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Gavan clenched his fists as he stared out across the hills, silvered with frost beneath the weak morning sun. If Sorcha knew anything, however small, he would find the truth soon enough. Until then, Lemlair was the safest place for her, whether she understood that or not. Whoever stood behind the forged letters had already proven willing to destroy lives from the shadows. Gavan Munro had no intention of leaving Sorcha Sutherland exposed to them.

Chapter Six

The dust in the chamber Gavan had demanded she clean made the air taste like old wool. It clung to Sorcha’s eyelashes, crept into her hair, and turned the inside of her throat raw. Each time she scraped the stone near the hearth, fine grey powder lifted in choking clouds and floated lazily through the slanting light from the grimy window.

Her shoulder throbbed with every pull of the brush. Not the clean pain of honest work. The deep ache of bruised muscle and healing injury, the kind that reminded her that the world had struck her only yesterday, and she had not yet had time to become strong again. But Gavan Munro had not asked whether she was strong. He had only demanded that she work. So, she did.

Sorcha scrubbed until her fingers burned and her palms lost feeling. She scraped mould from the corner near the window with a knife she had borrowed from the kitchen, taking care not to gouge the plaster. She hauled a bucket of water from the well twice, and then a third time because the floor still smelled of damp rot.

She opened the trunk and dragged out its contents of musty linen, yellowed paper, and cracked leather straps. She laid them near the window to air out and prayed the sunlight, thin and weak as it was, might do what a lack of warmth could not.

When her knees began to shake from kneeling, she rose and cleaned standing. When her arms trembled too hard to lift the brush, she paused only long enough to press her forehead to the cool stone wall and breathe through the dizziness.

Then she scrubbed again.

She did not allow herself to think too much, because if she allowed the whole truth of her situation to settle in her bones, she would stop moving. And if she stopped moving, William’s face would rise before her in that dark cell with chains at his wrists and terror in his eyes.

So, Sorcha worked. Hour after hour, as the light outside shifted from grey to pale white, footsteps moved through the house, and the ordinary life of Lemlair continued around her without welcoming her into it.

At some point, she heard voices in the corridor, women’s voices. Sorcha paused, breath held, brush hovering above the stone. She heard snippets of their conversation. “The one who shot him . . . Sutherland, is she not? The wicked one’s half.”

Sorcha’s stomach tightened, but she did not move. She did not let the brush fall. She kept her breathing slow and quiet until footsteps paused outside her door.

“One would think she’d have the decency tae go drown herself in the river rather than crawl here, begging a Munro fer mercy after what her brother did tae them,” a woman murmured.

Another voice, older, not unkind, but wary. “Hush. Laird Gavan’s hearing is keener than ye think.”

“Aye, but what about his pride?” the first woman hissed. “He’s provost now. The whole burgh looks tae him. And he lets that”—the word came out like spit—“that creature under his roof.”

There was a brief silence.

“He didn’t let her. He took her. Like a debt or out of duty. That’s different,” the older voice said, quieter, almost reluctant.

“A duty?” the younger woman scoffed. “Aye, a misplaced duty to let the fox into the henhouse.”

Their footsteps moved away.

Sorcha stared at the stone wall. The words felt like stones thrown at her back. That creature. The wicked one’s half. She pressed her lips together until they trembled. They did not know what it had cost her to walk here. They did not know she had been attacked in the forest and stripped of the last piece of her mother. They did not know she had swallowed shame like bitter medicine and begged a wounded man for her brother’s life. They only knew what they wanted to know—that she was the easiest place to put all their anger.

Sorcha inhaled carefully. Then she went back to scrubbing. She scrubbed until the rag began to fray and her hands were red and raw. She scrubbed until the floor no longer felt sticky beneath her palms, until the mould-stained corner looked merely old instead of rotten, until the window glass showed only a faint hint of light.

When she finally leaned back on her heels, breathing hard, sweat dampening her hairline despite the cold, the room looked different. Not beautiful, but cleaner, and with more fresh air, as if the place could breathe again.

A knock at the door startled her out of her thoughts. The latch clicked. The door opened, and Gavan Munro filled the doorway like a shadow given flesh. He did not enter. He did not have to, yet his presence seemed to claim the space.

Sorcha rose quickly, her knees protesting, hands clenched at her sides to hide their redness.

Gavan’s gaze swept the room with the swift efficiency of a man who knew filth and order both. His eyes flicked to the hearthstone, the corners, the aired linens near the window. He stepped inside at last, boots making no sound on the cleaned floor. He crossed to the trunk and looked inside. Then he walked to the window, ran a finger along the glass, and inspected it like a judge testing truth.

Sorcha stood rigid, heart hammering.

His face gave nothing away. The silence stretched.

Sorcha’s mouth went dry. She could not bear it. “Is it satisfactory?”

Gavan turned and his gaze landed on her hands.

Sorcha instinctively tucked them behind her back. Too late.