“I didn’t eat enough,” she said, sheepish.
“I myself am famished,” he said.
Adaira set her wine down to shut the windows and summon dinner.
It didn’t take long before the servants brought up two trays of food left over from the wedding feast. The meal was set on the round table before the hearth. Jack joined Adaira, and they sat in their rumpled wedding clothes before a dancing fire and finally ate their fill.
It was a quiet meal, but there was nothing strained about it. Adaira realized she and Jack could have moments together in silence that were just as comfortable as the ones filled with conversation. Or even arguments.
“I have a request,” Jack finally said, pushing his plate aside.
“Yes, Jack?”
He hesitated, staring into his wine, and she braced herself. She didn’t know why she was expecting him to let her down, to fail her in some way, but his hesitation kept her on her guard.
“I know we’re not sharing a bed,” he began, glancing at her. “And I wondered if you would grant me permission to spend the nights at my mum’s, so I may watch over her and Frae. Just until we solve the mystery of the missing lasses and justice is served. I am yours by day, but come night … I would like to stay with them.”
His request caught Adaira by surprise. She softened when she saw the worry lining his face. “Yes, of course. Do you want to go to them tonight?”
“No,” Jack said with a slight laugh. “I’m fairly certain my mum would skin me alive if I turned up to sleep in my old bed on my wedding night. She would no doubt think me a terrible lover to you, and then word would spread, and … no.”
Adaira smiled. “Ah, I see. Then would you like for me to send a guard to stay with them tonight?”
“I’ve thought about it, but no. Because if you grant such a thing for my sister, then you would need to grant it to every lass in the east. I don’t want any special favors because I’m bound to you.”
“I understand your reasoning,” Adaira said, “but if you change your mind, let me know. And you don’t need my permission to go stay at your mum’s.”
“Don’t I?” he countered, looking at her. “You’re my wife and my laird.”
“So I am,” she whispered. “How did this come to be?”
He smiled, as if he felt the same awe. “I haven’t the slightest inkling, Adaira.”
They fell silent again.
“There is something else I would like to ask you,” Jack said, breaking the quiet.
She knew what it was. She had been waiting for it, and she could hear it in his voice, a tremor of uncertainty.
Adaira exhaled a long breath, her gaze straying to the fire. “Ask me, and I will answer you, Jack.”
“Who is he?”
He being Callan Craig.
Adaira rubbed her brow, only to remember she still wore her flower crown. She drew it away from her head and set it on the table.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Jack said.
“He was my first love,” she began. “I was eighteen and lonely. I was still struggling with my mother’s death, and Callan was there. I fell for him, quickly, recklessly. I was naïve and believed every promise he gave me. He was all I wanted, and I thought I was enough for him, that he loved me as I loved him. I soon realized I didn’t know him as well as I thought. He was dishonest and sought to use me to get into the guard. And when that didn’t work, he tried to bribe his way there, which Torin and my father settled by sending him to work in the marsh. At first, I was tempted to defend him, until I learned I was not the only one he spoke promises to. But alas, hearts are made to be broken, aren’t they, bard?”
“If they must break,” Jack said, “then they break and remake themselves into stronger vessels.”
“Spoken as one who has likewise had his heart broken,” Adaira countered.
Now Jack was the one to glance away from her, into the mesmerizing safety of the fire. Adaira thought he wouldn’t speak, even as she longed to know the events of his past. But then he opened his mouth and began to breathe words.
“She was a fellow student at the university, in the same year as me. We had a few classes together. I noticed her long before she noticed me. And then one day she heard me play the harp, and she began to speak to me, more and more. My feelings ran deeper than hers. She loved my music more than she loved me, and at first I couldn’t understand what I was doing wrong. But then I realized … she had always loved music. It was something that would forever challenge her, something that would never fade or age or betray her. It sadly wasn’t the same for me, though. I struggled to earn music’s favor—it was forced upon me in the beginning—and even when I had attained a portion of it, I never felt worthy of its beauty.
“But I’m rambling. The moral of this long-winded tale is that I realized music would always be more important to her, so I tried to turn myself into stone. To not feel anything. But now I realize that it is better to live, to feel and have a clean break than be half-dead and cold, cracked from resentment.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Adaira whispered and lifted her cup.
Jack clinked his glass against hers, and they both drank. It felt like a garment had slipped away between them, as if to utter and confess was the first step to healing, to putting broken pieces back together.
She could see more of him now—the mist-laden years when he had dwelled on the mainland and she had roamed the isle.
They sat for a while longer in companionable silence, and when the fire began to die, Adaira rose.
“I’ve kept you up far too late,” she said, brushing the wrinkles from her wedding dress. “The trade is tomorrow, and I should let you rest. Come, I’ll show you to your room.”
Jack made for the door, but Adaira cleared her throat, catching his attention.
“You and I have a secret door that connects our chambers,” she said with a crafty grin, lifting a latch in one of the wooden panels on the other side of her room. Jack’s eyes widened as he watched the secret door creak open, leading into a shadowy corridor.
Adaira stepped into the secret passage, ducking beneath a curtain of gossamer.
Jack followed her. The short corridor led to a door that fed into his chamber. Adaira opened it and let him take the first step into his new room. It was similar to hers: wide and spacious with painted panels and bookshelves, a hearth that had almost extinguished into embers, and a bed with a grand tapestry for a headboard.
“Does this suit you?” Adaira asked.
“More than enough,” Jack said, glancing at her. “Thank you.”
She nodded and began to draw the door closed. “Then sleep well tonight, Jack.” She shut the panel before he could respond, but she stood there for a moment and drank the shadows of the passage, thinking how strange life was. How different her days were bound to be now, with him on the other side of this secret corridor.
Jack stood in his new room.
He stared at the bed—it was far too grand for him—and walked to the desk, where parchment was stacked. His harp rested on the floor nearby. He studied the bookshelves and the painted panels on the walls before he wandered to the hearth, where he threw another log on the fire. He succumbed to the nearby leather chair and felt a restless pang of longing.