He stared at her and smiled; her closed eyes, and long black lashes. She was in no more pain.

  All right then.

  He slipped one hand down her back and cupped her nape in his other hand and moved faster.

  She let out a short gasp and then matched movements until her breathing grew shallower. He swallowed up her cries, kissing her and telling her how much he loved her, as they reached their release.

  They both panted for breath and shivered in each other’s arms at the force of their love.

  “I promise to be a good wife, Tristan,” she said in his arms a few moments later.

  He smiled instead of casting any doubtful glance her way. He didn’t doubt her being a good wife. It was being an obedient one that he was skeptical about. He promised to be a good husband and then grew silent, wanting to rest his eyes for a wee bit.

  “Oh, are you going to sleep?” she asked, sounding disappointed.

  Her question fired up his insides again. If she didn’t want him to sleep, what did she want him awake for?

  She turned her back to him and began to move away. He stopped her by blocking her departure with his left arm and dragging her back to him with his right arm coiled around her waist.

  She fit perfectly against him with her rump cradled in his thighs.

  “Tell me now what you think of my father. Innocent or guilty?”

  He wasn’t sure, and his reply, promised softly against her ear, proved that he had relinquished his judgment to God. “It doesna matter. He willna die by my sword.”

  He felt her release a long breath in his arms. “Thank you, my dearest love. You do not know how happy this makes me.” When she turned her head to him, he cupped her face and emblazoned the sight of her on his soul. She was his, and he was hers.

  He felt the overwhelming desire to tell her how he felt, to open up to her as he had to no one else. He decided that if he’d gone mad over her somewhere along the way, which was very likely, he didn’t care.

  “Rose, ye have worked yer way into my heart and calmed the seas that quaked and roared within me. Even though our journey together thus far has been fraught with one thing or another, I feel at rest. Ye are the respite I so desperately needed.” He looked down at her and kissed her again. “Father Timothy would say that God sent ye to help me become human again.”

  She turned in his arms to stare into his eyes and lifted her fingers to his jaw as he spoke.

  “From my childhood, I was taught to fight, to always expect war, and to know how to protect my life. No matter what the priest tried to teach me, bein’ a Scot meant my father was right. There was always a battle to be fought. So, I dedicated my life to learnin’ everythin’ I could. I went into battle fer King David as my cousins did at the time. When ’twas all over…” he paused. Now that he was explaining things, he wasn’t sure he wanted to continue.

  “Tell me, my love,” she gently urged. “’Tis part of what has shaped you. I wish to know.”

  He gazed at her face, the alluring contours of her cheeks and jaw, the warmth and love she felt for him open and bare in her eyes. He would be open in return. “I had become a livin’ weapon, skilled in every defense includin’ movin’ in the trees.”

  She smiled. He forgot what they were speaking about.

  “But killin’ so many in battle had its effects on me. I didna know who I was if I wasna killin’. I had created a shield against my own emotions and, after a while, I stopped feelin’ anythin’ at all. But—nae, dinna weep, love.” He wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb.

  “I may weep if I wish,” she whispered and wiped her own eyes.

  He smiled, loving her newfound sauciness and continued. “’Twas all inside me, twistin’ me up in knots. And then I saw ye…dyin’ in that pile and I felt somethin’ again. I was surprised to see ye alive. I admired ye fer fightin’ and I cursed the wretched sickness fer takin’ ye. When I saw the men with the torches…I couldna let them burn ye. I…” he shook his head a little, not understanding his own emotions. “That was when it started.”

  “When what started?” she asked in breathless anticipation.

  “My heart.”

  Thomas Callanach lie awake in the middle of the night with his eyes closed. He’d let his Rose marry the man who had been sent to kill him. He’d gone mad thinking she’d been burned back at the castle. He’d been so relieved to see her alive, he’d let the killer have her. He ground his teeth. Of course, he wouldn’t let the murderer take her away from him. He thought about Neill lying a few feet away. Neill was the other reason the earl didn’t sleep. He’d returned. Thomas knew he would. He loved Rose, and he knew Rose was alive. Of course, he’d come back for her. That was why the gates had been fortified and locked. He also loved Thomas. Still. That was why he’d blamed everything on Thomas’ brother, Richard. After all this, Neill still protected him.

  But had he forgiven him for exiling him from Callanach Castle six years ago? If he woke up, his bonds wouldn’t hold him. Would Neill kill him?

  Unless Thomas could talk to him. Aye, hadn’t Thomas always been able to convince the lad of anything? Thomas would free him from this certain death and, in exchange, Neill would kill the murderous MacPherson.

  Thomas would also promise Rose to him after MacPherson was dead. He knew Neill loved the girl. Of course, Neill would not touch her, for he was her brother, after all. No, Thomas wanted no other additions to the family. He wanted to live behind the gates with his children and die with them, and only them as a family. Aye. Neill would like that—and so would he.

  Thomas kept his daughter out of his thoughts for the time being. She would forgive them after a while.

  He finally sat up and looked around. The captain and his wife were a little way off. The captain was snoring—as was Jones. Thomas smiled and crept toward Neill. As he suspected, Neill was awake.

  “Old man,” he hissed out from the dust.

  “Son.”

  That quieted him.

  “Let me untie you.”

  “Why? So I can light the rest of you up in flames? Where is Rose?”

  “She is off with her husband.” Her father hushed his voice when Jones stirred.

  Neill narrowed his dark blue eyes on him. “You let her marry? Who?”

  “MacPherson.”

  Neill tossed back his head as much as he could and laughed silently.

  “’Twas all I could do not to lose her,” Thomas told him on a small voice. “I will set you free if you will kill him.”

  “No,” Neill said, stopping him. “Not tonight. The way I am tied, they will know someone helped me. Your men will know ’twas you and they will tell MacPherson. Besides, I wish to meet MacPherson before I kill him.”

  “Neill,” Thomas asked.

  “What.”

  “Why did you burn down my castle?”

  Neill smiled thinking of it. “I wanted to show you that I could.”

  If he was anyone else, Thomas would have killed him then and there. Good thing Thomas had a weapon sharper than any sword. “She stood over you with a sword pointed at your throat. She wanted you dead.”

  “And yet,” Neill’s lips curled at the edges. “I live.”

  “Do you want to be a family again?” Thomas asked him.

  Neill angled his head and his smile pulled at his scared skin. “When were we ever a family?”

  The earl squeezed his eyes shut and bit down on his lip until a thin trickle of blood dripped down his chin. “Do you mock me, Neill?” he ground out.

  He could stab him and who the hell would care? Thomas reached for his hilt.

  “No, I do not mock you,” Neill promised.

  “Do you want to be a family?”

  “Aye, Lord.”

  “Will you kill MacPherson when I say?”

  “Aye, Lord.”

  Rose and Tristan woke early, made love again over the side of the bed, washed, dressed then left the inn.

  Rose’s cheeks went red when the innkeeper grinned at them, most likely having heard them last night…and this morning.

  She had no idea how she was to make it anywhere on her horse. Her body ached and bouncing around on a hard saddle was agonizing.

  Tristan rode closer and then reached out his hands and snatched her up. He lifted her from the saddle and set her on his lap—which wasn’t that much softer than the hard leather.

  She stopped thinking of the pain when he leaned in and smiled. “I have been missin’ the feel of ye.”

  “Aye, my arms feel useless without you in them.”

  “Aye,” he agreed and held her closer.

  Her father didn’t appear all that aware of her, and more concerned with the state of Neill, who was awake and sitting up on a horse of his own.

  Neill, in turn, was keen on where Rose was, and who sat behind her with his arms coiled around her. “How did the infamous MacPherson marry the earl’s daughter instead of killing who he was paid to kill?”

  Who told him they were married? Rose looked around. Her gaze stopped on her father and she looked away.

  “She enthralled me,” Tristan confessed with a smile in his voice. “I am happily entranced by her beauty from within—as I suspect ye are.”

  Aye, Rose thought, it was obvious that Neill loved her. She wanted to tell him they had been friends once. Now they were enemies. She was more delighted by Tristan’s declaration to her than by anything Neill could tell her.

  “You love her then? Truly?” Neill asked and turned to grin at her father.

  “Aye,” Tristan warned. “So until we decide what to do with ye, watch yerself around her. Touch her and I will kill ye. Understand?”

  “Fully,” Neill assured him.

  “Did you tell my father what you told me about his brother?” Rose couldn’t help but ask.

  “I did.”

  “He did,” her father announced, listening. “’Tis with a heavy heart that I believe and accept it.”

  Rose caught the subtlest of changes in Neill’s expression. He was lying. Or her father was lying, and Neill was trying to tell her.

  “As you do with your daughter’s marriage?” Neill asked the earl with a smirk.

  “I am happy she has found a man who can protect her from you,” her father retorted with a grin of his own.

  It did seem a bit out of the ordinary that her father would so easily approve her marriage to Tristan. Whether he could protect her or not, he was a killer for hire who had been sent to kill him. Her father had never wanted her to marry. What had changed? She’d been so relieved that he had approved, she didn’t stop to wonder why he had.

  “’Tis true,” Neill said, “I have betrayed my lord by bringing my loyalties to his brother. Is there anything I can say to gain your forgiveness, Lady?”

  She shook her head and turned away.

  “Rose—”

  “De Caleone,” Tristan called out, “if ye say her name again I will cut oot yer tongue. Trust me, I cut oot a man’s tongue last summer. ’Twas bloody as hell and painful. Ye canna speak, or swallow, or eat.”

  Neill bowed in his saddle. “May I say anything to her?”

  “Answer her questions. That is all,” Tristan warned. The earl laughed and took off ahead to speak with the captain.

  “May I not ask her a question of my own? For instance, why did her father send a serving girl to Lockerbie with his wife? I understand the Lockerbie market is enormous. Why did he not send his daughter?”

  Rose shook her head and then looked on ahead at her father’s back. “You try to deceive me when I already know that my mother asked for Jonetta to accompany her.”

  Neill look over her shoulder at Tristan. When her husband did not warn him to keep quiet, he didn’t. “I want you to—”

  She held up her hand. “No more! I will not listen to anything more.”

  Neill opened his mouth to speak but Tristan’s murderous glare quieted him.

  “The earl has already explained that ye told him his wife meant to run away and take Rose with her. He let the maiden go along to keep his wife from being alone. Ye were to spy on his wife and her supposed lover.”

  Neill stared at him for a moment and then offered him a quiet smile. “Is that what he told you?”

  “Aye. ’Tis,” Tristan let him know. “Dinna speak of it again.”

  Neill was clever. So was Tristan. He had a feeling the earl was not innocent, but feelings meant little. He was curious about what Governor Callanach had to add to this, and where did Captain Harper stand?

  They rode on in silence for another few hours. Rose thought she saw her father lean in to speak with Neill. She was not surprised that he would speak to him. Neill had been a part of their family for so long, which is why it hurt so that he would try to speak ill of her father. But he had done terrible things to them. She could never forgive him.

  When were they going to kill him? What were they waiting for? She asked the captain.

  “Your father wants to keep him alive until we get to the governor’s. He says he needs a witness against his brother. If he kills de Caleone, ’tis his word against the governor’s.

  Aye, she guessed her father was correct. Besides, as much as she wanted Neill dead, when she thought about it actually happening, she realized she hated wanting him dead.

  She’d always admired him for the scars he wore on his face, scars he’d earned rushing into the flames to save her. But it was all a lie, a façade to veil the truth. He was the monster.

  They stopped for the night on the outskirts of Hamilton. After they ate a meal of dried meat, stale bread and water, they sat around the campfire and made a plan of attack.

  “The earl and I know the layout well,” the captain advised. The house was set in the center of a larger wood.

  Rose thought of the adventures she had hoped to have there with Emma.

  “We should take the governor by surprise,” Jones said.

  “And do what with him?” her father demanded. “He is still my brother. I do not want him killed.”

  Jones nodded and cast the earl a repentant look. They discussed different ways to take the manor house. Her father didn’t want to be there to hear his brother offering up his soul and everything he owned.

  “I suggest no one listens to his words. He is a traitor, like this one,” he said as he pointed to Neill. “Nothing he says can be trusted.”

  For some reason, the more the earl tried to explain what his brother might say, the more Tristan wanted to question him. After their discussion, Neill asked Tristan if he might allow him to speak to Rose, with Tristan there of course, when the earl fell asleep. Rose refused to go, and she made Tristan promise not to go either. He did what his wife asked and took her to his pallet instead.

  They didn’t make love, though they wanted to. Rose would not do anything with her father so close—or with anyone else close for that matter.

  Tristan held her close in his arms though and gazed up at the stars with her. “Do you think God lives on a star, Tristan?” she whispered into the night air.

  “I think He lives everywhere,” he answered from deep in his chest.

  She nodded and kissed his chest and sighed. “What do you think of my father?”

  “Why d’ye sigh?”

  “No reason at all,” she defended. “I’m sleepy.”

  “Aye,” he said quietly. “Let us sleep.”

  “Aye, sleep.” She closed her eyes and then opened them again. “Tristan? What do you think Neill wanted to tell us?”

  “I dinna know, love. D’ye want to ask him when yer father is asleep?”

  “Perhaps,” she allowed.

  But Rose and Tristan fell asleep long before the earl.

  When they woke up the next morning, Neill was gone.

  Tristan and the captain, along with Mr. Jones, searched the woods but they were only able to cover a small portion, even separated.

  While they searched, Rose waited with her father and Mary. The men weren’t gone long when her father left them to go relieve himself.

  Alone, Mary pinched her and they both laughed as they sat in the grass with their backs against a tree.

  “Oh, Rose, Will and I are so happy for you. Is that awful of us, seeing how we no longer have a home?”

  Rose shook her head and smiled. “No. I am happy as well. And so, I think, is Tristan. We cannot openly celebrate our marriage in the midst of so much loss, but inside,” she pointed to her chest, “we are happy.”

  “He is heavenly,” Mary remarked quietly. “’Tis so clear how much he loves you.”

  Rose smiled. “We went through many things together. I do not think he has had any company or companionship for a very long time.”

  “As you have not had,” Mary told her softly.

  “Aye,” Rose echoed. “Like me.” She smiled like one in a trance then blinked and looked around.

  “Father?”

  She stood up and called out to him again when he didn’t answer. Her heart sank. Her mind went straight to panic. “What do we do?” she asked Mary.

  Mary called out to him as well. “We need to move,” she said and grabbed Rose’s arm.

  Rose was almost swept off her feet they moved so quickly. Mary was pulling her the other way. Rose dug her heels into the dirt.

  “We must find my father!”

  “We cannot run into our enemy if they have more men than your father can fight. We will be dead, and Neill de Caleone will still be alive”

  “Not for long,” Rose told her. “Tristan will kill him.”

  “Well, let us make certain we are still alive to see our husbands again, aye?”

  “Aye,” Rose agreed, and they began running again. When her lungs began to burn and she was sure she could not take one more step, she ran straight into Tristan’s arms.

  She was so happy to see him, she wanted to leap for joy.

  “Oh, thank the Lord,” she pushed out. “Tristan, someone took my father!”