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“Do you understand what I’m saying, lass?”

She nodded against his chest.

“You are under my protection. My clan’s protection.”

“But—”

He did look at her then, his gaze so intense that Clarissa would have been frightened if he were foe rather than friend.

“You will come to Highgate End and stay there until your safety can be assured.”

“None can know I am there.”

“Very few will know, aye.”

“And you will help me find a convent that will take me?” She’d already asked so much of him, but Clarissa was truly at his mercy. And though she’d sworn never to be at the mercy of another man, she trusted Aidan.

“I will.” He frowned. Aidan did not like her plan, but he would not go back on his promise. For the first time that she could remember, she actually believed all might be well.

Reluctant to leave the warmth of his embrace, Clarissa laid her head against his chest once more, thanking God for sending him to her. Her husband had been just as wrong as her father. If God wished to punish her for being unworthy, surely Aidan wouldn’t have returned to her life just when she needed him most.

* * *

The scent of her lingered still.

Aidan looked up at Highgate Castle, so named for the mound of earth that perched the circular structure high above the surrounding land. Breathing deeply, he closed his eyes for a brief moment, allowing himself to remember last eve, and how it had felt to hold the woman who now rode beside him. He’d wanted her, aye, but for far more than that he’d wanted them to stay that way—nestled together, her clutching the fabric at his back as he struggled to get closer to her. She fit perfectly against him, as if she belonged there. He’d only released her upon remembering how badly she needed to sleep.

Sleep.

Once Clarissa was installed safely at Highgate, he desperately needed rest. He’d stayed awake for the second night, not trusting the silence of the road he’d thought was safe. It had been, but Aidan did not take his oath to Clarissa lightly. In order to properly protect her, he could not sleep until they were safely inside Highgate’s walls. With all that had happened recently along the border, he could not be too careful.

“Do you remember what I told you?” he asked, glancing over at her.

Peeking out from under the hooded cape she’d worn as a blanket last eve, Clarissa nodded. Looking down and ensuring her face could not be seen, she followed him up the incline and through the gates of his home. If any of the guards thought it odd his companion wore such a garment in the middle of the day, none of them commented. In fact, no one questioned them at all as he rode past the stables, where he’d normally stop, and led her directly to the Prison Tower. Each of the four towers framing Highgate Castle had once had a purpose, though this one served as a prison no longer. Before he was born, it had been converted into a mostly abandoned series of chambers for guests, used only when the great keep and the other three towers were filled to capacity.

The furthest away from the keep, situated at Highgate’s southeast corner, the Prison Tower also had its own well to recommend it. But Aidan had mostly chosen it for Clarissa because of the smells that made their way to it from the nearby bakehouse. If Clarissa had enjoyed being in the kitchen back at Theffield, certainly she would like to meet Lewis, Highgate’s baker and one of the few people Aidan would trust with her true identity.

When they were directly in front of the entrance to the tower, Aidan dismounted and helped Clarissa do the same. Aidan pushed open the iron-studded door, revealing a set of winding stairs on the east wall of the rounded tower.

“The garderobe is on the ground floor,” he said, pointing to an interior door as they passed it. “And this,” he led the way to the first landing, “is one of four bedchambers within this tower. I would suggest the next one up”—he continued upward—“so that you have this.”

Waiting for Clarissa to catch up to him, Aidan ducked under an archway that led directly to a wall-walk. Though no guards were in sight, he planned to station a friendly and unobtrusive one in the vicinity. He pointed beneath them.

“From here there is no danger of being noticed from below. Most of the activity in the inner courtyard will be behind us.”

“The view . . . ’tis so beautiful.”

The rolling green hills had always been his favorite scenery from this vantage point, but even after two days of travel, the road-weary woman who stood beside him stole that honor.

“Don’t you agree?” she asked, her voice full of wonder.

He could not tear his gaze from her. “Aye, lass. I do.”

The glimmer in her eyes told him she had realized that he spoke not of the landscape but of her. Clarissa opened her mouth to respond when an unwelcome voice from behind them interrupted them.

“You found your way home, brother.”

Clarissa whipped her head around as Aidan waited for Graeme to continue.