Read Chapter 14: The Second Chance

The tower room was cold despite the fire, and Iona had spent the better part of the night counting the cracks in the plaster above the bed. By morning, she had made her decision.

She could not wait for Lachlan to come to her. She had to go to him.

When Elspeth arrived with the breakfast tray, Iona was already dressed, her hair pinned with the same fierce efficiency she used on the ranch. She had hidden Gregor's sketch, the ledger figures, and the crypt key beneath a loose floorboard by the window, wrapped in oilcloth. She would not need them yet. To use them now would be to brandish weapons before she had earned the right to draw them.

"The laird is in his study," Elspeth said, setting down the tray with a clatter that betrayed her nerves. "He asked that you remain—"

"I am not a prisoner," Iona said. "And you know it. Whatever he believes, we are married, and I will speak with him."

Elspeth's mouth tightened, but she did not reach for the bell to summon the guards. "He is not in a patient temper."

"Neither am I."

The study door was ajar when Iona reached it. Lachlan stood at the window, his back to her, a sheaf of papers in his hand. He had not shaved, and the dark stubble on his jaw made him look older, harder. He did not turn when she entered.

"The guard at the tower stairs said you wished to be left alone," she said.

"I did."

"Then you will forgive me for not obliging."

Lachlan turned, and the weariness in his eyes struck her like a blow. She had expected anger, coldness, suspicion. She had not expected defeat.

"You should not be here," he said, but his voice was flat, without conviction. "I told you to remain in your rooms."

"You told me to remain in my rooms, and I did, for a night. Now I am here to speak with you, and you will hear me." She stepped closer, past the threshold he had made clear she should not cross. "Not as a wife pleading for her freedom. As an advisor who sees what you will not."

Lachlan laughed, a short, bitter sound. "You are a MacTavish. The first thing you see is an opportunity to advantage your own clan."

"The first thing I see is a ledger," Iona said, and she withdrew the folded paper from her sleeve. She had copied the figures, painstakingly, by candlelight in Elspeth's sitting room—amounts, dates, the repeated name of D. MacAllister. She held it out to him.

He did not take it.

"I have seen the MacTavish accounts," he said. "Your father's debts would bury us both."

"My father is dead, and his debts died with him." She kept her arm extended, the paper trembling slightly in her grip. "But these are Campbell debts, and they are alive. I found them in your accounts room, Lachlan. Payments to a man called MacAllister, made every quarter for the past seven years. Marked with a 'G' in the margin. Do you know what they are for?"

His jaw tightened. "That is a private matter."

"You are mortgaged to the hilt," Iona said. "The estate is leveraged against more lending than it can ever repay, and you are paying a mysterious man a small fortune that your ledgers do not explain. If that is private, then private is what will sink you."

He said nothing. The paper hung between them like an accusation.

"I know you do not trust me," she continued, lowering her arm at last. "I know you believe I conspired with Gregor, and I cannot prove otherwise without speaking truths you are not ready to hear. But I am asking you to set that aside for one hour. One hour, to look at these numbers with me, and to decide whether we sink together or find another way."

Lachlan stared at her for a long moment. She met his gaze, refusing to yield.

"The estate is mortgaged to the grain merchants in Inverness," he said at last, and the words seemed to cost him something physical, like drawing a splinter from his own flesh. "My father borrowed against the land itself three years before the raid. He believed the harvests would cover it. They did not."

Iona lowered herself into the chair opposite his desk, laying the paper flat between them. "Then we are the same. Two clans, drowning in debt their fathers could not manage."

"I will not sell the land to your brother." Lachlan's voice hardened. "Whatever you intend to propose—"

"I intend to propose nothing of the kind." She met his eyes. "I intend to propose that we search for something worth more than either of our father's failures."

He sat, slowly, the weight of his suspicion settling into the chair across from her. "What are you suggesting?"

"The crypt," she said. "Before we married, I found a key hidden in my father's papers. A key to the MacTavish crypt, which has been sealed since the rising of '45. You know the old stories—that certain families buried their valuables rather than surrender them to the Crown. My father never spoke of what lies within. But he kept that key hidden from my brother and me, wrapped in oilcloth and bound with twine, as if it were the most precious thing he owned."

Lachlan was silent, his fingers steepled beneath his chin. "You believe there is treasure in your family crypt."

"I believe my father did not hide a worthless key." She pushed the ledger paper toward him. "And I believe that if we find nothing, we are no worse off than we are now. You lose nothing by searching. You gain nothing by refusing."

He studied her for a long, uncomfortable moment. "Why would you help me save what is mine? The land is Campbell land now. By law, it belongs to me—and to you, in name at least. If we are ruined, you are ruined as well. There is no advantage in saving it for my sake alone."

"You are right," she said. "There is no advantage in saving it solely for your sake. But there is advantage in saving our child's inheritance."

The words landed like a stone in still water. Lachlan went very still. "Our child?"

"Not yet," she said quickly. "But we are married, and you have not lain with me since the wedding night. If we are to build anything at all, we must first decide whether there is a future worth building."

He was quiet for a long moment, and she watched him wrestle with the idea—not the treasure, not the crypt, but the possibility of a life that did not end with the ruin of his family name.

"Tomorrow," he said at last. "I will take you to the crypt myself. If there is nothing there, we will speak no more of it."

"Agreed."

"And if there is something there"—his eyes narrowed—"we will share it. Equally. The MacTavish lands and the Campbell lands are now one, and what is found on them belongs to us both. You will not run to your brother with the spoils."

Iona rose, gathering her copy of the ledger figures. "I make no promises for my brother," she said. "But I make them for myself. You will find, Lachlan Campbell, that a MacTavish's word is worth more than her father's debts."

She was halfway to the door when his voice stopped her.

"Iona."

She turned.

"I do not trust you," he said, and the flatness of his voice had softened into something like regret. "But I am beginning to wonder whether that is because you have given me reason, or because I was never taught how."

The door closed behind her, and for the first time since the raid, Iona allowed herself to breathe.

She did not tell him about Gregor. She did not tell him about Tam, or the sketch, or the Campbell tartan that had fired the first shot. She would need those truths later, when she had earned the right to speak them.

For now, a fragile bridge had been crossed—and on the other side, she hoped, was a man willing to meet her halfway.