Page 42 of The Highland Ghost’s Virgin

Grisselle's hand came up and closed around the coarse fabric at the front of his shirt, her knuckles white as she held on, her head tilting back as he deepened the kiss. His thumb stroked slow, rhythmic circles along the sensitive skin behind her ear, down the column of her neck, and over her collarbone, sending a deep shiver through her body.

For a long moment, there was nothing in the keep but the tactile weight of his body pressed to hers, the rough scrape of his stubble against her cheek, the scent of crushed heather, rain, and clean smoke clinging to his cloak, and the low sigh of the wind working at the unlit gate torches above.

When they finally pulled apart, he kept his hand exactly where it was.

Grisselle didn't step back.

She stood there, her breath visible in the cold, her eyes on his in a way that held none of the careful distance she usually kept there, and Alpin found he had nothing at all to say that wouldn't undo whatever this was by naming it too plainly.

So, he said nothing.

Neither did she.

They stood like that at the gate, his hand still cupped along her jaw, hers still fisted loosely in his shirt, the dark settling fully around them now, and for a long while neither of them moved to break it.

Grisselle woke to the sound of Cait's feet in the passage, fast and uneven, nothing like the girl's usual unhurried shuffle toward the fire each morning.

She was up and reaching for her shawl before she'd fully decided to move, some instinct older than thought already pulling her toward the door.

"Me Lady." Cait stood in the passage in her nightgown, a candle shaking slightly in her hand, her hair still in its night plait. "There's something at the gate. A noise. I thought it was a fox at first, but ye need to come see."

"What kind of noise?"

"Crying." Cait's face, in the candlelight, had gone pale in a way that told Grisselle this wasn't the ordinary crying of a fox or a gull. "A bairn's crying, me Lady. I'm certain of it."

Grisselle didn't wait to hear the rest. She was down the passage and onto the stairs before Cait had finished the sentence, her bare feet cold against the stone, the candle Cait carried casting long, wavering shadows up the walls as the girl hurried to keep pace behind her.

Other doors were opening now, the household waking in stages.

Greer's voice somewhere above them, sharp with the kind of alarm that showed a woman who'd run this keep long enough to know that nothing good ever announced itself at a gate before dawn. Isobel appeared at the top of the stairs, cloak thrown over her nightgown, hair loose, already moving.

"What is it?"

"Cait heard something at the gate."

"At this hour?" Isobel was already descending behind her, no further questions needed once she heard the word gate said in that tone.

They reached the great doors together, and one of the younger kitchen girls — Effie, small and wide-eyed, barely past her own childhood herself — was already there ahead of them, having heard the same sound from her cot near the kitchen fire, standing frozen with the heavy iron bar half-lifted in her hands as though she couldn't decide whether opening the door was wise.

"Effie." Grisselle's voice came out steadier than she felt. "Let me."

The girl stepped back gratefully, and Grisselle lifted the bar the rest of the way herself, the cold iron biting into her palms, and pulled the door open into the grey half-light of early morning.

The crying stopped the moment the light hit it, or perhaps only paused for breath.

A basket sat on the top step, woven and worn, lined with what looked like an old plaid folded thick against the cold, and inside it, red-faced and furious at the whole indignity of existing, was a bairn no older than a few months, fists working at the air, tiny body rigid with the effort of its own screaming.

"Sweet Mary," Effie breathed, from somewhere behind Grisselle's shoulder.

Grisselle knelt, the stone step cold and damp through her nightgown, and drew back the edge of the plaid a little further, checking with quick, instinctive hands that the small body beneath it was whole, was warm enough, wasn't hurt.

Pinned to the inside of the blanket, tucked where a searching hand would find it but a casual glance might miss it, was a scrap of paper, the ink smudged slightly with damp.

Nora. Daughter of Ailie, widow of Tam Fraser, drowned off the point three winters past. Ailie died a fortnight after the birthing, of the fever that follows such things. There's no kin left to take the bairn, and the clan does not leave its orphans to chance. She is brought here, to the Laird's door, same as it's always been done.

God keep her.

Grisselle read it twice before the words settled properly, her hand still resting against the small, furious warmth of the child beneath the plaid.