Read Chapter 12: Loyalties Tested

The white door of Tam’s cottage was still in sight when Iona rounded the bend toward Braemore’s gates. She had ridden hard, the sketch folded against her ribs, the old key cold in her pocket. Morning mist clung to the heather, and she kept her hood up, hoping the guards might mistake her for a servant returning from an errand.

She was halfway across the courtyard when Elspeth appeared on the steps of the manor, arms crossed, lips pressed thin.

“Out early, daughter,” Elspeth said, not a question.

“I needed air,” Iona replied, dismounting and handing the reins to a stable boy who seemed to materialize from nowhere. “The walls close in.”

“They do,” Elspeth agreed. “Especially when one is hiding something behind them.”

Iona forced a smile. “Is that what you see? I thought it was just morning shadow.”

Elspeth’s eyes narrowed but she said nothing more, turning back into the house with the slow, deliberate grace of a cat who knows the mouse is still in the pantry.

Iona climbed the stairs to her chamber, her mind already turning toward the locked crypt and the Key that pressed against her thigh. She was almost to her door when she heard it—the soft scrape of furniture moving inside.

She pushed open the door and stopped.

Gregor MacRae stood at her writing desk, his back to her, one hand buried beneath the pile of handkerchiefs and ribbons that had held her mother’s letters. He did not hear her footstep on the carpet. He was too intent on his search.

“If you’re looking for my dowry,” Iona said, her voice flat, “it’s already been spent.”

Gregor spun, his face draining. His hand withdrew, clutching a folded letter—dull cream paper, sealed with faded red wax. He shoved it into his coat pocket. “Iona. I was—I can explain.”

“You were in my room,” she said, stepping inside and closing the door behind her. “Going through my things. That needs more than an explanation. That needs a reason I won’t like.”

He held up a hand, palm out, as if calming a skittish mare. “I was retrieving a letter. Your mother’s letter. She asked me to deliver it to you—years ago. I found it amid my father’s effects after he died. I’ve been carrying it since. I only wanted to place it among your mother’s belongings where you would find it naturally.”

“A letter from my mother?” Iona’s voice softened despite herself. Her mother had died when she was twelve. Anything with her mother’s hand on it was a relic beyond price.

Gregor nodded, and some tension left his shoulders. “The seal is broken—I did not open it. It was delivered to my father, not me. I don’t know who sent it or why they addressed it to him.”

“Then why not give it to me openly?” Iona asked, stepping closer, studying his face for the tell she was learning to read in this house full of liars. “Why slip into my room like a thief?”

“Because I didn’t want Lachlan to see it.” Gregor glanced toward the door. “He would ask questions I cannot answer. About that night. About the raid.”

Iona’s blood went cold. “The raid is what you told me about at the Gathering. The staged fire. The Campbell tartan.”

“The letter was in my father’s papers, wrapped in a piece of the same cloth your mother wore the day the feud’s treaty was signed,” Gregor said. “I don’t know what it means. But I thought you should have it before—before you married. Before you became one of them entirely.”

The words hung between them. Iona reached for the letter but Gregor did not offer it. Footsteps sounded in the corridor—heavy, deliberate boots.

The door swung open.

Lachlan stood in the threshold, travel-dusted, tired, his eyes skating from Gregor to Iona and back again. Gregor’s hand was still half-extended toward Iona. The room’s intimacy was unmistakable.

“Am I interrupting?” Lachlan’s voice was quiet, which made it worse.

Gregor stepped back, smoothing his coat over the letter’s bulge. “I was just leaving, laird. An old errand from my father.”

“Leave,” Lachlan said. Gregor did not wait for a second invitation. The door clicked shut behind him.

Iona stood still, her heart hammering, the ghost of her mother’s letter burning in Gregor’s pocket.

Lachlan crossed the room in three strides, stopping so close she could smell the horses and the road on him. “How long has he been coming to you?”

“Gregor? He does not come to me. I found him here.”

“Found him in your bedchamber without your invitation?” Lachlan’s jaw tightened. “Do you take me for a fool, Iona? I saw his face. I saw your face. You know something.”

“I know many things, Lachlan. That doesn’t make them yours.”

“You lied to me.” His voice cracked. “The night before we wed, you promised me you would make this marriage work. You promised you would stand beside me. And I find you conspiring with him in your room, whispering about raids and letters and God knows what else.”

“Conspiring?” Iona’s temper flared. “I have done nothing but try to understand why your clan slaughtered my people.”

“Slaughtered?” Lachlan’s accent thickened with fury. “You are my wife. You wear my name. And still you speak of my clan as if we were animals.”

“As if you weren’t the ones who fired the first shot.”

The silence after her words was vicious. Lachlan stared at her as though she had struck him.

“The first shot,” he repeated slowly. “You accuse me of starting the raid.”

“I accuse you of nothing,” Iona said, the heat draining from her voice. “I only say that I do not yet know the truth, and I cannot build a life on a lie.”

“Then build one on nothing.” Lachlan turned, his hand already on the latch. “I regret this marriage. I regret that I was talked into tying myself to a woman who sees me as an enemy in my own home.”

“Lachlan—” Iona started.

He did not look back. “Guard the door,” he called into the corridor. “No one comes or goes without my leave. The tower rooms are sealed until I decide otherwise.”

The door slammed. The key turned in the lock.

Iona stood alone in the silence, Gregor’s words and Lachlan’s fury tangling in her chest. She was a prisoner now, she realized. A prisoner in her own marriage, locked in the tower of a clan that might be innocent, guilty, or some terrible mixture of both.

She crossed to the window and looked out at the hills she had crossed that morning, the crypt’s key growing heavy against her thigh.

There was no more time for waiting. The truth would come out, or it would bury them all.