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Ellen lowers the basket to the ground, careful despite her fear. “Whatever this is, ye’ve no right to come here shoutin’—”

He hits her.

The blow is so sudden, so savage, that for an instant my mind refuses it.

She staggers to the ground, one hand to her mouth, and when she turns her face back, there’s blood bright on her lip, running down her chin.

For one blinding instant, I stand stricken.

Then my blood turns over.

A heat goes through me so fiercely it’s near sickness. Somewhere behind us, I hear James shout her name, but it seems far off, buried beneath the rush in my ears.

Aileen shakes her head so hard, loose strands of her hair have fallen wild about her face.

“I didnae tell,” she cries, voice broken and thin. “I swear it, Ellen, I never said a word, I never⁠—”

“Shut yer mouth,” Ewan snarls, rounding on her.

He takes a step toward her, chest heaving, face twisted with such ugly satisfaction it makes my stomach turn. “I’ll teach ye to speak outta turn.”

Aileen makes a sound then, small and raw. “Please⁠—”

He rushes toward her, hand lifting, but I’m on him before the blow can land.

Bone meets bone. His skin is hot and damp beneath my hand. He jerks as though stung and turns on me with a look of confusion, as if he has only now noticed there are other people in the yard.

“Take yer hand from me,” he says, pure hatred in his face.

I tighten my grip until I feel the tendons in his arm pull taut beneath my fingers. “I ought to break your feckin’ wrist for what ya just did.”

His eyes flare. He smells of whisky, sweats, and the stables after the longest summer’s day. “This is my wife.”

“Right,” I say, stepping in closer as I wrench his arm harder, drawing a wince from him. “This is my hand on your arm, and that is my best mate’s wife on the ground with your mark on her face. Since we’re stating truths.”

For an instant, I think he may come at me with his free hand. I almost wish he would. There’s a strange clarity in such moments. One part of me is raging, another cold as the loch in winter. I’m aware of everything at once.

I twist his arm up sharply behind his back and force him down to one knee.

He curses, wild with shock now as much as fury, but he can’t go anywhere. Not like this.

Then James is on us.

I’ve seen men in a battle fury. I’ve seen wounded boars turn and drive a hunter half through with their tusks. I’ve seen a storm coming over the hills with death in its belly.

But I’ve never seen anything look the way James looks when he reaches Ellen.

He drops to her side, catches her face between his hands with such tenderness it’s almost harder to bear than the violence that came before it. What he sees there strips the last of the reason from him.

Alex is back then, having raised the house.

He takes in Ewan on the ground, Ellen’s bloodied face, and James’s barely held violence. Something unspoken passes between them.

Alex kneels at Ellen’s other side without a word, one hand steady at her elbow as he helps her to stand, the other lifting a cloth from his back pocket to her mouth.

He gives James the slightest nod toward Ewan, understanding that he, in this moment, needs to be more executioner than husband.

He turns on Ewan, face full of white-hot rage.