“Where’s he going now?”

“Back to the keep to tell everyone how scared you looked when he jumped out at you. He wants to make them laugh at you.”

“Oh, he does, does he?” She started running for her horse, Shamus right behind her. He easily lifted her onto the saddle, and she took off, using trails that she’d persuaded Tam to show her. He’d been told to keep to the road, but Edilean had smiled and coaxed him into showing her the more secret ways.

When she got back to the keep, the man was already there, and she was pleased to see that no one was laughing at having heard how she’d jumped when he’d leaped from the bushes. She slid off her horse and it was as though weeks of frustration and rage came out and she unleashed them on him. She was so angry she could think of few words to say, but she kicked him hard in the shin, then hit him with the whip. She’d meant to hit his arm, which was covered by a thick shirt, but he’d bent and the whip hit his neck, cutting him.

She was on the verge of feeling sorry for having done it when he picked her up and dropped her into a horse trough. Yet again, the only consolation she had was that the people seemed to be on her side. Dear Morag helped her up the stairs and Edilean went straight to her uncle to tell him what the man had done to her.

She didn’t know what she expected from her uncle, but for him to laugh at her and side with the hairy man wearing what Edilean considered women’s clothing was not it. She left the room, trying not to let the laughing men see her tears.

But the man who was making her life worse than it already was followed her to the roof. She didn’t know what it was about him, maybe because it was so close to her birthday, and because the man was the chief of the McTerns, but in spite of Shamus’s warning, she blurted out the truth about everything and asked him to help her escape.

To her horror, the man started laughing at her.

She ran from him, slammed the door behind her and bolted it, locking him on the roof. She was so angry that if she could have, she would have thrown him off the roof and watched him splatter on the stones below.

The next morning she awoke with the words “three days” in her mind. It was just three days until her birthday and the end of her life as she knew it.

And now, as she sat on the floor, wanting her life to be over, the door opened and Morag entered. “It’s here,” she said as she handed Edilean not just a letter from James but a package.

“Does anyone know?”

“No one. The letter was given to me and only I saw it. You go on and read it now. Mayhap it will cheer you.”

“Yes,” Edilean said, but she didn’t open the package until Morag left the room. Inside was a little bottle with a stopper in it and a red wax seal.

“Darling,” James wrote. “I’m sorry I’ve taken so long to get back to you, but I’ve put a plan in motion. It has taken me a long while to find out what I needed to know, but I did it. You shall repay me for this with kisses.”

Edilean held the letter to her breast for a moment and closed her eyes. He did love her!

“You must do exactly as I tell you,” he wrote. “You must follow my instructions exactly or the plan won’t work. You can’t vary it by even an hour, as everything is timed precisely. Do you understand me?”

Even though she was alone in the room, Edilean nodded, then read on.

4

HER BIRTHDAY IS tomorrow.”

“What?” Malcolm asked his nephew as he scooped out a load of oats.

“Her birthday. It’s tomorrow.”

“Oh, aye. Her. You know, do you not, that she has a name?”

“I heard it, but I don’t remember it.” Angus had been out all night, searching out cattle and checking that none had been stolen. But as he roamed the hills, he kept counting down the hours until Lawler’s niece would have to marry one of those demons Lawler called friends. When it came to the moment, which one would she choose? Old Ballister or the young, bad-tempered Alvoy? That night, Angus had tossed about in his plaid as he’d imagined her alone with one of them.

She’d asked Angus for help-but he’d laughed at her. That thought had haunted him for the last two days. Now, in the afternoon, sitting in the stable and watching Malcolm work, he still couldn’t get his mind around what he’d done.

“What’s eating you, lad?” Malcolm asked.

Angus told him. He sat on the stool, fatigue pulling him down, and he told Malcolm all of it.

When he finished, Malcolm looked at him. “What are we going to do to save her?”

“We are going to do nothing!” Angus said. “We have to think of the whole. We have to think of the babies and feeding them. If we thwart Lawler-if we rebel-we will be punished, not her.”

“Have ye got that out of your system now?”

“Aye, I have,” Angus said, and as he looked at Malcolm, the tiredness began to leave him. He felt energy moving through his body. “What I thought is that they can’t marry without the kirk.”

“Do you mean to burn it down?” Malcolm asked, eyes wide in horror.

“Nay,” Angus said. “I just thought we’d take the pastor for a night out.”

“He must know that Lawler wants him here tonight.”

“I thought… Mind you, it’s just an idea that passed through my head, but I thought that we might get Shamus to help us make the pastor forget his appointment. If we showed up at the vicarage with a little or mayhap a lot of Lawler’s port, perhaps the old man would forget he’s to be at the kirk tonight.”

“Why Shamus? When did you start to trust him?”

“In my eyes this is a sin sure to get me sent to hell. If I have to go, then I want someone with me who deserves to go.”

“Excellent idea,” Malcolm said, trying to look serious, but the corners of his lips were twitching in merriment. “But if we stop the marriage tonight, what do we do about tomorrow? And the day after?”

“I don’t know,” Angus said. “I think we’ll have to secret her away and somehow hide her. Then we’ll… Why are these problems put onto me?”

“Because you always come up with a solution for them,” Malcolm said. “Do you want me to go with you to see Shamus?”

“Nay. I want you to steal a barrel of port.”

“That will take but a moment,” Malcolm said. “Go on, go to Shamus. You’ll have to use the coins you have hidden in the third stall to bribe him.”

Angus didn’t pause to ask how his uncle knew about those. There was no time to lose.

“What do you mean that you canna go?” Angus asked Shamus as he was eating. They were in the small, dirt-floored old cottage where Shamus lived with his tiny mother and three younger brothers. His four older brothers had left as soon as they were tall enough to stand up to their abusive father. To this day some people still wondered how Shamus’s father had fallen off a cliff in broad daylight. Whatever the cause, no one had been sorry to see him go.

“I have to drive a heavy wagon to Glasgow tonight,” Shamus said.

“Since when are you a driver?”

“Since the little miss asked me to do it.”

Angus sat down at the table across from him. “What are you talking about?”

“Lawler’s niece asked me to drive a wagon to Glasgow. What more is there to say?”

“The niece? Not Lawler?”

“He knows nothing about it. I had to meet the wagon two miles from here, and one of my brothers is watching it now. I’ll go when I finish my meal.”

“What’s in the wagon?” Angus asked.

“Six heavy trunks. They’re bronze statues from Greece and she has someone in Glasgow waiting to sell them for her. I’m to bring back the money and give it to her.”

“You? She trusted you to bring money back to her?”

“She likes me,” Shamus said, grinning. “She says I’m the only man in Scotland who has enough courage to help her. She calls me a man of honor.” Shamus was laughing at this very idea.