“I’ll have a look about, aye?” He handed her a plaid that she wrapped tightly around herself.

He found some buckskins, a moth-eaten woolen coat, a yellowed lawn shirt and a plain brown skirt, the sort a crofter might wear. He returned with his finds to the kitchen. Margot was in a chair near the fire, her knees up under her chin, her hair long and tangled.

She looked at the clothes with blank eyes. “Why are we here? And for how long?” she asked. “And why did your men go another way?”

He laid the clothes on the table. “Someone is looking for me yet. It wasna safe to return to Balhaire.”

Her brows sank into a dark frown. “Scotsmen? Or English?”

“Scotsmen. Probably English, too, then.”

“What are we to do?” she asked softly.

“I donna know,” he responded truthfully. He was too weary to think clearly. “For now, we hide.”

“Without food or clothing?”

He shrugged. “We’ll manage, we will.” He didn’t say that he feared it would be a very long time before they could leave here. That they would have to manage or starve.

She turned her gaze back to the fire. “Are we safe here?”

“Aye, for the time being.”

“But not forever.” She glanced back at him. “We can’t run forever, can we?”

It was not a question, really, but a remark. Arran couldn’t offer her the reassurances she wanted, and he didn’t want to try.

He turned away from her and used the water to bathe himself as best he could. He had close to a full beard now. His hair had come out of its queue at some point. He wet his hair and pushed it behind his ears. When he was done, he pulled on one of the lawn shirts and the buckskins and joined a contemplative Margot at the fire.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“That you haven’t said you were right,” she said, and rested her chin on her knees.

“About what?”

“About my father. You haven’t reminded me that you didn’t trust him all along. Or that I so foolishly did.”

“I didna think you needed reminding, leannan. You discovered it on your own, aye?”

“Do you know what I’ve discovered? That I am nothing more than a pawn in this world. To be bartered and traded and cast aside when I am no longer useful.”

She sounded bitter, but Arran couldn’t disagree with her. That’s what daughters were to many families—bargaining power. Very few had managed to forge their own paths and do as they pleased. Griselda had, only because Uncle Ivor adored her so. He’d allowed her to refuse suitors and live freely, without a husband.