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It was mostly her fault. She shouldn’t have acknowledged Adam in the first place. She should have ignored him.

He could have gone on pretending he was a monk. She would have maintained her composure and continued on her way.

But she’d been so surprised to see him. Almost as surprised as he was to be recognized. And once she’d gazed into his enthralling eyes, her mind had gone blank. Panic set in. She forgot for a moment who she was supposed to be.

As for who he was, she honestly didn’t know. Maybe he was a monk from Scone Priory. If that were true, there wasn’t much she could do to save him from the prior’s wrath.

But something told her that wasn’t his real identity. And since she’d gotten him into this mess, it was up to her to get him out of it.

Hopefully, he’d be safe enough until the morrow. Most monastic punishments weren’t too severe. They commonly involved things like confinement in one’s cell for a day or going to bed without supper.

Meanwhile, she’d change into her habit and seek lodging at the nearby convent as Sister Eve.

She dug her satchel out of the leaves and opened it to do an inventory of the contents. She had an idea for a costume that would take the rest of the day to complete. But with any luck, when she returned to Scone Priory in the morn, no one would recognize her.

As it turned out, Eve got a late start the next day. At breakfast, the abbess at the convent was eager for news from the traveling sister. Eve had scarcely buttered her bread when the nuns began peppering her with questions about the nunnery in the west.

Eventually she was able to excuse herself.

She thanked them for their charity, though some of it they weren’t aware of yet.

But she left ample coin in the cell where she’d slept to pay for the things she’d procured without permission—the bedsheets, a wax tablet and stylus, a wooden candlestick, and most of the tail hair from the convent’s old mule.

By the time she bid them farewell, the sun was already halfway on its morning journey toward midday.

In the woods, she changed into the disguise she’d stitched out of the pale linen bedsheets—a rough cassock with a braided belt.

She stuffed the top with rags to thicken her torso.

Tying back her hair, she covered her head with an oversized gray cowl.

Then she rolled on the forest floor to dirty the garments.

To disguise her hands and bare feet, she wrapped them with scraps of mud-stained linen.

She’d wanted to stain them with blood and perhaps animal dung.

But there were limits to her commitment to the role.

Using pine pitch, she artfully affixed the mule hair to her face, creating an unkempt, grizzled beard that hung halfway down her chest. She added the cross she’d roughly carved out of the wooden candlestick, as well as the tablet and stylus, hung around her neck by strips of braided linen.

As a finishing touch, she smeared her face and fingers with charred peat.

Along the way, she found a fallen oak branch that was just the right size for a staff.

It was midday when she entered the gates of Scone Priory with a slow and measured gait, leaning heavily on the staff, as if she’d been walking for months. Anyone who saw her would recognize her as an ascetic and a pilgrim.

Despite her unclean appearance, she would be welcome among the monks, of course. They would offer her food at their table. And unless part of Adam’s punishment was going hungry, he would be among those supping.

She stopped at the fountain, ostensibly to get a drink. But she was actually perusing the cloister, looking for signs of Adam or the prior. And finding nothing.

Suddenly someone tugged on the back of her cassock.

She turned round with a scowl. It was a pair of oblates. They looked to be about seven years old, with brown cassocks, wide eyes, and inquisitive faces.

“Are ye a pilgrim?” one of them asked.

Eve gave them a slow nod.

“Where are ye goin’?” demanded the other.

She narrowed her eyes. Then she picked up the tablet and scrawled into it with the stylus, turning it toward them.

The first one squinted at the letters. “CAN…YOU…READ?” he read. “Aye, I can.” He wagged a thumb at the other lad. “Timothy can’t though.”

“Edward!” Timothy frowned and stuck out his tongue at Edward.

She scraped the tablet clean and scrawled into it again.

“What’s wrong?” Timothy asked. “Can’t ye talk?”

She shook her head.

“Why?” He wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Did ye get your tongue cut out?”

Edward gave him a light shove. “Dolt! He’s probably under a vow o’ silence.” Then he glanced at her. “Are ye under a vow o’ silence?”

She nodded. Then she showed him the letters on the tablet.

Edward read it for Timothy. “SAINT…ANDREWS. Ye’re on pilgrimage to Saint Andrews?”

She nodded.

“I’m goin’ to Saint Andrews,” Timothy boasted.

“Nay, ye’re not,” Edward said.

“One day.”

“Maybe one day. But we’re stuck at the priory until we take our vows.”

“When’s that?” Timothy asked.

He shrugged. “My cousin John was fourteen.”

Timothy’s brows shot up. “Fourteen? That’s…” He screwed up his forehead to think.

“He can’t do sums either,” Edward confided.

“I can do sums,” Timothy protested. He proceeded to count on his fingers, finally giving up. “’Tis a long time, isn’t it?”

“Seven years.”

Timothy sighed. Then he gazed up at her. “How old were ye when ye took your vows?”

She scraped the board and picked up the stylus, considering what age to carve into the wax.

“Look!” Timothy hissed, elbowing his friend and pointing across the cloister.

She followed his gaze. The breath froze in her throat. Her fingers fumbled on the stylus and dropped it.

Two monks, led by Prior Isaac, were hauling Adam across the cloister.

“Gather, brethren!” the prior called. “In the chapter house.”

Other monks began to follow them.

“Us too?” Timothy murmured.

Edward nodded.

Timothy narrowed his gaze. “What are they goin’ to do?”

“That’s the monk who accosted a lady yesterday,” Edward said.

“What’s accosted?”

Eve’s heart was pounding. It was probably nothing. They were probably going to the chapter house to hear Prior Isaac lecture everyone on the sin of accosting ladies.

“Come on,” Edward said, grabbing Timothy’s hand and joining the mob.

It was a risk, following them. A traveling ascetic wasn’t necessarily welcome in a priory’s inner sanctum. But Eve could make herself invisible. She retrieved the stylus and managed to slip in to the chapter house with the last of the dozens of monks.

“Brethren,” the prior intoned when everyone had grown quiet, “ye are here to witness the penance of a fellow monk.”

Speculative whispers blew like an ill wind through the arched chamber.

Eve bit the corner of her lip. She’d been punished once for running away. The abbess had made her recite the Ten Commandments a dozen times in front of all the other nuns. The abbess had intended it as a humiliation. But it hadn’t been so bad.

Maybe that was what the prior intended.

“Carnal temptation,” the prior began, making Eve’s eyes roll, “must be resisted if ye are to be faithful servants o’ God. If ye do not resist, if ye succumb to the desires o’ the flesh, ye become servants o’ the Devil.”

He beckoned to the guards, who dragged Adam forward.

“This monk, this servant o’ God, fell to the Devil’s wiles. He weakened in his faith and shamed himself with a woman.”

Several gasps erupted.

Eve frowned. He hadn’t “shamed himself.” He’d only touched her about the waist.

“He shall be punished accordingly,” the prior announced, “to silence the voice o’ lust within him, and so ye may learn what happens to those who yield to the temptations of Eve.”

Eve sucked in a quick breath at the mention of her name.

Then she remembered. Genesis. That Eve.

The prior gestured to the guards. They turned their prisoner round. With a rough yank, they wrenched the top half of his cassock down, baring his back.

Eve shuddered.

Surely the prior couldn’t mean to… Not that beautiful, smooth, perfectly sculpted…

The prior picked up a thick wooden rod, testing it with a slap across his palm.

The breath froze in Eve’s chest.

God’s bones!

She had to do something.

Starting another fire occurred to her.

But there was no time.

Adam braced himself.

It wouldn’t be the first time he’d taken a beating. Not as Adam of Rivenloch, of course. But once when he’d disguised himself as Black Conall, the sea reiver, he’d been beaten for fighting with a fellow crewman. And once as the beggar Tom, he’d been whipped for winking at a woman.

Neither had been severe. He’d been left with no scars, which was fortunate. The more identifying marks he bore on his body, the more recognizable he’d become. And becoming recognizable would end his livelihood as a spy.

He supposed his fate today depended upon how much religious fervor the prior intended to use wielding the rod.

He wondered if this was what Lady Aillenn had in mind when she said she trusted the prior’s judgment. It certainly seemed an extreme price to pay for “carnal desire.”

“Hold him still,” the prior told the guards.

Adam held his breath.

Before the prior could begin, the expectant hush was broken by a growing disturbance from the back of the chapter house.

As the unrest increased, the prior demanded, “What is it? What’s goin’ on?”

The guards were holding Adam so tightly, he couldn’t crane his head around to see what was happening. But any delay was good. Perhaps it was a fire. One could always pray for fire.

“Who is it?” the prior said. “Come forward.”

There was no answer except for grunting as the assembly shifted to make way for someone.

“Who are ye?” the prior asked.

A youthful voice piped up from the assembly to address the prior. “Beggin’ your pardon, Father?”

“Aye, Edward?”

“He said he’s a pilgrim, goin’ to Saint Andrews. He’s under a vow o’ silence.”

“Is that so?” the prior asked. “Then how did he tell ye that?”

“He’s got a wax tablet,” Edward replied.

The prior cleared his voice, disgruntled. “Write on your tablet then. What do ye want?” After a brief silence, the prior read the pilgrim’s message aloud. “MY…brOTHER.” He paused. “Who? This man? He’s your brother?”

Adam scowled. His brother? How could that be? Both of his brothers were at Rivenloch.

The prior continued, chastising the pilgrim. “Ye should have kept a closer watch on him then. Did the Lord not admonish Cain when he claimed he was not his brother’s guardian?”

Guardian? Adam’s brothers were younger than him. Alexander wouldn’t be knighted for another year. And Gavand wasn’t old enough to grow a beard.

The prior read the next message. “HE…RAN…AWAY. So ye lost him?”

Who the Devil was pretending to be his brother? Was it one of his cousins? He tried to turn his head, but the guards still held him fast.

“Ah,” the prior said with a sigh. “I see. MAD. So your brother is feeble o’ mind?”

Adam felt the gears in his brain shift. He didn’t know who this savior posing as his brother was, but that was a brilliant ploy. If Adam feigned to be mad, he naturally couldn’t be held responsible for his actions.

All he had to do was act mad.

He let out a wordless bark, pleased when his captors jerked in surprise. Then he began humming to himself.

“Is that why ye’re makin’ a pilgrimage to Saint Andrews?

To pray for healin’?” the prior asked. After a pause, he said, “I see.” Then he cleared his throat and announced, “Very well. In light o’ these new circumstances, I shall forego the man’s penance.

’Tis clear he’s sufferin’ enough. Instead, let this be an example o’ God’s mercy. And we shall pray for his lost soul.”

The guards released him then and draped the cassock back over his shoulders.

Careful to keep his eyes slightly unfocused as if he were dimwitted, he scanned the crowd until he saw the monk with the tablet. His alleged “brother.”

His eyes went wide with recognition. But he said nothing. He didn’t want to endanger them both.

Whatever he did next, he had to do it quickly. The “pilgrim” was obviously a beautiful woman under that filthy beard. She’d be discovered any moment.

Quickly he cried, “Bruh!” careening toward the pilgrim. “Bruh!”

He wrapped her in a smothering embrace, hoping to keep her face hidden as they staggered toward the door.

She couldn’t reprimand him verbally. She was supposed to be under a vow of silence. But she fought against his grip as they exited the chapter house and started across the cloister.

Finally breaking free, she muttered, “Your satchel?”

“In the woods.”

She nodded in approval, and they strode toward the gates. Arm in arm. Like brothers.

The silent walk back to the woods gave Adam time to consider what had just happened.

His emotions were as varied and volatile as a spring storm. He was terrified on her behalf. Grateful for her rescue. Irritated that she’d abandoned him. Awed that she’d carried off such a complex disguise.

The woman was daft. And yet she was marvelous. Inspired. Ingenious. Daring.

Once they reached the cover of the forest, he stopped and turned her toward him. Bracing his hands on her shoulders, he grinned at her horrible costume and gazed into her sparkling eyes.

“I didn’t think ye meant to come back.”

She furrowed her brows. “How could I not?”

His heart swelled. “That was brilliant. I don’t know how ye managed it. But ye’re a godsend.”

“And ye,” she gushed. “Ye were quick to join the ruse. Ye sounded so moonsick, I almost believed ye.”

“Maybe I am moonsick.”

Then he pulled her forward and kissed her soundly on the mouth, beard and all.

He expected, after an instant of shock, she might share in his relief and return the kiss with equal enthusiasm.

She did not.

But Adam was no fool. He was not a seducer of unwilling maids. So he ended the kiss, searching her eyes with a frown of concern.

There was no conspiratorial joy in her expression. No clever mischief. No smug victory.

She looked positively stunned.

Then her gaze lowered to his lips, and her eyes filled with something else. Something he recognized at once.

Smoky longing.