Rodric grimaced. They were going to make his life miserable.

Brice was hardly bothering to keep the knowing smile off his face as they rode. Rodric could see him from the corner of his eye. He fairly stewed, knowing what must be going through his friend’s head.

What was he supposed to do? Leave her behind? Allow her to fend for herself? Once he was able to explain, they would understand—and if they knew what was good for them, they’d leave it alone.

“How did the three of you manage to pass the time?” he asked, looking around. It was a clear attempt at changing the unspoken subject, but it worked.

Quinn cleared his throat, his cheeks flushing a deeper shade than the heat already reddened them. “Pleasantly,” he replied, eyes cutting in Caitlin’s direction.

“Ah. I see. I hope you didn’t impoverish yourself,” he jeered. “Or, if you did, that the money was well-spent.”

Caitlin looked around, clearly confused, and Rodric chuckled at his friends’ discomfort. No matter who they were or what they were capable of, they were gentlemen when it came to conducting themselves in front of ladies. While their new companion might not have strictly been a lady by birth, she was hardly the sort the three of them had spent their evening with.

The close-built cottages and other buildings of the village began to spread out, spaced further apart the closer they came to the surrounding woods. He could sense Caitlin’s relief—her posture changed as she started to relax.

“Is there anywhere we could stop?” she murmured, keeping her voice low out of more than self-preservation.

From the way she blushed, Rodric understood the meaning of her question.

“Aye. Once we’re far enough into the woods,” he promised. Not that he looked forward to being alone with his friends, with her out of earshot. He could just imagine the time they’d have at his expense.

Once they reached the cover of thick-leafed birch and ash trees, the day cooled considerably. The sweat which had only just rolled down his neck felt pleasant once they reached near-darkness. Even so, he would’ve paid a fair amount of silver for the privilege of a bath in a cool stream.

The thought only brought back the memory of the night before, of her body in the moonlight. The water running down her arms and shoulders, light hair like a curtain falling over her back. That slim waist, waiting for his hands to grasp it…

“Here,” Brice decided, and good thing. If he’d been allowed the chance to pursue his dark fantasies, there might have been a rather embarrassing situation ahead of him.

Caitlin tossed him her reins without saying a word, sliding from the mare’s back before hurrying off to a cluster of bushes some distance away.

The moment she was gone, the three of them whirled on him.

“She’s the McAllister lass then, isn’t she?” Brice asked. “I knew this wouldn’t be as easily done as you promised.”

Rodric held up both hands, still holding two sets of reins. “We’re escorting her to her cousin’s, and the entire ride from the lass’s home to the village took little more than half the day.”

“What about meeting with your brother, as Jake requested?” Quinn asked, keeping one eye at all times on the bushes in case she reappeared.

“I already have, and, as luck would have it, she is the reason for the feud.”

“She is?” Brice chuckled. “Allow me to guess. She’s on the run from him.”

“You’re far better at guessing than I am,” Rodric admitted. “He wants revenge, needless to say. She merely wants to get away from him. The thought of being wed to my brother is… well, worth running away from, even if it means never being at ease.”

“She’s the reason for the feud, and yet you’re helping her hide? Is this what you’re telling us?” Fergus looked around as though to confirm what he suspected. “Even though this only makes the situation worse for the Duncans?”

When spoken in those words, Rodric saw the full measure of how foolhardy the entire endeavor was. He was, in essence, going directly against what Jake had requested of him.

“What would you have me do? Bind and gag the lass? Drag her to my brother’s bed?”

“These are the choices which must be made sometimes, when something larger is at stake,” Brice reasoned. “We do not always have to enjoy making these choices. We might even hate it. But they must be made, nonetheless.”

“I served alongside you,” Rodric reminded him. “I know about difficult choices and how the greater good must be kept in mind.”

“And yet, here we are.” The two of them held each other’s gaze for a long, breathless beat, before Brice averted his eyes.

“How can I make you all see?” he asked, looking around. “I cannot allow the lass to be sold into marriage to my brother. We’ve known each other since we were children, and it would be too cruel. Besides, I know my brother. I know it would not be as easy as allowing the feud to fade away upon the lass’s return. He’s too stubborn for that. If anything, he would continue this insanity just to spite me.”

“You asked him to end it, then.”

“Of course, I did,” he hissed in response to Quinn’s statement. “I told him why I’d come and asked that not turn personal troubles into something much larger. If anything, this was more reason than before for him to stay the course. I should have known he would refuse just to spite me.”

“What do you think Jake will say to this?”

“I think he’ll have no choice but to accept it. When I tell him how vicious Alan was when speaking of the lass, how he…” Rodric closed his eyes briefly, taking a deep breath to calm himself. “When I tell him how my brother threatened to make me witness to the bedding, he might understand the nature of the marriage.”

Brice growled under his breath but hadn’t the chance to respond before Caitlin returned. The looks on the faces of the others told him they understood, at least somewhat—and when Jake heard, and Phillip too, they would also understand.

She came to a stop before reaching the gray mare, freezing in place except for the eyes which moved over the four of them. “You’ve been talking about me,” she surmised.

“Aye,” Rodric replied.

Fergus shot him a look of surprise, Rodric merely shrugged. There was no sense in lying to the lass. She already knew they’d been discussing her. Why wouldn’t they?

“Have you reached a conclusion? Am I to be abandoned? Taken back to my husband?” She lifted her chin in a defiant stance, as though daring them to lay a finger on her. Rodric’s heart swelled with pride. Though she wasn’t his and had never truly been, she was still the only lass he’d ever loved or come anywhere close to loving.

And at this moment, he loved her still.

Brice looked down at himself as though making an examination. “I realize, lass, that we hardly look the type to be kind or thoughtful. But we aren’t entirely cruel. And we’ve little time for men who treat women cruelly.”

“I’m happy to hear that,” she said with a shaky laugh. “Very happy, indeed.”

“I suppose we ought to keep going,” Fergus announced. “If we’ve so much riding ahead of us.”

Rodric’s spirits sank at this. Yes, they had to get her back to where she’d be safe, even if it meant having to part ways with her once they reached Fiona’s home.

He rode beside her as they traveled the woods, with Brice and Quinn ensuring the path ahead of them was clear and Fergus keeping watch behind them.

“Is it pleasant there, on Fiona’s farm?” he asked, feeling rather at a loss.

“It is. Fiona is a wonderful cousin. It’s a very pleasant place. I don’t believe Kent is glad to have me there any longer, however. If he ever was, to begin with.”

“No?”

“Would you be? We aren’t related through blood. Fiona and I were never close, which was what made her a safe choice. Alan didn’t know about her. Kent is more concerned by the day, every day I spend there. He feels threatened, naturally. What happens if I’m discovered? They’re peaceful people. They mind their own lives. They care little for clan matters.”

“I understand. I’ve felt the same for most of my life.”

“Evidently, since you did not return on your father’s passing.”

He gritted his teeth, determined not to argue with her in front of the others. It wouldn’t do for them to witness how easy it was for her get his blood up. “I expect you wouldn’t know this, having never been part of an army, but it isn’t possible for soldiers to simply pack up and return home until they’ve been dismissed from service.”

“I know it’s possible for a soldier to return home when there are important matters to attend to. Such as a parent who’s died.”

“You’re an expert, then.”

“I know what I know.”

“It isn’t that simple,” he explained. “I didn’t receive word of my father’s passing until at least a fortnight after he had already died. It would have taken days to reach the clan’s territory. And since you seem to know so much, you’ll surely remember that the weather at that time of year was rough. There was no way to leave my unit. They wouldn’t have allowed me to leave under such conditions.”

She seemed to take this in, riding in silence for several minutes while her gaze moved this way and that, taking in a pair of rabbits which fled from the approaching hooves and a squirrel which leaped from the branch of one tree to another almost directly overhead.

“I suppose there was little you could do, then,” she eventually decided with a sigh. “I must admit, it’s nearly a relief to know.”

“To know what?”

“That you didn’t mean to simply never return. That you might have perhaps cared enough to be home, but couldn’t.”

“That I might have perhaps?” he asked. “Did you ever know me at all? Did you not believe I’d want more than anything to be home with my father? To at least pay my respects at his burial?”

“Frankly, I wasn’t certain for a long time of whether I knew you or not,” she admitted. “I don’t mean to start an argument. Truly, I don’t. You grew up, became a man. Men change when they’ve grown up. You had been to war, you’d seen so many things. Who was to say who you had become?”

It was his turn to go silent for a while, allowing the songs of the birds and the babbling of a narrow brook which ran alongside the woods fill the silence.

“I never would’ve changed that much,” he announced.

“I didn’t want to believe you had, of course. It’s a relief to know for certain, now, that it was not a lack of feeling which led to you not returning.”

He snorted softly, remembering his great distress when he received word of his father’s death. “To the contrary,” he murmured.

“Your father…” She trailed off before shifting in the saddle as though something pained her. “Your father cared a great deal for you. A very great deal.”

“You don’t need to soothe me, lass. I’m not a child.”

“I wasn’t trying to soothe you. I was merely attempting to remind you that he did, since he cannot tell you himself and likely never did, as that wasn’t his way.”

“Indeed.”

“I saw it. It was very clear to me. The night of the storm.”

A lump formed in his throat, one which he swallowed back in order to speak. “I thought I was the only one who remembered that night.”

“I thought I would die along with you, if you died.” She chuckled. “I had a talent for the dramatic back then.”

“I recall that, as well. I was often at the receiving end of that flair of yours.”

“I had no siblings at home to torment. You bore the brunt of it. That night, during the storm, I saw how your father panicked when you hadn’t returned.”

“When we hadn’t,” he corrected. “Alan was with me.”

“I said what I said,” she replied in a small, but firm, voice.

He looked at her, only to find her watching at him.

“He cared more for your return than for Alan’s,” she explained. “I think I was the only one who saw, because I cared more for you than for him as well.”

Another lump in his throat, and this one wasn’t as easy to ignore. He’d never given much thought to how his father had been affected by their absence; he’d been angry by the time Rodric had warmed up enough to give much thought to what was going on around him. Before that, being half-frozen had taken up too much of his thoughts for anything else to sink in.

“Thank you for telling me,” he finally muttered, eyes away from hers.

The rest of the ride passed in silence, as he thought over what she said. And over, and over. Never once had his father expressed love or affection. He’d rarely, if ever, expressed approval. He was a fair man, to be certain. To Rodric, as a grown man, Ross Anderson’s fairness was clearer than it had been when Rodric had been a boy.

Some of the stupid things he’d done, too. The sorts of scrapes healthy, boisterous young boys found themselves in, to be sure, but the sorts of memories which made him cringe years later. Father had never meted out unwarranted punishment, and had always made a point of asking his son what he’d learned once his punishment was through—even if it had taken the form of a beating.

The most unforgivable thing a man can do is make the same mistake twice, Ross had often lectured. And the more you force me to teach you a lesson, the harsher your punishment will be each time.

Rodric had at least made a point to learn.

Alan had not, and had taken beatings which still caused Rodric to question how he’d ever managed to sit again.

In light of what Caitlin had shared, those beatings took on another meaning.

They emerged from the woods, and instantly sweat beaded on his forehead. It would be a relief to return to Jake’s home, even if he hardly had good news to share. Perhaps Phillip might consider returning with him in order to reach a—

“What is that?” Caitlin’s voice was shrill. When he followed the direction in which her shaking arm pointed, he saw why.

Smoke on the horizon, billowing in thick, black clouds which stood out starkly against the blazing sky.

Sick certainty turned his stomach to ice, and he was about to order her to stay where she stood when she kicked the mare’s sides and sent it into a gallop.

“Wait!” he shouted, knowing as he did that it was a pointless endeavor. He looked to Brice and Fergus. “Watch around us. Whoever did this might be waiting to see if she’ll appear.”

He turned back to Quinn. “Follow me.”

The two of them galloped behind Caitlin, who all but stood in the saddle as the horse tore across the lush countryside. Wind ripped the hat free from her head, sending it flying along with the braid which now swung wildly behind her.

If anyone were watching for her, they’d see her. She’d be impossible to miss. He shouted for the horse to hurry, urging it to catch up with her. The mare she rode hadn’t seemed so fast, but appearances deceived.

The closer they came to the site of the smoke, the clearer the source became.

It was a house, or had been a house, one which sat on the slope of a gentle hill between two groves of spruce trees. He thought he heard screams floating to him on the wind and realized they were Caitlin’s.

She reached the smoldering mass before he and Quinn did, falling from the lathered mare and staying on her knees, face in her hands.

He exchanged a glance with Quinn, who understood what needed to be done. Rather than meet her, Quinn directed his horse to ride around the house to the rear in order to check for attackers lying in wait.

Rodric pulled his horse to a stop and dismounted quickly, gathering her mare’s reins before hobbling both animals. While the fire had burned out, the smoke still upset the beasts, and they might rear or bolt in spite of the exhaustion they were surely suffering.

Caitlin was still screaming, still on her knees. Rodric fell beside her, gathering her in his arms and holding her to his chest. She shook violently, the words coming from her mouth all but impossible to understand. He wasn’t certain he needed to understand her. Not really. It was enough to feel what she was suffering.

He felt it, too. He felt rage. Disgust. Disbelief.

His own brother had done this terrible thing. He’d gone further than Rodric had ever imagined.