“And yet ye canna deny that the sudden appearance of Lady Mackenzie is puzzling?” MacLeary had asked slyly. “Just as we’ve begun to hear rumors of it from England?”

“What is between me and my wife is none of your affair,” Arran said stiffly. “She’s come to Balhaire with nothing more than a desire to repair the marriage she abandoned.”

The men had snorted at that. Several remarks were made about a woman’s place. Arran’s blood had boiled, but he’d kept his temper. He was a traditional man in some respects and held certain expectations for any wife of his. But he’d never been one to view a woman as his personal property, and that Margot hadn’t met his expectations could not be helped by him. He could no more put thoughts in her head or force her to a course of action than he could these men.

“You can understand our concern, Mackenzie,” said Rory Gordon. “Dunn has warned us all that there is talk of forfeiture of our holdings for conspiring with Stuart.”

“The crown has no legal grounds for it,” Arran argued.

Buchanan laughed low. “And when have you known the English to mind legalities when on Scottish soil, aye? I take you at your word, Mackenzie. I’ve always known you to be an honest man. No matter how peculiar it seems that your bonny English wife has come back to her marriage bed at a time we are all looking round for the English spy.”

“I will say it only once more—she’s nothing to do with it,” Arran had said evenly, his temper threatening to erupt. “Say what you will of me, but I’ll call out the next man who says a disparaging word against my wife.”

“Mayhap the disparaging word should no’ be said against the lady, but her husband,” Gordon said quietly.

Arran had stood up, spoiling for a good fight. “Say it now, then, lad, and let us resolve it.”

Gordon had shrugged and kept his seat. The men assembled there had remained silent. But they had eyed Arran with suspicion and had merely nodded when he took his leave of them. He’d thundered back to Balhaire, veering off the main road to Kishorn. There, he met with his cousin Griselda and discussed with her what had happened.

Griselda, wise to the ways of the Scots, had frowned when Arran explained Margot’s return and MacLeary’s late-night call at Balhaire. “Aye, but she’s trouble, that one.”

He could not argue Griselda’s suspicions, nor put down his own. “Nevertheless, will you do as I ask, Zelda?”

“Aye, of course,” she’d said, and had seen him off.

What to do about Margot, precisely, had plagued Arran on the return to Balhaire, and now here she was, as bonny as ever.