Mary softened, her hand brushing Scarlett’s arm. “Ye’ve a good heart, Me Lady. Few would make such a sacrifice.”
Scarlett closed her eyes, clutching the letter tight. “Sacrifice or nae, it was the only choice I could live with.”
Katie gave a crooked smile. “Aye, but choices always cost. Ye’ll carry this one heavy, I think.”
Scarlett’s throat tightened. She thought of her quick, quiet wedding, the vows spoken with barely a glance, Robert’s lipsnever touching hers. She thought of Gundor’s unfamiliar halls and the clan’s warm faces.
“I wonder,” she said softly, “what she would think if she saw me now.” Mary frowned. “She’d be proud. Daenae doubt that.”
Scarlett tried to believe it. She read the last lines again,
Always yours, Edith.
Her heart ached with the truth of it. Edith would always be hers, just as she would always belong to Edith. That bond could not be severed by distance or duty or marriage.
Scarlett slipped the letter into the drawer of her table, as though hiding it there would keep it safe from the weight of her new life. She rested her hand on it, whispering a silent prayer of thanks.
Katie reached for her cup again, breaking the heaviness with her usual ease. “Well then, if she’s safe, ye can turn yer mind to yer new place. And if ye need any advice at all—on running a hall, healing an ache, or aye, even on?—”
Mary smacked her shoulder before the word could leave her lips. “Katie! Daenae start.”
Katie only laughed. “Och, the Lady’s blushed already.”
Scarlett did blush, but she shook her head with a small laugh. “Saints preserve me, Katie. One day ye’ll shock me beyond repair.”
“Then I’ll be doing me duty,” Katie teased.
The laughter faded, though, when silence pressed back in. Scarlett looked to the window, and her smile faltered.
She hadn’t seen Robert in days.
Her eyes flicked toward the door where Mary was straightening a pile of linens. “Mary,” she said, trying for casual though her voice betrayed her, “does the Laird always vanish for days after wedding his wife?”
Mary stilled, the linen clutched in her hands. “Me Lady…”
Scarlett’s brow arched. “He dines somewhere, surely. Sleeps just over there. Yet I havenae seen him since the garden. It’s as if he moves through the walls like a ghost.”
Mary pursed her lips, folding the linen too neatly, buying herself time. “He’s busy, Me Lady.”
Scarlett swallowed. “Too busy to see his wife?”
Mary shifted, clearly reluctant. “Lairds carry burdens most folk cannae ken.”
Katie said nothing. She just looked at her cup, the corner of her mouth doing something that wasn't quite a smile.
Scarlett’s gaze moved to the heavy wooden drawer where she’d hidden the letter. That scrap of parchment was the only proof she had that she’d made the right choice, that Edith was safe and this marriage was worth the cost.
She stayed still and waited for that knowledge to feel like enough. It almost did.
She gripped the edge of the table, her knuckles turning white, and forced herself to look away from the drawer. She had what she wanted. She wouldn't let herself mourn the rest.
Scarlett sat cross-legged on the bed, Edith’s letter open in her lap. The words blurred; she had read them so many times she could recite them in her sleep.
Her throat tightened. She had done the right thing. She had. So why did it feel like she was the only one paying for it?
Mary hummed as she fussed with the fire. “Ye’ll wear a hole in that page if ye keep staring at it.”
Scarlett folded the letter, tucking it under her pillow. “At least it speaks back. Unlike the man I wed.”
