Harriet MacIlhenny came in with her head up, jaw clenched, and chin trembling. She stopped abruptly before Jamie’s table and collapsed onto her knees with a thud, followed by the other wives and half the children, spilling out into the hallway, all looking bewildered but obedient.

“We have come to beg thy mercy, Laird,” she said, bowing so low that she spoke to the floor. “Not for ourselves, but for our bairns.”

“Did your husbands put ye up to this?” Jamie demanded. “Get yourselves up, for God’s sake.”

“No, Laird,” Harriet said. She rose, slowly, but her hands were pressed so hard together that the knuckles and nails showed white. “Our husbands forbade us to come to ye; said they would beat us should we stir a foot out of doors. The gomerels would sacrifice us and the bairns for the sake of their pride—but … we came anyway.”

Jamie made a Scottish noise of disgust.

“Your husbands are fools and cowards, and they’ll pay the price of their foolishness. They kent what they were risking when they chose to cast their lots wi’ Cunningham.”

“Does a gambler ever think he’ll lose, Laird?”

Jamie had opened his mouth to say something further, but shut it at this shrewd stab. Harriet MacIlhenny had lived on the Ridge almost from its founding and knew very well who was the biggest gambler in this neck of the woods.

“Mmphm,” he said, eyeing her. “Aye. Well. Be that as it may, I’ve said what I’ve said and I willna go back. I put these men out for good cause, and that cause hasna vanished, nor is it likely to.”

“No,” Harriet agreed, real regret in her voice. She bowed her capped head. “But my six grown sons are loyal to ye, Laird, and to the cause of liberty—and my four brothers as well. Many of these good women can say the same”—she gestured to the serried ranks still kneeling on the floor behind her—“and do.” A murmur of agreement came from the crowd behind her, and one wee girl poked her head out from behind Harriet’s apron and said brightly, “My brother helped bring ye back from the landslide, sir!”

Harriet moved her skirts to obscure the child and coughed, the interruption giving Jamie enough time to look over the women and calculate exactly how many sons, brothers, uncles, grandsons, and brothers-in-law they possessed among them—and how many of those were men he either included in his gang or would like to. I saw the color rising up his neck, but I also saw the slight slump of his shoulders.

So did Harriet, but was wise enough to pretend not to notice. She folded her hands in front of her and humbly laid the rest of her cards on the table.

“We ken weel why ye banished the men, sir. And we ken even better the kindness that ye’ve always shown to us and our families. So we’ll swear ye an oath, Laird—a most terrible oath, in the names of Saint Bride and Saint Michael—that our husbands shall never again raise hand or voice against ye, in any matter.”