Page 9 of The Rogue’s Redemption

“I apologize,” Gillian said, starting over. “I thought I saw him looking at you—”

“You did.”

Gillian was unwittingly emulating the concerned look their mother gave them whenever they did not agree with their father. She would have pointed out the fact had her sister not appeared to be genuinely upset.

“We need to talk.”

Her sister walked further away from the hall, toward the attached chapel. Instead of entering it, she took the winding stairs to the wall-walk above. Apparently whatever she felt needed saying required absolute privacy.

Allie took a deep breath of air that was surprisingly still warm. The only sources of light were the torches in the towers they stood between and the stars and moon above.

“’Tis nearly full,” she said of the waxing moon.

Gillian nodded. “It seems the council will be held during a new moon.”

The moon had always fascinated Allie. Though she did not agree that the moon’s shape at birth predicted one’s character, she did wonder at its purpose and what it was made of.

“I met him once before, you know,” Gillian said.

“Where?” She could not disguise the interest in her tone.

“At The Wild Boar, on our way back from our first visit to Lyndwood as a married couple.”

Allie remembered the visit well. The awful man she’d agreed to marry, the one who’d gotten himself killed before they could wed, had intended to marry Gillian. He’d settled for Allie after Gillian was forced to marry Graeme. Rather than tell Gillian the truth—that she would go through with the wedding so their parents would not lose their home—she’d insisted she had a foolproof plan to avoid the match. She still felt poorly for lying to the person who cared for her most, who looked after her the way their mother should have, but if she’d allowed Gillian to spirit her away as her sister had intended, it would have caused problems for the new couple.

“I still feel poorly for lying to you,” Allie began, but Gillian cut her off, shaking her head.

“You do not need to apologize. Again. I understand you were only trying to protect me. As I am doing for you now.”

Allie shivered. She hated to think of what would have happened had the earl not—

“I met Reid,” Gillian continued. “And took an immediate dislike to him. He is arrogant—”

“Aye, very.”

“And disdainful.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

“In fact, I asked Graeme why he would have such a man as an ally.”

Allie had wondered the very same thing. “What did he say?”

“That he had known Reid and his older brothers his entire life. It was their sister, Catrina, to whom he was promised.”

Allie’s eyes widened. “That Catrina?”

“Aye.”

Graeme had once been betrothed to a childhood friend. Allie did not know much of the story beyond that they had, of course, never married.

“He claimed Reid is, beneath it all, a good man.” Gillian did not look convinced, and neither was she.

“His brother is the chief?”

“Aye. The middle brother, Alex, was once the chief’s second, but he and his wife took up residence at Dunmure Tower, where the boys were raised.”

“How do you know so much about him?” Allie stepped closer to the wall and laid a hand on the cool, gray stone.