She spent two weeks deciphering the abysmal recordkeeping. She found discrepancies. She found where grain was rotting in improperly sealed silos. She found tenants who had been overcharged for winter fuel.
She didn't scream or throw tantrums. She simply called the men into the office and dismantled their excuses with cold, terrifying logic, backed by years of managing a household budget on practically nothing. She was not feared because she was cruel. She was feared because she was competent.
Henry watched it all happen from a distance. He spent his days riding the boundaries of the estate, breathing the sharp, freezing air, letting the sheer silence of the Highlands bleed the poison of London out of his veins. He had expected Norah to hide in her rooms. He had expected her to be overwhelmed.
Instead, he found her in the kitchens showing a scullery maid a trick for getting rust out of cast iron. He found her in the library, a smudge of ink on her nose, ruthlessly organizing a chaotic pile of legal documents. They lived in the same massive house, but they circled each other like two solitary wolves, assessing a new pack structure. The shift happened in late October.
The wind was shrieking off the loch, hurling sleet against the thick glass of the library windows. Henry was sitting in a leather wingback chair by the massive stone fireplace, nursing a glass of amber whiskey. Norah was at the desk, surrounded by papers, the light of a single candelabrum catching the loose strands of hair that had escaped her braid. "The roof on the McLeod tenant farm needs replacing before the snow sets in," Norah said, not looking up from her ledger.
"I have authorized the purchase of slate from the village quarry." "You don't need to ask my permission, Norah." "I wasn't asking permission," she replied flatly. "I was informing you of an expenditure."
"It's an expensive one. It will drain the quarterly surplus." Henry took a sip of his whiskey. He watched the way the firelight cast shadows across her throat.
"And what if I had wanted that surplus for something else?" Norah finally dropped her pen. She turned in the chair to face him. Her eyes were dark and tired, but the fire was still there.
"Then you should have managed your own estate, Henry," she snapped. "Because I will not allow people to freeze to death on your land while I sit in a warm house drinking imported tea." She expected him to bristle. An aristocrat's pride was a fragile, dangerous thing.
Instead, Henry smiled. He set his glass down on the side table. He stood up slowly. He crossed the heavy Persian rug, moving with that deliberate, predatory grace that had terrified her at the garden party.
Norah's breath hitched. She instinctively pushed her chair back a fraction of an inch. Henry stopped at the edge of the desk. He leaned over, planting both hands flat on the oak surface, trapping her between his arms.
He was close enough that she could smell the woodsmoke on his clothes and the sharp heat of the whiskey on his breath. "I am not Richard Penhalagon," Henry said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous gravel. "And I am not your aunt." He held her gaze.
"You don't have to fight me for every inch of ground, Norah. I gave it all to you the moment I put that ring on your finger." Norah stared up at him. Her heart was hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs.