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“I willnae ask you to settle,” I continue. “I willnae ask for trust I havenae earned. Not yet. But dinnae tell me what I want, as if ye ken my mind better than I do.”

Her breath shudders.

“I’m not askin’ for you to make this easy, Ellen.” I say softly. “I’m askin’ you to let me be serious with you. I’m here, so let me prove I mean more than I’ve yet earned the right to say.”

For a long moment, she says nothing.

Then she turns away, wrapping her arms around herself like she’s holding something fragile in place.

“You should go,” she says. “That’s enough for tonight.”

It isn’t an outright rejection, and perhaps I’ve reached her, but her reception pains me all the same, because I can hear the effort in it—as if she’s shutting a door on herself. The thought of her living so often behind such doors makes something in me go quiet with sorrow, not for my pride, but for her.

“I just…” Her breath catches. “I cannae do this right now.”

I hesitate—every instinct pulling me to stay—but I do as she asks.

As I walk back toward the dying fire, one truth settles beyond doubt:

She isn’t wrong to be wary.

But I’m not content merely to want her from a distance. If I’m to be anything to her, it must be by patience, and by proof—by the long, quiet labour of staying.

I’ll stay long enough that the hurt that taught her caution can finally lay its head down. I want to be something steady enough that the parts of her always braced for harm learn, little by little, that it’s safe to rest with me.

I’m still standing there when Robert comes up beside me, hands tucked into his coat, gaze fixed on the fire as it settles down into itself, the great blaze of it easing at last into a consistent, breathing heart of coals.

“I didn’t mean to overhear,” he says quietly. “But I reckon I caught enough of it.”

I don’t answer. I don’t trust my voice to do anything but betray me.

The fire gives a soft pop. Somewhere behind us, laughter rises and falls, the night carrying on as though none of it matters.

Robert waits a moment. Then, not unkindly, he says, “She’s not wrong, you know.”

I nod once, staring into the embers. “I ken that. Women who’ve had to hold things together on their own dinnae gamble lightly. They’ve too much to lose.”

“Aye,” Robert says. “And women like Ellen MacGregor won’t fall because someone wants them. They fall because someone stays when it would be easier not to. Quietly. Consistently. Without asking for a reward.”

My mind goes back to Ellen’s face in the firelight: not angry, not cruel, only guarded, as though she’s spent a lifetime teaching herself never to be caught unawares.

Robert gives my shoulder a brief, solid clap. “If you’re serious, you’ll still be here when the novelty wears thin.”

I let out a short, humourless breath. “That’s the thing,” I say. “It dinnae feel as if it could ever be a novelty.”

“Then,” Robert says, a faint smile tugging at his mouth, “you’ll still mean it when the fire’s gone cold. And if I know anything about you, James Sinclair, it’s that you don’t do things by halves once you’ve made up your mind.”

He lets his hand fall away. “Good luck to you.”

And then he leaves me there, with the embers and the truth of it.

The fire is lower now, fed less and less as folk wander off, until only a red heart of coal remains, still breathing when the wind passes.

That’s when it comes to me.

A stubborn idea that settles in my chest and refuses to move.

Something drawn out slowly, patiently. Days of work. Weeks, even. A foolish thing, perhaps. A difficult thing, certainly.