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Jordan heard a familiar gasp and knew that Caladora was in the room. Her struggles ceased for the moment at the imminent prospect of seeing her cousin and she thrust herself through the doorway, coming face-to-face with tall, wan Caladora Scott.

Caladora’s pale face went paler with shock. “Jordan!”

“Callie!” Jordan threw herself into her cousin’s arms, hugging her tightly. “Are ye all right? Did they hurt ye?”

“I told ye nobody hurt her,” Malcolm said from the doorway. “And nobody will hurt ye, either, if ye do as ye’re told. I shall be back later.”

“Wait!” Jordan cried before he could close the door. Malcolm looked at her darkly, expectantly. “Ye said nothing about making me yer own when we talked before, Malcolm Scott. Is that what ye intend?”

He made a face. “Nay,” he snapped. “I only said that so they’d leave ye alone for the time. Even if ye are an English whore, ye’re still my cousin.”

“But why should ye protect me?” her tone was deadly serious. “Ye let the clans kill yer mother, yer aunt, and yer brother. Why am I any different?”

Malcolm didn’t even know why. All he knew was that Jordan had always been nice to him, even when they were children. She had always been special, which was why he didn’t have the heart to slit her throat when he’d had the chance a year back. Why was she asking him such dumb questions? His face glazed with an angry expression.

“Well, I shall ravish ye if that’s what ye want!” He slammed the door and bolted it.

Still in each other’s arms, Jordan and Caladora stared at the door for a moment before turning back to each other. Caladora touched her cousin’s hair as if trying to convince herself she wasn’t seeing things.

“Are ye real, Jordi? I thought ye were in England.” Caladora exclaimed softly.

“I was,” Jordan said. “But I came back to see Langton for myself after I was told of her attack. Oh, Callie, there is so much to tell ye.”

Time flew by as Jordan told Caladora every single detail of her life, and of Jemma’s, since the moment she left Langton’s gates. Her cousin was amazed, frightened, and thrilled for her, all at the same time. Color gently washed her pale cheeks at all of the excitement.

When Jordan came to the point in the tale where Jemma’s daughter had been a stillborn, she tried to be gentle but Caladora broke out in tears anyway. Dear Callie had always been so sensitive, but Jordan knew she would want to know of Jemma’s misfortune. Jordan spent a good fifteen minutes comforting her cousin before finishing her story.

When it came Caladora’s turn to fill Jordan in on everything that had happened at home during that time, the mood sobered a little, but not completely. Life at Langton had not been near so exciting.

“I find it so unbelievable that ye married the fearsome Wolf, Jordi.” Caladora said in her gentle voice.

Jordan lay back on the small bed, smiling. “He’s not so fearsome to me,” she said. “He’s the most handsome, the most charming, and the most dashing man I have ever met. We canna keep our hands from one another.”

Caladora blushed as her cousin laughed at her. “Dunna say such things to me, Jordi, for I am a maiden.”

“Well, I am not,” Jordan felt bawdy but, after all, ’twas only Caladora. “I carry another babe as we speak.”

Caladora shook her head. “And the twins only six months old, yet. Did it hurt much to birth a babe?”

“Nay,” Jordan said confidently. “Well, mayhap a little. But it was over quickly.”

Caladora nodded, but childbirth scared the hell out of her; it always had. Jemma’s mishap scared her even more.

“I intend to have no children,” she said firmly.

Jordan grinned knowingly. “Aye, ye will want to when ye meet a man ye can love. Ye would die for him if he asked it.”

Caladora shrugged. “What man would have me, Jordi? Especially after I have been locked up in here for months, he will think me despoiled.”

“Callie, any man would be lucky to have ye,” Jordan sat up and went to her cousin. There was a dirty ivory comb on a small broken table. Picking it up, she ran it through her cousin’s soiled hair. Even oily and sticky, it was the most beautiful shade of red Jordan had ever seen. So much gold and light to it.

Caladora closed her eyes at the attention; it felt good to have her hair combed. “Next to ye and Jemma, I always felt so awkward and plain. The men always noticed the two of ye and never me.”

Jordan gave her hair a gentle yank. “ ’Tis not true, I tell ye. Ye’re beautiful. Tall and elegant as I wish I were. Jemma and I are as short as trolls.”

Caladora’s pale green eyes opened as she gazed out of the small window overlooking the western half of the keep. “But ye’re so beautiful, Jordi. No one alive is as beautiful as ye are.”

“Hush, now, no more of that,” she told her sternly. “If I had yer long legs, I would believe that. Now, when is the last time ye washed this hair of yers?”