Page 74 of When the Laird Conquers

“Ye should calm down, sir,” Gordon said coolly. “It isnae ruination; it’s a seal on me intentions.”

“Oh, I can tell very well what your intentions are,” her father shot back, his face puce. “And I will not calm down! Not when you have dishonored her in such a⁠—”

“She’s to be me wife, ye dolt,” Gordon interrupted. “I held her in me arms just now because she’s mine.”

Her father faltered. “What?”

Agnes said nothing, but her bewildered expression asked the same question.

“I intend to marry her,” Gordon clarified. “She’s nae ruined at all. Far from it, she’s under me protection. We can have the weddin’ the day before the cèilidh, and the cèilidh can replace the weddin’ festivities.”

Her father seemed to relax, his face softening. “You will marry her?”

“That’s what I said,” Gordon confirmed. “Now, if ye’ll excuse me, I ought to speak to the housekeeper before she retires for the night.”

He swept out of the room before he could think about changing his mind or consider the enormity of what he had just done—breaking a vow he had made to himself five years ago on the worst day of his life. A vow to take no wife and have no children, as penance for the deaths that he had caused.

29

Gordon made himself scarce for the next few days under the excuse of giving Agnes and her father, Joseph, time alone. He had heard them from his study now and then as Agnes had shown her father around the castle and gardens, a reminder that they would soon become family.

But it was news from Braemar that gave him an excuse to leave the castle altogether.

“Should ye nae be happier, seein’ as ye’re about to become a husband?” Keith asked, riding alongside him.

Gordon shot him a look. “I have other things to think about.”

“Such as?”

“Such as findin’ out what traitors are in me midst,” Gordon replied, his mood as grim as the grey sky.

A rider had come from the seamstress who was making Agnes’s gown, something about alterations and lace embellishments, but with it had arrived a more urgent message.

Iona had come straight to him that morning, ashen and trembling. “Me Laird, the seamstress heard somethin’ at the Tap and Spile Inn last night. She heard some men gloatin’ that they’d earned themselves easy coin by sellin’ information about Miss Agnes.”

“Sellin’ information to whom?” Gordon had asked, shooting up from his seat.

“The seamstress couldnae get a name. She just heard it was an Englishman who’d been roamin’ through the villages. An Englishman who was askin’ about Miss Agnes.”

“And where are these men now?”

Iona had shaken her head. “In the village, I suppose. But I daenae ken about the Englishman.”

Gordon had not delayed, saddling his horse and fetching Keith before his cup of morning tea had even cooled.

It was the first piece of news about a potential sighting of Edwin, or at least someone Edwin might have employed, in a long while.

In truth, Gordon had begun to wonder if his own soldiers had decided to withhold their loyalty, keeping secrets about what they might have learned in the villages, but it seemed not. There just hadn’t been any news until now.

The sky began to drizzle as he and Keith finally made their way into Braemar, heading directly to the market square where Lizzy had almost been kidnapped.

The moment the village women saw him, they hurried away from their stalls and swarmed around him.

“How is the Lady?” one asked.

“How is the bairn?” another pressed.

“We’ve been watchin’ for any more wretches who might try to do her harm,” declared a third.