“You will be my guest,” Lord Tarass corrected with a look that warned him not to challenge his command.

Sterling looked ready to argue, but held his tongue, and calmed before saying, “At least lock the scoundrel away so he can’t disappear and cause more havoc.”

Willow’s stomach churned as wickedly fast as her mind, her thoughts focused on various possibilities, the most important… how to help her husband escape if he was imprisoned.

James spoke up this time. “Slatter is confined enough here. He needs no further confinement.”

“Yet you have one dead and another near death,” Sterling challenged, “and you’re still foolish enough to allow him his freedom?” He raised his arm and pointed to Willow. “At least keep him away from your sister so he doesn’t fill her head with more lies or fill her belly with a bairn and leave her in disgrace.”

Willow felt her husband ready to pounce on Sterling and she hurried to step in front of him. “I don’t for one moment believe the lies you force others to spew for you. Slatter is my husband and my husband he will stay. You, nor anyone here, will keep him from me. You say that Slatter is an evil man and lies for the pleasure it brings him. Only an evil man who lies for the pleasure of it would know that, so tell me, Lord Sterling, how much pleasure have you gotten in using my husband’s identity to enjoy your wicked ways?”

Sterling’s face flushed red with rage and his lips curled in a snarl as he went to step toward Willow.

Willow felt the brush of her husband’s arm as he rushed past her, but he was too fast for her to stop him. By the time her hand reached out to try, Sterling was flat on the ground, blood pouring from his mouth, and his lips already swelling.

“Dare to come at my wife again and I’ll kill you,” Slatter threatened, clenching his fists at his sides, fighting the urge to plummet the man senseless.

Sterling glared up at Slatter, his hand shooting up to point at him. “I demand you lock him away for the safety of all.”

“Enough!” Tarass bellowed. “We finish this matter in the keep.”

Slatter turned to Willow and kept his voice to a whisper. “Tend Maddie and see what you can find out.”

Willow didn’t argue, aware she would be excluded from the matter once the men retired to James’s solar. And her husband was right. She needed to find out what Maddie knew.

She gave him barely a noticeable nod and as he went up the steps, she went down to Maddie.

“Leave her be,” Sterling ordered when Willow reached Maddie.

Slatter swung around, his dark eyes still glaring with a molten fury.

Willow was relieved when Tarass spoke, fearful her husband would lunge at Sterling again.

“Willow will tend the woman and you will follow us inside,” Tarass ordered, once again leaving no doubt his command was to be obeyed.