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Waiting to speak with Evander was torture. She sat there, trying to keep herself from imagining how the conversation would go, but it was difficult when it was all she could think of.

The fire had burned down to embers by the time she heard his step in the corridor.

She felt her stomach twist into knots. It was the conversation she wanted to have. The conversation she had been waiting to have this entire time. But now that she actually had to have it, she wasn’t sure. Wasn’t as confident.

She had not undressed. She sat on the edge of the bed in her blue gown, with the MacArthur tartan still pinned at her shoulder, her hands folded in her lap so tightly that her knuckles ached.

She had been sitting like that for nearly an hour. Below, the pipes had gone quiet, and the hall had emptied, and one by one the voices in the courtyard had faded into the night.

She had rehearsed what she would say a dozen times. Calmly. With dignity. Like a sensible woman of seven-and-twenty. But it was one thing to rehearse what you were going to say, and another thing entirely to actually force out the words.

The door opened, and every word flew out of her head.

Evander ducked beneath the lintel, loosening the brooch at his shoulder, and stopped when he saw her. A slow smile spread across his face.

God help her, it was the smile she had begun looking forward to seeing.

“There ye are. I thought ye’d fallen asleep in the nursery again.” He crossed toward her. “Ye missed the last reel. Callum danced with the cook and nearly⁠—”

“Is it true?”

He stopped.

“Is what true, wife?”

“That ye have no intention of ever loving me.” Her voice came out steadier than she’d expected. “That I’m a means to securing an alliance. A lass with a laird for a braither and another for a braither-in-law. A womb for yer heir and a name to put on yer treaties.” She lifted her chin. “Is it true, Evander?”

The smile was gone. Something shuttered behind his eyes, the way it had on the road when the grey-bearded man had said ye’re wanted at home.

“Who told ye that?” he demanded.

“It doesnae matter.”

Because it didn’t. How could it matter when it was the truth? The fact that he jumped so quickly to learning who had spoken with her proved to her that Callum’s words were true.

Evander never had any intention of loving her. It wouldn’t matter what they went through. He would never allow himself to fall in love.

“It matters to me.”

“It doesnae matter what was said to me and what I realized on me own,” Freya insisted. “What matters, husband, is that it’s true, is it nae?”

He looked at her for a long moment. She watched him weigh it, watched him decide whether to lie, and some small, foolish part of her prayed that he would.

He didn’t.

“Aye,” he said quietly. “It’s true.”

Freya had thought she was ready for it, but she was not. She had wanted to hear the truth, but hearing it felt like being slapped. Her breath hitched, and tears sprang to her eyes, but she wasn’t going to allow herself to cry. Not here. Not now.

Whatever his reasons, they wouldn’t be enough to ease the hurt she felt. She had never planned to fall in love either. But she had begun to trust him, to look for him in doorways, to imagine the twins growing up with the two of them.

Why would he throw away the chance of something real before it had even begun?

“I have no plan to fall in love,” he went on, and each word was placed like a stone in a wall. “Nae with ye, nae with anyone. Love prevents ye from seeing what’s right and what’s wrong. I watched it rot me faither from the inside after me maither died. He grieved her until there was nothing left of him but temper and pride, and twenty-three men died at a ford because of it.” His jaw tightened. “I will never let meself become me faither. Never hurt me children or me clan.”

“So ye’d rather hurt me,” Freya snapped.

“Daenae be ridiculous, wife.” He said it almost gently, which was worse. “We havenae been together long enough for me choices to affect ye so much. Ye’re letting this get out of hand.”