“She will freeze to death,” Joan whispered weakly, probing for any ounce of mercy that might remain for the woman he’d been married to for thirteen years. The woman he’d loved so much he could barely let her out of his sight and always had her under guard to keep her safe.

At least that’s what Joan had thought before. But maybe it was what her mother had wanted her to think. More and more, Joan was beginning to realize that something hadn’t been right in her parents’ marriage—that something wasn’t right with her father—and her mother had tried to prevent her from seeing it. What Joan thought had been love didn’t feel like love anymore. It felt like rabid possessiveness, control, and jealousy.

“Let her freeze,” her father said. “If I had my way, I’d see her hanging from the gibbet. I told Edward as much, but the king is reluctant to execute a woman—even one who is deserving. Instead she will serve as a warning, a reminder to all who might think to support the usurping ‘King Hood.’ ”

It was the name the English had given Robert the Bruce—the outlaw king. Nothing had been heard of Bruce and his followers in weeks. They were said to have fled to the Western Isles. They were hunted men. How long would it be before King Edward caught up with them?

Joan knew that help for her mother’s predicament would not come from that direction. Robert Bruce and his men were too busy trying to save their own lives to rescue her mother.

Nay, it was up to her. If anyone could help her mother it was she. Her father cared for her, the “beautiful” girl who so resembled him. She had to get through to him, even if it made him angry.

Joan might be quiet and reserved, but she wasn’t a coward. She had the blood of two of Scotland’s most important earldoms running through her veins. Taking a deep breath, she tried to clear the tears from her throat and lifted her eyes to meet his. “I know you think she betrayed you, Father, but she was only doing what she thought was right.”

“What was right?” her father exploded, jumping to his feet with enough force to cause the bench he’d been seated on to fall back with a resounding crash. Circling around the table, he grabbed her by the arm and hauled her to her feet. “How dare you try to defend her!”

Maybe she was a coward after all, because she was scared now. “I w-wasn’t—”