Lachlan, Rebbie and Dirk slept on the great hall floor with the rest of the men of the household. Though her bed was comfortable, she missed Lachlan's hard, hot body spooned against her back. They might never lie that way again. Sleep was elusive, and nightmares of Girard and Kormad plentiful.

Before daybreak the next morn, they quickly ate and set out on their journey, before Kormad and his men could catch up to them…if they were following. The baron provided supplies—blankets, tents and food—to see them through should they not have anywhere to stay the next night.

Lachlan looked a might better this morn, having washed up and borrowed clean clothing from his friend. Still, his expression remained shuttered, determined.

All that day, they rode hard. The mountains of the Cairngorm rose up around them. Through the mist, she glimpsed patches of snow at the tops of some mountains. She had never been this far north into Scotland and found the landscape both stark and beautiful. Black clouds gathered overhead and the north wind blew chilly.

Lachlan stopped and dismounted. He pulled a woolen plaid blanket from the collection of supplies, wrapped it around Angelique and covered her head. His touch was gentle but efficient, his mood distant.

"Merci," she said.

"Tell me if you get cold."

She nodded.

"Can you wrap a blanket around Camille?" Lachlan asked Rebbie and returned to his horse.

Suddenly, she missed that intimate, lingering gaze Lachlan used to bestow on her. She did not even know why she wished to see it again from a man of his sort. This was just one more thing reminding her that her dreams of love were indeed foolish.

Once they commenced riding again, a thin misty rain sprayed through the air, making Angelique doubly thankful for the tightly woven blanket keeping out most of the dampness. Clearly, she was not a Highland lass, but Lachlan seemed in his element.

At sundown, the rain stopped but the cold remained. They dismounted in a sheltered area beneath trees, no castles or crofts in evidence anywhere.

The men unloaded supplies. In the dusky light, she and Camille gazed out toward mountains that seemed somehow welcoming but gloomy. Low, brown vegetation covered them, heather perhaps, but no trees. This was such a different world from the green, bushy Lowlands.

Footsteps approached. "Lady Angelique, could I have a word?" Dirk asked.

"Oui." How unusual. He rarely said anything to her beyond a greeting.

Camille sauntered away.

Dirk's sharp blue gaze sliced through a person. He appeared most serious, but his cheeks were ruddy. "In truth, 'twas me with Neilina that evening in the south tower. Lachlan wouldn't be unfaithful to you."

Angelique had no response to that. Had Lachlan told him to say this, or had she indeed spied on this man in carnal relations with a woman? Her face burned. She wished he spoke sincerely, but she knew better than to take any man at his word. No, now her naiveté and innocence were dead. "I have no proof of that. Whoever I saw looked exactly like Lachlan and…my cousin said his name."

Dirk frowned. "She did call me Lachlan, but I didn't correct her because I was pretending to be him. It was my duty to see if she was Kormad's spy. 'Tis clear she was. I've known Lachlan more than ten years and he has never taken to a lass as he's taken to you."

"He's married to me so he has to maintain a credible façade."

"God's truth, he is smitten with you, though likely he'll never tell you that. 'Tis all I wished to say. I bid you good eve." He gave a shallow bow and strode away.

That was the most Dirk had ever spoken to her. She didn't know whether to believe him or not. Lachlan smitten? How was such a thing possible?

Dirk joined Lachlan where he was setting up a tent, and spoke a few words to him. Lachlan then moved toward her, a solemn expression on his face. What were they scheming?

"I need to tell you something, Angelique." He pulled the plaid more tightly about his shoulders. "This is a hell of a time and place to do it, but I have little choice."

Panic rose within her. Was he going to confess his infidelity only minutes after Dirk tried to convince her otherwise? "What is it?"

He inhaled deeply, hesitated, then looked her in the eye. "I have two sons."

"What? Sons?" Surely she'd misheard.

"Aye, two wee lads. Orin and Kean. They live with the MacGrath clan at Kintalon."

"Mère de Dieu." The soggy Scottish soil had surely dropped from beneath her. "Are you sure that is all? Such a man as yourself probably has twenty children in every country you have visited."

He lifted a brow. "Are you trying to be amusing?"

Amusing? She wished to strangle him. She was the fool, the woman who did not know of her husband's sons.

"Why did you not tell me long before now?" Who was this man? Did she know anything about him at all? A stranger.

"I didn't tell you because I knew you'd be angry. And you are, aye?"

She was unsure how she felt at the moment. Like a woman being spun about in a whirlwind, everything beyond her control, out of her grasp. She didn't have her husband nor her estate—both in the possession of someone else.

"Were you married before?" she asked.

"Nay."

Just as she'd suspected, they were by-blows of his endless string of sexual liaisons. "What of their mothers?" Women he had given those same intimate and sensual delights to that he'd given her. Despite being his wife, she was not special; she was but one among hundreds. Well, she'd seen that back at Draughon.

"Kean's mother died tragically a few months ago in a fire. Orin's mother still lives in the village. I'm no longer involved with her, of course."

"Of course," she muttered. Whether or not he was involved with a woman hinged on a split second decision and how lecherous he was feeling at that moment. "You could have told me…about your sons." She felt defeated somehow. Lost. "I know you are only telling me now because we are going to Kintalon, where I'm likely to run into them. What if we hadn't? Would you have ever told me?"

Chapter Sixteen

The next evening, snow flew through the gray gloaming as the sweet sight of Kintalon Castle and its ancient towers appeared in the distance, the loch beside it like dark glass.

"Thanks be to God," Lachlan murmured, warmth spreading through his chest. He hadn't realized how badly he missed home.

He'd let Angelique down in a big way, but he intended to take possession of Draughon again. He would not be defeated in this. His stomach knotting, he glanced back at her, shivering in the blankets. Damnation, he had to be a much better husband to her.

"We're almost there," he called out, the icy wind carrying his words away.

A half hour later, they rode through the village and approached the gates. Upon recognizing him, one guard unlocked the gates while another ran for the castle—to notify his brother, no doubt. Their party passed through into the empty barmkin where a lone torch flamed, lighting the snow-strewn cobblestones.

His dark-haired, smiling brother emerged from the tower and advanced toward them. "Lachlan! You barely made it by first snowfall."

"Aye." After swinging down from his horse, he shook Alasdair's hand, but then pulled him into a brotherly hug.

Dirk and Rebbie dismounted and greeted Alasdair, whom they had met years before. Lachlan lifted Angelique down from the horse and wrapped an arm around her, sharing some of his warmth. She felt perfect next to him and he'd sorely missed her touch. "I'd like you to meet my wife, Angelique, countess of Draughon. Angelique, my brother, Alasdair, earl of MacGrath."