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The thought should have brought relief. Instead, it stirred something more complicated, something that had less to do with muscle and bone, and more to do with the woman who had lain against him through the night.

The memory of her lingered. He could still feel her hair loose and warm against his arm, the quiet weight of her trust, the way she had softened into sleep as though, just for a few hours, the world had not been poised to take from her again.

And it might yet.

If her brother were convicted, if William Sutherland met the gallows, there would be no easy forgiveness in the aftermath. Gavan had defended her in the hall, aye, but he had also stood as judge, as law, as the man whose word might seal her brother’s fate.

If that verdict fell as it seemed it might, she could well look at him one day and see not a man who had stood beside her, but the one who had taken what little she clung to. The thought settled cold in his chest.

And if she turned from him, if the bond forming quietly between them broke beneath the weight of duty and grief, he would be left with the life he had known before she came. He would return to the same solitary mornings, the same rooms that held no warmth beyond the hearth, the same ache he had learned to carry alone.

His hand moved, almost unconsciously, to his shoulder again. No pain. Yet the fear remained.

The grey-blue gown she had worn the night before returned to him then, the thin fabric, the careful mending at the cuffs, the way she had stood before half of Dingwall in that same worn dress without apology or hesitation. She had stood straight, unadorned and unafraid, and it had unsettled him in a way nothing else in that courtroom had.

He rose at last, pulling on his coat, and stepped into the corridor.

Colin waited below, already alert.

“Walk with me,” Gavan said quietly.

They stepped out into the cold, but instead of turning towards the courthouse, Gavan took the lower road towards the market.

Colin’s gaze flicked sideways. “We are expected.”

“We will not be late.” Snow crushed beneath their boots as they descended into the narrower streets where the frost still clung stubbornly to eaves and stone. The morning air carried the sharp scent of wool and cold iron.

They stopped before a modest tailor’s shop, one known for sound workmanship and honest cloth. Without ceremony, Gavan entered.

The tailor bowed at once. “Provost.”

“I require several gowns,” Gavan said.

The man blinked. “For?”

“For a lady under my protection.” He chose the words deliberately. “Winter weight. Quality wool. And one suitable for Yule.”

The tailor nodded slowly, considering. “Colour?”

Gavan hesitated only a moment, and then the image came easily—Sorcha beside the hearth, her hair like copper in the firelight, her eyes steady and green.

“Deep green,” he said. Then, after a pause, “And warm gold.”

The tailor’s mind was already turning to cloth and cut. “Measurements?”

Gavan stilled, then found the answers came readily, not guessed, but remembered. The line of her waist beneath his hand. The breadth of her shoulders. The way her sleeves fell just too loosely at her wrists.

He spoke the numbers carefully.

Colin said nothing.

“And delivery?”

“To the provost’s lodging,” Gavan replied. “Nay, we will come here to pick up whatever you have ready on the morrow. The rest can be delivered. Quietly.”

“It will be done.”

Gavan paused at the door, one last thought settling. “Along with shoes and gloves.”