"She’s a woman who kens what she wants," Sigrid countered. "Like Ada. Like Isolda. They all stood where ye're standin' once, lookin' at the water and wonderin' if they’d been traded for a prison or a home."
Matilda remembered how Ada had gripped her hand and said nothing, which was its own kind of thing. Isolda had looked at her for a moment with the eyes of someone who remembered clearly.
One week,she'd said.It gets easier after one week.
Matilda had nodded. She hadn't said that easier wasn't quite what she was afraid of anymore.
Matilda finally looked at her. "And which one was it?"
Sigrid offered a rare, thin smile. "That’s up to the woman, usually. And the man she’s tied tae." She gestured toward the keep. "Come. The yard is drafty. Let’s get ye inside before ye catch yer death. Ye’re the lady of this castle now and a lady has work tae dae."
The days began to find their grooves, but the edges remained sharp. Matilda no longer pretended she wasn't listening to the drilling from the window; the rhythmic thud of feet and Ivar’s barked commands became the heartbeat of her mornings.
She spent her afternoons following Sigrid through the keep’s belly. They moved through storerooms and armories, Matilda cataloging the precision of it all. It was a map of Ivar’s mind—ordered, defensive, leaving nothing to chance.
Evenings were a steady thrum of safety. Supper in the hall, then the chamber. Ivar in the chair.
Matilda lay awake one night, her heart hammering a slow, heavy rhythm against the mattress. She listened to him breathe and thought about Claricia’s voice:
Tell him, he'll stop if ye need him tae.
She thought about the four inches of space between them, and how many days were left of the two weeks.
The dark was no longer a cage. It was a space filled with him.
She couldn't stay in bed. The silence was too thick, the awareness too sharp. She got up, her bare feet flinching against the cold stone, and headed for the kitchen.
He woke and she wasn't there.
He knew it before he'd opened his eyes. There had been some shift in the quality of the room, the absence of her breathing, the cold on the side of the bed that should have been warm. He was on his feet before the thought finished forming.
The bed was empty. Covers pushed back, pillow still carrying the shape of her. The candles burned low, but no Matilda.
He checked the corridor. The two men at their posts. She hadn't left in a way that alarmed anyone, which meant she'd walked out quietly on her own, and the part of him that had been running threat assessments since Kinlochaline briefly did something complicated before he got it back under control.
He went left. Down the stairs. The window seat was empty. The anteroom—empty. The chapel—empty. He moved through the keep with the focused patience of a man who had learned that panic was a waste of time he didn't have and found himself at the kitchen doorway.
She was at the long table with her sleeves pushed to her elbows and flour to her wrists. Her hair had come loose on one side. There was a white smear across her left cheekbone she didn't know about. The fire in the grate threw warm light across thetable and she was working the dough with a steady, rhythmic focus, her shoulders moving with it, entirely absorbed.
The sound of his steps echoed in the stone corridor. Matilda looked up, and their gazes held. He noted the flour that was on the sleeves of her dress, her cheeks and her hair. He pushed down the desire to wipe it off, if only as an excuse to touch her.
"Ye're working it too hard," he barked instead, his voice rough and flat.
Matilda could only keep staring at him.
"I couldnae sleep," she said, He noted how she fixed her gaze entirely on the flour-dusted wood.
"Aye." He looked at her hands. The flour on her wrists, her forearms, the cuffs of her nightgown. The smear on her cheek again. "How long have ye been at it?"
"A while."
He studied the dough. " Ye're pressing instead of pushing." He reached past her—close enough that she'd feel the warmth of his arm near hers—and set his hands beside hers on the dough. "Like this. Heel of the hand, forward and fold. Nae down."
She watched his hands.
He was aware of exactly how close he was standing. He was aware of her breath catching slightly and then evening out again with the careful deliberateness of someone who had decided to control it. He was aware of the specific distance between his arm and hers, which was not very much.
"Try it," he muttered, his breath close to her skin.