“Now tell me what happened,” Ewan commanded.

Crispen looked down at his hands, his shoulders drooping.

“Crispen,” Ewan began gently. “What else did I tell you McCabes always do?”

“Tell the truth,” Crispen said grudgingly.

Ewan smiled. “Indeed. Now begin your tale.”

Crispen sighed dramatically before saying, “I snuck out to meet Uncle Alaric. I thought I’d wait at the border and surprise him when he came home.”

Alaric glared across the table at Crispen, but Ewan held up his hand.

“Let him continue.”

“I must have gone too far. One of the McDonald soldiers took me and said he was going to take me back to his laird to ransom me.”

He turned pleading eyes on Ewan. “I couldn’t let him do that, Papa. It would shame you, and our clan can’t afford a ransom. So I escaped and hid in the cart of a traveling merchant.”

Ewan tensed in rage at the McDonald soldier, and his heart clenched at the pride in his son’s voice.

“You could never shame me, Crispen,” Ewan said quietly. “Now go on with your story. What happened next?”

“The merchant discovered me after a day and he chased me out. I didn’t know where I was. I tried to steal a horse from men who were camping but they caught me. M—I mean she saved me.”

“Who saved you?” Ewan demanded.

“She saved me.”

Ewan swallowed his impatience. “Who is she?”

Crispen fidgeted uncomfortably. “I can’t tell you. I promised.”

Ewan and Alaric exchanged frustrated glances, and Alaric raised one eyebrow as if to say I told you so.

“All right, Crispen, what exactly did you promise?”

“That I wouldn’t tell you who she was,” Crispen blurted. “I’m sorry, Papa.”

“I see. What else did you promise?”

Crispen looked puzzled for a moment, and across the table, Alaric smiled as he caught on to the direction Ewan was headed.

“I just promised I wouldn’t tell you her name.”

Ewan stifled his grin. “All right, so continue with your story. The lady saved you. How did she do this? Was she camping with the men you tried to steal the horse from? Were they escorting her to a destination?”

Crispen’s brow creased as he struggled with whether he could divulge such information without breaking his promise.

“I won’t ask her name again,” Ewan said solemnly.

Looking relieved, Crispen pursed his lips and then said, “The men took her from the abbey. She didn’t want to be with them. I saw them bring her into the camp.”

“God’s teeth, she’s a nun?” Ewan exclaimed.

Alaric shook his head adamantly. “If that woman is a nun, then I’m a monk.”

“Can you marry a nun?” Crispen asked.

“Why on earth would you ask a question like that?” Ewan demanded.

“Duncan Cameron wanted to marry her. If she’s a nun, he can’t, can he?”

Ewan straightened and shot Alaric a fierce look. Then he turned to Crispen, trying to keep his reaction calm so that he didn’t frighten his son.

“The men you tried to steal the horse from. Were they Cameron soldiers? Were they the ones who took the woman from the abbey?”

Crispen nodded solemnly. “They took us to Laird Cameron. He tried to make … her … marry him, but she refused. When she did, he beat her badly.”

Tears welled in his eyes, and he made a fierce expression to hold them back.

Again, Ewan glanced over at Alaric to judge his reaction to the news. Who could this woman be that Duncan Cameron wanted her badly enough to steal her from an abbey? Was she an heiress sequestered there until her marriage?

“What happened after he beat her?” Ewan prompted.

Crispen swiped at his face, leaving a trail of dirt over his cheek.

“When she came back to the room, she could barely hold herself up. I had to help her to the bed. Later a woman woke us and said that the laird was in a drunken sleep and that he planned to threaten me to make her do what he wanted. She said we had to escape before he awoke. The lady was afraid but promised me she’d protect me. And so I promised her that I would take us here to you so that you could protect her. You won’t let Duncan Cameron marry her, will you, Papa? You won’t let him hurt her again?”

He gazed anxiously up at Ewan, his eyes so earnest and serious. He looked so much older than his eight years in that moment, as if he’d taken on a great responsibility, one far greater than his age warranted, but one he was determined to follow through with.

“Nay, son. I won’t allow Duncan Cameron to harm the lass.”

Relief flooded Crispen9;s expression and suddenly he looked extremely weary. He swayed in his chair and leaned over on Ewan’s arm.

For a long moment, Ewan stared down at his son’s head, resisting the urge to run his fingers through the unruly tresses. Ewan couldn’t help but feel a surge of pride at the way Crispen had fought for the woman who’d saved him. According to Alaric, Crispen had bullied Alaric and his men the entire way back to the McCabe keep. And now he was bullying Ewan into keeping a promise Crispen had made in the McCabe name.

“He’s asleep,” Alaric murmured.

Ewan carefully ran his hand over his son’s head and held him solidly against his side.

“Who is this woman, Alaric? What is she to Cameron?”

Alaric made a sound of frustration. “I wish I could tell you. The lass wouldn’t say a word to me the entire time she was with me. She and Crispen were as tight-lipped as two monks with vows of silence. All I know is that when I found her, she was severely beaten. I’ve never seen a lass abused as she was. It turned my stomach, Ewan. There’s no excuse for a man to ever treat a woman such as he did. And yet, as badly injured as she was, she took on me and my men when she thought we were a threat to Crispen.”

“She said nothing the entire time she was with you? Let nothing slip? Think, Alaric. She had to have said something. It simply isn’t a woman’s nature to be silent for prolonged periods of time.”

Alaric grunted. “Someone should tell her that. I’m telling you, Ewan, she said nothing. She stared at me like I was some kind of toad. Worse, she had Crispen acting like I was the enemy. The two whispered like conspirators and glared at me when I dared intervene.”

Ewan frowned and drummed his fingers on the solid wood of the table. “What could Cameron want with her? Furthermore, what was a highland lass doing in a lowland abbey? Highlanders guard their daughters as jealously as gold. I can’t see a daughter being packed off to an abbey days away.”

“Unless the lass was being punished,” Alaric pointed out. “Maybe she was caught out in an indiscretion. More than one lass has been wooed between the sheets outside the sanctity of marriage.”

“Or maybe she was a difficult harridan her father despaired of,” Ewan murmured, as he remembered how difficult and recalcitrant she’d been just moments ago. That scenario he could believe. But again, she would have had to have committed an egregious sin for a father to send her so far away.

Alaric chuckled. “She’s spirited all right.” Then he sobered. “But she protected Crispen well. She put her body between him and others more than once, and she suffered greatly for it.”

Ewan mulled on that truth for a long moment. Then he looked up at Alaric again. “You saw these injuries?”

Alaric nodded. “I did. Ewan, the bastard kicked her. There were imprints of a boot on her back.”

p height="0em" width="1em" align="justify">Ewan cursed, the sound echoing across the hall. “I wish I knew what her connection to Cameron was. And why he wants her badly enough to abduct her from an abbey and beat her senseless when she refused to marry him. Why he’d then think to use my son to sway her.”

“It would have worked, too,” Alaric said in a grim voice. “The lass is very protective of Crispen. If Cameron had threatened him, she would have consented. I’m positive of that.”

“This presents a problem for me,” Ewan said quietly. “Cameron wants her. My son wants me to protect her. The lass only wants to be gone. And then there is the mystery of who she is.”

“If Cameron discovers her whereabouts, he’ll come for her,” Alaric warned.

Ewan nodded. “So he will.”

The brothers’ gazes met and held. Alaric nodded his acceptance of Ewan’s silent declaration. If Cameron wanted a fight, the McCabes would be more than willing to give him one.

“What about the lass?” Alaric finally asked.

“I’ll make that determination once I’ve heard the whole story from her,” Ewan said.

He was confident that he could be a reasonable man, and once she saw how reasonable, she’d cooperate fully.



CHAPTER 5


Sunlight peeked through the window, penetrating the gap in the furs. The light somehow made him more ominous than if he stood cloaked in darkness. In the light, she could see how big he was. He made a menacing portrait, framed by the doorway he barely fit through.