Catriona stood at the top of the stairs in the cold corridor and looked at nothing in particular and waited for the feeling beneath her ribs to behave itself.
It did not, especially, behave itself.
Fox sat down beside her feet and looked up at her with his amber eyes and did nothing.
"Daenae," she told him.
He looked away. Diplomatically.
She picked up her candle and went to bed.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The rain moved in before dawn, settling over the glen.
By the time the keep had fully woken, the courtyard was a grey slurry of mud, the outer stone walls dark and sheened like wet slate. The sky hung low, the color of old iron from one jagged peak to the other, pressing the mist down into the heather.
Catriona heard the rhythmic drum of it against the roof before she even opened her eyes.
She lay still for a moment, listening to the water gurgle through the stone gutters, then rose and dressed in her thickest wool. Rain was not a reason to stop, and she had never in her life treated the weather as an excuse for idleness.
The herb room was a small pocket of warmth in the damp keep. She had built the brazier up high before James's morning treatment, and the stones held the heat, trapping the layered,sharp scents of her work. Elecampane steeped in a glass jar, its earthy aroma mingling with the dusty smell of dried lungwort.
She worked through the morning with a focused quiet, the rain a steady, shushing presence against the single high window, while Fox remained a curled weight of red fur in the corner.
She was leaning over the table, the rhythmicscritch-scrapeof the mortar and pestle filling the air, when a shadow darkened the doorway.
She did not look up.
She had learned the heavy, deliberate cadence of his boots well enough to recognize him without sight. He stood there for a long minute, his presence a sudden pressure in the small room. She knew he was checking the space the way he checked a perimeter.
"Teach me."
Catriona stilled her hand and looked up.
Anthony was leaning against the door frame. His arms weren't folded in his usual defensive bar. Instead, they hung at his sides, his shoulders slightly rounded. It was a looser version of his stance, the closest the Laird of McArthur got to being uncertain.
He jerked his chin toward the worktable, his eyes fixed on the roots she was processing.
Every reasonable part of her understood that this was a mistake. The corridor outside was empty, the keep was hunkered down against the storm, and the herb room was no larger than a confession box. The air was already thick with heat and the scent of crushed herbs. It did not need the added weight of a man she had pushed away in a rain-soaked courtyard two days prior.
"Sit down," she said, her voice sounding louder than she intended in the cramped space.
He sat on the low wooden stool across from her. It brought him down, his head nearly level with hers, stripping away the height he usually used as a shield. She pushed the stone mortar toward him and set a handful of gnarled valerian root on the wood.
"Grind that. Steady pressure, circular. Daenae do it too hard."
He had already gripped the pestle, his knuckles turning white.
The first heavy stroke sent shards of root skittering across the table, bouncing off her jars and catching in the dark wool of his tunic. Catriona pressed her lips together, watching a piece of valerian roll toward the edge of the table.
"Ye're attackin' it," she said, reaching out to catch the stray piece. "It's already dead, Anthony."
He looked at the mess on the table, a muscle jumping in his jaw.
"It resists."
"It doesnae resist. Ye're using the force ye'd use to cleave a man's helm."
