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Now he would never know.

He pressed his palm against the cool stone wall, letting the silence settle around him.

So many chances lost. So many words left unspoken.

He couldn’t change the past, no matter how often he turned it over in his mind. But he could honor it. He could raise the twins as his brother would have wanted, keep the castle standing, and protect the people who still called it home.

It wasn’t redemption. Perhaps it never would be. But it was something. And for now, something would have to be enough.

The corridor outside the nursery was dark. Only a thin line of candlelight showed beneath the door. Evander eased it open, because he had learned by now how lightly the twins slept, and stopped on the threshold.

Freya was sitting on the floor beside the cot. Her back was against the wall, her knees drawn up, and she was watching the twins with such fierce, unblinking attention that she might have been standing guard over a gate.

She looked pale, with dark circles beneath her eyes. When she turned her head at the creak of the door, she swayed slightly, as though the movement had cost her more than it should.

She looked, he thought with sudden alarm, very much like a woman about to faint.

“What are ye doin’?” he whispered.

She didn’t even look up.

Evander had never seen her in such a state. He had never thought he would.

He crossed the room and lowered himself to the floor beside her. He had never sat on a nursery floor in his life, and he suspected he looked like a bear trying to fold itself into a henhouse.

Freya looked back at the cot.

“I told ye, Jack was right,” she said, very quietly. “It was me fault Archer got hurt. I should have been more careful. It wasnae right of me to take the twins out when I couldnae keep an eye on him. What was I thinking?”

Archer stirred. They both froze until he settled again with a small snuffling sigh.

Evander looked at his wife’s profile in the candlelight, and something tightened in his chest. He set the trencher in her lap. “Well, I willnae let me wife faint on me watch. Eat.”

She scowled. “Do ye think I am in the mood to eat?”

“Do ye want me to feed ye?”

Evander almost wished she would push back against him. He could imagine feeding her, pushing the food between those soft, pink lips. Her tongue would dart out, brushing against the tips of his fingers.

He shifted and cursed himself inwardly.

This was not how it was meant to go. He had made his intentions plain from the start. After the three weeks, they’d lead separate lives. Separate chambers. A marriage of duty and nothing more. He had told himself it would be that simple, that a wife need be no more than a name on a contract and a face at the far end of the table.

And yet here he sat, close enough to catch the scent of her perfume and watch the firelight caress the curve of her cheek. He had no business wondering how her skin would feel beneath his palm or how she would blush if he leaned closer.

It was madness, pure and simple. She’d spent the whole day guarding a child that wasn’t hers, and that, more than anything, undid him.

He should stand. Make some excuse about the north wall or the well rope, leaving her to finish her meal in peace. That would be the sensible thing to do, but he didn’t move. Instead, he found himself holding out a morsel, half daring her to refuse him, half hoping she wouldn’t.

“Nay!” she sputtered.

He fed her anyway, and she laughed and pushed his hand away, eating another bite by herself this time.

“Ye ken, for someone who wants to lead separate lives, ye’re being too kind to me.”

Evander didn’t react, but he almost wanted to. To see her flustered and blush because of him.

“Daene confuse the two, wife. I want ye alive even if I daenae plan to spend all that much time with ye.”