Melody pulled out the chair opposite and sat. “You were dragged from a festival and tied to a tree. You are allowed a few days of notfeelingsolid.”
There was no pity in it. That was the only reason Emma could bear hearing it aloud.
“God, I still cannot believe I was not with you when this happened.”
“And what would you have done if you were?” Emma asked, her voice clear.
The front door banged open. A voice she knew better than her own called her name, bright and furious. Her brother filled the doorway, his cloak falling behind him and his hair pushed back by the wind.
Emma stood up so fast that her chair scraped across the floor.“William?”
He reached her in three strides and wrapped his arms around her.
“I heard,” he said into her hair. “Did you think I would sit in London and drink coffee while my sister was nearly killed in some Highland woods?”
The knot inside her loosened at last. She held on, her cheek pressed against his shoulder.
“I am fine,” she said. It was half for him and half for herself. “Really. I suppose my choice of husband was… once again, wrong. The tonis going to have a field day once they hear about this.”
He leaned back and took her by the arms, looking her over as if he might find proof. “You are Emma,” he said. “That is what you are. Not a scandal, or a story for drunk men. If he cannot see that, then he is the fool, not you.”
Melody snorted. “We agree on something. How strange.”
For the rest of the day, they talked until the light faded. William spoke of everything Emma had missed back in England. Their father, that horrible pet snake their neighbor kept in a cage, and even Aunt Agnes. When she mentioned rope around her wrists and a knife at her throat, his jaw tightened, but he did not flinch.
Eventually, the shame sitting in her chest had started to dissipate. It no longer felt like something that would never wash out. She could imagine waking up and not thinking first of blood. Yet every time silence settled between them, her mind conjured the same image: Logan’s hands cutting her free, his flat voice saying he would keep his distance, as though it were a kindness.
Her body had left the castle, but her heart had not. It still sat in his room, waiting for him to pick it up or tread on it.
Thanks to Callum, Melody’s husband, news of MacLellan Castle reached her, whether she wanted it or not.
“The Laird is drinking,” he said one evening, two weeks into Emma’s stay.
He had come from a formal meeting at MacLellan Castle, and the look on his face told Emma that he could not wait to share the news.
“They say he is cross with everyone. His man-at-arms and sister are the ones holding things together now.”
A week after the first news, Callum brought another. He sat at the table with Melody, while Emma sat on the couch, mending a torn sleeve.
“Ye need to see him, Emma. His beard is half-grown again. It looks as if he is building a wall on his own face.”
Emma kept her eyes on her work. It did not matter. She was gone. She owed him nothing.
Nothing.
Yet her stomach still turned every time his name was spoken. She tried to picture him in the Great Hall without glancing toward the spot she used to stand in, but the picture never settled. In her mind, his gaze always swept over that spot and away too quickly.
Isobel visited on the fourth day of the third week.
Melody welcomed her with food and drink, after which Emma stepped out to do the same as well. Isobel rose and pulled her into a hug, and for a minute there, everything felt right again.
“Ye look terrible,” Isobel said, then kissed her cheek. “Which is fair.”
Emma smiled. “Thank you.”
Melody, polite on the surface and shameless underneath, drifted toward the kitchen with a hum. Emma knew she would be listening. That was her friend.
Isobel sat and smoothed down her dress. “I willnae waste yer time,” she began. “There is something ye must hear, and I would rather it came from me.”
