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But he clearly didn’t blame her. How could that be?

“I was not allowed close enough to him to ask,” he said. “Although, since I was armed, illegally, that might have been a good thing.”

Both sides were supposed to come to the Day of Truce unarmed, but very few did. Gillian was just glad Graeme had not gotten himself killed.

“Aye,” she agreed. “A very good thing.” She frowned. “I am so sorry.”

Gillian wanted to reach out to him, but she didn’t dare.

Graeme shook his head.

“This does not bode well for peace,” he said. “Even if I wanted to let the matter pass, even if I could convince my clan to accept the outcome of the trial.” He shook his head. “Our allies are many, and none pleased with recent events. The raid was not an isolated one, and I fear this is merely the beginning.”

Gillian felt as if the bed would open up and claim her. Or perhaps she just wished it so. Her father had helped free the man who’d killed Grace.

“The people of Highgate will blame me,” she said, thinking for the first time of the repercussions of her father’s treachery.

But Graeme was already shaking his head. “I will not allow it.”

Her heart lurched. His tone had been so fierce. So protective. If she wasn’t careful, Gillian could lose her heart to this man.

Would that be such a bad thing?

Aye, if he did not return her affection. And how could he? After what her father had done?

Allie.

Gillian could feel the blood drain from her face. She looked past Graeme, not daring to meet his eyes. How could she ask for his help now? When the only recourse would be for her father to receive the funds he needed another way? A way that did not include selling her sister off to a wealthy, crooked earl?

“What is it?” Graeme cocked his head to the side as if remembering. “You wanted to tell me something.”

Oh dear.

This would not do at all.

17

Graeme sat alone in the solar, waiting for Aidan to arrive. He’d sent word for him, and requested a tankard of ale, long enough ago for both to have arrived by now. Like the lord’s chamber, the solar sat along an outside wall, which meant it also boasted a hearth. After a visit to Conisbrough Keep in England, his father had added a hearth to nearly every outside room at Highgate, including this one.

Graeme stared at the colored stones depicting his clan crest and the other emblems that dotted the drab stones around them with blue, red, and yellow. Never could he have imagined sitting here, chief of Clan Scott, without his father, at such an early age.

The transition had been a difficult one, even though he’d served as his father’s tanist for more than a year before his abrupt death. None had expected the brawn, robust man to be felled in a battle that had started and ended in the same day.

“You’re thinking of Father.”

His brother always did have the ability to discern his thoughts and moods. Not that Graeme was particularly reticent with him.

“Aye.”

Aidan sat in the cushioned seat opposite him. Two windows, their shutters wide open, gave evidence to the fast-approaching night. He hadn’t realized how long he and Gillian had spent in his chamber—their chamber.

A servant approached with a tankard and two mugs, which she arranged on the table between the brothers.

“You’re new?”

She bobbed a curtsy. “I am, my lord.”

“What is your name?”