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He opened his mouth to roar, then paused, his bushy eyebrows knitting together. “It rained on the trail up from the lower field,” he muttered, shifting his boots. “Just a drizzle.”

“And wet oats weigh heavy in the sack, but rot fast in the bin,” Sheona replied. She dusted her hands on her apron and turned to the pantry boy. “Log it at thirty-six pounds, Jamie. Put the farmer’s sacks near the hearth fire to dry before they’re hoisted into the upper loft.”

Jamie blinked, his charcoal stub hovering over the slate. “Thirty-six, me Lady?”

“Thirty-six,” Sheona confirmed, crossing her arms over her chest as she turned back to the old man. “Unless ye’d prefer Jamie logs it at thirty-two and lets the damp spoil the rest of yer harvest?”

The farmer stared at her for two long seconds, his jaw working from side to side. He spat onto the flagstones, grabbed his empty cart handles, and grunted, “Thirty-six is fair enough. But the boy still needs his eyes checked.”

A sharp clatter echoed from the courtyard cobbles. Brodie turned his head slightly. Angus was charging across the yard, his small feet practically flying over the stones, a crude wooden shield strapped to his left forearm and his wooden sword clutched in his hand. The boy had been trailing Douglas around the armory all morning, but the moment he caught sight of the green dress near the larder, his direction changed instantly.

“Lady Sheona! Look!” Angus shouted, his high voice cutting through the din of the cart wheels and shouting men.

He didn’t run toward the wall where Brodie stood watching. He didn’t seek out his father or the captain of the guard. He ran straight to her, skidding to a halt in the loose straw at her feet, thrusting his wooden sword proudly into the air.

Brodie’s jaw tightened, a strange, heavy knot tightening in his chest. He watched as Sheona immediately dropped to one knee in the dirt, completely unconcerned with the mud ruining the hem of her skirt.

She took the boy’s wooden sword in her hands, turning it over as her face softened into a bright, genuine smile while she inspected the fresh leather grip Douglas had wrapped around the hilt. She said something that made Angus’s chest swell with pride. The boy let out a loud laugh before she gently patted his shoulder and pointed him back toward the armory.

Only after he had received her praise did Angus turn, catching sight of Brodie up on the ramparts. The boy waved his wooden sword vigorously at his father before dashing off after a stray hound.

Brodie let out a slow, heavy breath, his knuckles turning white where he gripped the stone wall. The boy’s quick, instinctive turn toward her cut deeper than Brodie cared to admit.

Angus had grown up in a fortress of steel and grief, surrounded by hard men and silent walls. He had never known a mother’s touch, never known the gentle, steady presence of a woman who looked at him with warm, undivided affection. And now, he sought it out as naturally as a plant turning toward the morning sun.

Heavy, rhythmic footsteps echoed up the wooden ladder behind him. Douglas stepped onto the catwalk, his broad face flushed red from the cold, carrying a leather-bound ledger under his heavy arm.

“The south storage is full to the rafters, me Laird,” Douglas reported, leaning his thick arms on the parapet beside Brodie, his gaze following the line of wagons below. “We have three more carts of barley comin’ up the ridge, but if the weather holds, we’ll have enough grain to see the keep and the lower village through until April.”

“And the salt meat?” Brodie asked, his voice low and gravelly.

“Sorted,” Douglas replied. He paused, rubbing his thick gray beard, his eyes drifting down to the larder table where Sheona was helping Mairi hoist a heavy basket of turnips. “The Lady had the boys move the bean sacks away from the east drain before the mornin’ rain could rot the bottoms out. Good thinkin’, that. Saved us from losin’ half the pulse crop.”

The word hung in the cold air between them, heavy and undeniable.

The Lady.

Douglas froze, his face flushing a deeper shade of red as he realized what had slipped out of his mouth. He cleared his throat loudly, shifting his weight nervously from one boot to the other, avoiding Brodie’s sharp, dark gaze.

“That is… Lady Sheona, I mean,” Douglas muttered quickly, coughing into his fist as he fumbled with the ledger. “She… she was down in the cellars with old Jamie earlier.”

“I saw,” Brodie rumbled flatly.

He did not correct his captain. He did not issue a stern reminder that the hand-binding was still a week away or that her bloodline was that of their bitterest enemy. He could not. As he stood there, looking down at the courtyard, he knew Douglas had only spoken the truth that every servant, guard, and child in MacKinley Keep had already accepted in their hearts.

Sheona was no longer merely a prisoner of war or a pawn in a political alliance. Without firing a shot, without wielding a blade or issuing a single command of force, she had woven herself directly into the fabric of his home. She had claimed the keep not by right of conquest, but by stepping into the cold, empty spaces grief and blood had left bare for so many years.

Brodie watched as she wiped a smudge of flour from her cheek, her dark eyes lifting briefly toward the ramparts. For a fleeting second, her gaze locked with his. The sharp wind whipped a loose lock of dark hair across her face, but she didn’t look away. There was no defiance in her eyes now, no fear—only a quiet, steady understanding that made the blood run hot and heavy through his veins.

She shouldn’t belong here. She shouldn’t be the light warming his dark stone halls. Yet as Brodie turned away from the wall to head back down into the yard, a terrifying thought took root in his chest.

The hand-bindin’ next week willnae make her Lady MacKinley. She already is.

The heavy oak benches in the great hall sat empty, the trestle tables cleared of the evening’s trenchers and grease-stained wooden trenchers. The servants had slipped off to their straw pallets in the lower vaults, and Douglas had taken Angus upstairs an hour ago, the boy practically dead on his feet and snoring against the old captain’s shoulder.

Only two tallow candles still burned on the high table, their flames flickering violently whenever the night draft crept beneath the iron-studded doors.

Brodie leaned his forearms against the dark oak table, staring down at the amber pool of spirit at the bottom of his heavy horn cup. His shoulders throbbed with a dull, persistent ache from hauling timber all afternoon, his eyes burning from the harsh glare of the hearth fire. He rubbed a hand down his face, the rough stubble at his jaw scraping against his calloused palm.