“She wanted me to lay with her,” Ewan said honestly.
Faye blinked as the color rose in her cheeks. She glared over her shoulder at the closed door, as though she meant to shoot the spear of her gaze like a weapon at Mistress Blair.
Faye’s ire snapped back to Ewan. “Ye didn’t—”
He had to laugh at that. “I’m faithful to ye, lass. I always will be.” He came around the desk and pulled her into his arms.
She turned her face from his.
“Are ye jealous?” he teased. “Even as I tell ye ye’ve no need to worry?”
“Nay.” It was a lie, evident in the flash in her blue eyes. “Though she is lovely.”
“No’ nearly as lovely as ye.” Ewan eased Faye’s face toward him, her skin soft under his fingertips. “Besides, ye leave me depleted, lass. How would I ever have the energy for a leman?”
“Mind yerself.” She playfully poked his chest.
“I do need yer help though,” he said in all seriousness.
She lifted her brow with apparent skepticism. “I’ll no’ do anything to help that woman.”
Ewan shook his head. “Me. And the clan. Mistress Blair alluded to something my uncle planned. She wouldna tell me after I refused her.”
Faye smirked. “And ye want me to find what it could be,” she surmised.
“Aye. I believe plans are afoot, and we need to ensure we listen at the wedding for what we can learn.” Ewan gritted his back teeth. If he could catch Cruim in a plot to try to kill him, he would have justification to banish him from the clan.
As careful as Cruim was, he would have to slip up sometime. When he did, Ewan would be there to see him stumble and ensure he paid the price for his treachery.
11
It was easy for Faye to dislike Mistress Blair Gordon. Even as she sat at the other woman’s wedding feast the following day, the bitterness hung between them. But then, such animosity had started the night before when Blair passed Faye as she was leaving Ewan’s solar. After she’d propositioned him.
Faye hadn’t missed the way the other woman’s gaze had slid over her in apparent assessment, followed by an overconfident smirk. As though finding Faye to no longer be a threat.
Not that Faye was so easily put off. On the morning of the wedding, Gavina had presented her with an exquisite new kirtle. It was a rich, vivid blue that made Faye stand out like a sparkling sapphire. Her blonde hair had been combed to shining and bound back in a gold caul adorned with pearls.
If she had any doubt at how she looked in the new attire, she need only take note of the bride’s attitude toward her. For Blair was simmering with barely contained jealousy.
Faye might have felt her own twinge, for Blair was a stunning bride in a green silk dress that made her hair glow like burnished copper. She tapped her fingertips in time to the music in a graceful movement her new husband seemed oblivious to.
Cruim was not as Faye had expected. She knew he’d be older but had not expected someone so…withered. His hair was leeched of color, the strands white and flimsy as cotton fibers where it circled his balding pate. There was a gray pallor about his skin, and he continued to cough into his fist.
The man was so archaic and frail, Faye almost felt sorry for the other woman.
Almost.
It did not escape Faye’s notice that when Ewan strode past Blair at the wedding feast, he didn’t turn toward his former betrothed once. Nay, his eyes had remained fixed on Faye with interest.
“He loves ye.” Moiré nudged Faye gently with her elbow.
Faye’s cheeks warmed at such words. “Why do ye say that?” She shouldn’t be so pleased by what Moiré had said. Nay, she ought to be upset. She shouldn’t want Ewan’s love, and yet she found herself nearly holding her breath as she waited for his cousin to answer.
“I’ve no’ ever seen Ewan look at a woman the way he looks at ye.” Moiré followed her cousin with her eyes, a smile pulling at her lips.
“No’ even with Lara,” Moiré said.
“Lara?” Faye looked sharply at Ewan’s cousin.
Moiré lifted her goblet and took a sip of wine. “Aye, she was his first wife. She couldna bear him a child and never got over the shame of it. ’Twas so verra sad.”
Faye’s stomach tightened. Ewan had been married before? Why had he never mentioned it? Why had no one ever mentioned it?
“I’ve upset ye.” Moiré put a hand over Faye’s. “I shouldn’t have brought it up at all.”
Faye shook her head, unsure how to sift through the sudden torrent of emotions. “What happened to her?”
Moiré’s eyes went large and gentle with sorrow. “I shouldna say.”
“Please,” Faye pushed. “I would prefer not to ask Ewan.”
Moiré shifted her focus to her lap and nodded, resigned. “She took her own life,” she whispered. When she looked up again, her eyes glistened with tears. She sniffled and brushed her fingers beneath her right eye. “Forgive me.”
Before Faye could apologize for pressing her, Moiré slipped from her chair and away from the Great Hall. Faye stared after her in horror. She hadn’t meant to cause the other woman such distress, especially after all of her kindness.
“May I join the bonniest lass in Scotland?” Ewan’s voice interrupted her thoughts.
Faye glanced up at her husband, and the charming smile on his face wilted. “Is something amiss?”
“Ye were married before,” Faye said.
“Aye,” he replied casually as he settled into his chair beside her.
His confirmation dug into a tender spot in her chest. She was getting too close. Caring too much. Being too vulnerable.
“Why didn’t ye tell me?” she asked.
Ewan shrugged. “It dinna come up.” He searched her face, and his forehead crinkled. He gave a little grunt of acknowledgement. “This should have been mentioned, I take it?”
Faye lifted her brows.
He cleared his
