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“I do not wish to leave you—”

“Go,” she said, looking up, realizing the danger this visit posed for Eda. Wiping her eyes and attempting to smile—a miserable attempt, she was sure—Clarissa pushed the maid away. “I will be fine,” she said, not meaning it at all. “Hurry . . .”

“I will be back.”

Clarissa returned the smile, wondering how a woman who had served her father her whole life could still manage one. Eda was truly a blessing, a gift from God. She bolted up and tossed her arms around the older woman, squeezing her as Eda chuckled.

“I am sorry.” The loss was not only hers, after all.

Clarissa could feel Eda shudder beneath her. Pulling away, she took a deep breath.

“Go,” she repeated. Eda did not need a reminder of what her father would do if she were caught disobeying a direct order. Bobbing a quick curtsy, she left as quietly as she had come.

Clarissa sank back down onto the stool and, for the first time in memory, allowed sorrow to seep into her bones. She would allow herself only a moment of self-pity, just one.

And then it would be time to form a new plan.

Chapter 3

Aidan shifted on his mount, adjusting the leather sheath of the dirk that never left his side. Graeme would have enjoyed this challenge. Frowning at the sight before him, he averted his gaze from the looming castle and concentrated instead on the steady pounding of hoofbeats behind him.

As they rode closer, Aidan held up a fist. The men fell into line around him as Theffield Castle came fully into view. Once a motte and bailey castle, it had seen so many additions and renovations that the stronghold was now fully positioned to house an English earl. Unlike the man, Theffield was an impressive holding.

“I’d hoped to never see this place again,” Aidan said to no one in particular.

“And I can understand why,” Lawrence said beside him.

Lawrence was one of Aidan’s closest friends. The son of a chief, he and his clan were more than simply neighbors to Clan Scott. His family, and clan, had been at war with Theffield’s neighbors for many years. Lawrence took any opportunity to travel south in hopes of meeting his enemies. In all other dealings, Clan Karyn sought peace, not war. But the Morley family was one glaring exception.

He and Aidan looked remarkably similar, and had been mistaken for brothers before—a misconception it amused them to indulge. Both had brown hair, though Aidan’s was a touch darker, hazel eyes and a hulking build. But the resemblance they bore to each other was nothing compared to that between Aidan and Graeme. He and his brother could pass for twins.

Lawrence looked up into the cloudless sky as a flock of rooks passed overhead. “It seems so long ago when you first met her—”

“I would prefer not to discuss her.” He’d known the topic would arise eventually, and had little patience for it at the moment. “Thankfully, she will not be in residence,” he added, prodding his horse forward.

Unbidden, a memory of Lady Clarissa assaulted him as they rode toward the outer gatehouse of the fortress in front of them. Unlike the young girl he’d described to Gillian, this memory was of a woman, one with the same oval-shaped face and long, straight brown hair. But rather than peeking out from behind her father, this Clarissa leaned over the high wooden stands surrounding the tourney field to offer him a favor. He could still see the creamy skin of the top of her breasts as she strained to tie the simple white ribbon around the tip of his lance.

Another vision assaulted him, the same woman, the same dress. This time, she stood before a glistening Lake Litmere. When he thought of her, he always remembered the beauty of that lake, only outdone by the beauty of the woman. She looked at it, at everything, with such wonder in her eyes.

It was as if she had never seen anything as glorious as that lake before.

Because she hadn’t.

With the exception of the infrequent visits she and her father had made to Sutworth Manor, Clarissa had been all but imprisoned within the walls of Theffield Castle. Even so, it had almost defied his belief that she’d never seen a lake before. How was such a thing possible for a woman born and bred in the borderlands? But there was no denying the sheer pleasure of her expression as she dipped her fingers into the frigid water.

“Damn Douglas,” he murmured to himself.

“For forcing you to meet with the father or for giving you a reason to remember the daughter?”

They’d slowed their pace as they approached the castle, and apparently Lawrence had heard him.

“Both.”

He called up to the guard, then he and his men waited for the drawbridge to be lowered. Theffield’s moat had dried out long ago, but that did not prevent use of the ancient drawbridge. It came creaking down, and continued to creak as they made their way across it to the inner bailey.

“You should have sent Graeme,” Lawrence said, not for the first time that day.

Though Gillian’s babe was not nearly ready to make its entrance into the world, he would never have allowed his brother to travel without him. The chief was needed at home.