Page 67 of An English Rose for the Highlander
Still, she followed Eilidh to her usual seat, her parents sitting across from her at the table just a few feet away with Fiona and Eilidh. A small assemblage compared to the fullness of most meals in the keep. However, Rose imagined that Eilidh had asked for the chamber to be theirs alone for the evening.
What Rose did notice was the group of three musicians who always played gentle melodies in the background to accompany dinner. They had not been dismissed, and she was grateful for it. Silence would have been utterly taxing.
As she sat, looking over the collection of food piled into the center of the table, Rose was heartened to see all her favorites. Eilidh had cookedevery dishthat she had ever mentioned enjoying, and the tears burned at the corner of her eyes. Gratitude blended with sorrow and the pre-emptive missing of her company. She was still there with her gathered friends, but Rose already felt as if she’d traveled hundreds of miles away. The hole in her heart was profound and nauseating.
And then Dominik walked in through the massive doors across the room.
The pinch of his brows was so deep, so furrowed, that she wondered if it was now permanently etched into his face. As he walked closer, his stare traveled over those assembled, and not a single time did his eyes meet hers or even move in her direction.
Rose’s entire being crumbled, and she curled into herself, furiously fighting back the tears that blurred her vision. Herhusband would not even look at her, and she was doing all of this—leaving the place she considered home—to help him.
Her throat ached from how she suppressed the sobs that pounded against her sternum from the inside. And in the quiet, only the musician’s slow plucking filling the background, Dominik circled the long table and took up his seat next to her. His rightful chair as Laird, andstill, he did not look or speak to her.
Dominik began eating, a signal to everyone that they could as well, and from across the short distance, Oskar spoke up from his table.
“All right. That is quite enough of that.” He raised his voice, calling out to the musicians. “Play something with a bit of revelry to it!”
The music changed at once, but more like the tunes she’d heard at the gatherings, and the air in the room lifted some. Her parents smiled over at her, Horatia making it clear that she would support whatever Rose decided. Then, in a move that greatly surprised Rose, Horatia lifted her glass in a toast.
“To Clan MacKay. May you be as strong as you were the night that fiend burned your door. And in profound gratitude to the Laird of MacKay for protecting our daughter.”
The small group cheered in agreement, and Rose raised her glass and called out along with them, despite the agony lingering in her chest. Easy conversations began among her friends, then, asthey ate and chatted about the various to-dos before traveling and how Eilidh managed to run such an impressive household. It was almost…normal.
But it was not. And Rose’s husband would still not look at her.
When the plates had been cleared, their bellies as full as they could be—though fullness had not stopped Rose but rather unease—her parents called out for the musicians to play a waltz, a dance which was apparently all the rage in England now.
“To your feet, everyone,” Horatia said with impressive volume. “We will dance the night away before the long travel.”
Frivolity and movement burst into life as her family and friends stood from their seats and began to dance happily to the new tune. Horatia and Baldwin had to teach the Scots the steps, and Rose was very impressed to see how quickly Oskar picked it up, taking Peggy’s hand and swinging her about the floor in the center of the Great Hall.
There was something between them that even Rose could see through her somber-tinted eyes, and she couldn’t help but smile as her maid did, waltzing in a beautiful pattern under Oskar’s lead.
“You're quite good at this,” she said as she passed Rose.
“Daenae sound so surprised, lass.” Oskar was always one for a joke. “I’m good at everything I try me hand at.”
Peggy blushed furiously as they waltzed away from Rose, and she turned to see her father bowing in front of Eilidh and then taking her hand to dance. Her face was alive with scandal and shock, and Rose found herself laughing. Nothing felt right or normal but seeing Eilidh so scandalized as to dance with a married Englishman had a way of bringing out the levity in even a dark situation, it seemed.
To Rose’s side, Fiona and Horatia stood next to her, the two of them laughing hysterically as Eilidh was twirled about. Rose watched, her chest slightly less tense, as her mother leaned over to the young woman and whispered, “We should dance too. Give your Mrs. Eilidh something to truly fluster about.”
Everyone there was partaking in this desperately needed revelry except for Dominik and herself. Something about the situation felt akin to a party before a great battle, or a drink before receiving terrible news. It was a moment of joy that would make the next so much easier to bear, and it provided a distraction from the pain.
Rose needed that. She, too, needed a distraction, and if this was genuinely to be her last evening with Dominik, Rose would spend it dancing with him.Thatwould be her last memory of them together.
Gathering her courage, she walked back toward the main table where Dominik still sat, stopping before him.
“Would you dance with me? I can teach you the steps.”
The moment stretched, and Rose feared that he would not respond, leaving her to walk away with her wounded pride searing into her soul. But without saying a word, Dominik stood from the table and approached her, almost cautiously. He followed, still silent, as she led them out into the middle of the room, joining the others in the graceful dance.
“Put your hands like this,” Rose instructed softly, nodding at the others as she helped Dominik’s hands find her waist and her shoulder. “Good. Now, on the balls of your feet, you will meet the music with a rise and fall, you stepping forward, and me stepping back.”
Rose helped him through the first form of the dance, and she noted how Dominik studied her feet and the movements of the others, particularly Oskar.
“Yes, just like that. Step forward on the left foot, then step to the side toward the right, and then close your left foot to your right.” Dominik executed the dance perfectly, his impressive strength backed by an even more remarkable grace and fluidity. “Excellent. You will give Oskar a bit ofseriouscompetition.”
They took a few turns around the room, Dominik’s body responding to the music as hers did. But that was all of him that appeared. His mind was somewhere else, and hestilldid not look at her.
