Thomas kept his daughter out of his thoughts for the time being. She would forgive them after a while.
He finally sat up and looked around. The captain and his wife were a little way off. The captain was snoring—as was Jones. Thomas smiled and crept toward Neill. As he suspected, Neill was awake.
“Old man,” he hissed out from the dust.
“Son.”
That quieted him.
“Let me untie you.”
“Why? So I can light the rest of you up in flames? Where is Rose?”
“She is off with her husband.” Her father hushed his voice when Jones stirred.
Neill narrowed his dark blue eyes on him. “You let her marry? Who?”
“MacPherson.”
Neill tossed back his head as much as he could and laughed silently.
“’Twas all I could do not to lose her,” Thomas told him on a small voice. “I will set you free if you will kill him.”
“No,” Neill said, stopping him. “Not tonight. The way I am tied, they will know someone helped me. Your men will know ’twas you and they will tell MacPherson. Besides, I wish to meet MacPherson before I kill him.”
“Neill,” Thomas asked.
“What.”
“Why did you burn down my castle?”
Neill smiled thinking of it. “I wanted to show you that I could.”
If he was anyone else, Thomas would have killed him then and there. Good thing Thomas had a weapon sharper than any sword. “She stood over you with a sword pointed at your throat. She wanted you dead.”
“And yet,” Neill’s lips curled at the edges. “I live.”
“Do you want to be a family again?” Thomas asked him.
Neill angled his head and his smile pulled at his scared skin. “When were we ever a family?”
The earl squeezed his eyes shut and bit down on his lip until a thin trickle of blood dripped down his chin. “Do you mock me, Neill?” he ground out.
He could stab him and who the hell would care? Thomas reached for his hilt.
“No, I do not mock you,” Neill promised.
“Do you want to be a family?”
“Aye, Lord.”
“Will you kill MacPherson when I say?”
“Aye, Lord.”
Rose and Tristan woke early, made love again over the side of the bed, washed, dressed then left the inn.
Rose’s cheeks went red when the innkeeper grinned at them, most likely having heard them last night…and this morning.
She had no idea how she was to make it anywhere on her horse. Her body ached and bouncing around on a hard saddle was agonizing.
Tristan rode closer and then reached out his hands and snatched her up. He lifted her from the saddle and set her on his lap—which wasn’t that much softer than the hard leather.
She stopped thinking of the pain when he leaned in and smiled. “I have been missin’ the feel of ye.”
“Aye, my arms feel useless without you in them.”
“Aye,” he agreed and held her closer.
Her father didn’t appear all that aware of her, and more concerned with the state of Neill, who was awake and sitting up on a horse of his own.
Neill, in turn, was keen on where Rose was, and who sat behind her with his arms coiled around her. “How did the infamous MacPherson marry the earl’s daughter instead of killing who he was paid to kill?”
Who told him they were married? Rose looked around. Her gaze stopped on her father and she looked away.
“She enthralled me,” Tristan confessed with a smile in his voice. “I am happily entranced by her beauty from within—as I suspect ye are.”
Aye, Rose thought, it was obvious that Neill loved her. She wanted to tell him they had been friends once. Now they were enemies. She was more delighted by Tristan’s declaration to her than by anything Neill could tell her.
“You love her then? Truly?” Neill asked and turned to grin at her father.
“Aye,” Tristan warned. “So until we decide what to do with ye, watch yerself around her. Touch her and I will kill ye. Understand?”
“Fully,” Neill assured him.
“Did you tell my father what you told me about his brother?” Rose couldn’t help but ask.
“I did.”
“He did,” her father announced, listening. “’Tis with a heavy heart that I believe and accept it.”
Rose caught the subtlest of changes in Neill’s expression. He was lying. Or her father was lying, and Neill was trying to tell her.
“As you do with your daughter’s marriage?” Neill asked the earl with a smirk.
“I am happy she has found a man who can protect her from you,” her father retorted with a grin of his own.
It did seem a bit out of the ordinary that her father would so easily approve her marriage to Tristan. Whether he could protect her or not, he was a killer for hire who had been sent to kill him. Her father had never wanted her to marry. What had changed? She’d been so relieved that he had approved, she didn’t stop to wonder why he had.
“’Tis true,” Neill said, “I have betrayed my lord by bringing my loyalties to his brother. Is there anything I can say to gain your forgiveness, Lady?”
She shook her head and turned away.
“Rose—”
“De Caleone,” Tristan called out, “if ye say her name again I will cut oot yer tongue. Trust me, I cut oot a man’s tongue last summer. ’Twas bloody as hell and painful. Ye canna speak, or swallow, or eat.”
Neill bowed in his saddle. “May I say anything to her?”
“Answer her questions. That is all,” Tristan warned. The earl laughed and took off ahead to speak with the captain.
“May I not ask her a question of my own? For instance, why did her father send a serving girl to Lockerbie with his wife? I understand the Lockerbie market is enormous. Why did he not send his daughter?”
Rose shook her head and then looked on ahead at her father’s back. “You try to deceive me
