Now that idea had merit. However, trying to get close to Ella Sutherland again likely meant he would feel a blade between his ribs, one of his father’s blades that were no longer stashed under his pillows. Cain turned toward the closed door that he’d left locked, so she wouldn’t guess that he knew she was coming until she was already outside.

“Ye could force her,” Gideon suggested. “Tell her that ye will wipe out her entire clan and burn Dunrobin to the ground if she does not wed and bed ye.”

“Ye say that with all seriousness?” Cain asked, his words heavy with disappointment in the lack of his brother’s intelligence. “Passion or kill her entire clan?”

Gideon threw his hands up. “Terrible suggestions.”

“And ones that would end any potential of me siring offspring.”

“Ye do not need a wife to sire offspring,” Gideon said.

The four brothers had been schooled by their father to be very careful not to spread their seed around. He’d warned them any time they paid attention to a lass to spill their seed outside of her body. Claims to the chiefdom through blood relation to the laird was nearly binding in the eyes of King James. No bastards would come from the sons of George Sinclair. And no sons had come from Alec Sutherland, so wedding Ella should not raise the king’s ire.

Ella. He glanced up to the slight glow of firelight in the small unnailed windows cut into the peak of her tower room. She was likely plotting his murder right now. Despite her tenuous position, she hadn’t cowered or begged for release. Nay, she’d demanded it. Aye, she had claws and acted like no other woman he’d ever met.

He looked to Gideon. “If I were to sire a child outside my marriage bed, I am fairly certain that my throat would be slit within it if I were wed to Ella Sutherland.”

Gideon laughed, the sound of the sea muting most of it. “Da would come back from the grave to kill ye again for dying while on your back, in a bed, without a sword in your bloody hand. Nay, ye are right. Woo away, brother, and may Holy Mother Mary sway the lass’s heart.” He slapped Cain on the back warmly. “I will check within the stables and head to my bed.”