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“I willna allow Keane to bully ye.” She drew in a shuddery breath as she toyed with the pleats of the cloak. “He only means well.”

His heart turned over at her attempt to hearten him.

“I ken, lass.” Camden did know, but when Keane had taken on the responsibility of two wards, he also vowed to keep them from harm. Quite likely, he’d see Bethea’s abduction as a failure on his part. “He’s a reasonable man. He’ll understand,” Camden assured her, not altogether certain that was the truth.

“Aye, but this is rather a unique situation.” She sighed and smoothed the rough cloak over her gown. “I blame myself. I never should’ve ventured into that room. All of this—” She swept her hand between them. “My abduction, our hasty marriage, would’ve been avoided had I no’ been where I shouldna have been.”

“Mayhap. But then we’d no’ ken about Montieth’s treachery or the hidden compartment.” He winked and pressed a kiss to her forehead before rolling his shoulder. “Ye’d make a verra good agent.”

Something akin to pride erased the worry from her eyes.

The clock hadn’t chimed twelve when Etherington’s coach groaned to a stop outside a fashionable house on the city’s outskirts. Parkhill Hall, Bethea had called Keane’s house in Edinburgh. The acrid smoke that perpetually hovered over the city, staining the buildings and often burning one’s eyes, was only slightly less thick here.

“Ready, Bethea?”

She swallowed then, searching his gaze with hers, nodded. “As ready as I’ll ever be, I suppose.”

Camden disembarked the coach first, and Bethea had only stepped from the conveyance when Roxdale front door flew open.

In less than two heartbeats, Keane and Marjorie sprinted down the four stairs. Behind them, using a cane to support herself, Branwen hobbled laboriously to the entrance. At least a half dozen servants had also crowded onto the stairway and in the entry.

Tears ran down Branwen’s face as she held a fist to her mouth.

Upon seeing her sister’s distress, Bethea’s eyes filled with moisture.

“Bethea, darling.” Marjorie enfolded her in a tight embrace. “I’m so very, very relieved that you are safe.” The gaze she turned on Camden held inquisitiveness but no condemnation.

The same could not be said of Keane. He glared predatory daggers at Camden, his seething fury barely in check. “I’m sure ye have a damn good explanation.”

“Aye,” Camden concurred, rather too nonchalant. “A damn good one, indeed.”

Bethea untangled herself from Marjorie’s embrace, but before she could defend Camden or explain, Keane wrapped his arms around her in a fierce hug.

“Lass, I aged twenty years since last night. Thank God, ye’re safe.”

Over her midnight hair, he sent Camden a wordless message.

She had bloody well better be all right.

“Bethea,” Branwen called in a tear-clogged voice as she tried to descend the stairs on her injured feet.

Bethea dashed to her and enfolded her in her embrace. “Darlin’, ye shouldna be puttin’ weight on yer foot.”

“Pshaw. What flimflam. My bruised feet are nothin’.” She burst into tears and flung her arms around Bethea. “I… I was so afraid I’d lost ye.”

Marjorie gave a pointed glance at the street. Several passersby openly gawked, and more than one intrigued face pressed against the window of a neighboring house. “Let’s go inside, shall we?”

“Yes,” Bethea agreed, wrapping an arm about her sister’s waist. At the top of the stairs, she paused to cast a glance over her shoulder. Worry pleated her usually smooth forehead as she swung her attention from Camden to Keane and back to him again.

Camden swept his mouth into his most disarming smile, and she offered the slightest upward tilt of her mouth in response. Sweet lass, she continued to fret about Keane’s reaction. Surely he wouldn’t punch Camden in public.

He hoped.

With a final, troubled glance at Keane, she helped her sister inside.

Camden started forward, but Keane’s firm hand on his forearm stopped him. “If ye have touched her—”

“Relax, cousin. All is well. I married her.” He’d never know what devil prompted him to blurt that, but it felt damn good to say it.

Keane’s jaw came unhinged, and then his mouth worked, but nothing but angry rasps came forth. “Ye…” He finally managed, his gruff voice as rough as a gravel lane. “Ye married her?”

“Aye. I wed the lass to preserve her reputation after saving her from an abduction.” Camden grinned and slapped his flummoxed cousin on the back. “Ye can thank me inside.”