Aisling looked up sharply, her eyes widening.
She could not hold back the wave of emotion rising inside her.
She blinked hard, fighting the tears threatening to spill over.
Her father had been willing to give up his revenge, to bury himself alive in grief for more than a decade, rather than let the Delaneys openly rebel against Kilmore.
And now, after everything, he was ready to risk everything again—all for her.
To him, not even the whole kingdom mattered as much as his one daughter.
“No.
It can’t be that way,” she said, shaking her head, her voice trembling with tears.
“You know as well as I do—I can’t do that either.”
“If I actually ran, it would drag Ardmore into something there’d be no coming back from.”
At that point, Ardmore’s actions would look exactly like open rebellion against the crown.
And they would still have Ronan’s fury to contend with on top of it.
Her father’s face grew heavy with sorrow.
His eyes shone with tears as he looked at her, guilt, love, and blame tangled together.
Beneath all of it, however, was something that looked almost like pride.
His daughter carried the same fierce sense of right and wrong that ran through their entire family.
“Father.
Maybe marrying Ronan isn’t such a terrible thing after all.”
…
Outside the pavilion, Bríd, Róisín, and the servant boy waited together by the door.
Water surrounded the pavilion on three sides, fifteen feet across, with only the eastern path leading in or out.
Even standing on the shore, the distance made it impossible to hear anything from inside.
The pavilion itself had also been built so well that not even a voice could carry through the walls.
Aisling had been inside for a long while, and Róisín was beginning to fret.
“Aunt Bríd, what do you think they’re talking about in there?
Do you think the lord can actually help her?”
He was so drunk.
Could he even follow a serious conversation?
Bríd only shook her head.
With her hands folded before her, she stood quietly at the door and looked up at the clear sky.
The place held many memories for her.
There had been a time when Aisling’s parents had not been like this at all.
A time when the entire household had been filled with genuine laughter.
Bríd still remembered Aisling’s mother saying, “Bríd, we’re the same age.
Stop being so serious all the time.
Come climb up here with me.
The view is wonderful from up there!”
And Bríd would always dodge the hand reaching toward her, half in tears.
“Please, my lady.
I can’t climb.
I’m afraid of heights.”
Later, her lady had said:
“Bríd, I think I might like Ruairí.
I can’t quite put it into words.”
“Bríd, I’m expecting!
It’s the strangest feeling.”
“Bríd, I think things are about to get very dangerous.”
“Bríd, I’m leaving these two children in your hands.
Please, look after them.”
That last image of her lady had remained with Bríd ever since.
As for the lord…
If heaven had any mercy left, Bríd hoped it would allow him one final moment to burn brightly before the end.
Just as Róisín began pacing, the door finally opened.
Bríd’s eyes immediately went to Aisling’s face.
Aisling had tidied herself up, but Bríd noticed it anyway.
Her eyes were much redder than before, unmistakably showing that she had been crying.
She turned to the servant boy.
“Bring your lord some tea to sober him up.
He’s still deep in it.”
The three women walked back together, passing servants along the way.
Aisling must have looked troubled enough to draw attention.
She had stayed at Willowmere far too long that day, and she would need some excuse for it—something like having gone there to weep at her father’s feet and getting nowhere.
In its own strange way, that was almost the truth.
Before leaving the pavilion, Aisling had asked her father one final question.
What had her mother been like, in his eyes?
She had never met her mother in this life.
All she had was a portrait kept by her grandmother, showing Sorcha at around eight or nine years old.
When Aisling had been young, her grandmother had pointed to the portrait and told her, “You’re the very image of your mother.”
As Aisling grew older, her grandmother never said it again.
She had never seen her own daughter grow beyond that age.
In her parents’ memories, Sorcha had remained forever ten years old—the age she had been when she left Ardmore.
There was not a single portrait of her left in Devlin House, so Aisling had been forced to build her image of her mother entirely from Bríd’s memories and stories.
Her question had caught her father off guard.
He had thought for a long while, choosing his words carefully, before finally speaking with genuine tenderness.
“Your mother was the one who stood by me through the worst of it, the darkest years I ever had…”
Sorcha had grown up in Ardmore, spoiled by parents who had never demanded much discipline from her.
She had run wild with her two older brothers, free as anything.
She should have grown like a tree left to thrive in open ground.
Instead, she had been forced to come to Dunmore, where she became something trimmed and confined—a flower kept in a vase inside Devlin House.
Even so, she had never complained about the years slipping away.
She had never turned her frustration against Ruairí.
Instead, she had played with the little heir, who had been raised under strict rules, bringing life into the walls of Devlin House.
She had helped Ruairí carry the grief of losing his father and grandfather.
She had been the only real light in an otherwise gray life inside that house.
He had taught her to read and write.
She had taught him all sorts of clever tricks and strange little crafts.
The thought had always been half amusing and half exasperating to him.
Those days had passed quickly, filled with laughter and games.
Later, when they had grown older and finally understood what they felt for one another, they had confessed their feelings plainly and become a true couple.
Those had been the happiest years of Ruairí’s entire life.
The memories alone had kept him standing every time he came close to breaking.
Aisling said nothing after hearing this.
There was nothing left to say.
She bowed properly to her father and walked out of the pavilion.
Back in her own rooms, she stood by the window and looked past the flowering branches toward the distant sky.
Whatever disappointment had appeared on her face gradually faded.
The wetness in her eyes receded like a withdrawing tide, leaving something solid and unshakable beneath it.
Since Ronan wanted to marry her, then she would marry him.
Just as she had told her father, perhaps it was not such a terrible thing after all.
This world gave women little real place at court.
Marriage was one of the few doors into genuine power.
Ronan ruled the entire northern frontier.
Marrying him would put Aisling directly into the heart of that world and give her room to actually accomplish something with her life.
She asked Bríd to bring her a smooth, carved wooden tablet and wrote a formal letter of introduction herself.
Aisling, daughter of the King of Devlin, sends her respects.
To call upon you on the sixth day of the third month.
Once the ink dried, she handed the tablet to Bríd.
“Take this to Ronan.”
“You’re going to see him?”
Bríd looked at the letter, clearly unable to understand Aisling’s reasoning.
After that night, her opinion of Ronan had certainly not improved.
To her, he was far too reckless.
“Don’t worry.
I have a plan.”
When the letter reached Ronan, he was surprised at first.
Then he was unmistakably pleased.
He had been thinking of little else over the past few days.
Yet alliance matters had kept him occupied, and he had not found an opportunity to seek Aisling out himself.
Cathal had already declared her his by decree, so Ronan had held himself back out of a measure of restraint.
Hearing that Aisling wanted to see him herself delighted him.
He cleared his schedule at once.
More than anything, he was curious about what she intended to say.
The following day, Aisling prepared herself.
She loaded a cart with fine wine, several distinctive Kilmore sweets, dried meats, and various other small treasures before riding out to Ashgrove Gardens.
The moment she stepped down from the carriage, the guards at the gate hurried inside to announce her arrival.
A servant led her through the corridor, past the carved stone screen at the front of the courtyard, and into the main hall.
Ronan was waiting there.
He noticed her at the same moment she noticed him.
He rose to his feet, his dark eyes settling on her.