"I've assigned the castle guards to keep watch for Claybourne or anyone approaching. They'll take shifts so someone is on the lookout at all times."
Calla frowned. "Can you trust them, or are they loyal to MacFadden?"
"I questioned them and I believe they'll do their jobs, otherwise they ken they'll be out of work. They're notMacFaddens, so they have no clan or family loyalty to him."
She nodded. "I thank you for going to all the trouble."
"'Tisno trouble. I wondered if you would tell me more about your situation, and Claybourne."
Calla tensed. If he wanted her to relax, this was certainly not the way to achieve it. "What do you want to know?"
"Can we sit?" He motioned toward the chairs before the hearth.
"Of course." But 'twouldnot calm her nerves.
Once they were seated, he asked, "Why were you at the livery stable in the village, and how did Claybourne know you would be there?"
'Twaseasy enough to answer. Her worry diminished marginally. "Claybourne and I had worked out an arrangement so that I would pay him what I could each week. I sent the payment by a man named Hobbs, a former servant at the Stanbury Estate. I trusted him more than most anyone else, and I knew he needed to earn a bit of money himself. But… Claybourne must have forced him to reveal where we would meet."
"Bastard," Rebbie muttered, frowning darkly. "I can't wait to get my hands around his throat."
Calla took a sip of the sweet red wine and swallowed, surveyingRebbie'smilitant expression. He was indeed every inch the Highland warrior—ready to charge into battle—that she and Elena had seen that first day in the village. If she had a choice, he was exactly the sort of man she would want defending her.
"What wasClaybourne'shistory with Stanbury?" Rebbie asked.
She shrugged. "They'd known each other for years."
"Were they friends?"
She shook her head. "More like friendly rivals."
"And they were not of the same age, aye?"
"Nay, there was a difference in their ages of about fifteen or twenty years."
"Did Claybourne show an unhealthy interest in you from the moment you married Stanbury?"
"Well… when I was sixteen, I was too naïve to fully understand that sort of thing, but after a while I did start to notice the leering looks Claybourne sent my way when Stanbury wasn't paying attention. I didn't see him often, though. Most of the time Stanbury met him elsewhere. Wherever they gambled."
Rebbie took a sip of wine and stared into the fire as if in deep thought. His square jaw sported dark beard stubble, which gave him the look of a wild and unruly pirate. His long black hair, brushing his shoulders, and his belted plaid completed his rebellious image. Her own father certainly would've never allowed him to court her, even if he was as rich as Midas.
"What was Stanbury like?" Rebbie asked, switching his penetrating gaze to her.
A sense of suffocation came over her for a moment. She drew in a deep breath to dispel it. "He was… not easy to be married to. He was a malicious, calculating man more than twice my age. Our marriage was a business arrangement, of course. I would've never chosen him as a husband. He was a longtime friend of my father's."
A scowl on his face, Rebbie nodded.
"My father's health deteriorated when I was around fifteen summers and he betrothed me to Stanbury. Father told me his friend would take care of me. Apparently, he trusted him, but they were alike in many ways. My father was also a cold, heartless man."
"'Slud," Rebbie hissed, giving her a sympathetic look. "Did they mistreat you?"
"They never struck me, but they were never kind either." Calla's eyes stung as she remembered how, as a young lass, she'd always tried to please her father with her singing or her needlework, but he'd never smiled at her. Never said a kind word. He'd tolerated her. When she was older, she realized he was most likely grief-stricken and cynical because both her brothers had died when they were children and he had no male heir.
Stanbury had pretended kindness the first few months of their marriage, then he'd grown bitter, his words becoming more vicious as the months passed, because she hadn't conceived right away. And then finally, the death threat, which she couldn't tell Rebbie about.
"What of your mother?" he asked.
Calla shook her head. "She died when I was two. I don't even remember her."
