Four days of lessons, kitchens, and corridors. Of supper at the small end of a long table. Of catching Noah’s eye across the room and experiencing the now-familiar, entirely inconvenient consequence of this.
Four days of something she didn’t have a name for yet, sitting warm in her chest, getting larger the more she didn’t look at it directly.
She was happy. Strange enough that she kept noticing it.
“Ava,” Esther said.
Her voice had changed.
Ava looked at her. Esther was not watching the horse; she was staring at the stable entrance, and she had become very still in the way Ava had learned to recognize. That specific stillness of a child whose body remembered something before her mind caught up.
A man stood in the stable entrance.
She knew who he was before he spoke. Not just the resemblance to Noah—the height, the dark coloring, something in the jaw—but also the way he stood. Calm and confident, one shoulder against the doorframe, arms loosely crossed.
“Well,” William MacGregor said, looking between them. “There ye are.”
Behind Ava, Esther’s hand found the back of her coat.
“Esther.” Ava kept her voice level, her body between the child and the door. “Go find yer uncle.”
“She’s fine where she is,” William said pleasantly. “I only want to see me, daughter.” He pushed off the doorframe and stepped inside. “It’s been a while, Esther. Havenae ye grown!”
Esther’s grip on Ava’s coat tightened. She said nothing.
“She doesnae want to speak with ye,” Ava said.
William looked at her for the first time, properly, the way a man looks at something he’s assessing rather than seeing.
“And who are ye, exactly? The minder?” He smiled. It had the same quality as his posture, calculated. “I’ve heard about ye.”
“Then ye ken I’m the one responsible for her welfare.” Ava held his gaze. “And I’m askin’ ye to leave.”
“Askin’ me to leave?” He tilted his head. “I’m her father. I have every right to be here.”
“Ye surrendered that right when ye left her on this doorstep.”
Something flickered behind his eyes, there and gone.
“Is that what he told ye?” William said. “Me brother’s version of events?” He took another step into the stable, looking past Ava at Esther. “I left her here because I thought she’d be safe, sweetheart. I thought she’d have better than I could give her at the time. Surely ye understand that.”
Esther had not moved. Had not made a sound.
Ava could feel her pressed against her back, small, rigid, and silent, just like she’d been in those first weeks before lessons,beetles, and the sound of her own laughter had found their way back in.
“Esther,” Ava said quietly, without turning. “Go. Now. Straight to yer uncle’s study, run.”
A pause. The small hand released her coat. She heard quick, soft footsteps moving away through the back of the stable, toward the far door.
William watched this with mild displeasure. “That was unnecessary.”
“Ye frightened her.”
“I greeted her.”
“Ye frightened her,” Ava said again, steady. “She pressed herself against a stranger rather than go near ye. That tells ye everythin’ ye need to ken about the kind of father ye’ve been.”
The pleasantness dropped from his expression.
