Taken by the Border Rebel. Blythe Gifford

      Was the world better off with him dead? No doubt. But she would not admit that to Rob Brunson.

      She drew herself up to her princess height. ‘If you are unable, or unwilling, to provide good fresh fish for your table, then say so and I’ll go hungry. Don’t mock my clothes or insult my family instead.’

      Shock. Anger. A clenched fist and jaw and a face as grim as the bare hills in winter. Would his anger be enough for him to let her out of the tower?

      ‘Ye want fish. We’ll get fish. But you’ll be the one to do it. And I warn you, you and your clothes will be wet and bedraggled before we’re through.’

      And she couldn’t hold back a smile. Because she was sure his would be the same.

       Chapter Four

      Cate told Rob she couldn’t bear to set eyes on a Storwick, so Rob kept Stella in her room until Johnnie and Cate rode west the next morning.

      Now, he was left alone with her and with the promise he’d made. He could not force her into the stream wearing a flour-covered dress, so he persuaded a few of the women to loan her skirt, shirt and vest. Stella emerged from the room looking at once like all the other women he knew and nothing like them at all.

      Breasts he had barely noticed beneath her own gown now seemed proudly outlined above the Widow Gregor’s second-best vest. Beggy Tait’s skirt was too short for her, which meant a glimpse of bare ankle. Even the sharp angles of her face seemed softened when she wore ordinary clothes.

      But her expression was not.

      And still, hanging around her neck was that golden cross, studded with some green stone and with a fleck of flour stuck in the delicate wire. Something finer than he or his father had seen in a lifetime. Her family must have lifted it off the very queen.

      But why did she wear it? If Storwick had sold it, his clan could have feasted until the end of days.

      Apparently oblivious to the glory around her neck, Stella held out folded fabric, dusted with white. ‘I will leave this with the laundress.’

      Well, new clothes had taken no edge off her sense of privilege. His anger was exhausted. Now, he was simply baffled. She was no dullard, yet still she surveyed the tower as if she owned it instead of he. ‘Do you not yet understand that you are the prisoner here?’

      ‘And do you not understand that I am …?’ She let go the rest of the words and her arms, holding the dress, drooped.

      ‘What?’

      She shook her head, for once, holding back words.

      ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t. Just who are you to think yourself entitled to treatment I wouldn’t give the King himself?’

      Chastened eyes met his. ‘I am a hostage for the good behaviour of the rest of my clan.’

      He didn’t believe she meant a bit of it.

      She turned back to the room. ‘I’ll leave the dress on the bed.’

      ‘Do you know anything more of washing than cooking?’

      She looked up, then let her eyes drop as she shook her head.

      He sighed. If they didn’t clean her dress, she’d have to be garbed in borrowed clothes the others could ill afford to lend. ‘Bring it. Widow Gregor does some washing.’

      They stopped at the Gregor hut and the Widow’s eyes went wide, as if the green dress were as precious as the necklace. ‘I’ll do my best, but I don’t know, I’ve never …’

      Beside him, Stella waved her hand, as if the dress were of no importance. As if she had hundreds more like it at home.

      Wat trailed after them as they left, watching Stella with the same worshipful gaze that used to follow Rob.

      Truth was, the boy’s adoration had never been comfortable for him. It held expectations Rob wasn’t sure any man could meet. But he had grown accustomed to it. And it made no sense for the boy to waste his admiration on Stella Storwick.

      Wat looked at Rob and smiled. ‘She’s a very pretty dragon.’

      Eyes wide, Stella glanced up at Rob, making no apparent effort to hide a smile before she turned to the lad. ‘Why, thank you, Wat.’

      ‘Go back, boy,’ Rob snarled.

      She took the boy’s hand and pulled him closer. ‘The fault is not his.’

      That, he knew. He’d like to make it hers, but that would be a lie. ‘We don’t need him with us.’

      Her hand touched Wat’s shoulder. ‘He’ll do no harm.’

      ‘Nor any good, either.’ The boy had few uses. Simple tasks, sometimes, he could do.

      ‘Of course he can,’ she said, looking at the boy as if he were more than a halfwit. ‘Can’t you, Wat?’

      Wat nodded.

      ‘He’ll agree with anything you say,’ Rob said. Or he used to. Before this woman arrived and the boy developed his own opinions about dragons.

      ‘But you told me,’ she began, words and eyes sending a warning, ‘that he would be good help with whatever we needed.’ She hugged the boy closer, as if he were a shield, and the child turned his worshipful gaze back to Rob.

      He shook his head. The woman might not be able to cook or wash, but she could manoeuvre this boy as skilfully as he deployed men in battle. And, in the process, she gave him no choice but to be cruel or to allow the lad to come.

      He crouched before the boy. ‘So you want to fish, do you?’

      Wat nodded.

      ‘Then come along.’ Under the boy’s watchful eyes, he would have to throttle his words. And his temper. Which was, of course, exactly what the woman had intended.

      But she was looking at Wat and tugging his hand to draw his attention back to her. ‘You must stay close to me and not go too far into the water. I must bring you safely back to your mother.’

      But Wat, excited, wiggled like a pup and tugged at Stella’s hand, trying to hurry her towards the stream.

      ‘Go, then,’ Stella said. Wat took off running. ‘But don’t go in the water!’

      Suddenly alone with her again, Rob missed the boy’s protection. ‘Well, he’s with us. What would you have him do?’

      ‘He can carry the fish.’

      Rob threw Stella a warning look. ‘If we ever catch one.’

      Despite her warning, Wat did not wait at the water’s edge, but ran in, stomping and splashing and throwing water in the air.

      Stella ran, but Rob was faster. He scooped the wet, wriggling boy from the water and stood him back on the bank. ‘Did you think to scare the fish out of the water? If there was a fish there before, he’s swum for his life now.’

      Wat cringed and Rob realised how harsh he must have sounded.

      Stella knelt before the boy and hugged him. ‘I told you not to go in yet.’

      Wat looked from one to the other and shrugged off her arms, as if bracing for a blow. ‘My fault.’

      ‘Yes, it is,’ Rob agreed sharply.

      Her arms took the boy again and now she was the shield between them. ‘Do not blame him. He’s a …’ She paused, as if not wanting the boy to hear her insult.

      ‘He’s a fool.’

      ‘He’s a child, not a man.’

      ‘On this side of the border, he is a man. Or should be.’ Poor weak creature. Like the baby lamb, destined for an early death.

      But