The hall was too quiet, and he hated it, which was funny because he had always preferred it that way.
Further down the table, Alex lowered his cup. “Peace came early, then.”
Connor turned his head, and Alex looked down at his plate and tore off a chunk of bread with more care than the bread deserved.
“Did ye have something useful to add?” Connor asked.
“Nay, me Laird,” Alex replied. He spread butter slowly, eyes downcast. “Peace is quieter than I thought ye liked, that is all.”
Connor eyed him long enough for two men nearby to remember their food with sudden urgency. Then he picked up his cup.
“Eat,” he grunted.
The hall obeyed.
That should have settled it. Violet had chosen her room and the baby.Great.There would be fewer arguments, fewer interruptions, fewer moments where his attention went somewhere useless because she happened to enter the room, distracting him with her face and her borrowed clothes as if she meant to conquer the place one disapproving look at a time.
So why did he feel so empty inside?
He finished his breakfast without tasting much of it.
In his study, later that morning, the work waited where he had left it. Work was clean, and the letters on the desk had a purpose. Connor chose to open Laird MacAdair’s letter first.
The seal had been pressed with care, the fold neat enough to signal restraint. The words inside did the same.
Lady Thalia’s honor remains untouched by Clan Moore’s conduct. Trade and border matters could be discussed under fresh terms. The broken betrothal need not become hostility, provided Clan Moore understands that nearby clans would watch how the matter of the child is handled.
Connor swallowed and let out a slow breath.
This was not a threat. He knew threats when he saw them. No, this was something different. This was courtesy with sharpness underneath it.
It had always been the kind of courtesy he understood. A nameless baby had been left at his gate, and then two weeks later, he came across a bride no one had expected. Every laird with sense would be watching to see whether Clan Moore grew weaker.
He drew a clean sheet toward him and began writing a reply. The words came easily enough and his fingers moved fast over the paper. That was always one thing he could trust, his zest for giving a proper response to diplomatic messages.
Then his gaze moved to Lachlan’s letter. It sat at the edge of the desk, the fold uneven and the corner blotted. After taking a few moments to rest and gather the rest of his strength, Connor grabbed the letter and broke the seal. The handwriting was as uneven as he had expected, and the ink had smeared near the middle. The whole thing looked as if it had been written by a man who had either drunk too much or slept too little.
Brother,
I heard what was left at your gate. I know what you think of me, and I will not ask you to think better. Only this.
Please be gentler with him than you were with me.
Connor’s fingers tightened on the paper. “Ye bastard.”
Lachlan had no right. No right whatsoever to write from whatever tavern, bed, or gutter had taken him and speak as if Connor had been the one who abandoned duty.
The memory of a conversation he had once had with Lachlan resurfaced, interrupting the myriad thoughts in his head.
“If Father had been like me, we wouldnae have buried half our blood.”
He remembered Lachlan’s face and how it had twisted with grief and drink and fury all tangled together.
“But we wouldnae have had a family to begin with, Brother. We would have had soldiers that obeyed yer every word.”
Connor folded the letter once, hard enough to crease it badly. His father’s gentleness had gotten people killed, but his rules had kept people alive. That was the truth. That was the spine of Clan Moore. No clan survived on soft wishes and open doors.
Still, no matter how hard he tried to avoid it, the thought came.
