Cora’s heart was pounding. Had she failed the test somehow? Was Weatherby going to declare it invalid? Why hadn’t he been there to witness it in the first place? After everything she’d been through to try to spare the MacClarans any more suffering and pain, was it all for naught — were their relations with the English about to deteriorate even more?

“I’ve never seen him look so angry,” Audrina murmured to Cora, looking uneasy. He marched right up to them, almost shaking with rage — and then offered them a courteous bow, and stepped around them to where Cotswold had just dragged himself out of the water and up onto the pier (entirely unassisted by the Inquisitors, who were still studying him as though he were a particularly interesting new species of water beetle.)

“James Cotswold,” Weatherby boomed in a voice Cora had never heard the mild-mannered lord use. “This is the end. For years I have tolerated your flights of fancy — your madness — your derangement. Always over women, always founded on nothing. The things I have allowed — the horrible sins I have enabled — I have much atoning to do. I hold myself partially responsible for the terrible suffering you have wrought. I did it for your family — for a debt I felt I owed your parents, a favor done for me years ago in war. Your brother saved my life, Cotswold, and for that debt I’ve tolerated so much. Too much. I’ll be asking forgiveness for what I’ve allowed you to do for the rest of my life. But no longer, do you hear me? Henceforth, you and I shall never meet. You will have no more than two weeks to remove your belongings from my lands. Where you go, and what you do, I have no interest. I wash my hands of you.”

Cotswold sagged on the pier, looking dumbstruck. The Inquisitors both took their opportunity to step forward adroitly and haul him up by the arms. Working in perfect unity, they marched him away, pausing only to nod respectfully to Colin before they left. Cora watched them go, feeling a sense of relief so acute it threatened to knock her back into the lake.

“MacClarans,” Weatherby addressed them solemnly, sketching a rather formal bow. “I am so, so sorry for the pain and turmoil that excrement of a man has caused your household. I hope I can one day repay your kindness in continuing to deal cordially with me, and with the Crown, despite what he has done to you. Consider me an ally for life. If ever you need a favor, however large or small, write to me. I will make it my solemn duty to drop all else and come to your aid.”

“We’re just glad to be shot of the man, t’be honest,” Ian said plainly.

Weatherby was startled into a laugh — a strange and rusty sound from him. “Quite. We have that in common, young man.” He bowed again. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll start removing his effects from my castle.”

Weatherby strode off into the early afternoon, whistling to himself, seemingly in a much better mood after his outpouring of rage at the thoroughly disgraced Lord Cotswold. The four MacClarans (well, three and one honorary, Cora corrected herself) watched him go in a long, comfortable silence that seemed to stretch to cover the hills and dales of the countryside. Though it had been an overcast, cloudy morning with a spattering of rain, the weather was beginning to turn. Cloud had given way to pale blue sky in a few patches, and the sun was strong enough to be gently warming the wet hair that was plastered to the side of Cora’s head by mud and lake water. She put a hand to her head, suddenly remembering.

“Good Lord, I must look an absolute fright,” she gasped.

Ian grinned and kissed her. “You look like a swamp monster,” he told her, with all kinds of love in his voice. “My swamp monster.”

Laughing, she wiped some of the mud off and smeared it across the side of his face, making sure to get it into his hair. “Look, we can have a swamp monster wedding!”

“And lots and lots of baby swamp monsters,” Audrina challenged them both, her eyes shining cheekily in the sunlight.

“Well...”

“Come on, Cora, you’ve got to have at least one. Think of it as professional development. Besides, I want Catriona to have a best friend like you.”

“Not even married yet and they’re already planning our children, Cora,” Ian complained, looping an arm around her waist as they began to make the trek back up to the castle. Whether she was more desperate for a hearty meal or a good bath was impossible to determine — Cora wondered if she could talk Mary into bringing her a big plate of lunch in the bath. She wrinkled her nose as her feet squelched through the damp mud. She was cold, sore, probably covered in leeches, wet to the bone and absolutely exhausted from two nights of sleeping in a cell and fearing for her life. She was almost certainly trapped six hundred years before her birth in a castle that had no electricity, no running water and no idea what a cell phone was. All her laundry had to be done by hand, all her cooking had to be done on a fire, and if she wanted to watch a movie or a television show, she was going to have to rely on her imagination. She’d never see anyone she grew up with ever again, with the exception of one close friend she worked with. This was her life now — a castle in the middle of Scotland, full of people with accents she could hardly understand, and she was their midwife and one of the most medically qualified people on the premises.

Cora Wilcox threw back her head and laughed for the sheer joy of being alive. She had never been happier in all her days.