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“He would not,” Graeme said. His tone did not match his words.

“Why else would he come here now?”

“Would not what? What do you imagine he wants from you?” Gillian asked.

Graeme attempted to explain. “At the council six month earlier, he broached the idea of involving the Earl of Theffield in our dispute with the English border lords.”

“The earl,” Aidan said, “has property in both England and Scotland.”

Graeme’s scowl for the man was warranted. Cruel and selfish, the Earl of Theffield tended to elicit such sentiments. Thankfully, he hardly ever visited his northern estates, which were his in name only.

Gillian was rightly confused. “But what has that to do with us?”

“Our father knew the man as well as any Scotsman,” Graeme said. “Even though he had no alliance with him and rarely visited Sutworth.”

“Sutworth? Isn’t that the one that borders our land?”

“Aye.” Graeme resumed his pacing, but not before he shot a look at Aidan. Once again, he failed to hide his emotions. The pity in his eyes was as obvious as it was unwelcome.

“But I still don’t understand—”

“The Earl of Theffield is Lord Caxton’s overlord,” Graeme said. “As Caxton’s overlord, the Earl of Theffield has the authority to force Caxton to step down.”

Lord Caxton, the English Warden of the Middle March, was the reason the Scottish clans had stopped attending the monthly Day of Truce, a day of reckoning for all crimes committed on the border, arbitrated by two wardens, one from either side. Caxton had little interest in fairness, and his willingness to accept bribes and look the other way had allowed too many accused Englishmen to walk free. Until he was removed from his position, the Scottish border lords refused to uphold the tenets of the Treaty of York, which had given them thirty years of relative peace.

The Scottish border lords had tried, and failed, to have Caxton removed from power. Even the intercession of their king had done nothing. The English sovereign had insisted his beloved Lord Caxton would not be removed as warden.

To Gillian, the solution must have seemed inspired—Theffield had land in both Scotland and England, surely he could and would intercede. Her eyes lit up, the possibility of peace at hand, until she looked at him. And Graeme.

“Then why has no one spoken to him yet?”

Aidan did not want to be the one to eradicate Gillian’s last hope for peace, so he let his brother do it. “There is a reason Theffield was dismissed as a potential path to peace.”

“A good reason,” he added.

Gillian studied each of them in turn. “He is that bad then?”

Aidan could not answer. He couldn’t think of the man without his fingers itching to grab the dirk at his side and toss it into the closest target.

“Aye, lass,” Graeme said. “He is, and worse. Perhaps Douglas has other plans,” he added, his voice unconvincing. “Perhaps there is another reason for his visit.”

Gillian’s chin lifted. “You think he comes to ask you to treat with Theffield?”

Dread filled Aidan’s gut. He feared exactly that.

“He asked it once before,” Graeme said. “At the council meeting. But while our father knew the man, dealt with him when necessary, neither Aidan nor I have any love for him. But there is no other who would dare approach him. The earl and Douglas nearly killed each other once. The idea was dismissed at the meeting, when there was still hope . . .”

“There is still one thing I do not understand.”

He and his brother waited.

“Why do you look at Aidan,” she asked Graeme, “as if he lost his favorite dirk? What are you not telling me?”

Before either of them could answer, the color leached out of Gillian’s face. She leapt from her seat and grabbed the chamber pot next to her, leaving him thankful not to be forced to answer that particular question.

* * *

“Lady Clarissa! We did not expect you.”