Martha put a hand on his shoulder, and he flinched. “Rowan?”
He shook his head. “I’m fine. Just too much sun.”
Martha glanced at the girls with a frown, and he wondered if she knew. Maybe she was as haunted as he was by her daughter’s death. “You should put on a shirt before you get a sunburn.”
“It’s ninety degrees, Martha. All the men are out there sweating and half-dressed. You would be too if you had any sense. Half-dressed, I mean. I can’t imagine going about in layers of skirts in this heat.” He shook his head again to clear it and drank a second glass of water.
“It’s called having an ounce of shame, Rowan,” she said, folding her arms. “But I should know better when it comes to you, shouldn’t I?”
“Why bother?” He lifted his glass in a toast to the young women who’d come down to ogle the men at work. “Shame is for people who can’t accept the truth.”
“And what truth is that?”
“That we’re all animals deep down, driven by our desires.”
She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Honestly, Rowan. All those years in my class and you never learned a thing about behaving yourself, no matter how many times I rapped your knuckles with the ruler.”
“Oh, I know perfectly well how to behave myself. I just don’t want to.” He winked at her and kissed her on the cheek. “Keep them out of the sun. It really is dangerously hot.” He handed her his empty glass and jogged out of the tent.
“Where are you going?” she called after him. “Didn’t Ewan tell you to rest?”
“He told me to hydrate,” he shouted back. “Which I did!”
The palisades already had a full crew working, and Ewan shooed him away, probably in hopes that he would find some shade and catch his breath. Instead, Rowan climbed up on the ancient stone wall to help the stone masons lay brick. He was no mason, but he could put bricks down just fine, and the work needed to be done.
As he worked in the brutal sun, he fought not to let his mind wander. It had been almost a year since Ambra took her own life. Grief did not have a timeline, or so everyone kept telling him. He’d move on in his own time. Sometimes, it felt like he had. Then he would catch a glimpse of Ambra’s ghost or see Tessa and mistake her for her sister, and that ragged, sinking feeling would return. It wasn’t Tessa’s fault. He told himself that she had lost a sister, too, and it must be difficult to look so much like the dead.
Just the same, he’d done his best to avoid her. It was too hard to be around her still. Seeing Tessa was like having the scab ripped off a wound. It left him unsettled and aching in the hours that followed.
He looked up from laying more brick and saw her again, this time standing on the opposite wall, her auburn hair blowing in the wind. The bruise the noose had left circled her throat the way his fingers used to. Why hadn’t that been enough? Why hadn’t she come to him? Gone to anyone?
Her lips moved, forming his name as if she were calling to him.
“Your Grace!”
Ambra never would have called him that.
Rowan started and looked around to find Tessa below, waving up at him, a glass of water in her hands. He sighed and wiped his hands on his pants, glancing back over to where he’d seen Ambra’s ghost. She wasn’t there and likely never had been.
He slid down the ladder, landing in front of her. “You don’t have to call me that, Tessa.”
Her cheeks flushed slightly, and she held the sweating glass out to him. “You looked hot up there.”
He thanked her and took the drink. It was only polite, and he was thirsty, though he also understood that Tessa had ulterior motives. For some reason, she had her heart set on him, but he just wasn’t interested. She was far too sweet a girl for him. Too gentle.
“Any news of the Crows?” she asked.
He shook his head. “You’d hear before me. Can’t hear a damn thing up on that wall except people shouting and slapping bricks into place.”
Tessa started to say something else, but Rowan spied Gallaway approaching and seized the opportunity to step away gracefully.
“Pardon me, would you? Duty calls,” he said.
“Yes, of course.” She smiled, but it was clear she was disappointed.
“Thank you for the drink,” he said again, handing her the glass. Anything to soften the blow. He didn’t mean to be rude, but he also didn’t want to give her the wrong impression that he was interested.
He stepped away from Tessa and held out his hands to Gallaway, reaching for the clipboard she was carrying. “What have we here?”