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“Do you miss them?”

“Mother and Father?” Somehow she knew who them referred to. “Of course,” she said. “What do you think has happened?”

She hated to consider it. Gillian wasn’t sure her father would survive the loss.

“I do not know,” she said. “Do you think they’ve come already? To take it all away? With the king out of the country—”

“Covington was a powerful man,” Gillian said.

Allie shuddered. “Aye, he was.”

They fell silent, and Gillian looked across the room at the tapestry Allie and Graeme had spoken of the night before he left.

Gillian, lost in thought over her parents’ fate and that of her marriage, hardly tasted the food in front of her. When she looked at Allie and saw a single tear run down her sister’s cheek, Gillian reached over and wiped it away. She brushed the hair from her shoulder and moved it to her back, attempting a smile for her sister’s sake.

They finished the meal in silence.

* * *

Graeme only now realized how late it had become. Though darkness had fallen some time ago, he’d insisted on continuing until they reached their destination. When the torchlights of Highgate Castle finally shone in the distance, he urged his mount to an alarming speed.

Slow down. You are of no use to anyone dead.

He did, though just slightly, noticing he was far ahead of his companion. His clansman must think him mad.

Finally arriving at the gates, he called to the guard above, who raised the portcullis. The courtyard, empty at this late hour, appeared as it should, though he saw it in a different light—as if the wonder he’d felt as a child had been restored.

He woke the stable master, who took his mount, and ran to the entrance of the keep. Before he could bound up the stairs to make his way to the second floor, a voice behind him stopped him.

“Going somewhere?”

Aidan sat in front of the hearth at the far end of the hall. Mug in hand, his legs stretched out in front of him, he looked very much like their father. Graeme had seen him many times in this sort of repose when all was quiet and the rest of the castle inhabitants had gone to bed.

He walked toward Aidan, who looked rather displeased with him.

“To see my wife.”

“Ahh,” Aidan said. “You’ve remembered her.”

He was in no mood for games.

“I’ve remembered her,” he ground out, “and have come to my senses.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Graeme gripped the top of the wooden chair on which his brother sat. Not willing to say more about Gillian, he gave Aidan an account of his visit with the earl and his wife.

“It is arranged,” he said. “Geoffrey Waryn will meet with Douglas and the clan chiefs the day before the Day of Truce. We are of the same mind about the changes necessary to March Law and must make it official before a petition to the king is made.”

“What about Clave? And Hedford?”

“He assured me Lord Clave and the English Warden would be there as well.”

Aidan looked skeptical. “Does that not please you?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

“None of this pleases me very well. But I suppose the plan has some merit.”

More so than avenging the offenders themselves and risking an all-out war, but he did not care to debate those issues now.