Aidan cursed his brother, again.

He had only one day to convince Clarissa they belonged together. Only a single day, and Graeme decided it was the perfect time to hold a meeting with the elders. One he claimed had been long overdue. The morning was spent trading insults and bickering, and nothing much came of it. After all, they’d already agreed to continue boycotting the Day of Truce if Theffield did not remove Caxton as planned.

He’d promised Clarissa to send word as soon as the meeting concluded, and he did that now. Aidan considered going to her himself, but he had another idea.

He knew how much Clarissa valued her time with Lewis. He wanted her to understand that here, with him, she was free to do as she pleased. If she wanted to bake bread or help Cook in the kitchen, learn how to wield a longsword like Allie . . . no one would deny her.

After ordering Lewis to take a break, he sent word to Clarissa to meet him at the bakehouse. An odd place to make a final stand, to be sure. But he hoped the symbolism of it would help convince Clarissa she need not sacrifice herself for the sake of their clan.

While he waited, Aidan occupied his hands by tidying up the space, imagining Lewis’s surprised expression when he returned. He’d thought she would arrive imminently, her chamber was so close, but there was still no sign of her by the time he finished. Aidan began to pace around the table in the center of the room. He went to the door, looked out, and could see no one.

Where was she?

He sat, trying not to think of the last time he’d waited for Clarissa. This was entirely different. Back then, her father had forcibly removed her from the tournament grounds. No one would keep her from him here.

No one but Clarissa herself.

Debating whether he should wait longer or go looking for her himself, Aidan was relieved to see Morgan walking toward him.

Without Clarissa.

Fear, the kind that gripped one’s throat and crawled downward, taking up a more permanent residence . . . the kind he felt while staring down an opponent, knowing the next moment could be his last . . . that kind of fear took hold of him as he watched Morgan approach.

She didn’t need to say it, because Aidan already knew.

Clarissa was not coming.

When Clarissa rode into Highgate Village, the first person she came across was a cobbler. Standing on the threshold of a small cruck house and flinging epithets at another man who had apparently just visited his shop, he was not the sort of person Clarissa wished to approach. But when he stopped cussing long enough for her to pass, greeting her with a surprisingly civil “my lady,” she decided to take a chance and ask for his guidance.

On his advice, Clarissa sought out the services of the reeve she now followed. He’d seemed an ideal candidate to help her—reeves were often the most respected of all the servants, chosen as their leader—and he’d eagerly accepted her simple gold ring as payment for an escort to Burness Abbey.

But as they rode on and on and on, she began to doubt him. Surely they would be there already if it truly lay just thirty miles north of Highgate End?

Aidan’s meeting must have ended by now, and no doubt he’d ridden off looking for her. Or maybe he’d be angry enough to gladly give her over to the nuns.

“Eh, this way, milady,” the reeve, if he truly were one, called back. They’d come to a fork in the well-worn road, one that looked awfully familiar.

“Master Jon,” she said, refusing to continue. “Have we not come to this pass before?”

Though she felt certain she’d been at this same juncture before, Clarissa knew her limitations. She could hardly find her way from the northern gates of Theffield to the southern ones. Even if Burness was due north of Highgate Castle, Clarissa would have gotten lost trying to find it herself.

Ignoring the surge of panic that threatened to take hold of her, she rode up to the reeve and gave him a sharp look.

“Uh, nay, my lady. We’ve not been here before.”

The hesitation in his voice told her otherwise.

“Jon,” she said in a tone that would not brook an argument, “what is your role, truly, at Highgate?” And before he could answer, she added, “More importantly, do you know where we are going?”

He looked at the two roads ahead, then at her. Digging something from the pouch that hung by his side, he rode toward her and thrust out his hand.

When he opened his fist, her ring lay in his palm.

“Take it,” he said, returning her payment. “We will go back—”

“No, we will not.” She would not take the ring. She would not go back. If she went back, she’d be forced to confront her turbulent feelings again, and that she could not do. “You will accompany me to—”

“I know not where Burness Abbey be, milady.”

She stared straight through him.

“But I had a horse,” he continued, “and—”

“And you planned to share the profit from my ring with the cobbler who sent me to you. The one who claimed you were the reeve?”

Guilty.

“I—”

Clarissa didn’t care. She was hot, and tired of riding in circles in the heat, but worst of all, she was scared. Even if the nuns accepted her without Father Simon’s intercession, she couldn’t fathom facing an entire lifetime without Aidan.

Pushing aside the selfish thought, she narrowed her eyes at her directionally challenged guide.

“We will find it. Together.”

She was no fool. Though he may not know where to go, Clarissa knew better than to ride to Burness alone. They were likely no longer on Clan Scott land, and the fear Aidan had instilled in her was healthy enough for Clarissa to forgo a ring she’d intended to give the abbess in exchange for even an unreliable escort.

Listening for her “guide” behind her, Clarissa rode ahead and hoped they were at least traveling in the right direction. “Are we traveling north?” she asked as Jon rode up beside her.

“We are, my lady.”

In that he appeared quite confident. Trusting his words, Clarissa fell silent, concentrating on the sound of their horses’ hooves as they met the dirt and rocks below them. At least, she attempted to do so. Her thoughts stubbornly refused to be distracted by anything other than . . . him.

It struck her that every time someone in Aidan’s life had spoken to her of him, their message had been much the same. He loved her. He’d never acted like this with anyone before. He was a good man.

None of them had faulted her for being English. None had railed at her for being the daughter of the Earl of Theffield.

She was the only one who’d questioned her presence in his life.

But it’s selfish to love him when it puts so many in danger.

“Do you trust me to keep you safe?” he’d asked. And she’d said she did. Of course she did. But maybe he was right. If she truly trusted him, why didn’t she also trust him to decide the best way forward for his clan?

Because he is thinking with his heart.

A heart so big and full of love, one she’d stabbed as surely as if she’d taken his prized dagger and plunged it into him. Clarissa cringed at the image of how his joyful face must have dropped the moment he learned she was gone, for he certainly would know by now.

Oh God, what have I done?

“My lady!”

But the false reeve’s warning had come too late. By the time she realized what was happening, an arm had already snaked around her waist.

She struggled as her attacker plucked her off her horse and flung her across his own lap. For a wild moment, she thought perhaps it was . . . nay. When she strained her neck around, she saw the man was most definitely not Aidan. She didn’t recognize him.

Smiling, his teeth as crooked as his grin, he pushed her back against his saddle, which cut into her stomach, jolting her with each step. As she tried to struggle, the pain only increased. But she would not stop trying. She might break her neck, but if Clarissa managed to get away from him . . .

Her last thought after her captor slammed his elbow into the back of her head was that she had made a horrible, terrible, life-ending mistake.