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The sound came from the opposite wall of the fire. An adjoined bedchamber, it seemed. Reina stood and her suspicions were confirmed as she unlocked, and opened, the door.

24

It had taken his father no time at all to discern the truth.

“You are in love with her,” he’d said when the two of them were alone. After losing Reina to the ministrations of his mother and reuniting with his siblings, he had taken a meal with the chief of Clan Kerr.

As Galien had done since he was a child, he offered his father the truth.

“Aye, I am.”

I wish for all of it.

Whether Reina had meant her virginity, or something more, Galien still did not know. But what he had realized in that moment was that this woman—this competent, smart, beautiful woman who had rescued him—was prepared to give herself to him. As Brockburg drew closer, Galien also knew precisely how his family would receive her.

They would adore her. Not only for saving his life, but because there was nothing about Reina with which they could find fault. She was naive, aye. But it was a trait he found endearing too. On the other hand, it made him want to protect her even more. Ensure no one ever took advantage of her trust.

In short, aye, he loved her. And so Galien had done the only thing he could think of at the time. Push their pace so that he might sit here, in this chair, across from the one man who could tell him how to proceed.

“She rescued me,” he’d said to his father. “So that I might help her learn the truth about her past.” They sat in his father’s solar chamber, Toren having eaten already, but Galien consuming their French chef’s meal like a starved man.

“MacAdder said she may be the babe of Dennochbrook. Is that true?”

“Aye. Anbarth raised her. She was told a pregnant merchant passed through their village and gave birth, leaving the babe behind. But Reina suspected something more to the story. She asked her parents many times if there was more to the story but was always given the same tale. Anbarth’s healer was an advisor of sorts to her. Together they agreed the truth was somehow tied to Scotland, to Dennochbrook. But neither could decipher what that meant. Apparently de Rochinger kept her away from all Scots. Quite a feat given Anbarth’s proximity to the border.”

His father sat back, thinking.

“He was Lord Warden once.”

The news surprised him. “He was?”

“Aye. But not long after Dennochbrook, he resigned the post.”

“Do you think that could be related?”

“I’d not made the connection before but aye, I think it could. And your Englishwoman is the right age.”

He nodded. “As soon as she told me that, I seized on the possibility. Not only as a means to release,” Galien rushed to add. “But because it made sense. Do you think Anbarth capable of such a slaughter?”

His father frowned. “I know little of the man. He stays as far away from Edward’s battles as you should from Wallace.”

“But Reina told me her father fought at Bristol.”

Toren appeared thoughtful. “I heard the same, but also that Edward was furious at how few men Anbarth, and his other border lords, brought to the battle. I can think of no other time Anbarth raised his men’s arms to the Scots.” His father stopped, his eyes narrowing, the next question one Galien had been dreading. “So. . . how did it happen?”

He told his father how he was captured, and while there was a measure of pride in his father’s expression when he’d explained precisely how he managed to get caught, there was no doubt Toren Kerr, chief of their clan for more than thirty years, was wroth as well.

“I’ve told you, Son, dead men cannot fight battles, even ones with the most righteous of causes.”

Finishing his meal, Galien pushed the trencher away from him. “You sound like Rory.” Then, realizing his father knew nothing of his cousin’s involvement, Galien explained how he’d planned to take Reina to Bristol Manor when Rory rode out to warn them away. If his father was not angry before, he certainly was now.

“Twice,” he ground out, clearly unhappy. “Twice you avoided the hangman’s noose.”

Galien could not disagree with him, so he said nothing.

His father shot up from his chair. “If you were killed. . .”

“But I was not.”