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other.”
    A threat he didn’t doubt Drummond would keep. Turning from the sight of Iseabal’s mortification, Alisdair stared up at the ruin of the stained-glass window. He noticed the motto etched on the sword. Loyalty . How far did his own loyalty extend? To marrying a woman he’d no wish to wed? To beggaring himself in order to safeguard land his family would never hold?
    The money he’d saved from his voyages had been set aside to expand the shipyard. He wanted to build faster ships incorporating the ideas of the Fortitude . If he altered the hull design, he could create a swan upon the water, a silent, beautiful, and speedy vessel that could outrun and outmaneuver anything currently afloat.
    The decision had been made, Alisdair realized, the moment he’d stepped onto MacRae soil. Or maybe it had come before then, when he’d been a boy sitting on the floor beside his brothers in front of the fire, listening to his mother and father tell stories of Gilmuir. Or perhaps it was not a decision after all, but a gift to his parents and the others from Scotland who had made such a sacrifice in order to survive.
    Alisdair turned, encountering the older woman’s glance. There was panic in her eyes and a supplication as heartfelt as any prayer. She wanted her daughter gone from here, and it was not difficult to understand why. Drummond had treated Iseabal with such easy disdain that it must have been a habit of a lifetime.
    “Well?” Magnus asked, the word more a demand than a question. He stood, pushing Iseabal away from him. She stumbled, falling to the floor with only a slight gasp of alarm. Alisdair reached her in seconds, bent down, and placing his hands on her arms, helped her rise.
    She got to her knees, her face only inches from his. Her lips were white, but she uttered just one small sound as he helped her stand. “You’re not well,” he said quietly.
    “I’m fine,” she whispered, her gaze meeting his in a swift plea before glancing toward her father.
    What sort of man engenders such fear in his own daughter?
    “I’ll pay your price, Drummond,” he said reluctantly. “For Gilmuir and Iseabal.”
    “Then we’ll draw up a bargain between us,” the other man said. Drummond’s glance at his wife was evidently command enough. Leah rose, placing her needlework on the chair before moving to her daughter. Together the two of them left the room.
    “How did it go?” Daniel asked when Alisdair emerged from Fernleigh an hour later.
    “I’ve bought the land,” Alisdair said, frowning at Daniel. The transfer of his funds had been made by letter, the wedding bargain reached, both deeds done with such dispatch that he was still reeling from the speed of it. He glanced back at the Drummond fortress.
    “I’m also to be married,” he said, astonishment coloring his voice. “Tomorrow.”

Chapter 4
    T oday was her wedding day.
    Iseabal stood staring out her bedroom window, wondering if the weather was a portent for her marriage. The dawn mist had given way to a heavy shower that thundered against the roof, slanting against the windowpanes in watery disapproval.
    Those passing between the outbuildings and Fernleigh did so quickly, their hurried footsteps marking the sodden path. Even the walls of her room seemed to weep with the dampness, as if subtly chastising Iseabal for her resolve.
    She would not cry.
    Any wish not to be married would be futile. This was the way of the world, after all. Daughters were to be wed, as profitably as possible. At least this bridegroom was young and healthy.
    She had, at least, a passing acquaintance with those men who’d made a bid for her hand. She’d known the name of the palsied old man who’d tried to grope her, and the character of the toothless magistrate who’d been fascinated with her bottom. She’d been told where they lived, and what each man required for a wife—a fertile breeder, a mother to his children, or a nurse in his old age.
    All she knew of the MacRae