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baring her hips and belly. “Look at me. How much longer do ye imagine I could have kept my condition hidden? I had to leave before I was found out. My father wouldnae have to think on whose bairn I was carrying. He would ken in an instant. And aye, he might have let me have the bairn, but after it was born, what then? Would a Buchan allow a wee Ruthven to live? As for my uncle Hadron, he has such an inexplicable hatred for the Ruthvens, he frightens me. I had night terrors that he would rip my bairn frae my body, killing us both without a second thought. Nae, I might have taken a risk, but it was a lesser one than staying.”
    Jamie leapt out of bed, aghast at what his carelessness with his seed might have caused. It must have happened the night they pledged themselves, one to the other, hands held to seal the bargain, as if that promise had released him frae the need to prevent a conception. They had made love many times that night, elated by the vows they had made, but that would ne’er be enough for Buchan not to kill them both—kill them all. It was up to him to make sure that wouldnae happen.
    Swiftly, but carelessly he pulled on his clothes—shirt, plaid and short coat dragged from where they lay—and he tossed Eve’s garments onto the bed. “Get dressed while I’m gone. I won’t be long.”
    She scrambled to the edge of the bed and reached for her shift, wearing the same anxious expression as when she told him about her fears over her father and uncle. “Where are ye going?”
    “To find the priest,” he said; then he was off, striding through the door. As he hurried, his chest swelled and the muscles in his arms and legs flexed as if bulging inside his skin. Among all the emotions crowding his head, he became aware that the decision he had taken made him more of a man than he’d ever been chasing lasses for the sake of lust and pleasure.
    He had a family now, and he would do his utmost to protect them even at the cost of life or limb.

Chapter 7
    Nhaimeth was breaking his fast in the great hall. Rob had already eaten and was standing at the McArthur’s shoulder, nae doubt discussing the celebration of Yule and the feast they had planned for after the sun went down. Not that it had peeped out at all that day, naught being visible behind the heavy snow clouds.
    Graeme McArthur was part of the group around his cousin, though his wife Iseabel had yet to make an appearance, which was unusual, since her bairns were seated but a couple of arms-lengths frae his seat at the board. Little de’ils. There was as much porridge on the lad’s face as in his bowl, and his sister was giggling and doing her best to make it worse. Nhaimeth kenned fine their mother wouldnae see the humour in their nonsense, and he was minded to join the group at the high board as soon as his bowl was empty. Midwinter’s crippling cauld wasnae the time of year for going without meals. Which minded him that Jamie had yet to make an appearance at the board, and Iseabel had been tight-lipped o’er where he had disappeared to last night after Nhaimeth saw them talking.
    Ach, there was Iseabel now, and his seat close by her bairns was the perfect position to ask her about the lass Rob had carried home on his saddlebow. Folk—women mainly—with an eye to romance might see it as the stuff minstrels wrote songs about, but then few of them had seen the wee icicle of a lassie they had carried into the Keep.
    Iseabel Ruthven’s countenance was hardly that of a bearer of bad tidings, but Nhaimeth bided his time until she sent her bairns off in the charge of a maid who guided them out of the hall by the scruff of their necks with Iseabel simply shaking her head, as if there was nae kenning what they would be up to next. Looking up at her, Nhaimeth asked “What word of the lass we found? Did she survive the night?”
    “That she did. I’m certain she will be fit enough to join the Yule celebrations,” Iseabel informed him, but apart frae that,