“Is Violet well?”
“She is.”
Aiden studied him. His gaze moved once over Connor’s face, then past him toward the door Violet had not returned through. “That isnae the same as saying she is happy.”
Connor’s jaw tightened. “Ye ask bold questions in another man’s hall, MacBain.”
“Aye. And the questions are about me wife’s sister. I like to think I have earned the right,” Aiden responded, his voice as calm as it had been earlier.
The answer was clean. Connor disliked it more because of that.
Aiden was standing where Violet’s family should stand, close enough to warn and steady enough not to make himself the center of the warning.
Connor did not speak for a while.
Aiden took it as permission. “Violet smiles when she ought to ask for help,” he said. “She makes light of pain until folks believe there is none.”
Connor’s attention sharpened as the hall moved around them. A servant passed with a platter, and someone laughed near the far table. The fiddle rose into a livelier tune, but none of it touched the place where Aiden’s words had settled.
“Me advice? Daenae believe her too quickly,” Aiden continued.
Connor thought of Violet in the study, shaking from the aftermath of her climax and still holding herself together with sheer pride. He thought of the way she had said she could not, then offered no answer that would satisfy either of them. He thought of the smile she wore when everyone in the hall called herLady Mooreand the stiffness beneath it.
Aiden spoke like a man who had watched stubborn women bleed behind smiles and learned to look twice. It must have been how he was able to captivate Hannah.
Connor swallowed but did not soften his expression. He would not make a public confession to another man, even one who had earned the question. But he held the warning and knew he would not forget it.
“I hear ye,” he offered.
Aiden’s expression shifted faintly. He had not expected that answer. Or perhaps he had expected a fight.
“I expect ye to care for her,” he said.
Connor stepped half a pace closer, enough to make the words private without making them a challenge. “I’d take care of me wife even without ye saying so, MacBain.”
Aiden held his gaze, but Connor knew he was right. Violet was his wife now, and whether she fled his study, denied his touch, or hid behind John, she was underhisprotection.
Aiden seemed to read enough of that to accept it for the moment.
“See that ye do,” he uttered.
“I intend to.”
Aiden nodded once, a temporary peace between two men who both understood that Violet would resist being protected if she sensed it coming.
Connor lowered his head in return. It was nice to come to an agreement.
The hall had almost settled again when the musicians played a livelier tune. The dancers found their rhythm again, and the guests loosened back into laughter.
The initial curiosity around Violet’s absence began to thin under the weight of food, drink, and Connor’s refusal to feed it. For a brief minute, everything felt peaceful and orderly.
Until a familiar voice cut through the din.
“Am I welcome to me brother's wedding?”
The music faltered, and one fiddle dragged half a note before stopping. Conversation also died in pieces around the hall as Connor went still.
That voice.He knew that voice.
