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“Graeme and I explored it once, years ago. Neither you nor your father were here. I believe it was the last time I’d visited Sutworth until now.”

Without speaking of their destination, they walked toward the path.

“You’ve not been back since?”

“Nay. Your father made it clear Sutworth was his in name only. It’s lucky, I think, Sutworth has not yet been attacked since the lack of leadership here is well known along the border.”

They continued down the trail, which reminded him . . .

“You will be questioned about my visit. Coming here, alone, will not help your cause,” he said.

Clarissa seemed to consider that for a moment before she answered him. “There are already so many questions. My arrival, my plans—”

“To join the nuns at Dunburg?” Every part of him wanted to shout, No!

“Aye,” she said, seemingly as disappointed about the prospect as he.

Aidan stopped. This had to be said. He’d not forgive himself if he kept quiet.

“You don’t belong there.”

Clarissa stopped alongside him, the corner of her lower lip curling inside, under her teeth.

“While I waited for you that day, before I realized you were not coming—”

“Aidan—”

“Nay, lass. I want you to know.”

He looked up, the stab in his chest a very different one than when he’d thought of her these past two years.

“I tried to understand how a woman like you could have been raised by a man like him. I wondered if he’d accept me and thought of how lucky I was to have met you, again.”

She abused her poor lip, though he’d very much like to be so abused.

“When you did not come, I wondered what I had said to offend you. And later, I wondered if you’d already known about your betrothal to Stanley. I should have guessed the truth.”

He’d failed her then and was doing so now.

She released her lips and clasped her hands together in front of her. “Knowing you likely hated me was, is, difficult.”

“I don’t hate you, Clarissa. I could never hate you.”

Neither of them spoke for a time. A gentle rustling of leaves and distant call from above was the only sound, with the exception of Clarissa’s breathing. With every rise and fall of her chest, Aidan found himself questioning everything. He’d convinced himself that as long as his family was happy, and safe, nothing else mattered.

But something else did.

Clarissa had always mattered.

“My maid,” she said, though Aidan wasn’t sure where the thought had come from. “She is the kindest, gentlest woman in the world. It was she who convinced me that my father was wrong, that I did not kill my mother, and yet—”

“How could you think such a thing?”

He knew the answer as soon as he posed the question. Of course the man blamed her for her mother’s death. He was a monster.

“Tell me what happened, Clarissa,” he said in a softer tone.

The slight shrug of her shoulders undermined the devastation on her face.