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“It’s only a scratch.”

“There’s blood.”

“There’s barely any blood.” Brigid caught up to her at the archway, breathless, Amelia howling against her shoulder. “I’ve seen worse on me own lad after he fell off a stool reaching for something. Children hurt themselves, me Lady. It is only natural, but ye’ll discover that they are very resilient when it comes down to it.”

“But they’re…so small.” Freya pressed her cheek to his damp curls. “Hush, mo chridhe, hush. I’ve got ye. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Archer only wailed louder.

Freya hated that he was crying. She wasn’t sure if he was in pain or just crying out because he was scared by the shock of the fall.

“He’s nae crying because he’s hurt,” Brigid said. “He’s crying because he’s frightened. And he’s frightened because ye are.”

Leave it to her to confirm exactly what Freya was thinking.

Freya should have been comforted by that fact, but it only made her feel worse. Brigid was, by far, a better mother than her. She had those motherly instincts Freya had heard Emily and Skye discuss. Or heard other women discuss amongst themselves.

She always felt as if she was missing those instincts, but when she had seen the twins that day, left alone without any parents to properly care for them, she had decided she wanted to try.

Of course, trying had only ended up getting the poor little boy hurt.

“I’m nae frightened.”

“Ye’re white as a sheet, me Lady. I insist ye stop and take a deep breath. Ye have nieces and nephews, I’ve heard. Children do hurt themselves. We must allow them to learn so they willnae repeat those mistakes in the future.”

Freya didn’t answer. She ducked through the door into the castle, and the cool dark of the corridor swallowed them both. Their footsteps rang off the stone. Somewhere behind them, a maid flattened herself against the wall to let them pass.

“I wasnae watching him.” Freya’s voice cracked. “I was meant to be watching him, and I wasnae. I was too busy⁠—”

No. She wasn’t going to mention why she had been so distracted.

She hadn’t meant to look. She’d only glanced toward the archway at the sound of steel, the way anyone would, and then she couldn’t stop.

She had seen her husband bare before, of course. In the dim light of the inn, half-hidden by blankets and feathers, and again by candlelight, all shadow and warmth. But she had never seen him like this, in full daylight, with nothing to soften him.

He was bigger than she’d let herself believe. Broader through the shoulders, harder through the middle, every inch of him shaped by years of swinging swords rather than sitting in a laird’s chair. Sweat had run down the line of his spine. The pale scar across his chest caught the sun when he had turned.

It had knocked the breath clean out of her, and heat had crept up her throat when she realized that she’d entirely forgotten that the twins’ uncle was anything but a man.

And look where it had gotten her, where it had gotten poor Archer.

It was all her fault.

“Ye looked away for a moment.”

“A moment was all it took.”

“Aye, and a moment is all it ever takes with bairns.” Brigid shifted Amelia to her other hip. “Me Lady, listen to me. I have three. Three, and all of them have cracked their heads on something before they could walk. A table. A doorframe. The dog. Me eldest once fell out of the cradle and landed on the cat.”

Despite herself, Freya made a sound that was nearly a laugh. “The cat?”

“The cat was fine. Never forgave him, mind ye.” Brigid smiled. “And me lad is fine too. He’s ten now and taller than me.”

“That’s different.”

“How is it different?”

“Because they are yers.” Freya’s arms tightened around Archer. “These two have already lost everything—their maither, their faither. They’ve nobody left but Evander and me, and I cannae even keep them safe in a garden.”