“Graeme, before you leave—”

They’d just finished the morning meal, which would typically be Graeme’s cue to lock himself away with the steward for the remainder of the morning. Gillian had already left the hall to look for her maid, and Aidan would be expected to spend his day training the men.

But after last night, he knew he could no longer stay the course with Clarissa. They needed a new plan. One that would keep Clan Scott and the other border clans safe and not require him to forsake Clarissa.

“What ails you, brother?”

They walked out of the hall together, Aidan leading the way toward the pentice that traveled the length of the entrance to the great hall and kitchens. The covered walkway connected to Highgate End’s chapel. The courtyard bustled with activity, men preparing for training, servants carrying supplies, and children . . . Aidan watched as a boy tried to pick up an errant chicken. Both he and Graeme laughed at the spectacle.

Finally, he answered his brother.

“I love her,” he said simply. The implications of those words, and what he aimed to do about them, were so far-reaching, Aidan knew he would be testing the bounds of his brother’s friendship and his chief’s tolerance.

“I know you do.”

They stopped just before the small chapel and watched as the boy tried again, eliciting a chorus of angry clucks.

“She does not deserve such treatment—”

“No one does, Aidan. Not Lady Clarissa nor any other woman or man. Theffield is a bastard of the worst kind. He trifles with lives just as surely as Caxton does. His daughter is only one of many he’d forsake for his own gain.”

Though they stood away from the activity, their conversation private, Aidan could not help but glance in every direction before answering.

“I cannot conceive of a solution yet.” His hand moved toward the dirk at his side. Aidan always felt better knowing it was there. “Giving her over to a convent is no longer an acceptable one.”

The chief, and not the brother, watched him. Most men would cower under such intense scrutiny, but Aidan was accustomed to the stare. It was the same one their father had given them as boys whenever he wanted them to agree with him.

Indeed, his brother had never looked more like their father than he did in this moment. He was so proud of the man he’d become. He would have smiled if Graeme were not so serious.

“I would not willingly put you and Gillian, and the babe, in danger.”

“You offered your protection to the very woman who could see negotiations break apart.”

“Aye.”

“That protection extends from the clan, so she is one of us now.”

Aidan’s chest swelled with gratitude. “Aye.”

Still scrutinizing him in that intense way, Graeme said, “And so we will protect her.”

He had not doubted his brother would say as much, but if he had a plan, Aidan would sorely love to hear it.

“How?”

Graeme’s exaggerated sigh did not bode well. “Is it possible Theffield already suspects you?”

“I do not believe so. Everything I saw at Sutworth Manor tells me they despise Theffield more than anyone. The priest claims they will not speak, and I believe him. There are no other ties to me.”

He deserved that look. The one that said, You took an unnecessary risk. For a man who’d always been so careful, particularly when it came to his clan, Aidan knew he’d acted the part of a lovesick fool when he’d ridden to Sutworth that night. Though Theffield had not been on their heels—he was reportedly meeting Douglas in England, which indicated he had never even left his estate—Aidan would likely have made the same decision again.

“Then we wait.” Graeme crossed his arms.

“She cannot stay in that tower indefinitely.” Aidan already felt poorly about asking her to hide away for a few days longer. She’d spent so much of her life in relative captivity.

“If he learns she is here before he gets rid of Caxton, he will renege.”

“And when I marry her?”

They’d both known what Aidan intended, but saying the words aloud sent a rush through him. He felt . . . empowered.

“We must hope the new warden will not be so easily manipulated as Caxton.”

“But Theffield will never accept me. Nor our clan. He will take my actions—”

“Our actions.”

“He will take our actions as an insult and will likely call for the very war we aim to avoid.”

“Well, brother,” he said, clapping him on the back. “The only question that remains is whether you are prepared to go to war over the woman you love.”

He was prepared to battle the devil himself for Clarissa, but his safety was not the only thing at stake. “Nay, the question is whether I am prepared to put our clan in danger for her.”

Graeme leveled that look at him again, giving him a moment to think. Aidan squeezed the handle of his dirk. He thought of Gillian, and Allie. Of his duty to them, and to his brother. He lived to protect them. Did he dare put them in danger? Claiming Clarissa as his own would lead to death and destruction, unless her father could somehow be convinced the match was a good one.

Did he even dare?

“I think,” he said, knowing what Clarissa would say, “I have another idea.”

“No.”

Clarissa sat on the edge of the bed, staring at him in shock. Surely he couldn’t think such a thing possible. “You’ve risked everything for me, and I cannot allow you to continue doing so. Hiding me here . . . that is dangerous enough. But what you’re proposing would start a war.”

“Nay.” He stood and began to pace. “I aim to avoid one. Once your father and Douglas negotiate the terms of—”

“He will not agree.”

Aidan sighed, presumably in frustration.

Well, it was nothing less than she’d been feeling all day. After he left the night before, Clarissa had hardly slept. And though she’d had a lovely conversation with Lady Gillian and spent an enjoyable day in the bakehouse with Lewis, her every thought had been focused on the man who now stood in front of her.

“What do you mean ‘he will not agree’?”

What could she possibly say? That she loved a man her father would never accept? Which was precisely why Aidan’s idea was such a poor one.

“Aidan, I doubt he will even treat with Douglas. He’s likely just toying with him. He desires prestige, aye, but my father cares for power above all else. The king—”

“Is ill and will likely die.”

Clarissa winced. He was her king, not his, and therefore it was not treasonous for Aidan to comment on his likely fate so bluntly. Even so, she knew he was right. She’d heard the whispers.

“I should say, then, the king’s advisors would be cross with my father if he were to oust one of the king’s favorites, even if he has the authority to do so. I know what he’s said but—” She shrugged, less and less sure of her convictions. Perhaps she was wrong. “My father has spent his life garnering favor with the king. ’Tis the only thing he cares about more than expanding the holdings that will one day go to the babe I am not carrying. Which is why he will never, ever allow me to marry a Scot. With no other heirs, Theffield will pass to me. A woman. And he will not allow that either.”

Aidan’s eyes widened. “What if you relinquished your claim?”

“I would do so, gladly. But don’t you understand? If that happens, Theffield will revert back to the crown upon his death, and that will mean my father has lost.”

And Father never, ever loses.

“Look at me, Clarissa.”

He moved too close for her not to do so. Her heart hammered in her chest, ignoring her attempts to calm it. “I cannot stay.”

“But neither can you leave.”

“My father—”

“Can be dealt with. Before his meeting with Douglas. After. I care not. Surely you realize that this—” he gestured to both of them, “—happens just once in a lifetime.”

She wanted to agree. Clarissa had never wanted anything more than to throw herself into Aidan’s arms and forget that her father could be coming for her even now.

“You are wrong,” she said, her voice small but her heart filled with love. “It has happened once before,” she rushed to clarify, needing to smooth the furrow in his brow, “at the Tournament of the North when a very handsome Scotsman looked at me as if I were the most beautiful woman in the stands.”

“In all of England, and all of Scotland too. And that was before I knew you as I do now.”

“And then I let you go.”

“Nay.” He grabbed her hands. “You did not let me go. Your father forced you to leave.”

“As he will do again.”

Aidan’s shoulders sagged. “We will find a way.”

Clarissa wished she shared his conviction. She got to her feet. “And what of Highgate End? And Lady Gillian and Allie? Your niece or neph—”

“What of you, Clarissa? Do you not matter as much as they do?”

In truth, she was not sure that she did.

“Aidan—”

He kissed her before she could finish. This kiss was unlike the others they’d shared. It was less frantic, his lips opening hers like a flower’s petals in spring. Soft and slow, until his tongue took over her mouth. It circled her upper lip and then the lower, reverently, and then finally found her own. Like before, a fluttering ran from her chest to her stomach and then lower. When his hands moved up to her head, holding it in place as he continued his gentle assault, Clarissa wrapped her arms around him lest she fall to the ground.

He’d certainly mastered helping her forget their troubles.

“Open wide for me, my love.”

Clarissa thought she had already, but when she did as he instructed, his mouth slanted over hers and took even more. So this was what it meant to be consumed by someone. She met each thrust of his tongue as his hands moved swiftly from her head to her bottom. As he pulled her toward him, Clarissa clung to him. She could clearly feel him against her, and she knew unequivocally what he tried to tell her.

Throbbing with need and aware of Aidan in a way she could not explain, Clarissa felt her shoulders heave with an exertion that was hardly warranted. She had done nothing but stand there, and yet she may as well have run up the very hill they’d raced on last eve.

“And this,” she said, somehow knowing, “this happens but once in a lifetime.”

Aidan smiled, a slow sensuous smile that promised so much.

“Twice, I’ve been told.”

She laughed then, so hard she was sure the guards outside could hear her. And she did forget everything, save the sweet sound of Aidan’s laughter as the faintest of lines appeared around the corners of his eyes.

A laugh that was abruptly cut off by a sudden and incessant knock at the door.