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“As I said, I made a mistake. I thought for one brief moment that maybe he would soften toward me. That he’d allowed me to attend the tournament because he was ready to show me the wider world . . . so I told him. It was the biggest mistake of my life. I saw myself married so quickly neither I nor Eda could prepare, not that there was anything I could have done, really.”

He knew all of that already. “And the marriage?”

Clarissa opened her mouth, but no sound emerged. She promptly closed it again. “Was possibly better than living with my father. Except . . .”

God, he would kill them. Both. If her husband had abused her . . .

“Did he hurt you?”

She frowned. “I suppose not—”

“Suppose?”

“Nay, not really.” The light pinks spots on her cheeks told him to stop questioning her, though he found himself thinking about what those Englishmen had spoken of at The Wild Boar. Of foul Stanley’s quest for an heir.

“I am so sorry, Clarissa.”

He had no words to explain how sorry he was for having failed her.

“’Tis not your fault that my father—”

“’Tis my fault for assuming the worst. I had means to contact you, but I did not. Instead I abandoned you to—”

“’Tis I who abandoned you.”

Foolishly, he reached for her hand again. When she did not protest, he took them both in his. That same jolt of heat surged through him.

“You cannot do this.”

But he could see in her eyes that she would.

“I have no choice.”

Stay with me.

He wanted to say the words so badly, but he squeezed her hands instead. Aidan didn’t know which was stronger, the urge to take her in his arms or the urge to put her back on his horse and ride straight to Highgate End.

In the end, he did neither.

“I wish I could disagree with you.”

Her rueful smile told Aidan what he already knew. She could not come with him. Absconding with Theffield’s daughter would make an enemy of him. He would refuse to deal with Caxton, and chaos would surely follow.

“Delay it,” he found himself saying. “Once your father agrees, and Caxton is replaced—”

“And if he does not agree?”

“Then we will no longer need him.”

The look of determination on her face was one he knew well. He’d seen it before on his new sister Allie’s face. She was going to say no.

“If I do not go to Dunburg Abbey, he will find me. When he does, I will have no recourse. And I will not marry again.”

Not even to me?

“Then go to Dunburg if you must, but do not say your vows. Wait for me—”

“I cannot. Until I say them, I will be vulnerable. My father will still have a claim on me.”