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She lets out a soft laugh. “Aye. I’m sure that’s how it happened.”

“What’s that meant to mean?”

She nods at my feet. “That ya crept up on him.”

“I did not.”

“You always do,” she says, amused. “Ye’ve been quiet on yer feet since we were lassies. And without shoes on?” She shakes her head. “He never stood a chance.”

“It’s customary,” I say stiffly. “For the dew.”

“And awfully convenient,” Róisín adds, eyes bright. “For someone who takes a bit too much pleasure in catchin’ folk when they’re not mindin’ themselves.”

“Hold your tongue,” I say, though there’s no real heat in it. “You make it sound deliberate.”

Róisín smiles, entirely too pleased with herself.

I reach for another birch switch and strip it with more force than necessary. “I cannae plan a startle for someone I didnae ken was there.”

“No,” she agrees easily. “Only you did.”

“He shouldnae’ve been there in the first place,” I say, irritated all over again at the memory of my heart leaping like a foolish rabbit.

“So rude of him, lurkin’ on his own land and all.” Róisín murmurs. “Deinin’ to exist where he pleases.”

“And by the gods does he talk,” I go on, because if I’m going to tell this, I’m telling it the right way. “And not about anything sensible. He speaks as if he’s always testing how far he can go,” I say. “Says things he should have the sense not to say, then pretends he’s done nothing at all.”

Róisín makes a small sound of delight. “You noticed an awful lot.”

“I ken a silver-tongued nuisance when I’m in their presence,” I snap.

“You do,” she agrees, and her tone is entirely too pleased.

I strip a leaf, strip another, then toss the bare twig into the pile harder than I need to. “And he was up there all knowledgeable about primroses. Like some kind of flower expert.”

“Was he?”

“Aye, so strange.”

She laughs under her breath. “And that bothered you.”

“I mean… not entirely so.” I say at once.

The part I won’t say is how my chest went odd and tight when he checked himself, as if he’d been caught in something shameful.

Laughing at his own softness like enjoying something so simple in this life made him less of what he’s meant to be.

And I—wretchedly—I liked him better for it. For the gentleness he tried to hide. For the way he scolded himself, as if kindness were a weakness a man ought to stamp out.

I won’t give Róisín that truth. Not when she’d seize it and shake it like a bell until the whole house heard it.

So I do what I always do: I turn it inside out and call it sense.

“It’s just…” I strip another leaf, slower now. “It’s not common for a laird’s son to be so—so soft about such things. Avoidin’ work to play in the grass.” I make the words sound like a complaint, even as they sit wrong in my mouth. “He’s the laird’s son, not some wanderin’ poet.”

The sentence tastes bitter the moment it leaves me.

Róisín’s hands keep moving, but she’s watching my face now. “Go on,” she encourages. “What did he say to have ya lookin’ like that?”