“I should... I should check on Esther,” she stammered. “Make sure she’s still sleepin’. And I need to... to prepare for supper. So much to do, really.”
“Ava.” Noah stood as well, moving around the table toward her. “Wait.”
But Ava was already backing toward the door, her heart pounding. “Thank ye for the conversation. About Esther. Andthe chess battles. Very interestin’. I’ll just... I’ll see ye at supper, then?”
And with that, she started walking to the door.
“Wait.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Wait.”
She stopped but didn’t turn around.
Noah looked at her shoulders, noticing how she held herself very still, and said nothing for a moment because he wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to say next. He only knew that she was three steps from the door and that the thought of sitting alone in this library after she left was, for reasons he refused to examine, completely intolerable.
She’s yer employee,let her go.
“There’s two hours until dinner,” he said instead. “Esther’s asleep. Ye’ve nowhere to be.”
“I could find somethin’ to do.”
“Ava.” Her name came out lower than he intended. “Stay.”
She then turned slowly, as if giving herself time to find an argument, and he watched the conflict cross her face. The flush remained high in her cheeks. Her hands were clasped in front of her, with the careful deliberateness of someone who needed something to hold onto.
Good,some dark, possessive part of him noted.She feels it too.
“Just for a wee bit,” she said finally, coming back to the table.
“Aye.” Noah moved to the cabinet by the bookshelves before she could change her mind, pulling out the dram and two glasses.
Something had shifted in the room. The air between them grew tense, neither of them acknowledging it, both of them sharply aware of it. He kept his back to her a moment longer than necessary.
Get yerself together.
He turned around, set the glasses down, and poured.
Ava’s eyebrows rose. “Ye want to drink with me? Yer employee?”
“I want to drink with a woman who stood up to a laird on behalf of a frightened child. Who tore strips off me niece’s former nanny in front of the entire castle.” Noah poured two generousmeasures and brought them back to the table. “That woman deserves a drink, I think.”
He pushed one glass toward her. Ava stared at it for a moment, then picked it up.
“To Esther,” she said, raising the glass slightly. “May she never doubt again that she’s wanted.”
“To Esther,” Noah echoed, and they both drank.
The dram burned as it went down—good Highland dram aged in oak barrels, worth more than most people earn in a month. Ava coughed slightly, her eyes watering, but she didn’t push the glass away.
“That’s... strong,” she managed.
“Aye. But effective.” Noah settled back in his chair, cradling his own glass. “Tell me about yerself. I ken ye worked at a tavern and volunteered at an orphanage, but what else? Where did ye come from before the village?”
Ava’s expression immediately shuttered. “Does it matter?”
“I’d like to ken. If ye’re willin’ to share.”
