The broken chain remained fixed to the wall where Violet had first entered his life. He reached instinctively for the one person whose safety had made the killing bearable, but his hand closed on empty air. It didn't matter that he knew where she was or that he could go get her.
It was too late.
Violet was already gone.
29
Within a day of Violet’s departure, Moore Castle felt completely different.
Meals reached the hall at the proper hours, and the doubled guards changed shifts without delay. Lachlan’s chamber remained sealed, its key on Connor’s person, and no servant entered without written leave.
The treaty with Laird MacAdair had been copied into the clan records, and Henry Tolford’s name had been struck from every gate instruction. For all intents and purposes, he was a wanted man.
Lachlan lay in the family crypt beside their parents.
Everything worked.
Everything.
Connor signed petitions until ink stained the side of his hand. He inspected the stores, corrected the western patrol, and drove the men through training until sweat darkened every shirt in the yard. When a young guard missed the signal to change formation, he braced for Connor’s anger.
“Again,” Connor barked.
The guard blinked, then obeyed.
Connor walked away before the absence of punishment frightened the lad further. No one spoke of Violet unless duty demanded it, and no one spoke of Lachlan at all.
Servants stopped talking when he entered a passage, and men found reasons to study buckles or sword belts when he crossed the yard.
Order had returned, and yet Connor had never found it so useless. Only John escaped the cold precision of his days.
Connor checked the nursery after breakfast, after council meetings, and before supper. He asked whether John had nursed, whether the fever had returned, and how long he had slept.
On the third morning, Moira folded her hands over her apron and endured the questions until he repeated one.
“His skin isnae warm?”
“Nay, me Laird.”
“He kept down the milk?”
“Aye.”
“All of it?”
Moira looked at him, and he, in turn, studied her. A dull despair had left faint shadows beneath her eyes, though her voice remained gentle. “Would ye like me to write the answers so ye can read them every quarter hour?”
Connor considered the usefulness of such a note.
“That was a jest, me Laird,” she added.
He looked down at John, who lay content in her arms and sucked on his own fist. “Send for me if anything changes.”
“I will send for ye if he so much as sneezes.”
Connor accepted that and left before Moira saw how much the promise comforted him.
Later that afternoon, he carried John to the library. He told himself the room was quiet. The fire crackled gently, and the chair near the window supported a man holding a baby withone arm. Yet none of them explained why Violet’s favorite chair remained untouched opposite him.
