep living this way. In London, men would hardly look in my direction because… well, because of my bluestocking tendencies and wanting to heal others. They thought me inferior in some way because I wasn’t vapid and accommodating. That’s why my father sent me here.”
“Well, it’s good that he did. Highlanders have nay time for empty-headed lasses.”
Just then, a maid poked her head around the door, looking at Moira. “Ye’re wanted in the kitchens, ma’am,” she said. “Gaelis and Gilbert are fighting again. Almost threw poor Ghislaine into the fire.”
Moira put down the herbs she was holding and gave Lilliana an apologetic look. “I have to go before I lose me entire kitchen. Will ye be alright?”
Lilliana nodded, giving her a shaky smile. “I’ll be fine.”
She watched Moira leave before she collapsed on the bench with a sigh. She could not help but think of London and the sisters she’d left behind. The ache of their absence reared its head, a burning churning sensation in the middle of her chest. She rubbed at it, swallowing past the lump in her throat.
As if he could feel her distress, Rua appeared in the doorway, before coming over to her and laying his head in her lap.
“Oh, Rua…” She stroked his head as a few tears leaked from her eyes.
She exhaled slowly and let her shoulders sag, staring at the herbs in her hands as though they might give her an answer.
“Well, Rua,” she murmured, glancing down at the hound, “if I cannot win the clan over through sheer usefulness fast enough, perhaps I must try something else.”
Rua’s tail thumped once against the stone floor.
She tilted her head, eyeing him narrowly. “Do not look at me like that. You are meant to be the wise one between us.”
He blinked at her, wholly unimpressed.
Lilliana huffed a quiet laugh and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Moira says women are the bedrock here. Very well. If I am to win the clan over, then perhaps I must begin with its Laird.”
Rua’s ears perked up.
“Yes, I see that you approve,” she said dryly. She rose from the bench and began pacing slowly, gathering her thoughts rather than her sorrow. “He expects me to be meek or offended. Perhaps that is the mistake. Perhaps I have been meeting him on the wrong ground.”
She stopped beside the table, fingers tapping absently against a jar of dried lavender.
“He is stubborn,” she mused aloud. “Proud. Entirely convinced he must carry the world on his shoulders.” Her lips curved faintly. “Which means he is also predictable.”
Rua huffed softly, as though encouraging her.
“Oh, do not pretend you have not noticed,” she said, wagging a finger at him. “He watches me when he thinks I am not looking. And when he does speak, it is rarely to scold me.”
The realization sank in fully, warming her from the inside out.
“What if I stopped arguing?” she continued, thinking faster now. “What if I made him come to me instead?”
She paused, then laughed under her breath, a spark of mischief lighting up her face. “Perhaps what this marriage needs is not another lecture, but a little seduction.”
Rua’s tail wagged more vigorously, and she leaned down, scratching behind his ears.
“Yes, yes, you traitor. I see you entirely approve of the plan.” She straightened, smoothing her skirts as though already rehearsing the role. “Not foolishly,” she added to herself. “Not desperately. But… deliberately.”
A faint sound in the corridor made her freeze.
She turned her head slightly, uncertain whether she had imagined it, then shook it off and reached for another bundle of herbs.
