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homeward. Of course they were. They left satisfied, having obtained what they came for. She left as nothing more than spoils to the victor. The gray-speckled palfrey she rode upon held more worth than she in these men’s eyes.
    She rubbed away those tears at last and stared ahead, for there was no looking back now. She was a fallen leaf, adrift upon a sea of Campbells. At the front of the procession, Myles and his father rode side by side, their equally broad shoulders swaying in unison with the tide of their men. When father turned to son, their profiles were so physically alike her gut gave a violent churn. That face—Cedric Campbell’s face, so much like her own husband’s—was the last vision her mother had ever beheld.
    Yet last night, Fiona had lain beneath Myles, timid as a field mouse when she should have roared like a lion. The memory of her acquiescence—nay, her encouragement—scorched in the light of the day. A true warrior would’ve faced the morning with a bloodied lip and blackened eye, for if she’d fought as a Sinclair should, surely he would’ve struck her and she could parade her injuries, bold and proud, before her brothers. But she had not fought back.
    No, far worse than that. She’d quivered and sighed like one of his paid whores, and today, shame burned her at its stake.
    “I’ve little fondness for riding, miss. You tell that graceless brute to find me a cart.” Bess rode up beside her, on a nag so old and rheumy they nearly looked related, both swaybacked and toothy.
    “You should not have pleaded so to come, Bess. You sacrifice too much. You were supposed to stay and care for Marg,” Fiona said to her old nurse. “And what good will come of it? You think you can protect me with those scrawny arms of yours?”
    Bess held out one arm to examine it. “No, but I can bear witness to all I see. And they know that.” She nodded, triumphant at her faulty wisdom.
    “You’ll see nothing but the inside of a pit if you cross them.”
    The woman’s well-intentioned meddling had gone too far. This morning, the sweet, old ninny had knelt at the foot of the Campbell himself and asked if she might come along to see to her mistress. She’d nearly tripped him with her eagerness.
    “Don’t be peevish, girl. ’Twas your welfare I was thinking of. Margaret will be fine. She’s stronger than you give her credit.”
    “She’s a child.”
    “But she’s not your child. You’ve coddled her too much since your mother died, and it’s no wonder. But soon you’ll have a babe of your own to care for, and you’ll realize Marg can fend for herself.”
    A child of her own? Her senses reeled, nearly toppling her from the saddle, and for the second time in as many days, she fought to keep her breakfast. With a fist pressed hard against her belly, she sent up a silent prayer to the God who had forsaken her, begging for a barren womb.
    A Campbell babe inside her? How could she not despise it? Just one more thing tying her to Myles. And to Cedric Campbell.
    As the traveled distance grew, so burgeoned Fiona’s nauseating fear and the certainty that destiny was hers alone to shape. Like a tiny seed, an idea germinated. As the miles passed, she nurtured it, as she would never nurture any child of the Campbell bloodline. And as they stopped in a glen next to a stream to make camp for the night, Fiona knew what she must do.
    Myles stretched his back and tried to rub the tension from his neck. ’Twas near dusk when his father reined in his own mount and instructed the men to make camp. With military precision, each Campbell dismounted and went to his duties, assembling a tent, building fires, or tending to the horses. They were a troop of twenty brawny lads, each hearty and hale. Men he’d taken into both battle and brothel. Men he trusted with his life. Someday he’d be their laird, and they would serve him well, as they had the earl. He swung a leg around and climbed down from his destrier, stiff but glad