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Paris looked at her. “ ’Twas not for you to decide, my lady, but your compassion is touching.”

She was rebuked and complimented at the same time and not quite sure how to react. “Who was his da?” she asked after a moment.

“The captain of Northwood’s troops before William took command,” he replied with a touch of remembrance. “William bested him eight years ago to win the honor.”

Jordan’s mouth opened with astonished empathy. She instantly felt bad for thinking unkind thoughts about him. “Oh, Paris, it must have been so difficult for him. But, I swear, to look at him I thought him quite cold and unfeeling in the matter.”

“He was anything but that,” Paris said quietly.

William appeared beside them once again, sweeping Jordan into his arms. “The earl is retiring to the castle,” he announced. “He looks forward to greeting you at supper tonight.”

“Put me down, English,” she said testily. “I will walk.”

He looked at Paris and, with shrugs between them, he put her down.

“As you wish,” he said, then eyed her with a bit of irritation. “Will you at least take my arm so that you will not weave like a drunkard all over the bailey?”

She complied as if she were granting him a favor.

Jemma was down from Kieran’s destrier and fell into step on the other side of her cousin. “We’ll wash yer hair and clean ye up,” she took Jordan’s other arm.

Jordan shook her off. She was disgusted with Jemma’s bloodlust and sickened at herself, everything. She did not want to touch anyone or be touched. The only reason she was grasping William’s arm was so she would not fall down.

“I shall do it myself,” she said coldly. “I dunna need any help.”

“Aye, ye do,” Jemma did not understand what had gotten into her cousin. “Ye canna wash around that cut, ninny.”

Jordan stopped and whirled on her cousin, her face red.

“Dunna call me names, Jemma Scott,” she hissed. “Ye’re close to getting yer face punched in.”

This was no place for a scene. William pulled Jordan with him while Paris placed himself between Jemma and her cousin. Jordan, angered and overwrought beyond her limit, dropped her head and tried to fight off the tears that kept filling her eyes. She just could not take it anymore.

She didn’t notice the castle when they entered previously. It had twenty-foot ceilings and colorful banners that hung from the gallery railings. But the cool musty odor filled her nose and her head snapped up as if she had been slammed in the chest. My God, she was in an English fortress! Everything she had grown up learning to hate was here in front of her, surrounding her. The men that had killed her cousins and grandfather may have walked these halls. They hated her. She hated them.

Panic was new to Jordan. She’d never experienced it before which was why she scared herself all the more to feel her control slipping away. She yanked her arm away from William, her head spinning and her legs like jelly. She turned to run but he caught her before she could take a step.

She turned into a frightened animal, scratching and kicking. William had her firmly by the body and easily captured her arms as she struggled against him.

“No, no, no,” she moaned over and over again.

Paris had wisely taken Jemma ahead. Any servants who happened to be in the foyer had vanished. William trapped her against him and lifted her to a small secluded alcove that usually served as a cloak room. He wasn’t about to carry her kicking and screaming up the stairs.

“Stop it, Jordan,” he hissed into her ear.

“Let me go.” She twisted violently in his arms. “I want to go home. I dunna want to stay in here. Let go of me.”

Holding her with one arm, he gripped her chin with his free hand and forced her to look at him.

“Listen to me.” he whispered harshly. “Damnation, listen… you are injured and exhausted, and you are not thinking rationally. Relax, Jordan, please.”

Her panic slowed. He had promised to take care of her, hadn’t he? Her senses balanced but hot tears started anew at her embarrassment and shame of losing control. She had been so scared a moment earlier she would have done anything to get the hell out of there. Now she was deeply ashamed.

She wept deeply and he pulled her against his chest with a sorrowful sigh. He rubbed her back, stroked her arms, murmuring soft words into her ear.

“There, there,” he whispered. “Everything is well. I know you have had a day of it.”

She was sobbing like a child. “I want to go home.”