She stared at him with her wide, doe-like eyes. “Ye’re banishing me tae the room like a bairn?”
“I’m keeping ye alive,” he said, feeling overcome with exhaustion. “If ye’d seen what I have?—”
“But I have nae,” she whispered. “Because ye will nae tell me.”
He didn’t respond. Her eyes shone not with tears, but with something worse: hurt held quietly and carefully, so he wouldn’t feel its weight. She stepped back from him.
“If this is how ye mean tae keep me safe,” she murmured, “I dinnae ken what place ye expect me tae hold in yer life.”
He closed his eyes briefly. He wanted to reach for her, to say something that would ease the fracture widening between them.
“Guards will stand outside the door. Dinnae leave,” he told her instead.
Davina inhaled sharply as though struck. “Baird?—”
He couldn’t face the plea in her voice. He couldn’t risk the softness she brought out in him, not when softness had cost Malcolm his life, and might cost Davina hers.
He turned toward the door.
“Baird,” she called again, more quietly now. “Please, talk tae me.”
He froze, just for a heartbeat. But he knew what he had to do, no matter how painful it was.
“Nay,” he said, and walked out.
The door shut behind him with a soft click that felt like a blade sliding into place, locking a barrier, a prison, a punishment he knew she didn’t deserve. But he couldn’t afford gentleness. There were traitors in his walls, and his father’s shadow whispering failure. Most importantly, Davina’s own safety was hanging in the balance.
So, he did what he had been taught to do… he shut every feeling away and became iron.
The door clicked shut behind him.
It was such a small, soft sound, yet it seemed to echo through Davina’s bones, sealing her in a chamber that suddenly felt too large and too tight all at once. She stood rooted to the spot, staring at the place where Baird had stood only moments ago.
He was looking through her, not at her, as though she were another burden, not his wife, as though letting her close might unravel him entirely.
Davina drew a breath, but it shuddered on the way out. She pressed a hand to her ribs, steadying herself.
It’s about safety,he had said.
But what good was being safe if she was kept shut away, cut off from him, from the truth? Her gaze drifted to the window. Beyond the glass, guards were changing position in the courtyard, and men were glancing toward the keep as though expecting danger to come at any moment.
Baird’s fear seeped into every corner of the castle now. She felt it in the tightened patrols. She heard it in the clipped voices. She saw it in the haunted lines around her husband’s eyes.
Fear of losing a loved one… fear of failing again…
Her heart clenched. If grief built walls, then Baird was living in a fortress that was cold, impenetrable, and carved from old wounds she could not yet reach. She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling the weight of helplessness settle like a stone.
A quiet knock stirred the stillness.
“Me lady?” came Ailis’s gentle voice. “May I come in?”
Davina blinked, pulling herself together. “Aye. Please.”
Ailis slipped inside with a tray in hand, carrying tea, oatcakes and a slice of honeyed bread. It was comfort on a wooden platter. Her eyes swept Davina’s face, and she understood everything immediately.
“Oh, me lady,” Ailis murmured. “Ye’ve the look of someone who’s been told tae swallow the whole world at once.”
Davina let out a weak, humorless laugh. “It feels like I’ve swallowed naught but stones.”
