(Catherine POV)
I found Mary in the kitchen, her capable hands moving through bread preparation with the kind of unconscious efficiency that spoke of decades spent feeding people who depended on her care. She looked up when I entered, her weathered face creasing into a smile that held genuine warmth despite whatever tensions were currently gripping the castle.
"Miss Catherine," she said, dusting flour from her hands before gesturing toward the tea service that always seemed to appear whenever she sensed someone needed comfort. "You look peaked. Everything all right?"
Everything all right. Such a loaded question when nothing had been all right since the moment I'd stepped through Kieran's gates and begun the process of falling in love with a man who could become a monster under moonlight
