“My clan,” Arran said. The boy appeared again. He was carrying a bowl in each hand, and tucked under his arm were two spoons. The boy, who was not wearing gloves, placed the bowls before them, and then the spoons.

“They are your clan now, aye?” Arran said. He picked up his spoon and began to eat.

“Pardon?”

He paused to look at her. “These people are your clan now, Lady Mackenzie.”

She hadn’t really thought of it like that before now. She looked out at the people milling about, laughing and talking with each other, casting curious looks at her. She looked at the thick soup before her, the spoon the boy had carried tucked up against his side under his arm.

“Do you no’ care for the soup?” Arran asked.

The soup? She didn’t care for this place, these people! “I’m not hungry after all.” She folded her hands tightly in her lap. “I should like a bath now.”

“A bath,” he repeated slowly.

Good God, surely they bathed here! “Yes. A bath.” She looked at him pointedly.

Arran fit another spoonful of soup into his mouth and shrugged. He lifted his hand once more, and this time, an older man with a pate of thinning ginger hair appeared at his side. Arran consulted with the man about her bath...at length. It seemed a long stretch of minutes passed before the man walked away and Arran turned back to his meal. He took three quick bites in succession, wiped his mouth with the napkin and stood, his chair scraping loudly behind him. With a sigh, he held out his hand to her, palm up. “Aye, then. A bath for milady. I’ll bring you round to our chambers.”

“What do you mean, our chambers?”

“The master’s chambers,” he clarified.

She was beginning to feel ill. “I don’t understand. You haven’t private rooms for me?” she asked disbelievingly.

Arran looked so baffled that Margot’s belly began to roil. She could not—would not—share a room with this man. It was unheard of! It was egregious, a complete lack of decorum! She couldn’t imagine it, all that leather and wool and—

She swallowed, and her fingers curled into fists. “A great house generally has rooms for the master and the mistress,” she said as calmly as she could, hoping that he might set this entire wretched ordeal to rights if he only understood how things were done properly.

But he showed no sign of understanding anything. He said, “I’ll show you to the master’s chambers for your bath, madam. We will discuss whatever it is you think a lady must have on morrow, aye? But tonight, I am too weary for it.”