“He’s hurtin’ Ava. Uncle Noah, he’s hurtin’ Ava, please come.” He looked at the bruise on her cheek. “He put his hands on ye.”
“Aye.”
“And I came through that entrance, and ye were standin’ there with his mark on yer face, and he was still there with ye.” He held her gaze. “I went a little mad.”
“I noticed,” she said, with something that was almost her usual dryness, and almost, almost not.
He looked at her. At the bruise, her steady eyes, and the particular way she was standing—not putting on a facade, but actually having one. The specific kind of courage that belonged to a woman who had grown up learning not to flinch and had made it entirely her own. He took her arm gently. "Come away from here."
He led her through the side gate and into the narrow passage along the castle wall, away from the stable and the men who were wrapping a burial blanket around William's still form. He stopped when the sounds behind them had faded enough.
He turned to face her.
He ran a hand over chee. He looked at the bruise once, briefly, then at her eyes.
“I want ye to marry me,” he said.
The courtyard went quiet in a different way.
Ava stared at him.
He watched the surprise flicker across her face, and beneath that surprise, the thing that was not surprise at all. That had been lingering there longer than either of them had spoken it, then the expression of a woman whose first instinct was yes, but was now gathering every counterargument she had.
“Noah.”
“I mean it.”
“I ken ye mean it,” she said it with the frustrated patience of someone who wished the problem were simpler. “But I cannae. I’m nae noble-born. I have nay family worth mentionin’, nay standin’, nay name that means anythin’ to anyone in this county. I swept tavern floors. I wandered onto yer land with someone else’s child and a change of clothes.”
“Ye came onto me land, and ye saved Esther. And then ye stayed, and ye built somethin’ here. That’s what ye did.”
“And I’ve nay trainin’ for what a laird’s wife is required to be. The clan would never accept it. There are expectations, obligations, things I daenae even ken to ask about.”
“I’m the Laird.” He said it plainly. “The clan follows what I decide. That’s what the title means.” He stepped closer to her. “And I’ve decided.”
“Just like that?” Her chin had come up slightly, the way it did when she was digging in.
“I’ve been decidin’ for days,” he said. “I’ve just been waitin’ until I could say it plainly.”
He looked at her, at the bruise, at her hands, at the set of her jaw that meant she was fighting herself and not him.
“I love ye, Ava. I’ve been trying nae to name it for longer than I should have. The way ye argue with me. The way ye are with Esther. The way ye tell me hard things plainly when it would be considerably easier to let me stay wrong.” He paused. “The way ye stood in that stable today with his mark on yer face and held yer ground without flinchin’. The way ye’re standin’ here right now.”
His voice was steady. “I want ye beside me. I want ye in this castle because ye belong here, nae because I hired ye, nae as a favour to anyone. After all, ye belong here, and ye ken it and so do I.”
Ava was very still.
He could see the yes in her.
He could also see the old argument moving through her eyes.
“It is complicated,” she said.
“Aye.”
“The clan will talk.”
“They’ll get used to it.”
