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“Alex”—her whisper was fraught with panic and pleading—“I beg ye, do not speak of it.”
    “We cannot pretend it did not happen, Bel.”
    Isobel closed her eyes at the sound of Cameron’s soft reproach. Dearest Cam. Of her six brothers, he was the quiet one, a ghost of who he once was, unseen and unheard. He’d been just eight summers old when their father was murdered, and he had never fully healed from the loss.
    “We cannot pretend.” Isobel smiled, feigning courage for his sake. “But we can try to ferget. We need to go home, Cameron. I just need to bring ye both home safely.”
    Shadows moved across his handsome features, dulling his somber green gaze behind a spray of deep auburn hair. He nodded and said nothing more.
    Satisfied that at least one of her brothers had some sense in his head, Isobel scooped her spoon into her soup and brought it to her lips. Somehow, she would convince Alex to return home with her, but she would do so later, after she—Her gaze found Tristan over the span of tables separating them. Firelight shimmered across his features, softening the hard angles of his jaw, defining the naturally sensuous dip of his upper lip. After his swift departure from her this afternoon, she had expected to find him delighting in the company of a dozen giggling ladies all vying for his favor. What she found instead was a MacGregor with a dark temper and a sorcerer’s smile, both equally dangerous. Dear God, for a single instant, just after the Englishman who had insulted her brothers crashed to his arse, she almost hadn’t cared who her chivalrous stranger from the garden was. She looked away now, hating him even more than the rest of them.
    She would think on him no more. She would enjoy the king’s feast and all the different spices that graced her palate. She tried to name each of them and remember which to add to her garden, but it was not an easy task to ignore a wolf in the midst of a flock of sheep. She’d known he was rogue an instant after she met him. How could she have let his vibrant smiles and witty words deceive her? How could she have thought him noble, thoughtful, and more exciting than any man she had ever known?
    More times than she could stop them, her eyes drifted back to his table. She watched, torn between incredulity and disgust, while, over the course of supper, four different ladies found the empty chair between Tristan and his sister and sat themselves in it to share a word with him. He gave them that and much more—his full attention and that lightning-quick grin riddled with frivolity, which, oddly, made it even more alluring. The ladies all left giggling like overeager milkmaids.
    Well, Isobel thought, tearing at her bread, she was no damned sheep. She knew exactly what kind of man he was behind those wide, winsome grins. Her gaze moved to Tristan’s father sitting at his right. They were MacGregors and they were all the same: loathsome, merciless, murdering bastards. She wished them all the same death.
    Later, when the tables had been cleared away and the musicians took up their instruments, Isobel stood at the far end of the Banqueting House watching the dancers take the floor. She had no intention of joining the king’s elegant guests. She didn’t know how to dance, and even if she had, she’d much rather have looked on than participated. She’d never seen such magnificent gowns and wondered if she would be able to sew anything like them if she had the necessary materials. The colors swirling against the enormous hearth fire mesmerized her as beautiful ladies wove through rows of elegant men to music that made her forget the very different life she led.
    Her heart warmed when Lady FitzSimmons, a striking young Frenchwoman, blushed—or mayhap it was just the red rouge painted against her ivory complexion—at Cameron’s ardent grin as he looped his arm through hers.
    Isobel took delight in her brother’s pleasure, for he found so little of it at home.