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“I care as far as a roof and food for me and my sister is secure.”
Roe nodded. “It’s a good business for you. You have the build for it, now you just need to add a few stones of muscle onto those arms and chest.”
The boy laughed. “I’m workin’ on it, sir. Cook is swattin’ my hand away from the leftover food all the time.”
“She should be letting you eat.”
“She does, she just don’t like me scrappin’ from others’ plates.” A mischievous smile cracked through the dark soot covering the boy’s face. “She insists on movin’ the food to a new plate for me.”
A deep laugh shook Roe’s chest and the boy chuckled. Roe gave him a hearty pat on his bare arm. “Keep at it, son, you’ll be there soon enough.”
The boy inclined his head. “Thank you, sir.”
Roe turned from the boy and instantly spotted Torrie. “Tor.”
A smile went wide on her face and she walked to meet him as he strode up the slight hill toward her. “I was told this was where you had disappeared to.”
“It is.” He held out his elbow to her. “Walk with me?”
Her hand lifted, curling into the crook of his elbow as she motioned her head to the blacksmith’s building. “Do you know that boy?”
“I just met him.” Roe led her away from the stables onto a foot trail that dipped into the woods. The branches of ancient oaks curved shade above them, the cool scent of moss filling her nostrils.
“You just met him?” she asked. “But it sounded as though you knew him well.”
“He’s one of the orphans that had been staying at Rising Giles. He moved up here four months ago to apprentice with Logan’s blacksmith since the last boy just moved onto his own shop outside of Gale Harbor. Young Tommy will get no better education than with Mr. Garner. He’s one of the finest smithies in the country.”
“Tommy was quite taken with you—relaxed.”
“It’s odd, but it’s the instant connection they have with me.”
She looked up at him, watching his profile as they walked. The boy wasn’t the only one relaxed. Roe was relaxed—the most she’d ever seen him. The line of his jaw easy, his grey eyes weren’t wary on everything they saw, a smile playing along his lips with nothing to drag it down. This place had done this for him. Set an ease into his shoulders that she’d only caught glimpses of on the ship—and only immediately after they’d coupled.
She liked him like this. He was right—he was born to be on land, not on the sea.
She squeezed his arm. “The connection? What is that?”
“Boys like Tommy, they don’t have a place in this world—or they didn’t. They’ve been on the periphery, scrounging, muddling through life but never belonging. That feeling never goes away, not completely. And they connect with it instantly in people who have walked their path, whether or not they know it.”
She nodded, her gaze going forward as he stretched in front of her to lift a branch out of her way. She ducked under it. “That is what happened with us?”
He chuckled. “I hope what happened with us has been a bit more than identifying a like spirit.”
She leaned into him, her temple resting on his shoulder. “True, I would agree it has been a tad more than that.”
They walked in silence for a stretch, Torrie reveling in the quiet of the forest. For the first time since leaving Scotland six years ago, she longed for the land of the north. For the quiet solitude she could find so easily at Vinehill, the forests and the lochs and the silence that was always alive with life and magic if she listened close enough.
They reached a small clearing where two trails split off from the one they had been strolling on. Roe abruptly pulled away and turned to her, his hands at his sides.
“I wanted to get you out here in private—far from the ears in the main house.”
Her head flickered back, her eyebrows lifting. “What is it?”
His look dropped to the ground for a long second, then lifted slowly to her. “You’re staying here at Culland Hall. I don’t trust anyone other than my brother to keep you safe, so I need to have you here.”
“What?” Her jaw slowly dropped. “Why would I need to stay here? Stay safe under your brother’s watch? Unless you plan on leaving?”
“I am. I need to go after Bockton and take him down for good.”
