Hesitation weighted his words. “To obtain grain from the Campbells to make up for the burned crop. There is a distant link between our clans.”

Ella watched the clouds move across the growing sliver of moon. Her father had raged once about the Sinclairs having discussions with the Campbells in the south. But something in the drag of Cain’s explanation made her wonder if there was more to Gideon’s mission.

Her stomach growled, and she reached into the leather satchel tied to his saddle. “I picked these at the loch,” she said and held up a raspberry before popping it into her mouth. She found another. “Berry?” He opened his mouth, reminding her of the feel of it surrounding her nipple. The heat of him against her was making her wanton.

“I should return to pick some to bake into raspberry tarts. Do you like tarts?” She shifted in her seat, the tenderness between her legs reminding her of their intense passion. “For someone I am to wed, I know very little about you.” Besides knowing how my little nibbles across the skin of his chest and stomach drive him wild.

“I like tarts,” he said. “But my favorite treat is cake made with crushed hazelnuts and honey.” He held his hand out before her. “With spiced pears on top.” He made a motion like he was setting a pear down onto a cake by the stem.

“That is quite specific,” she said, turning to look up at him.

He smiled. “It was my mother’s favorite, so it became mine.”

“How old were you when she died?” Bàs was the youngest, but she wasn’t sure by how many years.

“Almost nine years. Old enough that I remember her the best. She loved anything baked and sweet. How old were ye when your mother died?”

Ella remembered sitting by Mary Sutherland’s bed as she grew weak from giving birth. Her eyes looked like polished glass, round with wildness, as she demanded Ella’s promise to do one last thing for her. Keep him hidden. Do not give him to Alec. She succumbed to fever while her furious husband drank himself into oblivion when they reported another babe had died right after birth. “I was fourteen.”

“Did she die from illness?”

Ella sighed, remembering too well their argument earlier. “My mother was weak from losing many babies after I was born.”

“She died from childbirth fever?”

Ella turned in her seat, using her finger to poke him in the chest. “There are many women who do not die during childbirth.”

He exhaled long. “Aye.” She looked out over Seraph’s head.

“I am sorry about your mother,” Cain said. She felt his knuckle gently brush down the side of her face. “To leave ye alone with that monster. If I had known, I would have stolen into Dunrobin and taken ye away.”