“What about it?” Patrik asked.
“When we thought you had died,” his oldest brother said, “your halved stone disappeared from our grandmother’s chamber.”
“It disappeared?” Patrik asked.
“Aye,” Alexander replied. “A few months ago, it returned.”
Patrik frowned. “How?”
“It would seem,” Duncan said, “’tis a question for our grandmother to answer.”
“Your grandmother is dead,” Patrik said. None of this made sense.
Duncan nodded. “Aye.”
Hope ignited within Patrik. Was the return of his stone a sign he would reclaim his family?
“You should also know,” Alexander hesitated, “when each of us met the woman who eventually became our wife, each one left Lochshire Castle, taking with her the respective half of our halved gemstones.”
This was becoming more confusing. “Are you telling me Cristina took my stone?”
“Nae,” Alexander replied. “The lass recognized your stone within the bowl, but not the other.” He gestured to Griffin. “One that belongs to him.”
“Griffin?” Patrik glanced toward the baron. “I never knew he was gifted with a halved gemstone.”
Seathan shook his head. “Nor did any of us. Now, tell us everything about the lass that concerns you.”
“ ’Tis not so much concern as surprise.” Patrik recounted her killing of the knight during their confrontation on the path, then about finding the English bodies after Cristina had taken Joneta to safety; her quick actions had protected both her and the child.
“Her killing one knight might be feasible,” Griffin said, “but to take on two?”
Patrik nodded, pride for her filling his heart. “The first man she felled with her dagger, the second she used the other knight’s sword. But then, a woman protecting a child is one to be wary of.” An image flickered in his mind. He frowned.
“What is it?” Seathan asked.
He wanted to dismiss the thought, but his brother had asked, and he had nothing to hide. “While we stayed overnight within the crofter’s hut, when she believed me asleep, I caught her searching through my garb.”
“What?” the men in the room said in unison.
Alexander’s face tightened. “Was she searching for the writ?”
“Nae,” he said, irritated they’d believe the worst, and that he had, too. “When I asked, she claimed she was looking for a tie to bind her hair, one she found a moment later.”
“And you believed her?” Seathan asked.
“Aye, ’twas my own fear for the writ that invited doubts.” Doubts he no longer held for the woman he loved. Saint’s breath, how could he have failed to recognize his feelings before? Because, for too long he hadn’t considered love possible for him.
Alexander grunted. “Believe what you will, but I know what I saw. Had I not spoken, the lass would have slipped from the wagon. I say she cannot be trusted.”
Irritation slid through Patrik. “’Tis your anger that a slip of a woman jumped you.”
“Mayhap,” Griffin agreed, “but Mistress Cristina has seen the writ, the English seal upon it.”
Seathan nodded. “Before she is allowed to go free, we must know her loyalties.”
Unease crept through Patrik that his brothers could not see the sincere, loving woman he’d come to know. “She would not betray us.”
“Can you swear that upon your life?” Alexander demanded. “Those of your fellow Scots?”
