"Do not want to know what?" he asked softly.
"I do not want to know who is the rightful owner. You should have the place."
"No, your brother should have it. If the registers say that his grandparents were married legally, then the title and the lands are his, not mine." He lifted one eyebrow at her. "Do not tell me that you are in truth a greedy woman. Do you want to keep it all for yourself?"
"I do not care for me," she said as she looked up at him. "What do my brothers know of running a place this size? All they know is war. You should have seen how filthy Moray Castle was before Liana came. Rogan will make this beautiful place as dirty as that."
"You would do your brother out of what is rightfully his because of a little dirt?"
She looked away from him. "No. Dirt does not matter. I am afraid of what Rogan will do to you. He might send you away. He might bar you from this place for all eternity."
Tearle put his hand under her chin and lifted her face so that she looked at him. "I have property from my mother. Will you go there to live with me?"
"Yes," she whispered. "I will go with you anywhere. But—"
"But what?"
"You will lose your title. You will not be the duke. It is a thing a man wants."
"Perhaps it is something that your brother wants. It was something that my brother wanted enough to kill for, and your other brothers were willing to die for the land and titles, but I am a different man. Do you not see that I am lazy?" He smiled down at her. "I want only to have a nice place to live in comfort and a wife to love me. It is all I have ever wanted. I should like some sons to ride and hunt with, and some daughters to play music to me when I am old and can no longer play myself. I should like to live long enough to have grandchildren. I want no more than this in life."
Zared looked at him and knew that he was telling the truth. He had never wanted any part of the feud, any part of the killing and the hatred, and, quite suddenly, neither did she. She wanted to walk away from the huge estate with all its riches, and, as Tearle said, with all its blood, and go back to his house and live there with him. The short time they had had in that house was the happiest time in her life. There the excitement was not over who had lost an arm or a foot but over which plants were blooming in the gardens and whether they could hear the baby owls at night.
She thought about him and his house and about the children they would raise, girls who did not have to dress as boys in order to stay alive and boys who would not die in battle before they reached manhood.
"That is what I want also," she said to him, then she stepped back as he pulled the first ledger from the hole in the wall.
She held her breath as he opened it and began to turn the brittle pages. She watched him as he scanned the writing on the pages, and when at last he stopped she waited until he looked at her.
"Your brother Rogan is the duke," he said softly.
Zared let out her pent-up breath and smiled at him. "Shall we go home?"
He returned her smile. Not many women loved a man enough to give up being a duchess. He put his arms around her and held her close.
Zared looked over his shoulder, saw the ghost of her grandmother behind them, and smiled at her.
The woman smiled back and nodded her head as though she was very pleased, and then she was gone.
Tearle pulled away, then took Zared's hand. "Yes, let us go home and begin those babies."
She smiled at him, and they left the room together, their fingers entwined.