Margaret exhaled a long, slow breath through her nose, her shoulders dropping. She looked straight across the table at her husband.
"Say nothin'," she said, her tone a direct command.
Fergus raised one thick, dark eyebrow. "I've said nothin'."
"Ye were about to."
"I was thinkin' it."
"That's worse."
Something small and dangerous moved at the very corner of his mouth. It wasn't a full smile; it never truly arrived or committed itself to his face, but it was the unmistakable sign of one. His dark eyes held hers for exactly one breath longer than was necessary or safe, warm and very briefly, entirely unguarded.
Then he tore his gaze away, looking toward the head cook.
"I came for the winter store inventory list," he said. His voice was perfectly level, restored to its usual military cadence.
"On the iron hook by the cold store, me Laird," The cook managed to gasp while wiping her hands from her apron.
He crossed the wide kitchen, his boots thudding against the tiles. He did not look back at Margaret again as he grabbed the parchment, which she felt a sharp prickle in her chest at. But he almost succeeded in leaving the room without that nearly-smile deepening slightly as his shoulder brushed past her table, a small shift in his jaw that she also noticed with perfect clarity.
The heavy timber door swung shut behind him, the draft rattling the latch.
The entire room exhaled.
Bridie was now laughing openly, leaning against the pantry shelves. Mrs. O'Halloran had returned to her mixing bowl with the grand air of a woman fully restored by a good comedy. Catriona quietly walked over, retrieved the stray flour jar, and set it much further from the dangerous edge of the board without a single word.
"The heel of the hand, me Lady," Catriona said gently, her fingers sinking into the dough to demonstrate. "Here. Like so. Slide it forward."
Margaret moved aside, watching the woman's hands work the gray mass, and she told herself she was thinking entirely about the festival bread.
She was not thinking about the bread.
She was thinking exclusively about the corner of his mouth. She was thinking about how his dark eyes had locked onto hers in that split second before he looked away. So unguarded, so warm, and so completely involuntary that she was sure he had not meant for her to see it. She kept thinking about how it hadhappened right in front of the entire kitchen staff, and he could never take the look back.
"Thank ye," she said to Catriona, taking the heavy dough back into her own hands.
This time, the mass moved beneath her palms the way it was supposed to. She pressed forward firmly with the heel of her hand and felt the fibers give, the stubborn resistance finally yielding to something more like compliance.
She worked steadily through the afternoon, her face composed, her lips unmoving.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The first festival fire was lit just before dusk.
Fergus watched Angus crouch low beside the stacked peat and kindling in the center of the clearing, his broad, calloused hand shielding the fragile spark from the sharp northern wind as the last slate-gray light of day slowly faded from the Highland sky.
Around them, the festival grounds stretched wide across the lower meadow beneath the massive shadow of the castle walls. Heavy pine lanterns, pulled down from the armory, swung from thick poles hammered deep into the earth. The long oak tables, brought out from the great hall, were already crowded with pewter trenchers, sloshing timber ale casks, and half-drunk clansmen leaning shoulder to shoulder to ward off the coming frost.
A collective roar erupted from the crowd when the kindling finally ignited. The flames grew rapidly, eager for the oil. Brightorange bursts shot upward against the deepening indigo of the evening sky, sending thousands of glowing sparks floating into the crisp mountain air like scattered, moving stars.
The clan responded to the light immediately. Voices surged in a booming wave of rough Gaelic and laughter. The bagpipes started somewhere near the dark southern edge of the field, the first sharp, squealing notes piercing through the ambient noise before the heavy deer-hide drum joined beneath them, steady and rhythmic like a resting heartbeat.
Fergus folded his arms tightly across his chest, his jaw locked, and looked out over the gathering from his vantage point by the pasture fence.
Dozens of children darted between swinging skirts and heavy mud-caked boots, their small hands sticky with sweet honey cakes. Shaggy deerhounds circled the perimeters of the tables, their noses twitching as they searched for dropped mutton scraps. Two young lads near the ale casks were already shouting directly into each other's faces over a game of dice that neither of them intended to lose honestly. Thick, blue woodsmoke rolled in lazy columns through the meadow, carrying the rich, heavy scent of roasting venison, wild onions blackening in grease-slick iron pans, fresh barley bread, and the sharp, burning tang of spilled whisky.
Above the entire scene, MacKenzie Castle stood dark and unyielding against the mountain ridge, its narrow slit windows glowing gold one by one as the kitchen girls went through the rooms with the evening candles.
