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and her parents’ rejection because of it. She’d felt the twins’ helplessness in the face of their fates being chosen for them by an uncaring father because it was so like her own.
    Her father had cared, but he’d been equally certain he knew what was best, and forcing her into marriage with the baron had been at the top of that list.
    “I owe them both a debt of honor for watching over you and the children.”
    He’d said something like that before. It made no more sense to her now than it had earlier.
    But she would make no attempt to disabuse him of the notion. If he felt some obligation to Audrey and Thomas, perhaps he would be more apt to help them find safety, if not Shona herself.
    “I am going back to bed.” She turned to retrace her steps to her room.
    “You are still tired?” he asked, keeping pace with her.
    “No.” In fact, she was not, but she wasn’t about to wander the passageways of the sleeping keep, either.
    “Then perhaps we can talk?” Caelis asked, sounding less demanding than she’d ever heard him.
    Shona stopped at her door, looking up at the only male visage that had ever stirred desire in her.
    Even now, after everything, her need for him was a low rumble in her belly. She’d been sure that part of her was dead, but one day in his company and she knew it was not. She wanted him as much as she ever had, but she would
not
have him.
    Forcing the visceral need aside, she asked with no small amount of unbelief, “You wish to discuss the issues between us
now
, in the wee hours?”
    “Aye.”
    “’Tis hardly appropriate behavior.” She shook her head. Not to deny him, but in wonder at his audacity.
    “I do not concern myself with what is proper.”
    “You never did.” But she’d thought he had the honor to make improper behavior right.
    He had not.
    “There was a time when you would have laughed at this English sense of propriety you seek to hide behind now.”
    “I learned why proper behavior has its place.” As protection from what had happened to her, for one thing.
    “Please, Shona. Hear me out.”
    Honestly? She felt no inclination to do so, but she needed information on what Caelis planned to do now that he’d discovered he had a son. If he’d denied Eadan, all would be so simple. She would have gone to Balmoral Island as planned and thrown herself on the mercy of family relations—however tenuous.
    But now Shona feared losing her son to his father as much as her flight from England had been spurred by her terror of losing Eadan to Percival’s evil machinations.
    “You will not take my son from me,” she promised Caelis as she pushed the door to her chamber open.
    “That is not my intention.”
    She turned to face him, still on the threshold, not letting him into the room. “You mocked me once with words that did not match your actions; this time I will not be so easily fooled.”
    “Let me explain,” Caelis said again, more plea than demand.
    It was so unusual to hear the strong warrior speak thus, she found herself nodding and stepping back to allow him into the bedchamber.
    There was a low boxlike chest against one wall and Shona used it to sit on, ignoring the very existence of the bed and hoping Caelis would do so as well.
    She would have gone to the great hall, but she wanted someone to overhear her shame even less than she desired to be caught in a compromising position with Caelis.
    “I find it odd you were sleeping outside my door,” she said as Caelis paced the room but did not start this grand explanation he had alluded to.
    “I was not sleeping.”
    “What were you doing then?”
    “Guarding you.” Caelis stopped in front of her. “Fighting my need to come inside.”
    She almost laughed. “You would have me believe that after you tossed me aside six years ago, your passions for me burn so bright they keep you up at night on vigil outside my room?”
    ’Twas ludicrous. If he’d been as afflicted by desire for her as she was him, he never