She bowed her head. She stood up from her perch on the chair, and he realized how small she looked in this room full of men. He had a fleeting image of her in the vast library at Norwood Park, a small figure in another room full of men as they sent her to do their loathsome deeds.

Margot curtsied, said good-night and went out without looking at him or Jock.

They had scarcely closed the door behind her when Lindsey said, “Norwood is behind it, I’d wager me life on it,” gesturing to the door Margot had just gone through. “He means to have Balhaire, aye? And Tom Dunn will profit from it, the dirty bastard.”

“No,” MacInernay said, disbelieving. “What sort of man would use his daughter so ill? Tom Dunn is an artful liar—he must be exposed, aye?”

“And how the bloody hell will we do that?” Lindsey demanded, tossing back a tot of whisky so violently that Arran was mildly surprised the small glass did not follow the liquid down his gullet. “The bounder is gone from Scotland, back to England, to the lords who trade their daughters only to betray them.”

“You should go,” Lindsay said, looking at Arran.

“And deliver my head to the queen?” Arran scoffed.

“If you stay behind at Balhaire, the Jacobites will hang you, aye? Tom Dunn has made his deal with the devil on both sides of the border. But if there is a chance Lady Mackenzie speaks true, and her father does no’ conspire with him—if he is as harmed by this as you—then he may be the only one who can save you now.”

“And if she’s wrong?” Jock asked.

Lindsay’s face darkened. “Then he’ll hang.”

A silence fell over the men. MacInernay drummed his fingers on the table. “Aye, ye’ve no choice, laird,” he agreed. “It will be worse for you and yours here if you donna clear your name.”

“But if you choose to go, Jock must stay behind,” Lindsey added.

“I willna—” Jock began to huff, but Lindsey wouldn’t hear it.

“Aye, Jock, ye must. There’s no one here to man the helm if the laird doesna come back,” Lindsey argued. “You’re the only one who can. Send an army with him if you must, but ye canna go.”

Jock’s face began to mottle. He considered it his God-given responsibility to keep his laird safe.

“He’s right,” Arran said before Jock could argue. “If I go, he’s right, for God’s sake, Jock.” Arran obviously did not relish going to England—visions of being accosted by English troops and sent to London for trial spun sickeningly in his belly. But the prospect of clan warfare churned just as bitterly.