Page 46 of The Highland Ghost’s Virgin

Grisselle nodded. She didn't put the baby down.

Alpin watched her from across the kitchen, his shoulder against the stone of the doorway, and said nothing. Isobel appeared at his side with a cup of something hot that he didn't ask for and accepted anyway, wrapping both hands around it.

"Ye're going to let her keep her," Isobel said, not a question.

"I already said she could stay."

"That's nae what I mean, and ye ken it."

He looked at his sister, then back across the kitchen. Greer was talking to Senga in a low voice by the fire, both of them nodding over something practical — the cradle, probably, or the question of feeding. Dougal had moved off to lean against the far wall, his part done, watching the room.

Grisselle shifted her weight, settling Nora higher against her shoulder, and turned slightly so the firelight caught the bairn's face. She said something to her, too low to carry, and her mouth did a complicated thing that she didn't seem to notice doing.

"She told me she didnae want children," Alpin said.

"Aye, she told me that too." Isobel wrapped both hands around her own cup. "Funny what a person finds out about themselves when they're not busy deciding in advance."

He didn't answer that.

Greer detached herself from Senga and crossed back toward Grisselle, stopping beside her with a clean square of linen over one arm.

"The cradle'll be down from the west tower within the hour. In the meantime, there's a drawer, and it can be lined if need be." She looked at the sleeping bairn with something that wasn't quite her usual brisk assessment. "She's a good size for a newborn. Healthy."

"She is," Grisselle said.

"Ailie was a strong woman. Good stock." Greer folded the linen once, precisely, and draped it over Grisselle's shoulder in case it was needed. A small thing, a practical thing. Her hand stayed there a moment before she took it back.

Senga arrived with a cup of warmed milk and a clean cloth twisted at one corner, and demonstrated without preamble how to let the bairn draw from it. Grisselle watched once and then did it herself, and Nora latched on to it. The kitchen settled into something quieter than it had been all morning.

Alpin set his untouched cup on the nearest surface.

He crossed the kitchen, not entirely certain what he meant to do when he got there, and stopped beside Grisselle and looked down at the bairn, who was now working steadily at the cloth and paying him no attention whatsoever.

Grisselle glanced up at him. "She fits in here."

He looked at the small face. The small fist. His hand came up, and he touched two fingers, briefly, to the top of Nora's head — the softest thing he'd touched in years — and pulled them back before anyone could remark on it.

"She'll need a wet nurse," he said, to the room in general, already turning toward the door. "Someone send word to the MacTaggarts. The woman lost her own bairn in the spring; she may be willing." He paused at the doorway without turning back. "And get that cradle down. I'll nae have her sleeping in a drawer."

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

He ate breakfast alone for four days running.

Not because anyone drove him out of the kitchen — he drove himself, taking his plate to the study before Nora's morning complaints could start up from wherever Grisselle had settled her for the night, eating standing up over the maps he wasn't reading, and calling it work.

Niall said nothing. He arrived each morning, helped himself to whatever was on the table, and sat in the chair across from the maps with his own plate balanced on his knee, watching Alpin not look at the door.

On the third morning Alpin said, "Whatever ye're thinking, keep it."

"I wasnae thinking anything," Niall said, and bit into his bread.

"Ye've got a face like a man thinking something."

"Aye, I've always had that face. Ye've never minded it before." Niall chewed, unhurried. "Senga says the bairn took the whole feed this morning without a fuss. First time."

Alpin moved a pin on the map. "Good."

"Grisselle was up half the night with her. Cait too, though Cait fell asleep in the chair by the third hour and was nae much use after that."