Page 59 of The Scot’s Secret

They looked at each other, not as enemies, but with a somberness that could come only from the losses both men had faced in their families’ five-year feud.

“Your entire clan, to be precise.”

“I don’t blame you.” None would. Even Toren, who’d tried to kill Geoffrey’s brother, Bryce, for taking their sister captive, had reluctantly agreed he would have done the same. “We agreed no more apologies, but I owe one despite it. Your parents—”

“Loved the borderlands.”

Alex sensed his companion didn’t want to discuss the loss, so he did not push him.

“As dangerous as it had become, it was the only home they’d ever known,” Geoffrey said. “The game played by our kings is a dangerous one, and I fear peace will be hard-fought for years to come,” Geoffrey said, taking a bite of bread.

“Even so, I am deeply sorry.” Geoffrey’s father had been a casualty of battle, and even though his mother had nearly decapitated one of their clansmen, she should not have been killed in that raid.

Geoffrey clearly wanted to change the topic. “I know where we look for your mother, but not why.”

“I’m told my good looks were inherited from her, and I can hardly remember if it’s true.” Though he smiled, it was forced, and Geoffrey was not fooled.

“Obviously it is not. You’re as ugly as your brothers.”

If he or his brothers had ever been accused of anything, it was for being unnaturally large and fair featured. So Geoffrey’s retort only made him laugh.

Geoffrey tried again. “You’re sure the merchant mentioned Elkview specifically?”

“He said she was in the village on market day and purchased a sampling of his wares. When he mentioned travelling across the border, she bragged of having three sons and a daughter in the Scottish borderlands.”

“Yet she didn’t give her name.”

“Nay, and the merchant, new to Elkview, never asked. He said she was richly appointed, a noblewoman. And that her hair was red-brown, which is the same color of—”

“Catrina’s,” Geoffrey finished.

Though Geoffrey received the news as skeptically as Toren and Reid had, Alex knew it was her. He couldn’t explain how, but he just knew. He’d seen Clara’s face when they’d spoken of his mother. . . he knew that she pitied him. But there was no reason for it. His mother was dead to him. She meant nothing. He just needed to understand what had happened.

“And the squire?”

“Is there anything else you need to know? You failed to also ask when I last relieved myself,” Alex said, attempting to lighten the mood.

“No need to ask,” the Englishman replied. “I saw you do so myself not long after we stopped.”

He laughed heartily. “If you’re not careful, reiver, I may not rue the day we were bound by our siblings’ marriage.”

“I was not a reiver by choice,” Geoffrey pointed out. He was still smiling, but his words were serious.

“My brothers and I didn’t want Bristol. We felt we had no choice.”

“The whims of gods and kings. We all do what we must to survive, and I regret nothing.”

That took him by surprise. “Nothing?”

Geoffrey took another swig of ale and stood. “None of the choices I’ve made, at least. Sara and I attempt to distance ourselves from it all as much as possible. She offered the majority of Caiser’s southern holdings back to the crown as an appeasement for breaking her betrothal, but we have Kenshire, and it is enough.”

Alex stood and walked toward their horses. “It seems every man I know has grown soft with love for a woman.” Geoffrey’s emotions were evident when he talked about Lady Sara.

“Not everyone,” Geoffrey commented, looking pointedly at him.

Alex wasn’t so sure.

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