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anything except dirt under the earl’s feet? You’re nothing and never will be.”
    The mockery sent Paul’s fury over the edge. He grabbed Fraser’s shirt and shoved him against the wall. “Don’t be talking to me like that. I will bring him down. I swear it, on my life.” His blood thundered through him at the taunt. He didn’t care if no one believed it but him.
    “If you attack him with that sort of rage, it
will
cost you your life.” Fraser pressed him back gently, straightening his coat. “You haven’t the first idea of what it takes to bring down a man of his rank.” He lowered his voice, and it held an edge Paul had never guessed. “Unless you put aside your anger and learn.”
    The words quieted his anger, offering him a pathway of hope. “What do you mean?”
    “You want him gone from Scotland, am I right?”
    Paul nodded, letting out a slow breath. If the earl abandoned his property there, they could live in peace with no one to tell them how to live. “I do.”
    Fraser walked over to a bookshelf containing leather-bound volumes. He reached inside and pulled one out. “Killing Strathford won’t make him go away. His heirs will only rise up and grow stronger. A man of his power will yield only to a greater power. And you, lad, have no power at all.” His uncle handed him the book. “Can you read?”
    Paul nodded, for his father had taught him since he was a lad. “Well enough.”
    “Good.” He pointed to the shelf of books. “Your education will be the gateway to power. Learn quickly, and you can change yourself.”
    He might have suspected his uncle would try to fight his battles without fists. Paul didn’t believe it for a moment. What good were books and learning when it came to Strathland, who could twist the law into what he wanted?
    “Why should I? I could wait a few months, return, and burn his home to the ground.”
    “The coward’s path,” Fraser chided. “And what then? You’ll go back to herding sheep until they bring you to trial and hang you. Just like your father.”
    Before Paul realized what had happened, Fraser grabbed his shirt and slammed him against the bookcase. His head knocked against the wooden shelf, and he saw stars for a moment. “And here I thought you were smarter than that.” His uncle eyed him with distaste.
    “I
am
smart,” he gritted out, tasting blood on his lip. “But books willna avenge my father’s death.”
    Fraser released him. “Go back to Scotland, then, if that’s what you want. Kill the earl, and waste your life. I won’t grieve for the loss of a brainless lad.”
    “I canna let it go,” Paul insisted
.
    “Don’t you understand, lad? Dying is easy. Wouldn’t you rather he suffered for his sins? Would it not be a greater punishment for him to live in the same poverty he put you in?”
    Paul hadn’t considered that, but his uncle’s words made him hesitate.
    “If you were a more intelligent lad, you’d know that patience would bring a greater fall to the earl. As it is…” His uncle lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “You’ll hide away in Edinburgh for a few months, return to Ballaloch with a loaded pistol, and end bothyour lives.” He shook his head, his mouth curling with a dark smile. “Because you’re too eager to act now, instead of learning how to truly bring down your enemy.”
    He wove another picture with his words: “Imagine Strathland suffering through a winter with no food. With not a coin in his pocket, debt-ridden, until his heirs inherit nothing. He’ll have to sell off any unentailed land, possibly the property in Scotland. Or he’ll abandon it to live in a dirt-ridden hovel in the city, bemoaning his lack of coin until he drinks himself to death. That would be a more fitting revenge. To bring him down where he belongs.”
    Paul’s earlier rage had died down, and the image of a fallen earl was more welcome than a dead one. Strathland had never known hardship. He’d never gone to sleep hungry, the