She tried to conjure up something that would help. She thought back to the ball they’d held at Norwood Park to mark the start of the long summer months. She didn’t recall seeing him there, but then again, the Norwood Park balls were so well attended, the dance floor so crowded, she saw only those gentlemen who sought her out. She began to shake her head, but then a memory suddenly came to her—she remembered she’d gone looking for Knox one evening and had found him in the gaming room with Mr. Dunn. “Yes, I saw him once,” she said. “At Norwood Park in the gaming room with my brother. They were playing Commerce, I think. I recall only because Knox was quite happy he’d won. He had markers stacked before him, and the other three gentlemen had only one or two.”

“That’s in keeping with the debts we’ve heard of,” Griselda said.

“What debts?” Margot asked.

Arran studied Margot. The fury had left him, and in its place was a look of resigned disgust that cut through her like a scythe. He despised her now. The emotion in the letters she’d read had been drowned and washed away by her deceit.

She had to look away from the condemnation in his eyes. “Why does it matter if he has debts?” she asked.

“It matters to everything,” Griselda said impatiently.

Jock said, “This man, Tom Dunn, has insinuated to some of the chieftains round us that our laird conspires with the English to betray them.”

“Betray them in what?” Margot asked, confused.

“Ach, she knows nothing,” Jock said impatiently. “Men and women who live in these hills would see James Stuart on the throne, aye? Now they’ve accused our laird of betraying them. Griselda has come from Portree, where she has heard the accusation said against him. And in England, they say he plots with the French.”

“Someone has put him in the middle of a deadly game, and Tom Dunn is the common thread,” Griselda said.

Margot looked among the three of them, confused. “But why would Dunn say that of Arran Mackenzie?”

“Because of his debts,” Jock said impatiently. “The man changes coats depending on who will pay for his news. He’s a gambler, aye? He’s more debts than he has friends. He eyes our trade, our lands. He is wagering on who will strike first, aye? And if the laird is found guilty of treason against the queen, our lands will be forfeited—likely to your father.”

Margot felt sick. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “My father wouldn’t take his lands.”