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“You needn’t. I’m certain Whitby would welcome you all to stay there instead, but I, at least, will go to Delmore.” And since he didn’t want to argue about it, he stood, tugging his waistcoat back into place. “Do excuse me, everyone. I have some correspondence of my own to go through now.”

He ought to have known escape wouldn’t be so simple. He barely made it into the hall before Ella came racing up behind him, grabbing his arm. “Brice, what in the world are you thinking?”

Darting a glance over his shoulder to see whether their guests or any servants lingered nearby, he pulled her a few more steps along before answering. “What do you mean?”

“What do I . . . ? You know very well what I mean! You were there when her husband was killed, right alongside Brook and Stafford. They are convinced she blames them for his death and will seek revenge—why would you not assume she’ll do the same with you?”

“Shh! Do you want to worry Mother more?” He tucked Ella’s ivory hand into the crook of his elbow and propelled her out the door at the end of the hall, into the autumnal garden.

“You can’t think her innocent in all that. You
can’t
.”

“On the contrary.” He was convinced she had been involved in each and every step of planning Brook’s kidnapping and potential murder, was convinced she would do anything to get her hands on the diamonds she thought rightfully hers. “And I intend to prove it.”

Ella tugged him to a halt, her brown eyes wide with outrage. “How? By flirting a confession from her? Even you aren’t so charming, and if you think you are, then we need to have a serious conversation about your hubris.”

Flirtation may play a role in his plan, but a confession did not. Catherine Pratt would never give one—he knew that. He would have to catch her in a new crime. Like attempting to steal the gems she well knew he had. The ones she had watched Brook drop into his hand a year ago.

He might as well provide her the opportunity. “If she intends revenge, I would rather she try to take it on me than on the Staffords—they’ve little Lord Abingdon to consider now. But you needn’t fear, Ella-bell. I’ll be prepared for anything she might try.”

“You are not invincible. No one is.” Her voice cracked, shook. No doubt her eyes were seeing their father, collapsed and broken when he had seemed so infinitely strong. “And you are in no better position to take such risks than are Brook and Stafford. Perhaps you’ve no infant son, but that is part of the point, isn’t it? You are all we have. You are Nottingham.”

All true . . . and if something went wrong, if something happened to him—worse, if something happened to Ella or Mother—he would never forgive himself. But the Lord had not released him. Every time he prayed about it, he received the self-same answer he had gotten
before
Father’s death—that he must draw Lady Pratt’s attention away from the Staffords. “The Lord will keep me safe.”

“Brice . . .”

The cool autumn air swirled around them, and a golden eagle circled overhead. Brice gripped his sister’s hands. “Trust me in this, Ella. Lady Pratt is vicious and is not above hiring thugs to do her dirty work—it is wiser to take the offensive than to wait for her to spring some trap on
me
.”

He knew from the glint in Ella’s eyes that his claim did nothing to put her at ease. But she pressed her lips together against further argument. For the moment.

He had no doubt she’d have more to say about it, though, once she’d had time to form her words.

He only hoped she kept Mother out of it. She had enough to suffer, with the loss of Father still so fresh in her heart. She didn’t need to be worrying about losing her son too.

Three

L
ilias Cowan paused outside the study door long enough to draw in a fortifying breath. To wipe her hands on her skirt and to roll back her shoulders. She had learned long ago that if one wanted the Kinnaird to listen, one had to be strong—a task not always so easy in the face of his tempers. But when her rap upon the door earned her a gruff “Enter,” she strode in as if she planned to ask for no more than an afternoon off.

As if she weren’t about to suggest that he go back on his own word, twice over.

Douglas Kinnaird glanced over at her, his brows still in the perpetual frown he had worn the past fortnight, ever since he found Rowena sobbing into the stones. Granted, he was never one for abundant smiles, but never in her life had Lilias seen him so grave for so long. What more proof did Rowena need that her father loved her, worried for her? Even Lady Lochaber’s good news of a coming child had earned only a fleeting smile from him.

“What is it, Lilias? I’ve work to do.”

Sometimes she searched his face looking for the boy she had grown up with. There was no hint of him today. There seldom was. But she believed he was still there, somewhere under the years of hurt and determination. She dredged up the same smile she used to give him when they were skipping rocks across the face of the loch. “Aye, I know ye have. But we need to speak o’ Rowena.”

He didn’t just sigh, he hissed out his breath and flung his pen to his desk. “Is she with child, then?”

“It’s too soon to say.” With the Kinnaird, careful meant bold. She strode to the chair opposite his desk and sat, not upon the seat but on the wide arm of it, to keep herself higher. “But we all know it’s a possibility.”

He grunted.

She angled her head and prayed he couldn’t see how she dreaded speaking of this. “How could ye take his side, Douglas? When he hurt what’s yours?”

He spat out a Gaelic curse and shoved to his feet, paced to the window. At least this one offered no sight of Gaoth, so it wouldn’t sour his mood more. Not like her proposal would. “It was a valid question, Lil—she’d been hanging on him for months. How was I to know she didna invite him and then regret it? I was scunnered, too blinded by the rage at first to see . . .”

“Oh, aye. And isna that a familiar refrain?”

He spun, but the fury died away quickly, as it always did when someone had the gumption to call him on it. “Ye think I
want
to promise her to him, when he would treat a Kinnaird in such a way? I’ve no choice, ye ken. He ruined her. Possibly got a child on her. The only security I can give her is marriage.”

“Marriage to that monster is no security, Douglas. It’s a death sentence, and she willna do it.”

He snorted and turned back to the window. “She hasna backbone enough to refuse. Just like her mother, going where’re the wind blows her, that one.”

“Ye’ve the wrong of her.” Lilias stood, fire burning away any weakness now. She’d been there from the day Rowena was born, even from before that day. She knew her better than anyone on Earth. Loved her like her own. “Ye just canna get it through that thick skull of yours that some people are made strong by a soft hand, not a heavy one.”

“Like Nora? What did a soft hand get me with her, hmm? I tried it for a decade, and look what happened. And Rowena’s just like her.”

“No.” Much as Rowena failed to realize it, it wasn’t true. “She’s half yer blood too.”

He pivoted again and folded his arms across his chest. “What is it ye want, Lily? Other than to berate me for rearing my child as I saw fit?”

She took time enough to moisten her lips, to tuck back a greying curl that had slipped loose. “She willna marry Malcolm. If it’s a stand ye want from her, ye’ll get it on this. But he’ll not let her go, not if he can help it. Especially not if he thinks she’s with child.”

He arched his brows and waited.

She stood. “We’ve got to get her away from here, before the question can be answered.”

“Too many Highlanders have been sent away from their homes—”

“Why must everything go back to the clearances with you, Douglas? This isna the English forcing a Highlander from his croft. It’s a father protecting his daughter!” She huffed out a breath, dragged in another one, and stomped her way to his side. “Ye dinna
want
to give her to Malcolm, do ye?”

The tic in his jaw was answer enough. It spoke even louder than his “There’s no other way.”

“Aye but there is. The Nottinghams have just come. I’m sure ye ken.”

His eyes, the same grey as Rowena’s, went darker under his drawn brows. “What are ye suggesting, Lilias?”

“A replay of history, with a bit of a twist.” The smile felt false, but she wore it. “I’ve seen the young duke around the village in years past. Mistook him a time or two for Malcolm, as it happens. They’ve the same look about them.” But the resemblance ended at the dark hair, the height, the strong features. Every word she’d ever heard spoken about the young lord painted him to be kind, jolly,
good
—and this from Highlanders, who as oft as not despised all English on principle.

A far cry from Malcolm.

“Surely ye’re not suggesting—”

“Ye’ve waited nigh unto thirty years for yer revenge—here’s yer chance for it. Revenge upon
her
, but ye’d still be advancing and protecting yer daughter. And getting her far away from Malcolm.”

Consideration ticktocked through his eyes. “No.” But it was a soft, thoughtful refusal, not a stubborn one. “There’s no way to work it—not having kept our distance all these years.”

“But Nora didna, and Rowena went with her that summer, ye ken. She has an acquaintance with the young lady. All ye’ve got to do is send yer wife over now, with Rowena, and with an invitation to dine. Let them all think the new countess has softened you.”

“And then when they are here . . .”

She didn’t fill in the silence this time. Better to let him make his own schemes, as they were usually sounder than hers. So long as they had the same goal. So long as they resulted in Rowena going far, far from Loch Morar—and from the monster who would destroy her if given the chance.

After some time, he met her gaze again, begrudging respect in his eyes. “I dinna ken what kind of man he is.”

“Ye always said ye could judge a man in five minutes.” One notable exception aside. “Ye’ll have it at dinner, if ye invite them.”

“So I will.” He straightened, lifted his chin. “I’ll not do it unless she convinces me she’s a backbone. I’ll not send my daughter to England if she’s incapable of being a Highlander there.”

“Aye, well.” Perhaps her smile was equal parts relief and fear that it would yet all fall apart. But she felt it anyway. “Tell her again she must marry Malcolm—ye’ll get a rise out of her, now that she’s seen him again.”

He chuckled—the first amusement she’d heard from him in a fortnight—and turned to his desk again. “How is it that she loves you so dearly and hates me so fiercely, when we’re not so verra different?”

Lilias snorted a laugh and lifted her arms. “Soft hands, Dougie. Soft hands.”

He shook his head, and she saw it—the boy that had used to play with her brother, pull her braids, and make mischief with her and the rest of the cousins. “When you married Cowan, I feared ye’d lose what was Kinnaird, Lily. I was wrong—ye never did. But . . .” He leaned forward, braced against his desk, that mischief in his eyes. “When the Nottinghams are dining with us, I’ll thank ye to remember to call me
milord
.”

She made an exaggerated curtsy and let herself out of the room. Only once she was back in the hallway did she press a hand to her stomach and drag in another deep breath. One lion fought—but it left Rowena yet to convince, and Lilias had a feeling the supposedly meek daughter would give her more a fight than the supposedly hateful father on this particular subject.

So be it. She would lie to the girl if she must, she would plan it all out with the Kinnaird and leave Rowena ignorant. Anything, so long as she could save her. Rowena was the closest thing to a daughter Lilias would ever have . . . and she wouldn’t see her life ruined.

She wouldn’t see Rowena turn into Nora.

Silence descended so deafeningly that Rowena swore she heard the ringing of it in her ears. The hands she had braced upon the table quaked. Her stomach rejected the very smell of the food before her. But she couldn’t give an inch on this—she knew it. Even as she wanted to run whimpering from the room and hide under the blankets of her bed, she knew it.