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His uncles, his aunt Juliette, and his cousins all looked at him.

Rory smiled, the thought of such a mission more exciting than it should be. Edyington was crawling with the king’s trained knights, and if the survivors were to be believed, paid mercenaries as well.

“I will kidnap Lady Freya,” he said. This time, Isla did spit out her wine. Haydn chuckled. As did his uncles Reid and Alex.

“I believe the word you are seeking is ‘rescue,’ Rory,” his father said.

“Ah yes,” he amended. “Rescue.”

And, despite himself, his father smiled. Rory had used the word apurpose, a nod to how his parents had met. He very much enjoyed teasing them both about it and never wasted an opportunity to remind his father of their very unconventional courtship.

“I can think of no better man to”—his uncle Geoffrey cleared his throat—“rescue Lady Freya.”

“And if he does it without bedding her, bravo for a job well done,” Haydn muttered under his breath but loud enough for Rory to hear. In response, Rory planted on his face the very look that had gotten him into trouble earlier.

Haydn’s laugh echoed throughout the chamber.

Chapter Two

“There are eighty men outside this chamber prepared to ensure you will do as I bid, Freya.”

“You can visit the devil, Eustace,” Freya spat.

Her brother had thus far stopped short of striking her, but he wanted to. Badly. She wasn’t sure what stopped him. Perhaps that the spirit of their father—the one he’d been directly responsible for killing—would come back to haunt him? Eustace had always been a superstitious man, and she’d told him more than once such a thing may happen. Though she didn’t believe it herself, Freya wished it were possible.

Instead, the man who’d raised them, loved and protected them both, now lay inside a wooden box in the increasingly cold ground. There had been a frost on the grass this morn. Not that Freya had felt it, holed up in her bedchamber for more than a fortnight now. But she’d seen it from her window. The autumn air was tinged with a hint of the winter to come.

As he had done frequently since the battle, her younger brother stepped so close to her she could smell his breath. He had, at least, the manners to chew mint. “You will sup in the hall this eve or be dragged belowstairs, Freya.”

’Twas an easy decision to make. “Call your men, then.” She amended, “Apologies. The king’s men.”

Her brother’s eyes blazed. No doubt he did not care for the reminder that most of Edyington’s men had either been killed or had abandoned them. Or more precisely, had abandoned Eustace. They’d attempted to get her to leave through the secret tunnel with them when it had become apparent the keep was lost to King Edward’s men, but she would not leave. This was her home. Her father’s home. And her mother’s once, before she passed.

She would wait here for her grandmother’s reinforcements. And endure this child-man until then. To think she had defended him to their father so many times in the past. It made Freya’s stomach roil, the thought of it.

“Show yourself this eve,” he tried again, “or you will not leave this chamber until the day your husband comes to claim you.”

Freya might have remained in this chamber, but her maid had not. And so she knew all too well the rumblings among the servants. Terrified of Eustace, with good reason, they spoke of Lady Freya’s status: once the daughter and heiress of Edyington, now a captive in her own chambers.

Freya steeled herself for his reaction. Her brother had become increasingly impatient, and if she were not so rash, Freya would take the fact into account. Instead she looked him straight in the eyes and said again, “Go to the devil, Eustace.”

He itched to slap her. As her guardian now, it was his right. He could strike her or, worse, marry her off to a man of the king’s choosing as a boon for helping him overtake Edyington so easily. And there was naught Freya could do to prevent it.

Thankfully, she had a plan.

His smile was one she’d seen many times during their childhood. Hints, she realized now, at the man he would become. “Very well.”

When he spun from her, Freya’s shoulders sagged after having held them so straight. From holding her head high when all she cared to do was toss herself upon the bed and weep for the loss of her father. Her home.

Her future.

It had been too easy. Previously when Eustace had confronted her, the encounters had ended in screaming. Her brother’s face had turned red, a brighter shade of the color hair they shared, as he threatened her with punishment if Freya did not show her face. If she continued to taunt him with a fact he could not hide from.

The baron’s son had done all but lower the drawbridge for their attackers. Had he wished for their father to die in battle? Surely not. But Eustace should have known the proud Lord Hathawaye of Edyington would do so. Some might say their father reaped such an outcome by openly defying his king and refusing to fight the Scots. But he was a border lord, and they did not bow to a man who cared little for them. If Edward wished for loyal subjects along the border, he should have tended to their concerns, led them as well as he did his precious subjects in the south.

No longer would Edyington serve as a sympathizer to the Scottish cause. It was now firmly in the hands of the English monarch. Her brother, simply a figurehead.

Freya walked to her bed and was prepared to sit when the door of her chamber slammed shut, her brother never turning back after presenting his back to her. But the scream stopped her. Freya could not place it at first, but then her name was called.