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“You miserable cur,” he says. It’s near quiet, which is worse for a man such as James than any roar could be.

Ewan gives a vicious laugh and strains against my grip. “She should’ve kept her nose from matters beyond her.”

“She’s no call to concern herself wi’ yer affairs, ye daft weasel,” James snarls.

“Are ye sure of that?” Ewan spits. “Seems to me the leash you keep on yer bitch is too loose.”

James steps forward like a wolf gone still before the kill.

“Ye miserable, filth-soaked bastard,” he says, each word clipped. “You come to my door, lay hands on my wife, and think I’ll not break the teeth straight from yer skull for it?”

Before he can launch himself at the man, hoofbeats sound from the road.

Ellen’s father, Patrick MacGregor, swings down from the saddle, red-faced and out of breath, his expression dark with anger and something uglier still. He comes toward us already speaking.

“I was told there had been shameful meddlin’ done here, and my daughter had a hand in⁠—”

The words falter in his mouth when he sees Ellen proper. Though not enough. Not near enough.

Ellen, still holding her lip, straightens a fraction as if her father’s slight dismissal hurts her more deeply than the slap.

Then he looks over at Ewan, who’s still kneeling in front of me.

“What’s the meanin’ of this?” he demands.

“This?” James barks a harsh laugh, pointing to Ellen, drawing attention away from Ewan. “This is what the man ye’ve come to defend has done. That is what it is.”

His gaze settles squarely on the older man.

“That’s yer daughter on the ground with a bloodied lip.”

Patrick’s jaw tightens. He looks to Ellen and then away too fast, as men do when guilt has pricked them, but pride is still stronger.

“I was told,” he begins, stiff with indignation, “that my daughter⁠—”

“My wife.” James spits.

Patrick ignores the interruption. “That Ellen had a hand in some shameful interference, and has been helpin’ pass things to this woman⁠—”

“Helpin’?” James explodes. “Helpin’?”

And still Patrick goes on. “If she has involved herself in another man’s marriage⁠—”

James advances on Patrick with such force of wrath in him that even Patrick takes a step back.

“If any man livin’ had raised his hand to my daughter, I would’ve torn him apart before her feet. And you stand there speakin’ of interference? You stand there pointin’ a finger her way while she bleeds?” His voice is shaking with the effort of holding himself from bloodshed.

Patrick flushes dark with offense, but it’s anger that answers first. “Mind yerself, lad.”

“Nae,” James thunders. “Ye’ll mind how you speak about my wife… yer daughter. She’s under my protection now, and I swore before the heavens above that I’d guard her, body and soul, until I breathed my final breath. So, ye need to understand that I dinnae care what name ye bear, nor what authority ye claim. If a man sets himself against her, he sets himself against me. And with powers granted to me by the almighty, I will strike her enemies down and send them to their judgement without a second thought.”

James is still catching his breath when the kitchen door bangs wide. Maeve comes into the yard with Róisín and Taskill close behind, and the whole weight of the house follows them.

Maeve takes in everything in one sweep, quicker than most men could’ve done with a minute to stare. Ellen with blood at her mouth. James half-mad with rage. Me holding Ewan down. Aileen pale as winter snow.

Everything soft that Maeve carries is gone. Left behind is something merciless.

“What sort of carry-on is this?”