Page 53

He had not doubted his brother would say as much, but if he had a plan, Aidan would sorely love to hear it.

“How?”

Graeme’s exaggerated sigh did not bode well. “Is it possible Theffield already suspects you?”

“I do not believe so. Everything I saw at Sutworth Manor tells me they despise Theffield more than anyone. The priest claims they will not speak, and I believe him. There are no other ties to me.”

He deserved that look. The one that said, You took an unnecessary risk. For a man who’d always been so careful, particularly when it came to his clan, Aidan knew he’d acted the part of a lovesick fool when he’d ridden to Sutworth that night. Though Theffield had not been on their heels—he was reportedly meeting Douglas in England, which indicated he had never even left his estate—Aidan would likely have made the same decision again.

“Then we wait.” Graeme crossed his arms.

“She cannot stay in that tower indefinitely.” Aidan already felt poorly about asking her to hide away for a few days longer. She’d spent so much of her life in relative captivity.

“If he learns she is here before he gets rid of Caxton, he will renege.”

“And when I marry her?”

They’d both known what Aidan intended, but saying the words aloud sent a rush through him. He felt . . . empowered.

“We must hope the new warden will not be so easily manipulated as Caxton.”

“But Theffield will never accept me. Nor our clan. He will take my actions—”

“Our actions.”

“He will take our actions as an insult and will likely call for the very war we aim to avoid.”

“Well, brother,” he said, clapping him on the back. “The only question that remains is whether you are prepared to go to war over the woman you love.”

He was prepared to battle the devil himself for Clarissa, but his safety was not the only thing at stake. “Nay, the question is whether I am prepared to put our clan in danger for her.”

Graeme leveled that look at him again, giving him a moment to think. Aidan squeezed the handle of his dirk. He thought of Gillian, and Allie. Of his duty to them, and to his brother. He lived to protect them. Did he dare put them in danger? Claiming Clarissa as his own would lead to death and destruction, unless her father could somehow be convinced the match was a good one.

Did he even dare?

“I think,” he said, knowing what Clarissa would say, “I have another idea.”

* * *

“No.”

Clarissa sat on the edge of the bed, staring at him in shock. Surely he couldn’t think such a thing possible. “You’ve risked everything for me, and I cannot allow you to continue doing so. Hiding me here . . . that is dangerous enough. But what you’re proposing would start a war.”

“Nay.” He stood and began to pace. “I aim to avoid one. Once your father and Douglas negotiate the terms of—”

“He will not agree.”

Aidan sighed, presumably in frustration.

Well, it was nothing less than she’d been feeling all day. After he left the night before, Clarissa had hardly slept. And though she’d had a lovely conversation with Lady Gillian and spent an enjoyable day in the bakehouse with Lewis, her every thought had been focused on the man who now stood in front of her.

“What do you mean ‘he will not agree’?”

What could she possibly say? That she loved a man her father would never accept? Which was precisely why Aidan’s idea was such a poor one.

“Aidan, I doubt he will even treat with Douglas. He’s likely just toying with him. He desires prestige, aye, but my father cares for power above all else. The king—”

“Is ill and will likely die.”