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She stepped back first.

He stood, reaching for his shirt, then paused. “Get some rest,” he said. “Tomorrow will be complicated.”

She nodded. “So will tonight.”

A corner of his mouth curved, faint and fleeting.

He left her there, candle guttering low, heart racing, hands still warm with the memory of his skin. And Sorcha knew, without a doubt, that something had shifted again. Not broken but deepened.

*

Morning came pale and cold; the sort of winter light that made stone walls glow faintly silver rather than grey.

Sorcha paused at the top of the stairs, basket hooked over her arm, and listened. The house breathed differently without Gavan in it. Less taut. Less watchful. Still orderly, but lacking the weight of his presence, the way even the air seemed to straighten when he entered a room.

She flexed her fingers inside their fresh wrappings. They ached, but dully now. Healing, perhaps, if she did not undo it.

At the bottom of the stairs, Sorcha paused once more and let her gaze travel slowly across Lemlair. The dull film of neglect had lifted further beneath her hands. Hearthstones no longer looked abandoned, and the air carried the faint freshness of soap. Disorder lingered, aye; a chair was slightly askew, a shutter hard to close, and there were many things that still needed cleaning, but it felt like Lemlair was now waiting to be lived in again rather than a house forgotten by its own walls.

Yet something else was missing, something she had not noticed until now. There were no green Yule branches tucked above the doors, no ribbons, no quiet preparations that once marked this season in her mother’s hall. Almost Yuletide, she thought, startled by the realisation. The days had blurred so completely she had forgotten the calendar of the heart, but the faint scent of pine drifting from the courtyard, the sharper cold, and the way the light faded too soon all whispered the truth.

Yuletide meant fires banked higher. Sweeter bread. Songs sung. It was a time when the world seemed brighter. She was not certain what Gavan or any of the Munros did to celebrate the season, or if she would be allowed to celebrate even if they did. A smile crept to Sorcha’s lips. Gavan had said she had license to do what she wanted today. Perhaps she could organise, straighten, and prepare for Yuletide as her mother had in the past.

The thought of her mother lingered as Sorcha moved through the corridor, a quiet warmth beneath her ribs. She could almost hear her mother’s voice, Begin with what is small. Light gathers where it is welcomed. Yuletide had never been about grandeur in her childhood home. It had been about intention. A ribbon straightened; a chair turned towards the hearth. A sprig of green tucked where winter could not quite reach.

She paused near the stairs, glancing towards the outer doors as if half expecting Gavan’s return, then shook herself. He would not be back until evening. The house was hers alone for now, its silence a tentative trust.

With a soft sigh, Sorcha set her memories aside and turned her attention to the work at hand, beginning in the front room she had first scrubbed upon her arrival at Lemlair. The furnishings brought down from the attic now stood within the chamber, their age-worn wood lending the space a measure of quiet respectability. She drew the settee nearer the hearth and settled it between the small tables, so it invited rest rather than endured neglect.

A wool rug softened the chill of the stone beneath her feet, and she spread the lace doilies they had found among the trunks, their fine patterns a gentle contrast to the roughness of the walls. When she stepped back at last, the room no longer felt like a place abandoned to dust, but a room slowly remembering warmth and welcome.

After that, she proceeded to the guest chamber near the south end of the house, opening shutters, shaking rugs, and straightening chairs so they faced the hearth instead of the walls. She did not scrub. It was quieter work, thoughtful work. Work that left room for thinking; perhaps too much room.

William’s face intruded again, as it had all morning—the hard line of his jaw, the ease of his laughter, as though consequence had never touched him. Worse still was the knowledge that Gavan, bound by duty as provost, would see to it that William had a proper defence. He would weigh the evidence, test the claims, and ensure the charges of forged letters bearing the Munros’ names were proven beyond doubt. And perhaps, if the whole truth came to light, her brother might yet be punished for his crimes without paying for them with his life. Three days. Only three. Sorcha pressed her lips together and forced herself to breathe. Not now. She needed something, anything, to occupy her hands and her heart.

Sorcha drew a woollen plaid from the peg by the door and settled it about her shoulders before lifting the wicker creel she had found abandoned in the front room the day before. The winter air was sharp, and frost clung to the stones as she stepped beyond the threshold.

She moved along the edge of the grounds where wind had torn pine boughs free and scattered holly among the fallen leaves, gathering only what the land had already yielded. When she returned at last, her basket brimmed with green and the scent of resin followed her into the house. She set her basket down and began her work with quiet purpose, as women of the Highlands had done long before her, preparing hearth and home against the dark of the season.

Sorcha tied the green Yule branches carefully, fingers clumsy but determined despite her bandages. A length of faded ribbon became a bow above the solar door. A simple bough rested along the mantel, angled just enough to soften the stark line of stone. Nothing extravagant. Nothing that would presume too much.

And yet she found herself pausing more than once, stepping back to look, not as a servant checking her work, but as a woman wondering how the changes would feel when someone else walked these halls. When he walked them.

The thought startled her so deeply that she nearly dropped the twine in her hands. She told herself it was practical. Lemlair had felt heavy when she arrived, hollowed by neglect and silence. Anyone would want to ease that weight. Anyone would want to see the house breathe again.

Still, as she tucked a final sprig above the archway near the stairs, she imagined Gavan’s expression when he returned, the way his gaze might pause, the way memory might flicker behind his eyes. Would he recognise the season? Would he remember what warmth once felt like?

Sorcha drew a slow breath and smoothed her hands over her skirts. The Yule green branches looked modest, almost accidental, as though the house itself had begun to remember Yuletide without asking permission.

Continuing to add bits of green here and there, Sorcha moved down the hallway. When she reached the kitchen to fetch a cloth, Mrs Jacoby looked up from kneading dough and froze.

Her eyes went first to Sorcha’s hands, then to the basket of evergreen boughs and holly. “Well,” the cook said after a moment. “Someone remembers the season.”

Sorcha flushed. “I thought it might help.”

Mrs Jacoby sniffed. “It won’t hurt.” She wiped her hands and reached beneath the worktable, pulling out a pair of old gloves made of soft leather, worn thin at the fingers, and a small-handled brush with a wrapped grip.

“Use these,” she said, thrusting them at Sorcha. “No sense flaying yourself raw when there’s tidying tae be done.”