“You want Harriet?”
Iain shifted his gaze away from her to the window.
“Please tell me,” Glenna pressed. “It wasn’t fever, was it?”
He wouldn’t look at her again.
Glenna stepped back from the bed, and a beam of sunlight glinted off the silver brooch lying on the floor just beneath the edge of the bed. She stooped and picked it up, looking at it as perhaps a stranger might, as if she had never seen the thing before.
In truth, perhaps she hadn’t.
“You’re tired, I understand. There is another feast tonight, and I have been ordered to attend. Perhaps after you have rested…”
Iain didn’t blink, didn’t nod. He seemed to have retreated back into his catatonic state, perhaps in exhaustion, perhaps in defense against Glenna’s questions. Either way was acceptable for what Glenna felt she had to say next.
“I think I love him, Da. I think I’m in love with Tavish Cameron. In the beginning, I thought to marry him to save Roscraig—I thought I could convince him.” She looked down at her hands, polished the silver of the brooch with one thumb. “But he still doesn’t love me. And now he never will.” She looked up.
Her father made no indication he’d heard anything she said.
“I’ll fetch Harriet.” She leaned over and pressed a kiss to his forehead while she curled Iain’s fingers around the brooch. “I love you, Da. No matter what.” And then she straightened and left the room quickly, eager for the fresh air of the stairwell.
On her way down the steps she spied a servant girl descending before her and called out. “Maid?”
The girl stopped and turned, looking up with a patient expression. “Aye, milady?”
“Please tell Mistress Cameron that the la—” She broke off. “That Iain Douglas wishes to see her.”
“Aye, milady.” She bobbed her head and was gone.
Then Glenna stood before her closed chamber door, a flutter of dread in her stomach. She hadn’t spoken to Tavish since leaving the bed they’d shared the night before, and although she doubted he yet slumbered, her heart raced at the idea that he could be just beyond this barrier.
She hated him, hated what he was doing to her father, her life, her dignity.
She longed for his comfort in her distress, for him to love her again, and set aside his prejudices and consider that they were well matched, that she could be his companion—to choose her, please choose her.
She took a deep breath and opened the door.
Her deep breath turned into a relieved sigh at the empty chamber. Glenna closed and bolted the door. The conversation she’d had with her father had shattered her, but she could not yet let the pieces fall. Her mind whirled with the choices before her and their myriad consequences, but she could not order them. And so she threw herself into preparing as best she could for an unknown future, not thinking of the why or the how of the task.
She chose for the feast the shimmering violet with slit sleeves that allowed the embroidered emerald underdress to flow through. A white veil paired with a tall birdcage headpiece; silken stockings and new leather slippers completed the fine ensemble.
Then Glenna searched through Tavish’s large table, her eyes going over the surface quickly, spying the inkpot and quill in its stand. She rifled through cubbies until she discovered a stack of small pieces of paper and carefully removed the top leaf. She paused with the quill raised over the pot.
What had she planned on writing? There were so many things she wanted the courage for speaking aloud to Tavish Cameron; but perhaps there was not enough ink in all the oceans to express the regret and heartbreak she felt if this letter was to be her goodbye, not only to him, but to all of Roscraig, to the life she’d known up to that very morning.
When Glenna at last began to write, she was finished in only a moment—the truth she now knew was concise, after all. Once the ink had dried, she folded the note and placed it in the center of one of the fine linen handkerchiefs, where it could be refolded without suspicion. After replacing it in the trunk, she quit the room to see about having water sent up for a bath.
She must look her very best upon playing the lady of Roscraig at her first—and last—feast.
* * * *
Harriet came into Iain’s chamber once more, her arm pressing oddly against the front of her apron. She closed the door and bolted it, then went around the end of the bed, fishing in her bodice as she approached.
“Is this what you wanted, milord?” she asked, holding up the stolen vellum and writing utensils.
Iain grunted in assent and struggled against the ticking.
“Just a moment; just a moment.” She placed the items on the stone sill and then rushed to his side, helping him to curl against the rough headboard. Then she turned back to the window and retrieved the vellum. “I canna write, milord; just my name, I’m afraid. Neither can I read.”
