Joan returned her attention to the embroidery in her lap, picking it up once again before saying, “I wish I could be of more help, my lord, but I don’t know anything about where Sir Alex might have gone.”

She was aware of his gaze on her. When he was satisfied that she was not lying, Sir Henry said, “I am glad to hear it. I told Alice there could be nothing of significance between you.” He looked with reproach at his wife. “As your guardian, I am responsible for your wardship and marriage, and Seton is not the right sort of man for you.”

In other words, he wasn’t the weak, ineffectual nobody who would never think to challenge her birthright.

She nodded, keeping her eyes on the piece of half-stitched linen. It was to be a peacock, but all she could see was blue. “I understand, my lord. But marriage is the last thing on my mind.”

It should be the truth.

The next five days were some of the most miserable of Joan’s recent memory. As if Alex’s sudden abandonment wasn’t enough, Alice was suffering from “head-splitting” headaches that were preventing her from sleeping, and she was taking her temper out on Joan, whom her cousin blamed for making her look “foolish” in front of her husband.

Apparently Alice failed to consider that it might be her own constant complaints and dramatic moans of pain that might be keeping her husband away from her bed at night, rather than anything Joan might have done.

In any event, last night had been the first full night of sleep Joan had managed in nearly a week—she refused to think of the first night when she’d gotten no sleep—as she’d finally become fed up with her cousin’s whinging and distemper and given her what was left of the sleeping powder. It was welcome relief. She couldn’t bear to look at the reminder of her perfidy and was glad to be rid of it.

On Friday morning, she woke for the first time to the feel of warmth on her skin and not a high-pitched screech in her ear. The novelty of feeling rested wore off soon, however, as the familiar questions began their daily—hourly—circling in her head.

Where had he gone? Why had he left? Did he intend to return? Did any of it have anything to do with her?

The one thing she knew was that he had not returned to the Bruce fold. She’d managed to get a message to her compatriots, and her answer had arrived yesterday. Seton was not in Scotland.

She hadn’t really believed it possible, but the disappointment had been surprisingly acute.