Page 50
She watched him retreat, leaving the small room cold and her equal parts confused and infuriated.
She knew she had to ignore him, keep to her duties, stop hoping he might ever warm up to her. And yet she still couldn’t shake the pang in her heart.
Isla decided to immerse herself in her duties. She kept the household ledgers, made preserves for winter, oversaw the herb gathering, inventoried the sacks of grain in the pantry—anything to keep her mind off her husband.
Alas, it was almost impossible.
They often crossed paths, but he never stopped to speak to her, as if she weren’t even there. At breakfast, he talked to his warriors, made plans with Ewan and Duncan, and barely spared her a glance. At dinner, he ate in silence and never once looked up from his plate.
“Come, child,” Lady Moira told her one day.
“I cannae, Auntie,” Isla said, motioning to the dried oatcakes she was helping prepare for the coming winter.
Lady Moira merely gave her a smile that said she wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Isla wiped her hands and followed her out of the kitchens. They walked into the gardens and settled on a stone bench. Isla looked at the kale, at the fruit trees, anything to avoid the older woman’s eyes.
“Stop workin’ for a moment, Isla,” Lady Moira chided softly.
“It’s a habit.”
“It’s nae a habit; it’s evasion.”
Isla gritted her teeth. She loved that Lady Moira always spoke her mind boldly, just not when that boldness was turned on her.
“What is goin’ on between ye and Alisdair?”
She started at the mention of his name.
“Nothin’,” she replied.
It was an honest answer.
Sure, there was something there, something that pulled her eyes to him whenever he was near. Something that made him look at her, sometimes for too long. Something that brought him close again and again, so close after that first reckless kiss.
“Just… nothin’, Auntie.”
“Daenae lie to me, child,” Lady Moira tutted. “I saw ye dancin’ at the celebration.”
Isla curled her fingers into her skirts, remembering the dance, his hands on her waist, the look in his eyes. “Well, it was just a dance.”
“Isla,” Lady Moira said softly, “that wasnae just a dance. I saw the way ye looked at each other.”
Isla smiled bitterly. Even his aunt was fooled. She decided to say nothing.
“Ye are troubled.”
“I just…” she trailed off. “I must have done somethin’ that offended him.”
Her chest tightened as she said those words out loud. It was the burden she had been carrying. She must have done something to offend Alisdair, to make him drift even further away.
“Nay, ye did nothin’, child.”
She chuckled sadly. “Then he is just avoidin’ me out of pure spite.”
“Ah, child.” Lady Moira took her hand.
Both fell silent for a moment, and Isla saw something that she had never seen in the older woman’s eyes before—grief.
