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“I am considering that she might be telling the truth.”

Duncan stepped closer, his expression sobering. Alisdair had known him his whole life, knew that he played the jester more often than not, but he knew just as well that his friend was no fool.

“What do yer instincts tell ye?”

Alisdair’s jaw tightened. He thought of the desperation in Isla’s eyes, the way she had looked at him as if he were her only hope, the dirt on her skirts, her fingers white against that pathetic little satchel.

“She is either the most desperate woman I have ever met,” he said, “or the most dangerous.”

“One doesnae exclude the other,” Duncan pointed out. “Desperate people do desperate things. If she is lying, she is dang good at it.”

Alisdair glanced at the door Isla had disappeared through. He should have known that she would bring nothing but trouble from the very first moment he laid eyes on her.

Two days had passed, and Alisdair still hadn’t seen her. For her safety, and for his own peace of mind, she was confined to her quarters. She was fed and allowed all comforts, but he wouldn’t have her roam freely in the castle to report back to her uncle. He had also made sure that her room overlooked the hills and nothing more.

He wondered what had occupied her mind these past two days. When he demanded a report on her movements, he was told that the first day she had mostly slept, exhausted from the journey.

“Ye are a fool, Duncan!” Ewan yelled, jolting him out of his thoughts.

Alisdair drew his attention back to the argument in front of him.

“I didnae trust her either,” Duncan admitted, “and I still daenae. But if she is tellin’ the truth, then she is an asset. For years we have been trying to spy on Sinclair to no avail.”

“And now she is so conveniently delivered to us!” Ewan scoffed. “Go tease some milkmaids, Duncan. That is all ye seem to be good at.”

“Unlike ye, who cannae even seduce a cow,” Duncan retorted. “Daenae let hate blind ye. We could finally have the weapon we need.”

“Or put a barrel of gunpowder in our midst.”

Alisdair listened to them both, caught between the two arguments. What Isla offered was invaluable information, but her presence here could just as easily become a trove of knowledge for her uncle, should she ever decide to run back to him.

But there was another part of him weighing in, one that had nothing to do with logic or strategy, feuds or politics. It was her. Not as a pawn, or a weapon, or a trap. But simply her. Isla. Her spine and nerve, her despair and demand. And her eyes.

It was late, the castle long asleep, and Alisdair was still in his study, watching the flames dance in the hearth. He knew well he could not keep her in that room indefinitely. He had to decide—accept her proposal, or send her away.

“Dang it!”

He stood and left the study, taking the winding corridors and stairs. He needed one more thing before he made a decision that would change everything.

No one saw or heard him until he found himself standing outside Isla’s bedchamber. He dismissed the guard posted at her door, who scurried off without question.

He stood there for a long moment, not entirely sure what he was doing. And then, before he could talk himself out of it, he knocked on the door.

He heard a commotion inside and then the sound of feet on the cold stone. Then a pause.

“Isla.” That was all he said.

Another beat of silence. Then the creak of the door handle. He braced himself, as though preparing to face an army, as the door opened.

Isla stood there with her hair loose, a shawl wrapped over a thin, nearly transparent nightshift. She pulled it tighter around her, trying to cover as much of her body as it would allow.

His eyes slid down her body, the outline of her shape faint through the thin fabric in the candlelight.

“Alisdair!” she hissed when he caught her gaze.

He looked up into her furious eyes. Even in the darkness, there was no mistaking that blue.

A smirk tugged at his lips. “Nae me Laird, now?”