“Will ye join me in the lower room, Kali?” Adam asked.
“Without a chaperone?”
Adam laughed aloud. “There is little room for us to…”
“Bite yer tongue!” Raini commanded him, pounding her cane on the flagstones to get his attention. “This young woman is pure and should not be subjected to your wanton ways.”
Adam met Raini’s unwavering gaze, seeing a wry smile on her lips. “I understand, Mistress,” he said, holding his arm out for Kali to take.
They walked downstairs together, each sitting on the bottom stair so they could see and talk to each other with ease.
“Ye took little time to discover the other misfits of this keep.”
“The night reveals the deepest truth about a place and its people,” Kali answered.
“And how many places—keeps—have ye explored late at night?”
“Only here,” she admitted. “But I have been out late at night in the city.”
“Without escort?”
“Aye,” she said. “’Twas the only way to visit me mother’s gravesite or to get supplies me sisters and me needed.”
“That was a serious risk to take.” He didn’t approve or like the thought of her going about the streets of Aberdeen alone. He had visited that place many times and had experienced the kind of men and criminals who wandered about once the sun set. “I admire yer courage and independent spirit, Kali, but ye should never do so again.”
“Are ye me keeper, then?”
“If that is the title ye wish to give me, then I accept it without hesitation.”
She rolled her beautiful eyes at him. “Why are ye so kind to me, Adam?”
“Because I believe ye have been treated unjustly. And I am no’ a heartless man.”
“If that is true, why are there nine children abovestairs that have no homes to call their own?”
He had been waiting for such a question. “Me father is as hard as stone sometimes,” he said. “Unwilling to demonstrate mercy even to the most innocent. Once they were caught stealing, they were banished from the keep. But as ye can see, by staying on the grounds after nightfall, few of the clan encounter them. Even if they did, most would ignore me father’s demand of arresting them.”
“Including ye?”
“Did I not make that obvious a moment ago?”
“By refusing to acknowledge their presence? I suppose that could be seen as a way of helping them.”
“The eldest lad, Evan, knows me well.”
“Oh?”
“I offer help to him often. Food. Some weapons for personal protection. Perhaps the occasional intelligence on when the guards will be making their rounds… Men from this clan have been maimed for helping strangers before—me sire can be a heartless bastard.”
Kali looked at him with a softer expression on her face. He could see she was struggling to trust him. This lovely woman, who would make any father proud, had been cursed with a prig for a sire. Worse than his own, he imagined.
“Why did ye frown?” she asked.
“Nothing.” He shifted his position on the stair. “I brought you down here to warn ye,” he said. “If me father even catches a hint that ye are helping the wee ones, it will give him more reason to dislike and mistrust ye. Perhaps cause to drag ye before the clan and punish ye. I doona want to see that happen.”
She shook her head. “I doona rightly care what yer sire thinks of me, Adam. He isna important to me. But those children, so shabbily clothed and hungry, they mean something. And I intend to let them eat and sleep in this tower every night.”
“Yer rations are meant to feed ye and Heather, not nine more mouths.”
