Arran shrugged. She would never know that for days after she’d left, he’d stumbled about, his thoughts on her, on the things he’d regretted saying, on the things he wished he’d said. He’d felt almost drunk, so much regret and pain slushing around in him.

“You did,” she insisted lightly, taking his silence for argument. “You expanded your trade with France after all.”

“Aye, I did.”

“And you were surrounded by people every day. Your society was here, where you are. You didn’t have to seek it.”

“It was here for you, as well.”

“Perhaps,” she said. “But what I saw was an audience to a marriage I did not want and at which I was awful. Even now, it’s as if all the Mackenzies are witnessing the reconciliation of the laird and his wife.”

“Reconciliation is a very strong word,” he said. “I’ve no’ agreed that is what we are about.”

She blinked those wide green eyes at him. “Haven’t you?”

“No.”

She pondered that a moment as she studied him. “When will you agree that it is?”

“When I am confident you are being completely honest with me.”

Her smile faded. “Well...” She glanced away, and it seemed to him she was considering how best to respond. But if she meant to speak, he wouldn’t know—at that moment, Duncan called to Arran. The grouse had been found.

The party came to a halt on the hills above a tiny loch that drained into the sea. Arran dismounted and helped Margot down, and they walked to where Duncan and Hamish were squatting, looking down a long hill.

“There, in the tall grass, laird,” Hamish said, pointing. “We’ll go round the far end—”

“The far end!” Duncan snapped. “Ye’ll as good as flush them out if you go round the far end.”

“Aye, so what would ye have us do, shoot from here, where we can scarcely sight the loch, much less the fowl? What bloody nonsense.”

“All right, that’s enough of it,” Arran said, vexed now. But the two brothers didn’t hear him—their bickering had reached a crisis, and they came to their feet, squaring off with each other and exciting the dogs, one of whom began to bark. Behind the two men, the grouse took wing, flying across the loch and deep into a ravine.

“For the love of Christ,” Arran said irritably.

“I’ve ’ad enough of ye and yer fool mouth, I ’ave,” said Duncan. “I ought to take yer bloody noggin off with me bare hands.”

“Do you think ye’re man enough for it, lad?” Hamish shot back, and shoved his brother in the chest.

“Stop this,” Arran said angrily. “You’re grown men!”