Silvan regarded him intensely for a strained moment. “You had the strangest look on your face, son,” he said finally.

Dageus didn’t want to know what kind of look. “I’m fine, Da,” he said, pushing himself from the table. “I doona know how late we’ll be. Doona wait a meal for us.”

Silvan’s piercing gaze followed him as he walked away.

Nell placed two mugs of cocoa (one specially supplemented with herbs for an absent-minded man who too oft forgot to eat) on a tray and went in search of her husband.

Her husband. The words never failed to bring a smile to her lips. When Silvan had found her lying on the road nearly fifteen years ago, on the brink of death, he’d brought her back to Castle Keltar and sat at her bedside, demanding she fight for her life at a time when she’d wanted naught more than to die.

Before Silvan had found her, she’d been mistress to a married laird whom she’d loved unwisely and deeply, incurring the wrath and jealousy of his barren wife. While he’d lived, he’d been there to protect her, but when he’d been killed in a hunting accident, his wife had stolen Nell’s babies, had her driven out, beaten and left for dead.

Upon recovering, for the next twelve years she’d been Silvan’s housekeeper, caring for him and mothering his young sons in lieu of her own. Despite her firm resolve to never again get involved with a laird—wed or no’—she’d fallen in love with the eccentric, gentle, brilliant man. Verily, the day she’d opened her mud- and blood-caked eyes to find him bending over her in the roadway, something inexplicable had quickened inside her. She’d contented herself with loving him from a distance, hiding it behind a caustic demeanor and sparring words. Then three and a half years ago, events with Gwen and Drustan had thrown them together, stirring a passion that she’d been elated to discover Silvan had been hiding as well, and life had been sweeter than aught she’d ever known. Though nothing could replace the babies she’d lost so long ago, fate had blessed her in her late years with a second chance, and their twins were currently sleeping in the nursery under careful watch of their nanny, Maeve.