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naught to indicate that his first language was French or that he was, himself. If she remembered correctly, her ladyship had said only that his antecedents were French.
    Having reassured herself, Adela lifted the latch and pushed open her door to find cressets lighted, as well as a low-burning fire.
    The trim, redheaded maidservant who had looked after her since her arrival at Roslin jumped up from a stool by the hearth. “Och, me ladyship,” she exclaimed. “I thought mayhap ye’d gone to the garderobe tower, but ye were gone so long!”
    “Aye, but I am back now, Kenna,” Adela said calmly.
    “I’d been looking in now and again to see did ye want supper or aught else.”
    “Just bed now, but thank you.”
    “I laid out your shift, and there be warm water in the ewer.”
    As Adela moved to attend her nightly ablutions, she thought back to the man on the ramparts and knew she was looking forward to meeting Lady Clendenen’s cousin with much more eagerness than any so-recent widow had a right to feel.
    Adela’s erstwhile companion, having opened the stair-way door again and listened to her soft footsteps descending, waited until he could be certain she had reached her room in safety. With watchers everywhere, both inside the castle and out, she would come to no harm if she did meet someone. Whether she realized it or not, even if she reached her room in solitude, at least a few would know by morning, if not before, that she had been wandering about.
    If they were already concerned about her state of mind, as well they should be, considering all she’d been through in past weeks, her midnight rambling might cause more stir than he thought it warranted. She would recover from her trials faster, God knew, if the well-meaning womenfolk would give her some peace.
    He had known before today that she was a beauty. But seeing her earlier in her form-clinging velvet wedding gown with her honey-gold hair streaming in thick waves down her back had stunned him to speechlessness. Her full, soft breasts had thrust hard against the plush golden velvet, fairly clamoring to fill a man’s eager hands. His body had stirred instantly in response and stirred now at the memory.
    At the time, one of his men had suggested that perhaps he ought to close his mouth before something flew in that he’d liefer not swallow, which had recalled him rather sharply to his wits. He remembered that moment uneasily now.
    The Macleod sisters were all renowned beauties, but when people at Roslin spoke of them, they spoke first of the beautiful lady Isobel, who had married Sir Michael Sinclair, and next of Hugo’s wife, the lady Sorcha. She was just as lovely as Isobel, but more often they spoke of her daring and her way of putting her chin in the air whenever someone suggested she should not do something she wanted to do.
    A few spoke of their younger sister, the lady Sidony, but she was more elusive, less likely to draw notice. Moreover, Sidony was Sorcha’s opposite in temperament, having always, they said, followed her lead in whatever they did.
    If he had favored one over the others, it had been Hugo’s lady, Sorcha, but he could not deny that something about the lady Adela had attracted him the first time he’d laid eyes on her, the previous summer at the installation of Prince Henry of Orkney. In the midst of the chaos attending that event, she had remained calm and in control of herself—except when she had cast a basin of water over Hugo’s head. Michael had described that event to him in gleeful detail.
    He just wished he had been with them at the time to witness that splendid moment himself, for with that one act, she had endeared herself to him forever, if only for blunting some of Hugo’s impudence. Later, he had seen her only after her abduction, injured, shabby, and bewildered. But now…
    Shutting the stairway door and turning back to the parapet, he shook his head at himself. He was at least seven kinds of a fool for even