Only once they were on their way and traveling at a brisk trot did Fergus have the chance to begin making sense of this sudden turn of events.

“What was he doing there? On Ben Macdui?” he asked his cousins. His father was not a Campbell, after all, having no loyalty to any particular clan after leaving his own as a boy. The much-youngest son, sixth in line, he’d held no chance of obtaining a position within the clan after reaching manhood.

Instead of lingering on the outside, then, he’d learned a trade and had become a shoemaker. Rather humble circumstances for a man who’d come of age in the house of Clan MacDougal.

He had never expressed regret. But he had also never stepped foot inside the home of his brother-in-law after the great unexplained feud which had caused the rift between them.

So, Fergus had believed, at any rate. Until now.

“Father sent for him,” Donald explained, riding beside Fergus. “Perhaps now that the old man is at the end of his life, he feels the need to make peace with those he wronged. For it was an insult to your father which caused the distance between our families.”

“Aye,” Grant agreed. “He admitted as much to us upon Uncle Tavis’s arrival. He still blamed your father for marrying your mother—his sister—and making it impossible for him to arrange a marriage which would benefit the clan.”

“After so many years?” Fergus asked, perplexed.

“Our father was never one to release a grudge,” Grant snorted.

“My father rode to your home, then,” Fergus prompted.

Donald grimaced. “Aye, only when he arrived, it was clear he was not well.”

A blade of pure anguish pierced Fergus’s heart. How long had it been since he’d thought of the man? Since he had considered visiting home? Too many years, he realized, which brought him nothing but shame in hindsight.

His father was dying, and he had not thought about the man in years.

“How long has he been ill?” he asked, his hands tightening around the reins. He wanted so to let the horse go, to allow it to gallop. He would have run the beast into the ground if it meant reaching his father in time to say goodbye.

The very thought of not being there to at least hold the old man’s hand as he slipped away turned his stomach and brought a cold sweat to his brow.

“He only caught the chill while on the road to Ben Macdui,” Grant explained with yet another grimace. “Tis sorry I am to say it.”

“He would not have become ill had it not been for your father’s invitation,” Fergus snarled. Of course, the rain had fallen so mercilessly, carrying the last of winter’s cold with it during the night. Even a young, healthy man might have succumbed under such conditions.

“The healer suggested he might have been slightly ill upon leaving home,” Donald said in an obvious attempt to deflect blame.

It would not work.

Were it not for his Uncle Luthais, the blustering blowhard, his father would be at home, safe and well, at the very worst, recovering from a minor illness, but not at the threshold of death.

All because an old man had wished to clear his conscience and make amends with one he’d wronged. Was Tavis MacDougal truly foolish enough to believe the leader of Clan Campbell would ever sincerely apologize for the insults he’d more than likely hurled years earlier?

Naturally, a mere sixth son who’d turned away from his position within his clan would not be considered worthy of the only daughter of Clan Campbell. Not worthy in Luthais’s shrewd eye.

And yet Liana MacDougal had never once complained, had never flaunted her clan’s position in her husband’s face. While she’d been a sharp-tongued woman—the Campbell blood still ran hot, which explained Fergus’s temperament—she had been just as loving.

Never had she given Fergus the impression of regret or unhappiness.

Perhaps it might have suited her brother better if he’d believed her to be miserable. He might have rested easy in the knowledge that his sister had been a fool while he’d been correct all along about the match being a poor one.

“And the healer. A good one, I hope?”

“She has been our family’s healer for as long as I can remember,” Donald explained. “As good a healer as there has ever been, I would wager.”

“How would ye know? You’ve only ever had one,” Fergus grumbled, unimpressed.

Tavis might die without seeing either of his sons. Brice ought to be here, he would be happier to see Brice than he would to see me.

For they had not parted on the very best of terms. Fergus’s determination to join the army had been the reason for leaving home, along with being the reason for countless arguments full of bitter words which could never be taken back.

Brice had suggested he accompany Fergus so as to assuage their parents’ misgivings, and it had worked. He had always been the more reasonable of the two MacDougal sons, always with a gift for smoothing over even the roughest argument with a well-delivered joke or sharp bit of insight.

He’d been the favored of the two as well, a fact which had never been lost on Fergus. The less-loved child was never unaware of their stature, no matter how many times they received assurance of misunderstanding their parents’ true feelings.

No, Brice had been easier to love.

Yet as a man, fully grown with years of experience behind him, Fergus understood something he hadn’t the maturity to conceive of as a lad of seventeen; his father’s refusal to accept Fergus’s wishes to go to war was a sign of his desire to protect his son. It was an act of love.

He dug his heels into the horse’s ribs to spur it to greater speed.

Let his cousins catch up to him. He knew the way and could be there before midnight if he rode fast enough and did not stop except for water.

By the time the Campbell house came into view, both Fergus and the gelding he rode were exhausted. Only the light from a three-quarter moon provided guidance as they closed in on the rambling old monstrosity which sat in the shadow of Ben Macdui.

Would that the house had been built with the grandeur of the mountain behind it in mind. Fergus’s far-off ancestor had not much sense when it came to such matters, thinking size was the only important factor in a grand house.

Anything to show off the power of Clan Campbell.

And large the house was, surprisingly so. But it had been built with no consideration for appearance. Not like the Anderson house, which impressed without shocking the observer, and certainly nothing like the Duncan manor house. That was a castle, which the Campbell house only aspired to be.

Rooms had been added on over time, one after another, along with towers and spires which served no purpose. How many guards did one need at a time? Who did the Campbells expect invasion from?

The effect this achieved was the opposite of what the Campbells had aspired to. It made them look ridiculous—at least, it did in Fergus’s eyes.

His father was dying in there. In that vulgar house so far from home.

And yet he slowed the horse’s pace as they rode over a stone bridge which crossed the River Dee and led up to the front door. He told himself it was out of pity for the poor beast, who had put in nearly a full day of hard riding, but it was a lie.

He knew it was.

If the healer had claimed his father only had days to live before they’d made the ride to the River Eden, which would likely have taken at least five days or more, then another four days to the place where they had met up with Fergus…

What were the chances of Tavis MacDougal being alive?

He did not wish to arrive at the house only to find that he had missed his father’s last breaths, his last words. To know he’d been just as much a failure as a son as he had always been.

He’d seen the faces of many dead men. Too many to count, both, on the battlefield, and off. Why did the notion of seeing the same blank peace on his father’s face chill him so? Why did he deliberately take his time in reaching the house?

There must have been someone in one of the many guard towers who’d taken note of his approach, for a pair of riders met him halfway from the bridge.

“I am Fergus MacDougal,” he announced.

“Aye,” one of them replied with a curt nod. “We’ve been expecting ye.”

"We’re to escort ye to the house and to Tavis MacDougal,” the other explained.

Hope nearly choked him, gave him renewed strength when he’d been all but ready to fall from the saddle only minutes earlier. “Is he alive?” he dared asked.

“Aye.”

It was the only response he received, without additional explanation, but it mattered not. His father was alive. Perhaps they might smooth over any lingering disappointment or disillusionment and come to an understanding of each other.

A pity it had to take so long to reach such an understanding, but it was better than never reaching it at all.

He followed the pair of guards, dressed in black as Luthais preferred—as with the horses, which made them all but impossible to see when clouds drifted over the moon—through the entry hall and past the great hall where many members of the household were bedding down for the night.

Why the leader of Clan Campbell could not see fit to grant them more comfortable accommodations in the house’s many bedchambers, he would never understand. No one used them except during clan meetings, and the lack of activity in the house told him there was no such event taking place at the time.

Not everyone ran their households as Padraig Anderson did, he supposed.

The direction in which the guards led him gave Fergus cause to ask, “Where are we going? Is he not in bed?” For where else would a dying man spend his final days?

They offered no explanation, instead coming to a stop outside a door Fergus vaguely remembered as the door to Luthais’s study. He looked from one guard to another, wondering if it did not make more sense to have Tavis on the first floor rather than rushing upstairs and down when he needed help, before pushing the heavy, wooden door open.

He found his uncle seated by the fire, his legs stretched out, his feet resting on a stool. He held a chalice of wine in one hand and turned with a pleased, convivial smile on his craggy face at his nephew’s entrance.

He’d grown older, naturally, his bright-red hair thinner and streaked with gray, his eyes faded, even thinner than Fergus remembered him. As though he’d shrunk.

This was not what held Fergus’s attention, however.

It was the fact that his father sat in much the same position, with his own glass of wine, his feet also propped up close to the fire’s warmth.

Yet his smile did not hold the same bright, cheerful appearance.

In fact, he looked rather ashamed.

Fergus’s mouth fell open, the exhaustion and grief and guilt he’d battled for hours hitting him all at once. And now, they were accompanied by confusion and budding anger.

“What is this all about?” he demanded, his hands curling into fists at his sides.

“We are sharing a toast,” Luthais explained, raising his chalice. “To the groom.”

Fergus’s lip curled into a sneer as he turned to his father. “The groom?”

“Aye, son.” His voice was just the same as ever, albeit with an edge of sorrow. “It’s sorry I am that we made up such a tale with which to bring you here.”

“It worked,” Luthais crowed before drinking deeply of his wine. “And now, we can tell your son of the plans we’ve made for him.”

“No one makes plans for me,” Fergus spat, anger taking the place of horror. Perhaps it was a natural development, one from the other. His horror at being so easily duped enraged him.

The horror that his own father would agree to such deception.

With that, his uncle’s smile turned to a sneer. “That is where you are mistaken, my nephew. For you are betrothed to a young lass from Clan Reid.” When Fergus merely gaped in stunned silence, he added, “You are to be congratulated, truly. It is a better match than you might have hoped for otherwise.”