“Wait! What are you doing?”

Distracted by their conversation, Clarissa had only just realized how close they’d come to the outer gatehouse of Sutworth Manor. If the guards saw Aidan . . .

“Escorting you to—”

“But you cannot be seen.” Clarissa whipped around, taken aback by how handsome he was up close. His hair curled in so many places, including on his forehead. As the sky began to lighten, so too did his eyes, which appeared more green than brown in the light of morning.

“I will not leave you here—”

“You will.”

On this, Clarissa refused to be dissuaded. She began to push against him to show the stubborn Scot just how serious she was.

“Do you mean to jump and break your neck?”

“Aye,” she said, her voice firm. “I will do just that if you do not let me—”

“Clarissa,” he warned, “stop or you will—”

“Break my neck, aye. I know.”

When he finally slowed their mount, Clarissa nodded in satisfaction. Unable to look away, knowing this would be the last time she would see him, she said, “Thank you for your escort—”

He rolled his eyes.

“Why do you mock me?” she asked.

Aidan ignored her and turned to his men. “Meet me at the river.”

When he pulled his arms away from her, Clarissa mourned the loss of his heat. And before she realized what he was about, Aidan had also dismounted and was reaching for her. Lifting her as if she were no heavier than a sack of grain, he placed her back on the ground.

As he untied her belongings, Clarissa tested out the use of her legs, which were admittedly more than a bit wobbly. Her backside was so sore she cringed at the thought of sitting. And yet, all her thoughts were for him.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

Though it was obvious he meant to accompany her on foot, Clarissa refused to follow.

“My father cannot know you helped me here. If you are spotted—”

“I won’t be.”

He sounded so confident, as if he knew something she did not. Reluctantly, she began to follow him, the gatehouse, and its guards, looming ever closer.

“Aidan, this is far enough,” she pressed.

He stopped and leveled a look at her that nearly made her laugh. It was patient and charming, a classic Aidan de Sowlis look. This was the same man who’d refused to leave her side those many years ago when he’d visited Theffield with his brother and father. The one who had covered for her when she thought to run away, an action that would have likely seen her beaten. Or, if she’d been successful, killed.

The time she fell half in love with him. Only half because she had been too young to understand what it meant to love. That had come later.

“I am aware, my lady, of what your father’s knowledge of this particular adventure would do to our negotiations.”

“Aidan, wait.”

When he stopped, she considered her next words carefully. Just because she’d lost all hope didn’t mean everyone around her should do the same. But she owed him the truth.

“I told you, and meant it. I know my father. He will not be convinced to help.”

“He must help us. There is no other way.”

So it was worse than she’d imagined as she sat inside the walls of her new prison these past two years. She’d heard, of course, of the deteriorating conditions along the border, but to have it confirmed . . . with the thought of her father as their only hope.

She sighed, not wanting to say any more. It would do no good.

“Come,” he said, walking once more. “I know this area well.”

Indeed, he did. At Aidan’s direction, they’d skirted Sutworth’s small village on their way here, and now Aidan led her down a path she had never seen before.

“If you continue walking along this path, it will lead you directly behind the northwest tower and dovecote. And there is little chance anyone other than Sutworth’s men will see you.”

Unlike the other road, this one was well hidden among the trees. And since Sutworth Manor was protected on three sides by cliffs rising from the deep gorge of the River Craig, Aidan was correct. It was nigh impossible she would be accosted.

Meeting her eyes, he added, “I will not leave the area until I see movement atop the gatehouse and know you are safe.” With that, he handed her the satchel and bowed ever so slightly. “I am sorry, my lady.”

Though what he was sorry for, Clarissa feared she’d never know. Because as quickly as he’d pulled her atop his horse back at Theffield Castle, he was gone. Everything else she’d meant to tell him was to be left unsaid.

Turning toward the manor house, named as such only for its size and not its grandeur or, thankfully, its fortifications, Clarissa walked toward it. She’d only met the people who worked and lived here a handful of times in her life. Even so, it was easier to imagine the reception she might receive, or even the possibility they would send directly for her father, than it was to think about what she just had lost.

Again.

“You’ve told me what he said.” Graeme leaned back in his chair in his solar. “Now tell me what you think.”

Aidan was about to explain to his brother that Theffield would likely help them, but Clarissa’s words from that morning came back to him. She’d been adamant that her father would not aid their cause. But rather than ruminate on that fact, he’d spent his ride back to Highgate End thinking about the man’s daughter instead. No matter how hard he tried, Aidan could not get her out of his head.

Lady Clarissa of Theffield.

A nun.

He shook his head. Never had there been a maid so ill-suited for that particular calling. Not, he chided himself, that a nun could not look as she did. Or have a body made for a man’s hands. But that day by the lake, he had not been alone in his awareness of her, of how the air between them crackled with intensity.

He was not alone in his desire, and judging from the past day, that fact had not changed. Though of course, everything else had changed.

“I’m unsure,” he said finally. “I believe his desire to host the most important event along the border will be our own salvation.”

“And yet?”

His brother knew him well. As it was nearly midday, a meal awaited them in the great hall. When he was hungry, Graeme did not like to waste time with words.

“His daughter does not agree.”

He’d considered not telling Graeme about her, and from his brother’s expression, perhaps his first instinct—to stay quiet—had been correct. But he’d not kept anything from him before, and he would not do so now.

“Explain.”

Shite.

“Just as we were leaving Theffield Castle, his daughter . . .”

Graeme raised his brows, no doubt thinking about Aidan’s account of what had happened between them two years earlier.

“His daughter sought our help. She needed escort to Sutworth—”

“So why did her father not provide her escort? And what was she doing at—”

“Her father did not know she planned to hide away at Sutworth to convince their priest to sponsor her into the Benedictine Order of nuns at Dunburg.”

If the situation were not so dire, he’d have laughed at Graeme’s expression. “Theffield does not yet know Lord Stanley appealed for, and was granted, the right to annul their marriage.”

Graeme looked every bit as shocked as Aidan had felt upon hearing Clarissa’s plan. He waited as the information penetrated . . . and for the yelling that was sure to—

“You abducted the Earl of Theffield’s daughter, the same earl who is our only chance at regaining any semblance of peace along the border . . .”

It seemed Graeme was too overwrought to continue. His anger was warranted. He should not have done this to him, to their clan, and yet he’d had no other choice.

His brother’s fit of anger was interrupted by Gillian, who had come running into the room at the sound of shouting.

“What in the name of . . .”

She looked at Graeme first and then him. The sight of her, and her rounded belly, reminded him of the stakes. Of the danger he’d put them in.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I never should have agreed.”

“Never should have agreed to what?” Gillian asked in confusion.

By now Graeme was standing . . . nay, pacing . . . and he continued to do so as Aidan explained the situation to Gillian. Her eyes seemed to widen with every word. When he finished, she said, “This does not seem like you, Aidan. But I can see you were just attempting to do the honorable thing for a woman in need—”

Aidan said, “If it were any other woman—”

“But it was not any other woman,” Graeme said, his voice calmer now. “’Tis done.”

“You never finished your story about the daughter,” Gillian interjected. “You said you saw her again, years later. But you didn’t tell me where, or what happened.”

Graeme expelled a long, exaggerated breath. “They met again two years ago at the Tournament of the North. They recognized each other, and she gave Aidan her favor. Somehow, despite the watchful eye of her very controlling father, the two managed a series of private meetings. But she failed to meet him at their final arranged rendezvous, and he never heard from her again.”

And now his brother was not the only angry one in the room.

“You risked the mission for a woman who broke your heart—”

“She did not,” he ground out, “break my heart.”

“Ha!” Graeme scoffed. “Brother, you may have fooled yourself into believing as much, but you will never fool those who know you well.” He turned back to Gillian. “I’ve never seen Aidan that way before. Until much later when we learned she had married. And then, he was worse.”

“Married?” Gillian’s hands flew to her mouth.

“Enough,” Aidan bellowed. “That is enough.”

He strode to the door and was about to leave when Graeme’s voice stopped him.

“I assume no one knows you gave the lady escort?” He asked as chief, and not as his brother.

“None but the lady herself,” he said without turning around. “As well as Lawrence and the other men.”

“And you trust her to keep quiet?”

Did Aidan trust the woman he’d spent two years cursing? The one he’d thought, for the briefest of moments, he would make his wife?

“Aye, I do.”