Page 54 of Here in Your Arms
Before she sat, Rose scanned the crowd self-consciously, the silence now jarring, having spread outward like a shockwave. Utensils lowered. Heads turned. Dozens of faces stared at her with wide eyes—some pale, some slack-jawed, some stiff with something closer to fear. The hall had gone deathly still.
Somewhere in the back, a servant dropped a pitcher. The crash echoed like thunder.
She glanced to her left, to where Tiernan was just now stepping up onto the dais. The expression he fixed on her was thunderous. His hands clenched at his sides, his blue eyes fixed on her like a blade. Not just stunned.Furious.
At her side, Lean tugged at her side, drawing Rose down to sit. Her eyes brimmed with joy.
Rose’s heart thudded in confusion. She opened her mouth to speak—to ask if she’d done something wrong—but Leana spoke first, answering the question Rose hadn’t yet voiced.
Leana’s voice rang clear across the hush, soft and reverent. “Ye look more yerself tonight, my love. In yer own gown. And with yer hair arranged as ye favor.”
A shiver coursed down Rose’s spine.
Yer own gown. Yer hair arranged as ye favor.
Realization bloomed cold in her chest.
She wasn’t wearing Emmy’s gown. She was wearing Margaret’s.And her hair—styled not simply, but intricately, carefully—had been arranged as Margaret had worn it.
A murmur stirred through the hall. An older woman crossed herself. Another whispered, “St. Andrew protect us.”
Tiernan stood in front of his chair, his knuckles white as he set his fists on the table. “Enough,” he snapped, his voice like a crack of thunder.
The crowd stilled, but the weight of their stares remained.
Rose sat rooted to the chair, her cheeks burning, her pulse roaring in her ears. She hadn’t meant for this—she hadn’t known.
“She is nae Margaret,” Tiernan stated, his voice low but commanding. “Ye can clearly see that. She dinna sound like her. She dinna walk like her. She has—” He hesitated, just for a fraction of a second, before continuing, flinging his hand in Rose’s direction. “She has the scar.”
His words landed like stones, a brutal and unwelcome reminder.
Rose flinched before she could stop herself, the familiar ache curling deep in her chest. Her gaze darted to him, not having the wherewithal to hide the unexpected hurt caused by his words.
But even that wasn’t enough to quell the unease of those gathered.
“The scar...” an old woman at the far end of the hall spoke up. “A wound sustained... moving between the realm of the dead and the living.”
The murmurs resumed, voices thick with apprehension.
Before Tiernan could issue another sharp command, a different voice rang out, deep and harsh.
“Aye. Enough!” came a voice that sent a ripple of tension through the room.
Rose turned sharply, her breath catching as she met the dark, suspicious gaze of Domnall de Moubray.
He had barely spoken to her since her arrival, barely looked at her at all, but now, his gaze was locked onto her, hard and unwavering, his face set in grim, rigid lines. His chair scraped against the floor as he rose, his movements deliberate, his fingers flexing at his sides as if restraining the urge to clench into fists. The hush that settled over the hall was suffocating, and when he spoke, his voice carried through the room with quiet, seething intensity.
“I have tolerated this,” he said, each word measured, as if he had been holding them back for too long. “I have held my tongue. But nae more.” His gaze bore into her, slow and assessing, and there was no grief in his eyes, no sorrow. There was only something colder, something far more cutting. “Ye should nae have come here.”
The words struck like a physical blow, the breath knocked from her lungs.
Domnall’s expression was thunderous, his features tight with barely restrained fury, his mouth a grim slash as he glared at her from across the table. The weight of his anger bore down on the room, thick and suffocating, his fingers flexing at his sides as if he were fighting the urge to strike something—or someone.
“Ye tear open wounds that should have closed,” he said, his voice low but laced with venom. “Ye poison this place with yer presence. Ye mock my daughter’s memory simply by standing where she should be.”
“Domnall, cease,” Tiernan warmed him.
Domnall’s stare never wavered, his dark eyes filled with a simmering, dangerous wrath. “Ye ken ye belong here? Ye ken this keep, these people, will ever accept ye?” His voice dipped lower, colder. “They whisper now, but in time, they will turn. I have seen what fear does to men. It festers. It spreads. And one day, it will spill over. If ye remain here, witch, it will nae be whispers ye hear in the night. It will be fire and stone.”
