“Why do you think that?” she whispered.
“Because his accomplice told me everything.” Tristan placed his goblet on the table and turned to face her. “Allow me to askyoua question.”
Pulse pounding, she nodded her assent.
“Why did Baine tell you he was here?”
She struggled to remember; it all seemed so long ago. So irrelevant, given everything that had happened since. “He told me you sent him,” she muttered, her lips grown dry and her throat constricted with tension.
It must have been a lie.
Tristan held her gaze. “I knew that, of course, for Jonah sent me a letter detailing everything.” He shrugged. “But I wanted you to realise that he was deceiving you from the start.”
Frida couldn’t bear it. Hot tears sprang to her eyes, and she looked down at her hands, clenched tightly in her lap, so that Tristan wouldn’t see her distress.
His tone softened as he continued. “As soon as I received Jonah’s letter, I knew that both of you were in danger.” Frida shook her head, still not prepared to accept this, but Tristan spoke on. “Mayhap if the snow had not come, things would have played out differently. Baine is a clever man. A charming man.” Frida felt the full force of her brother’s gaze resting upon her and realised that he was offering her something of an excuse.
“Aye,”she could say,“he conned us most cleverly. That is why I so readily fell into his trap. Thank goodness you arrived in time to show me the truth.”
But she could not be grateful. She had believed Callum because she loved him. Loved him still. Could not accept his deceit.
“Because of the snow we had to take shelter in the forest. And there, we met Gregor.”
Now her eyes flew to his. She remembered the tall, angry man who had thrown the dagger at Arlo. “Gregor?”
Tristan nodded. “The man had the nerve to try and steal food from our camp fire. Yet he lacked the finesse to do so without being caught. We showed him leniency, at first. I would not see a man starve in the snow.Eat with us, we told him. And he did,”Tristan snorted. “Right until the moment he tried to stab me in the back.”
Frida’s hands covered her face.
“Then the man spoke most freely and his Scots brogue became clear. He told us everything. How Callum Baine took his orders from Robert the Bruce himself. How they had ridden here with the express purpose of assassinating me.” Tristan tore off another hunk of bread and sat back in his chair. “Clearly my absence from Ember Hall spoiled their plans. The information passed up country must have been false. A mix-up between myself and Jonah, perchance.” His lips twitched. “Mayhap I should be grateful for Scottish incompetence.”
Frida felt as if she might be sick. Only the fact that there was nothing in her stomach kept her from retching. “He has shown us nothing but kindness,” she whispered. But in her mind’s eye, she saw the stash of gleaming weapons beneath Callum’s pallet in the hayloft, and she grew close to weeping once more.
“That may be so, sister. But we do not know what he was planning to do next.” Tristan chewed ruminatively and washed it down with another mouthful of wine. “Or rather we do know, but not the detail of it.”
“Nay.” Frida shook her head. She could not accept this; Tristan must have made some mistake. “Gregor was angry with Callum when he left. ’Tis clear to me that he must have lied.”
A log spat in the fire as if to accentuate her distress, but Tristan remained unruffled.
“Callum’s father is Rory Baine.”
Tristan announced this as if the name might mean something, but Frida shrugged her shoulders, still focused on holding back the tears that threatened to expose her love for Callum.
Sir Callum Baine, the knight that had trained alongside my brother.
Not Callum Baine, the Scot in league against my brother.
The two could not be one and the same person. She wrung her hands in anguish.
“He is a mighty Scottish clansman. A faithful follower of Robert the Bruce.”
She scrabbled to make sense of it. “Then how did Callum come to be at Lindum? Why does he speak with an English accent?” Her voice rose triumphantly. “What are his connections to Egremont House?”
“I do not know every inch of his life story.” Tristan pressed his lips together. “You can ask him these questions yourself, if you wish.”
“I do.” She nodded vehemently. She would believe nothing until she had heard it from Callum’s own lips.
He inclined his head. “Very well. After I have rested a while, I will interrogate the prisoner myself. You can come in once my men have softened him up.”
