Fergus said nothing, which was the appropriate response.
“What else?” William said.
“That’s most of it. The lass runs the schoolroom, eats at the Laird’s table, has the staff half charmed.” Another pause. “People like her. She isnae tryin’ to be anythin’ she’s nae.”
“Everyone’s tryin’ to be somethin’ they’re nae,” William said pleasantly. “Some people are simply better at hidin’ it.” He leaned forward slightly. “Does she have family? Anyone who might have a claim on her, or a reason to want her somewhere else?”
“Nae that anyone kens. Father’s somewhere, nobody kens where. Mother’s gone.”
“So nobody would come lookin’ for her.”
Fergus went a little still. “Sir.”
“I’m thinkin’ out loud,” William said, leaning back again, easy as anything. “Nay need to look like that. I’m nae plannin’ anythin’ dramatic. I simply like to understand the full picture.”
He gestured with his cup. “Me brother has me clan. He has me daughter. He has me father’s castle and me father’s title and every acre of land that should have come to me when the old man died.” He set the cup down with a soft, precise click. “All I’m lookin’ for is leverage. Somethin’ that makes him want to talk. Ye understand.”
Fergus clearly did not find this reassuring, but also clearly lacked the standing to say so.
“There’s one more thing,” Fergus said, after a moment. “Might be nothin’.”
“Tell me.”
“She started from being a tavern maid and went on to help run an orphanage in the village. Was givin’ half her wages to the orphanage, might still be doin’ so.”
William looked at him. Then he laughed, a short, genuine sound, the first real one of the evening.
“She’s poor,” he said. “Genuinely, practically poor, and she’s in there spending her own coin on other people.” He shook his head. “Me brother always did have a weakness for the self-sacrificin’ type. Our mother was the same way.” He picked up the cup again. “It’s an attractive quality. Right up until it becomes a liability.”
Fergus left shortly after, with the look of a man who had done what he was paid to do and would rather not think too much about what would come next.
William sat alone.
The barmaid passed, and he waved her over. She came with visible reluctance, which he understood. He had that effect on people when he wasn’t performing. He found it, on balance, more honest than the alternative.
“Another,” he said. “What’s yer name?”
She blinked, surprised. “Maisie, sir.”
“Maisie.” He looked at her properly for the first time. “Tell me something, Maisie. If someone took everything from ye, yer home, yer position, yer future, and the law said it was all perfectly fair and proper and nothin’ to be done about it, what would ye do?”
Maisie looked deeply uncertain whether this was a genuine question. “I... I daenae ken, sir.”
“Ye’d find another way,” William said. “That’s what ye’d do. Ye’d find the door they left unlocked.” He picked up the refilled cup. “Everyone leaves somethin’ unlocked.”
She retreated to the bar.
He thought about his brother the way he always did. Not with grief anymore, but with a flat, methodical attention like a man taking stock of an enemy.
What Noah possessed, what that signified, and what could be utilized.
Noah had the title, the land, and the clan’s loyalty. Noah had, apparently, found himself a woman who made him feel human in ways he’d never bothered with before.
And the woman had no family, no protection, and no name that mattered. She’d been spending her own wages on the orphanage, probably on his daughter, too.
One thing he cannae afford to lose, of course, was his daughter.
He looked into the fire and let the plan take shape, piece by piece, in the patient and methodical way of someone who had nothing left to do but wait and think and eventually move.
