“She named it,” Ava said, not looking at him. “The rabbit she hasn’t yet got. Button.”
“Hmm… very optimistic lass.”
Ava picked up the primer she’d brought to supper and held it against her chest. She looked at him then, briefly, with that particular directness she had. “Goodnight, Noah.”
“Goodnight, Ava.”
He sat for a moment in the empty room, the fire low, as the castle settled into its quiet nighttime calm around him. He felt, with the clear confidence of a man who had stopped arguing with himself, completely certain about only one thing.
Soon.
He could wait for soon.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“This one’s called Bess,” Esther said. “She’s sixteen years old, and she likes carrots, b-but not apples, which the stable lad says is unusual.”
“Very unusual,” Ava agreed.
She was leaning on the stall door beside Esther, watching the mare regard them both with the placid, faintly judgmental expression common to horses that had seen too many people come and go to be impressed by any of them. “What does she think of bannocks?”
Esther considered this seriously. “I daenae ken. We could try.”
“We absolutely cannae. Mrs. Ross would ken, and she’d never forgive us.”
“We could blame the stable lad.”
“He’s twelve years old and done nothing to deserve it.”
Esther’s mouth moved in the way it did when she was trying to suppress a smile and failing.
She reached up and offered her open palm to the mare, which dropped her large head and nosed at it with a thoroughness that made Esther giggle, actually giggle. The quick, unguarded sound that still made Ava’s chest do something involuntary every time she heard it.
“She tickles,” Esther said.
“She likes ye.”
“She likes that I smell of breakfast.”
“That too.” Ava reached over and tucked a strand of Esther’s hair back from her face. “Same time tomorrow? I think she’s taken to ye.”
“Every day,” Esther said firmly. “I’ve decided.”
“Have ye?”
“Aye. I’m goin’ to learn to ride.” She paused. “Is that all right? C-can I ask Uncle Noah?”
“Ye can ask Uncle Noah anythin’.”
“He might say nay.”
“He might. That’s what askin’ is for, to find out.” Ava looked at her seriously. “But I daenae think he will.”
Esther considered this with the seriousness she brought to crucial decisions. Then she nodded once, seeming resolved.
The stables were quiet at this hour. Mid-morning, after finishing the main work, the grooms had moved on to other tasks.
Autumn light streamed through the high windows in slanted bars, catching the dust and straw. It carried the scent of horse, hay, and cold earth, and Ava leaned on the stall door in a state of contentment she had stopped questioning four days ago and had simply chosen to inhabit.
