Violet looked back at her quickly. “As grateful as I am that yer husband will help, I cannae leave John.”
Hannah narrowed her eyes and kept her hands folded against her chest. “That wasnae what I said.”
“I mean, I cannae risk losing him. Connor willnae let him go.”
“Connor,” Hannah repeated, careful and far too observant. “So ye are using his name now?”
Violet felt heat crawl up her neck. “Itishis name.”
“I thought people here only called him Laird Moore.”
“Daenae start.”
Hannah did not smile. That was worse.
“What happened with him?”
“He believes John is his brother's son,” Violet said, choosing each word with care. “He wants him protected. He thinks marriage will give John a motheranda home.”
“And what will it give ye?”
She paused, considering the answer.
A room? A name? Access to John?
Connor’s mouth on mine in the training yard?
She pushed the last thought away before it showed on her face. “It gives me a way to keep me promise.”
Hannah’s gaze sharpened. “That isnaean answer.”
Violet turned briefly to the window and back to Hannah. “It is the only answer that matters.”
Outside the sitting room, the sound of footsteps echoed along the corridor.
A part of Violet wanted to turn to greet whatever servant was passing by, but she didn’t want to take her eyes off her sister.The other part wondered whether it was actually a servant.
Perhaps it washim.
Connor had heard from Moira that Violet’s sister had arrived, and he had come to welcome her properly. That was when he heard her voice through the door.
“I was sure ye would never stop traveling,” she said.
Violet answered quietly, “I didnae plan to.”
“Ye loved yer fabrics. The markets. Seeing new places.”
“I ken.”
Connor stopped before the threshold.
Thanks to Alex, who found out as much as he could about her a week after she had arrived at the castle, he had learned that she sold fabrics and traveled.
But to him, they had only been facts. Facts he needed to align himself with if he was going to let her stay in his life. It had never occurred to him, until this very moment, that those facts were also a life.
Herlife.
He had seen a baby who needed a mother, a woman who loved him, and a danger that required eliminating. He had made the answer fit the emergency, but for some reason, he had never asked what he was taking from her when he closed that answer around her.
