Arran began to shake his head, but Jock spoke quickly to him in Gaelic. Arran responded simply, in one word or two, sounding cold and firm.

Griselda must have echoed what her brother said, because Arran looked at her with impatience and said, “No!”

“What is it, what are you saying?” Margot pleaded.

The Mackenzies stopped talking and looked at her. She could feel their disgust. But she could also feel their need. They needed her.

Arran sighed. “Aye, Margot. You will speak to MacInernay and Lindsey.”

Chapter Sixteen

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

UNCLE IVOR HAD once told Arran that there was nothing more dangerous to man than a woman. “No beast, no plague, no pestilence,” he’d said jovially from his perch on a rock as they’d stalked red deer. “Men live and die for them, lad. You’ll see what I mean when you’ve come of age, aye? The trick is to find a steady one and keep her close.”

Arran wished he had heeded his uncle’s advice. He was still reeling, his head spinning with rage and the unsatisfying vindication that he’d known all along Margot couldn’t be trusted. But that did not make the pain of it any less.

And here was his wife now, as bonny as a Scottish glen in springtime, explaining to two men who’d put their faith in him that she’d set these wheels in motion. That Thomas Dunn had been at Norwood Park.

It was difficult for her to say it all aloud, and it was difficult for Arran to hear it all again. As she spoke, he kept thinking of the letters he’d written her, his own private thoughts scratched out on vellum to help ease the pain he’d suffered when she’d left. She had deliberately broken into a locked cabinet and read them. She had broken the seals of his private torment and given those wounds air. She had violated him in the cruelest way possible, prying his thoughts from his heart.

Lindsey and MacInernay said nothing as Margot spoke. Her voice was clear, although it trembled from time to time. She kept her head up as she told them of the rumors that had been brought to her father. Of being dispatched to Balhaire to determine Arran’s guilt. She told them how she believed her father knew nothing of Tom Dunn’s scheme, and was as concerned for Arran’s head as he was his own.

When she had finished, she looked hopefully to Arran. As if that would appease him. As if she’d done something so right as to erase all the wrong.

Lindsey spoke first, in Gaelic, asking that Margot be sent from the room.

Arran didn’t hesitate. “Thank you, Margot. You may take your leave, then.”

“But...if there are questions, if I can help—”

“Go now,” he said, his tone firmer.