"How old?"
"Seven months, I believe, me Lady."
"Is she feverish?"
"Warm from the screamin', but nay. Nae feverish in the blood."
"Teethin', then. Or frightened by the change in the air." Margaret glanced once at Fergus. Not for permission, but simply orienting herself in his space, she then looked back to the housekeeper with an air of quiet command. "Take me to her. Now."
Fergus stood by his horse, the reins still in his hand, watching the two women disappear into the gloom of the great hall. He was the Laird, yet he felt as though the wind had just been stolen from his sails.
* * *
The kitchen was loud, hot, and entirely failing to solve its central problem. The smell of roasting mutton and damp wool was thick enough to chew.
Lilly was in Maisie's arms, her face a bright, mottled red of pure fury. Her small fists clenched in protest over the great injustice of being seven months old in an unfamiliar castle with no one who smelled like home.
The maid's face, when she looked up, showed that she was stressed. Two kitchen girls hovered near the hearth, ostensibly stirring pots but doing nothing useful. The cook stood at the far end of the room with her back turned, pretending to worry over a tray of bread but clearly straining to hear every breath taken in the room.
Fergus paused in the doorway, his broad frame blocking the light. He felt tremendously out of place among the steam and the screams.
Margaret did not hesitate. She walked straight into the heat, her stride purposeful.
"Here, ye can give her to me," she said to Maisie, her arms already open. It was not a request; it was a transition of power.
Maisie transferred the bairn with speed. Lilly registered the change. The shift to new arms, a different warmth, and a scent that didn't belong to the weary maid. She pulled in a great, shuddering breath, her chest heaving as she prepared for a fresh escalation of her protest.
"Aye, I ken," Margaret said quietly, her voice a low, melodic hum that seemed to vibrate against the child's skin. "It's a terrible world, isnae it, mo chridhe? All this stone and noise and nay one to tell ye where ye are."
The escalation did not come.
Lilly's face remained scrunched, her eyes squeezed shut in suspicion, but the cry that followed was smaller.
Margaret was already moving, a slow, unhurried shift of her weight from foot to foot. She brought one hand up to the back of the bairn's head, cupping the soft fuzz of her hair, and Lilly's tiny fist found Margaret's finger. The child clenched it, as if it were a question she had finally received an answer to.
"She's beautiful," Margaret said softly.
She was looking at Lilly with an expression so open, so raw and unguarded, that Fergus found himself staring at the side of her face for longer than was sensible. The firelight caught the honey-colored curls at her temple and the dusting of freckles across her nose.
He cleared his throat, the sound loud in the quiet room. "Its name is Lilly."
Margaret looked up. Her expression was patient, as a teacher deciding how much patience to deploy with a difficult student. "What did ye just say?"
"I said its name is Lilly."
"Ye saiditsname." She tilted her head, her gaze sharp. "Like when ye told me of her in Dunalasdair.It'scryin'.Itneeds tendin'.Itis a problem to be solved." A pause, her eyes narrowing. "She, Fergus. The word isshe."
From somewhere near the hearth, one of the kitchen girls made a sound she converted, not entirely convincingly, into a cough. The cook at the far end suddenly found her stirring demanded her absolute, undivided focus.
Fergus felt the heat of the kitchen rising into his collar.
He looked at the child, who was now watching him with large, wet eyes. "Lilly," he said, his voice deep and carefully enunciated.
"Better." Margaret looked back down at the bairn, whose eyelids were growing heavy despite her recent convictions. "Hello, Lilly," she whispered. "I'm sorry it took me so long to get here."
Something in Fergus's chest stirred. A strange, tight sensation he had not authorized and certainly did not appreciate. He stood in the doorway of his own kitchen, watching his wife settle into the chair nearest the fire without being invited, without asking if the seat was available.
She sat as if she had lived here for twenty years, while he felt, without any rational basis, like a visitor.
