“Tell me,” Gillian insisted. Her episode with the chamber pot had done nothing to divert her attention from her question about Theffield and Aidan. She would not stop until she had answers. Ones he was not eager to give.

“’Tis nothing,” he equivocated, directing his attention to Graeme. “We do not yet know Douglas’s true purpose in being here. Shall we—”

“Nothing?” Gillian cut in, finished with the cleaning cloth and bowl of lavender water. “What is it about Theffield that you’re not telling me?” When he stayed silent, her gaze shifted to Graeme.

Graeme would never answer her. It was not his story to tell.

If anyone but Gillian had asked for an explanation, Aidan would have kept silent. But he felt a special kinship with Gillian and her sister Allie that he’d previously only had with Graeme. He loved both women as a brother would, and had vowed to protect them always. The look of disappointment on her face was his undoing.

“Theffield’s father,” he said, returning to the seat he’d occupied earlier, “was granted Sutworth Manor in the Treaty of York.”

So much had changed that day, thirty years ago, when border lines had finally been drawn. Lands changed hands, the Day of Truce was instituted, and though none had expected the terms to last, they had.

Until now.

“When he died, his son became earl, and Theffield the younger allowed his Scottish estate to languish. Unlike many of the border lords with property in both countries, Theffield had no interest in navigating the complicated landscape of Scotland’s border politics. He hardly visited, and when he did, he never took his family. Only once, when I was ten and five, and our father took Graeme and me to meet him . . .”

This is where the real tale began. He’d not spoken of it aloud for two years, and if the pang in his chest were any indication, it would be difficult to do so now.

No more difficult than carrying a child inside your belly as Gillian is. ’Tis simply a story. Tell it.

“There was a girl . . .”

To call her such was imprecise, of course. An angel, he’d thought her at the time. When they’d arrived at Theffield, the young Lady Clarissa had peeked out from behind her father and was rewarded for her efforts with a stern glare. Aidan had disliked him instantly.

The little lady’s round face had stared up at him, innocent bright brown eyes framed with long brown hair. Aidan had wanted to take one of her demurely folded hands and pull her with him, leading her out into the courtyard and beyond. He’d wanted to run as fast and far away as possible from the man who stood by her side . . .

Instead, he’d merely stood beside his father and brother, waiting for the moment when they would be away from the prying eyes of their parents.

“I will see to the preparations for Douglas,” his brother said as Aidan realized how long he’d paused his story.

With a final glance back, his brother abandoned him to the tale. Graeme knew well what happened next, for he had been there the entire time.

“There was a girl?” Gillian prompted.

“Aye, Theffield’s daughter.”

Aidan leaned forward when Gillian moved her hand to her stomach, worrying she was about to have another bout of sickness, but she waved him away.

“’Tis nothing. Go on.”

Bringing himself back to that day, he thought of how quickly he’d developed a dislike for the earl, whom his father had called “the worst sort of man.”

“Before our fathers left us to meet, alone, Theffield reprimanded her for coming out to see us and sent her away with a maidservant. Drawn to her, I followed, intending to speak to her, when the girl ran. Away from the maid and directly to the door. It didn’t take long to catch her or determine that she intended to run away.”

“Poor girl.”

“Indeed. She’d not have gotten very far, of course. And I was surprised she opened to me, told me she could no longer endure her father’s cruelty. Which, had I not intervened, would have been on display that day.”

Aidan recounted how he’d convinced Lady Clarissa of the dangers she would face at such an age were she successful. He told Gillian of the large amount of coin it took to persuade the maid and others who had witnessed the incident to agree to keep it silent.

“I thought often about the desperation that Lady Clarissa must have felt to consider herself safer outside Theffield’s walls, alone, than within them.”

“Meeting her affected you,” Gillian correctly surmised.

“Aye, and Graeme too. She was such a pretty girl, her wide eyes telling us even before we spoke of the difficult life she’d endured. Theffield’s daughter was quite sheltered. Meeting us was a novelty for her.”

Gillian frowned. He’d not meant to sadden her.

Brought back to the present, Aidan attempted a smile. He did not want to appear a sentimental fool by asking aloud how they’d managed without her for so many years. Lady Gillian’s mere presence brightened Highgate End.

Shifting in his seat under Gillian’s gaze, he resumed his story.

“Graeme teased me the entire day about the incident. As we were given a tour of the manor, my thoughts were indeed elsewhere.”

“On the girl?”

“Aye. Her eyes haunted me that day and for years later until—”

A soft knock at the door interrupted them. Gillian’s maid, a young woman nearly as protective of Gillian as he was, entered the room.

“Is there aught you need, my lady?”

“Nay,” she said. “As you’ve likely heard, we are expecting guests. See to them, if you please.”

“Aye, my lady. I believe they’ve already arrived.” She bobbed a curtsy and left.

“Until?”

Aidan stood. “Until many years later. It appears Douglas was much closer to Highgate than his messenger anticipated.”

He held out his arm. The lady of Highgate End would want to greet their guests.

Gillian took it but did not allow him to pass over the rest of the story so easily. As they walked from the chamber, she prodded him to finish the tale.

“Did you see her again?”

They wound their way through darkened corridors and to a set of circular stairs that led down to the great hall. He deftly avoided answering her question by moving in front of her, a habit he’d gotten into whenever they descended such a tight stairwell. He did not need to be told a fall in her condition would be detrimental to his wee niece or nephew.

“You did. You saw her. When?”

Taking her arm again as they reached the landing, Aidan delayed for as long as he could without appearing rude. Just as they arrived at the entrance to the hall, he said, “Years later. We ought to greet our guests.”

Gillian gave him a look that told him his escape was only a temporary one, and well he knew it.

Escorting her into the hall, Aidan watched his brother, who was speaking to one of the most powerful men in Scotland. A large, fearsome-looking one who would not be waylaid, no matter his request. And when both men looked his way—Douglas with a nod of greeting and Graeme with a look of worry—Aidan already knew the outcome.

They would be traveling south, to Theffield.

Bloody hell.

“My lady?”

Eda entered the chamber hesitantly, as if she were a stranger who had not been there when Clarissa burst into the world, killing her mother in the process. As if she had not been present for the one and only time Clarissa had ever stood up to her father—the argument that had left him red in the face, spitting mad and denouncing her as a daughter.

“Come in, Eda.” Clarissa rushed to the doorway and ushered the maid into the chamber.

Pulling a stool away from the whitewashed walls of the bedchamber she had hoped to never see again, Clarissa gestured for Eda to sit, but the maid waved it away.

“My lord would not take kindly to ol’ Eda sittin’.”

She hated to think it, but the years they’d been apart had not been kind to Eda. More lines ran from the corners of her mouth downward. Eda’s features seemed to her more prominent, her wide nose flaring in anger. The fire in her eyes was still there though, the one that had ensured she would never be allowed to follow Clarissa to her new life with Lord Stanley.

“I do not know why you stay.”

“And I do not know why you’ve returned.”

Two years apart, and they’d already fallen back into the same argument they’d spent a lifetime debating. It was the first opportunity they’d had to be alone together since Clarissa’s arrival the previous afternoon. She’d remained in her chamber until Eda could come to her, knowing the maid would do so as soon as she was able. Cowardly, perhaps, but she had no wish to see her father.

“I thought to tell you last eve—”

“Your father forbade me to come to you.”

Clarissa clenched her hands into fists, squeezing with all of her might. The small mutiny did not improve her mood, but she relished the thought of how unseemly her father would think the gesture. “He is a monster.”

“Why?” Eda repeated, looking down at Clarissa’s hands.

She allowed them to relax and spoke quickly. “Lord Stanley appealed to the ecclesiastical court for a dissolution of our marriage and bade me leave.”

Eda looked as if she’d just choked on a fig. “Dissolution? I’ve never—”

“Nay,” she said. “I never did either. Until he broached the topic more than a year ago.”

Clarissa thought back to that first conversation. ‘“Broached’ may not be the correct term. More like demanded,” she clarified. “Eda,” she grabbed the maid’s hand, “’twas awful. The physician poked and prodded me—”

When Eda squeezed her hand, Clarissa felt her throat swell with emotion. She did not wish to go into detail about that particular incident. It still haunted her sleep. “But it matters not. When word arrived a sennight past that the dissolution would be allowed, the annulment proceedings could be begun . . .” She shrugged. “Lord Stanley said, ‘’Tis over. Go home.’ And so I did.”

There was, of course, much more to tell, but no time to do so. “I will tell you more when we can find another time to speak. Go. And, if you please, send word to Albert that I will be needing his services.”

Albert. Her only chance at reaching Sutworth safely. “I do not plan to remain here until Father discovers what has truly happened. And he will, eventually. If I could have convinced Stanley’s men to escort me to Sutworth, I’d have done so. But they refused. And so here I—”

She stopped talking, finally seeing the sorrow in Eda’s deep brown eyes. The maid’s eyes were dark, almost black, and always expressive.

“What is it?”

“I am so sorry, my love.”

Nay, not Albert! Please God, no.

“He’d begun to cough—”

Clarissa did not hear the rest. She crumpled onto the stool, head in her hands, and allowed the swelling in her chest to burst. Clarissa had not cried when her father slapped her across the face so hard it had left a red mark for her wedding day. She had not cried after being married to a man nearly as old—and as cruel—as her father.

At least Lord Stanley did not remind her regularly that she killed her own mother. Indeed, the man had hardly spoken to her at all. He’d bought her like cattle and treated her as such. The possibility of an heir was the only reason he’d parted with the land her father had coveted his whole life. She’d been naught but a transaction to them both, and Clarissa had done her duty and married the old man, with nary a tear.

She had not even cried when the king’s physician had stuck his fingers inside the most private part of her, verifying she was, indeed, still a virgin. But now, to learn she had lost the one man who had treated her like a daughter, who had risked her father’s ire to visit her at Lord Stanley’s, and who would have delivered her safely to Sutworth Manor, whence she could flee to Dunburg Abbey . . .

“Nay,” she said as Eda gently lowered a hand to her shoulder. Her cheeks and fingers tingled with sorrow as tears continued to flow, the steady stream becoming an aching throb in her chest. “Not Albert, please . . .”

The man had never married, never begat any children. She’d often imagined what life would be like if she were his daughter in truth.

“We will find someone to help,” Eda said.

Clarissa wanted to deny those words, but she could not speak. In this moment, she did not care about Sutworth, or Dunburg, or what became of her. Albert was gone, and she didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. The only man who’d ever loved her . . . well, not the only man. But Clarissa had ruined that as well. Aidan de Sowlis hated her now, and she did not blame him.

“I do not wish to leave you—”

“Go,” she said, looking up, realizing the danger this visit posed for Eda. Wiping her eyes and attempting to smile—a miserable attempt, she was sure—Clarissa pushed the maid away. “I will be fine,” she said, not meaning it at all. “Hurry . . .”

“I will be back.”

Clarissa returned the smile, wondering how a woman who had served her father her whole life could still manage one. Eda was truly a blessing, a gift from God. She bolted up and tossed her arms around the older woman, squeezing her as Eda chuckled.

“I am sorry.” The loss was not only hers, after all.

Clarissa could feel Eda shudder beneath her. Pulling away, she took a deep breath.

“Go,” she repeated. Eda did not need a reminder of what her father would do if she were caught disobeying a direct order. Bobbing a quick curtsy, she left as quietly as she had come.

Clarissa sank back down onto the stool and, for the first time in memory, allowed sorrow to seep into her bones. She would allow herself only a moment of self-pity, just one.

And then it would be time to form a new plan.