He found himself oddly curious about Bella’s daughter. He knew that after she’d been falsely declared illegitimate, and her claim to the Buchan earldom given to her cousins, Lady Joan now served as a companion to one of those cousins—Alice—who was married to de Beaumont. He doubted anyone truly believed the lie that Joan was not Buchan’s daughter (instead the product of an illicit affair between Bella and Bruce), but no one wanted to see the daughter of a notorious traitor rewarded with an earldom. He recalled some other contrivance about consanguinity—related godparents?—had been used as well.

They were a convenient pretense, that was all. Edward ensured the support of de Beaumont in his fight against the Scots—as de Beaumont would be fighting for his own lands—and no one cared about the daughter of a dead earl and a rebel “whore.”

He wondered what Joan thought about it. Did she regret not returning to Scotland when she’d had the chance all those years ago? Ironically, Alex had been part of the team who had rescued MacRuairi and Bella from Berwick Castle when they’d been captured not long after Bella’s return to Scotland. MacRuairi had given the then fourteen-year-old Joan an opportunity to go with them, but she’d declined, saying that her life was in England with her Comyn uncle and cousins. It had broken Bella’s heart.

Given what had happened in the interim, Alex wondered whether she would make the same decision today. The lass had hardly been rewarded for her loyalty to the English cause.

It was close to the midday meal by the time the meeting finally broke up. Alex was going to go in search of her when he caught part of the conversation taking place in the group of young soldiers walking ahead of him.

“Long night, Fitzgerald? I thought you were going to fall asleep there for a while when de Beaumont was talking about whose men would sleep in the barracks at Wark and whose would have to set up tents outside the gates.”

Alex had been about to doze off himself. He hadn’t slept much last night. He’d been too busy thinking.

“I feel like I just swam from here to Ireland,” another man answered. “I’ve never been so . . . satisfied.”

From the way he said it—like a cat that had just lapped up a big bowl of cream—Alex understood what kind of satisfied he meant. Obviously the young redheaded knight had spent the night with a lass.

Alex recognized him now. He was one of Ulster’s young sea captains. Sir Richard Fitzgerald was a promising young soldier from a powerful family and said to be one of the best seafarers in Ireland. Perhaps he’d give MacSorley a challenge one day.