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Walter said at long last, moving to her side. “He wanted to make amends by giving ye a fitting bridal gift. So we went on a wee ride into Campbell lands to lift a few fat cattle.”
    She turned a horrified gaze to Roddy’s younger brother. “Ye . . . ye went reiving? On my wedding night?”
    “It wasn’t my idea, lass,” Walter said. “I tried to talk Roddy out of it. Ye can ask any of these lads here. They’ll vouch for me, they will.”
    “What happened?” Regan dragged in a shuddering breath. She gestured to the lifeless form of her husband. “How did this happen?”
    “The Campbells weren’t in a verra forgiving mood when they caught up with us. We found ourselves fighting for our lives. Finally, Roddy cried out to the Campbells that we yielded. That seemed to satisfy them, once we had thrown down all our weapons. I thought then that we might actually live through this, especially when the Campbell leader next ordered us to depart. Things got a bit confused then, in the darkness and all, and I lost track of Roddy. Soon thereafter, a shot rang out.
    “The clouds momentarily parted and, in the moonlight, I saw Roddy fall. I wheeled about just in time to catch a flash of a silver pistol in the hand of the man who had just fired it. Fired a bullet into my brother’s back.” His mouth contorted in hatred. “The cowardly, cold-blooded knave!”
    Time stilled. Blood pounded through Regan’s skull until she thought she’d scream. All the while, though, a chill calm spread through her. Roddy was dead, and the man who had murdered him still lived.
    “Who?” she gritted out the demand. “Who killed Roddy?”
    “The laird of Balloch Castle, no less,” Walter hissed. “None other than Iain Campbell himself.”

2
    It’s strange what kinds of thoughts enter yer head when ye least expect them, Regan mused three days later as she watched the final shovelfuls of dirt tumble down onto Roddy’s casket. Rather than dwell on the morbid scene of glum MacLaren clansmen or the still wailing bean-tuiream —professional mourning woman who had followed the coffin to the kirk graveyard—Regan chose instead to consider her current options. Mayhap it was just her way of distancing herself so she might cling fast to the tattered remnants of her control. Or mayhap she truly was, in the end, as cold-blooded and hard of heart as Roddy sometimes accused her of being.
    One way or another, Regan knew she had to maintain her sanity, had to survive. That resolve hadn’t changed but only evolved over the years from a childish, unthinking instinct to one of now-conscious intent. With Roddy gone, however, the only question remaining was should she continue on here or attempt once again to return to her own clan? Unfortunately, the decision was no simpler than it had ever been.
    Walter had already made it clear that her place was here, that in everything but birth she was now a MacLaren. And there was some truth in the fact that Strathyre House, whether she had ever wished it so or not, had long ago become her home.
    She had been only five when her parents had brought her here to stay with one of her mother’s cousins, a dour-faced, imposing woman who was by then Roddy and Walter’s stepmother. But only for a few months, her parents had assured her, while they journeyed to Edinburgh to attend the widowed queen, Mary of Guise’s, appointment ceremony as Governor of Scotland to rule in the place of her young daughter, Mary, until she came of age. Though that day had been over twelve years ago, Regan recalled it yet as if it had been yesterday.
    She had begged her parents until she was hoarse, then screamed and wept until her voice was gone, pleading with them to reconsider and take her with them. But they had remained adamant, promising to return just as soon as they could. Their departure had sent Regan to her bed for nearly a week, in which she refused to eat or be consoled. Indeed, what could be said that would justify such