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before? Not when my father visits here?’ Eva could not remember even seeing him.
    â€˜Nay, lady. Just when he came to our house a sennight ago.’
    â€˜Last week? He has been here a week?’ Eva found it exhausting just to sit up, so trying to figure out his identity tired her even more.
    â€˜Aye,’ Brita said. ‘He asked to rent this cottage. Said the laird set him to the task of finding you.’
    She sat in silence as the girl tended to her hair. She desperately needed to wash it, but just having it brushed was a pleasure. Brita finished the tasks she’d been sent to carry out and curtsied when she was leaving. She stopped at the door, just before opening it.
    â€˜My mam said you should know that your bleeding stopped two days ago. She was the first one to tend to you, lady.’ The girl’s face filled with a blush as she said such a thing. ‘She said she thought you would want to know.’
    Eva smiled and nodded, feeling both relief and sorrow. The fever and bleeding had been happening together since she’d given birth. Fearing childbed fever and death, Eva knew it had continued too long. But her mother had refused to speak of the birth at all, so there had been no one she could seek advice from. Everyone at Castle Varrich had been forbidden to speak to her about those months she’d spent away, visiting kin in the west was the explanation.
    Brita left, and Eva remained sitting up, leaning against the wall with several blankets behind her. Rob would return shortly, according to the girl, and it would do her good to move a bit. But, she feared the first time she would put her weight on her injured ankle. Even now, wrapped tightly, it throbbed from just moving it around as she washed and dressed.
    A few minutes later, the door opened and he walked in.
    The first thing she noticed was that his auburn hair was windblown and wild. She must be feeling better if she was taking in such details now. He seemed more alive than when he’d left. He pushed the door, and she heard the latch catch.
    â€˜I found this in the cave,’ he said, tossing the small bag to her. He was angry. Again.
    She opened it and found the few things she’d managed to take with her when she’d run off in the middle of the night. A small purse filled with coins. A small sgian dubh made to fit a woman’s hand. A comb. An extra shift. Her prayer beads. And the skin of water she carried.
    â€˜You left the safety of your father’s keep with only this?’ he asked. ‘What was so terrible that you would risk your life to get away?’ His hands fisted and released, and she could feel waves of ire pouring off him. ‘Why did you run?’
    Something was terribly wrong here. If she’d suspected it before, Eva knew it now. This man had no right to speak to her like this. Or to be in the same chamber as she. Or to demand help and supplies on behalf of her father. Who was he?
    A sick feeling roiled through her stomach then. It had nothing to do with her illness and everything to do with the man standing before her.
    If he’d been paid to do this by her father, he would have sent word for someone to come for her in her condition. A mercenary would not even worry over her illness, he would be paid for finding her.
    A mercenary would not give a moment’s thought to why she’d run or what she’d taken. He would not have done most of the things this man had in caring for her.
    A sinking feeling filled her, and she could feel the blood draining from her face and head. It took all of her courage to ask the question that now spun out in the space between them, but she must. The answer, which she suspected she already knew, would explain so much.
    â€˜You are not my father’s man.’ She asked, her voice trembling with each word, ‘You are the Mackintosh’s counsellor and cousin, are you not?’
    He crossed his arms over his chest and nodded. If his