Page 104 of Highland Spy

“And if you go back, you’ll be set for another marriage,” Ariana said.

Isabel nodded. “That’s why I can’t go back. I could try to run, say I’d been compelled by witches or something. James seems to think they’re rampant in Scotland and is deathly afraid of them.” Isabel gave a snort of laughter. “But knowing him, I’d end up dead for the mere association.” She sighed. “Makes me wish I’d faded into the background at court more, away from view, that I’d spent my time in the circles you did.”

Ariana’s mouth parted in surprise.

“Yes,” Isabel confirmed. “I recognize you from court, though it took me a while to pair you with who you really were. I didn’t realize it until I saw you without that hideous blonde wig.”

Ariana cast a quick glance in Connor’s direction and she pursed her lips, obviously not intending to ask for further information. But Connor wanted more, to know Ariana’s life before he taught her to spy, before she had to cheat and steal to live.

“What circles?” he asked.

Isabel rolled her eyes. “The stuffy ones. Where manners were always exhibited with immaculate perfection and rules were tediously followed. I could almost cry at the sheer boredom of it all.” She looked baldly at Ariana. “Truly I don’t know how you could have dealt with it. But now you’re anything but a bargaining chip and traveling alone with a man and staying together in an old abandoned castle. How curious.”

It was odd to imagine Ariana leading such a quiet life. He knew the enjoyment she got from accomplishing new tasks, from even the simple run they always completed before their training sessions.

“How much do you know of MacAlister’s dealings?” Ariana asked in an abrupt change of subject.

Isabel gave a noncommittal shrug of her shoulders. “He did not share much with me.”

Of course.

Disappointment weighed on Connor’s aching back. He’d hoped to learn information from Isabel, as Ariana had suggested. Something he could use to determine what MacAlister had been doing with Cora.

He hesitated a moment before asking a question he needed the answer to, but was uncertain if he truly wanted to know. “Did ye ever hear the name Cora Grant?”

Isabel nibbled on her bread with her sharp little teeth, a thoughtful expression on her comely face. “No,” she said finally. “I’ve never heard of her before.”

Damn.

“What about Kenneth Gordon?” Ariana asked.

“Now that name I know well,” Isabel said with a quirk of her eyebrow. “And I can share a lot of information.”

She went quiet and let the silence drag out in a way Connor did not like.

“It involves conspiracy.” She stared down at her hair and carefully plucked apart the wet strands with maddening disinterest. “Tomorrow evening I’d like to stay at an inn. Every night, for that matter. And I’d like better food than what we have here. A hot meal.”

Connor’s gut knotted in aggravation. He wouldn’t be told what to do by some nobleman’s brat—royal blood or no.

“Then ye can stay here and fend for yerself,” he said in a quiet voice.

Her gaze flicked from her hair to his face. “What?” She narrowed her eyes with a look of incredulity.

“I willna have ye giving orders and making demands of us.” His tone was hard, as was intended. “I’m no servant of yers and neither is Ariana. We’ll continue to help ye after we know everything, but I willna be extorted for information.”

Isabel stared at him for a moment, her face blank. Surely no one had ever spoken to her as he had.

“Very well,” she said after a pause. “My former husband made an alliance with Kenneth Gordon to depose the king of Scotland.”

She said those damning words as if she found them boring, but Connor felt as though he’d been punched in the throat.

Kenneth Gordon.

Aye, Connor knew he was no longer the boy of their youth, but treason?

Kenneth had tried to take advantage of Cora and had played a role in Connor’s father’s death—for those things he could never forgive him.

But never would he have suspected Kenneth would go through with something as dangerous, as foolhardy, as treason.