Ten weeks until the wedding.
The number has become a countdown I can't escape—whispered in corridors by servants arranging preparations, visible in every new delivery of fabric and flowers, present in Catriona's increasingly frequent inspections of everything from table settings to guest lists.
Ten weeks until Domnall marries someone else.
The tension between us has become unbearable. Every glance across a room feels like touching live wire.
Every accidental brush of hands when he passes me documents about House Carraig sends electricity through my entire body. Every conversation—no matter how innocuous—carries subtext so heavy it's exhausting to pretend we don't both feel it.
Tonight I'm in the schoolroom organizing tomorrow's lessons, trying to lose myself in the practical work of preparing materials for Isla. It's past ten. The estate is quiet. Most of the household is already asleep.
The door opens.
I look up. Domnall stands in the doorway, still in his dinner clothes, looking tired and rumpled in a way that does something unfortunate to my pulse.
"I was looking for Isla." His voice is quiet. "Have you seen her?"
"She's been in bed for two hours." I set down the stack of papers I was organizing. "Is something wrong?"
"No. I just…" He stops, runs a hand through his hair. "No. Nothing's wrong."
He should leave. Should turn around and go to his own chambers. Instead, he steps inside and closes the door behind him.
Not locking it. Just closing it. Creating a boundary between us and the rest of the house.
"How are the lessons going?" He moves closer to the desk where I'm working. "She seems more engaged lately."
"She is. Once I stopped trying to force structure and let her natural curiosity guide the curriculum, everything changed." I'm talking too fast, filling silence with words that don't matter. "She's brilliant when she's interested in the subject."
"She gets that from her mother." He's standing on the opposite side of the desk now, close enough that I can see the exhaustion in his eyes, the tension in his shoulders.
"Sorcha was intelligent?"
"I meant you." The words land between us. Heavy. Weighted with everything we're not saying.
My breath catches. "Domnall…"
"I found more evidence." He pulls a folded document from his jacket pocket. "About your mother. About what happened after you were born."
The shift from charged intimacy to devastating revelation is jarring. I take the document with shaking hands, unfold it. Read.
It's a letter. Written in Catriona's hand. Dated twenty-seven years ago, addressed to someone whose name has been blacked out.
The Carraig woman gave birth before we could locate her. One infant, female. The midwife has been handled. Lord Dunmore will take the child and raise it as his acknowledged bastard—hidden in plain sight. This is preferable to martyring an infant and creating sympathy for a dead traitor's line.
Ensure Orlaith herself is eliminated immediately. No body, no burial, no evidence. She simply disappears, and her daughter grows up believing she's nobody.
The words blur. I have to grip the desk edge to stay upright.
"She was murdered." My voice doesn't sound like my own. "Right after I was born. While I was—while I was days old, my mother was being hunted down and killed."
"Yes." Domnall's voice is gentle, careful. Like he's breaking terrible news to someone fragile.
"And I was supposed to die too." The realization crashes over me. "But your mother decided a hidden bastard was safer than a dead heir. So she let me live, and had my mother murdered, and paid my father to pretend I was his mistake instead of…" I can't finish.
The grief hits me in waves. For a mother I never knew. For a life I should have had. For the twenty-seven years I spent believing I was nobody when I was actually somebody's daughter. Somebody loved. Somebody worth murdering to eliminate.
"Mairead." Domnall is moving around the desk. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have shown you like this, shouldn't have just—"
He reaches out to comfort me—just a hand on my shoulder. That's all. A simple gesture of support.
But the touch ignites everything we've been suppressing for weeks.
I turn into him without thinking. His arms come around me immediately, pulling me close. I press my face against his chest, breathing in the scent of him—soap and wool and something uniquely him that I've been trying not to notice.
"I'm here." His voice rumbles through his chest. "I've got you."
I pull back just enough to look up at him. His face is inches from mine. I can see every detail—the dark blue of his eyes, the slight stubble on his jaw, the way his lips part when he realizes how close we are.
The air between us charges with electricity that's been building for weeks.
"Mairead." My name is a warning and a question.
I don't answer with words. I just tilt my face up slightly, closing the distance between us by inches.
He makes a sound low in his throat—something between a groan and surrender—and kisses me.
Not gently, not carefully. Desperate and hungry and breaking weeks of careful distance. His hands slide into my hair, destroying the careful bun I'd pinned it into. I grab his jacket, pulling him closer, needing him closer.
He walks me backward until my spine hits the bookshelf. Books shift and tumble. I don't care. His mouth moves from my lips to my jaw, down to the sensitive spot below my ear that makes my knees forget how to function.
"God, I've missed you." The words come out rough against my throat. "I've missed this. Missed you so much."
My hands find his shirt buttons, start working them loose. He catches my wrists gently, pulls back just enough to look at my face.
"Wait." His breathing is ragged. "Are you sure? Because if we do this—if we cross this line again…"
"I'm sure." I pull one hand free, touch his face. "I've been sure for weeks. I'm tired of pretending I don't want this. Don't want you."
"We agreed to distance. You said—"
"I know what I said." I interrupt him. "I was protecting myself. Protecting my heart because I was afraid you'd choose the safe path, the expected path. But Domnall," I meet his eyes. "You claimed children you thought belonged to another man. You're investigating your own mother for murder. You're risking everything. That's not the safe path."
His hands frame my face. "No. It's not."
"So ask me again." My voice is steady. "Ask me if I want this."
"Do you want this?" The question comes out barely above a whisper. "Do you want me?"
"Yes." The word is simple, absolute. "God help me, yes."
He kisses me again, deeper this time. His hands slide down from my face to my waist, to my hips, pulling me flush against him. I can feel every line of his body, feel the evidence of how much he wants this too.
"The door." The words come out breathless.
He pulls away just long enough to cross to the door. Locks it with a decisive click. Turns back to me.
We fall into each other again. His jacket comes off. My dress laces loosen. We're moving toward the desk, or maybe the chair, or maybe just the floor—I don't care. All I care about is his hands on my skin, his mouth on mine, the desperate need to be close to him after weeks of careful distance.
The line we've been holding finally crosses.
And neither of us wants to go back.