Emma laughed with her, feeling something loosen in her chest. The wind tugged a ribbon at her throat free, and she tied it again without thinking. She looked down the path and found that her shoulders had relaxed.
“I do want ye to be happy here,” Isobel said, gentle and plain. “It isnae an easy place, but it can be a good one. If there is a thing that could make the next hour kinder, tell me.”
“Trust me, you are doing more than enough. I can only thank you so much for your help.”
“If I cannae help me sister-in-law,” Isobel said, “then I daenae ken me use in this castle.”
Emma smiled again in gratitude as they turned back toward the lilies.
The castle sat steady above the garden, dark stone softened by late light. Emma found herself looking for his figure at an upper window, but he was nowhere in sight. For some reason, his absence weighed on her, but she refused to let it pull her down.
Isobel touched her hand once more. “I really think ye need to rest. We can continue our walk much later when ye have adjusted.”
Emma looked at the genuine concern on her face, and it made the knot in her chest loosen further.Perhaps this part of the world would not be as bad as she had imagined.
“Thank you.”
5
Emma sighed as Jenny led her up the last turn and opened a door into a chamber washed with late light. Fire crackled in the grate. The bed had been turned back, and a sprig of rosemary lay on the pillow. A copper tub stood near the hearth, and folded linens lay on a stool.
“This is rather beautiful,” she said. “Ye did great work, Jenny.”
“Aye.” Jenny beamed at the praise. “If ye need the window open, say so. The draught can be a wee brute at this hour.”
“It is perfect as it is.”
Jenny moved through the room with easy competence, checking the jug on the washstand, straightening a chair by the fireplace, setting a comb where it would be reached without searching.
“Is London as loud as folk say?” she asked, her curiosity bright. “Do the streets ken yer step before ye take it?”
Emma smiled. “Loud, yes. And crowded. You learn to look far ahead to keep from colliding with everyone’s plans.”
“Do ye think ye will miss it?”
“Some parts,” Emma admitted. “Other parts I am happy to leave.”
Jenny nodded, accepting that answer as complete. “We had a peddler once who swore the lamps there burn all night without a priest’s blessing. I told him he was a liar, and he laughed and sold us a cracked mirror.”
“That does sound like London,” Emma said, a laugh bubbling up her throat.
Jenny hesitated, then looked up with a frankness that did not feel sharp. “May I ask ye something, me Lady?”
“You may.”
“I heard ye punched a man in England.”
The words landed hard, and Emma’s hand stilled on the back of the chair. The heat of old humiliation rose to her face, and memories flashed through her mind. The corridor, the noisethat followed, the way her name had gone around like a coin everyone wanted to touch.
She forced herself to breathe. “Yes.”
Jenny tilted her head. “Did he do something to deserve it?”
Emma blinked. The question was so simple that it broke something open. “He absolutely did.”
“Good,” Jenny uttered with a laugh.
It was not grand defense or soft pity. It was a verdict. The acceptance was so unstudied that Emma felt her shoulders relax and her lips curl into a smile.
