“I can tell you only what my father said about it,” Fin said. “He was a clan war leader, so he saw what happened with other such men. He said most powerful men trust only themselves to resolve problems properly. So, they constantly correct their sons, trying to teach them to think as they do, rather than how to make good decisions. The result, he said, was that they teach their sons instead to have little or no confidence in their own opinions—the opposite of what most fathers seek to do.”
“But is that not how any father teaches a son, by correcting his errors?”
“A wise father acts otherwise,” Fin said. “Or so my own told me. He said it is more important that a man learn to trust his own instincts and his own decisions than to believe that he must try to pattern them after someone else’s.”
“Sakes,” Ian said, “how do you teach anyone that?”
“The same way that I hope I am teaching you,” Fin said. “By letting you make decisions whenever it is safe for you to make a mistake, so that you can learn from those mistakes. A mistake that a man can see and measure for himself—if it does not kill him—will teach him more than any parent or superior can.”
“But you do tell me when I err,” Ian said with an almost comical grimace.
“Aye, sure, I do. That is one consequence of your mistake. But you will note that I rarely intervene beforehand to prevent you from making the mistake.”
“In point of fact, sir, I have noted that and cursed you for it more than once when I thought that you might have warned me,” Ian said dryly. “It occurs to me, however, that you have not given me a clout for some time now.”
“Your decisions and judgment have improved, lad. And you have gained more confidence withal. The result is that you think and act more swiftly and more decisively, which gives the men that you command more confidence in you.”
“They don’t always show it.”
“What do you do when they don’t?” Fin asked him.
Ian smiled. “I seek advice from you, of course.”
“Then you and I discuss the matter privately between us, aye. But, sithee, if a man is always wondering what a mentor would say or do, he slows down the whole process of deciding, which would be fatal error in battle. But by watching and learning from others’ mistakes and talking over things that don’t go as you thought they would, you also learn just what sort of leader you want to be.”
“I think I ken that fine now, sir,” Ian said with a direct look.
“Aye, well, we’ll see. Meantime, I will not need you in the morning, so you may catch up on your sleep unless Toby can use your help.”
Ian nodded and ten minutes later, Fin was alone in the dark room.
It was some time, though, before he slept. He could still taste Catriona’s lips and feel her supple, curvaceous, warm body in his arms. That feeling faded, though, as his thoughts about her took him in another direction.
Having concluded that he had to tell her about his part in the battle at Perth and what happened there, he tried to imagine how to tell her the truth in a way that would not make her loathe him. As he did, it occurred to him that the minute he told her that he had been at Perth, she would know that that was where he and Ivor had had the one meeting that they had admitted having since their St. Andrews days.
Strangely, the urgency of resolving his dilemma had faded.
He no longer felt it looming, waiting for his guard to fall so that his conscience—or the presence of his father that he felt so often in his mind—could pummel him for failing to fulfill his sacred bequest.
At first, while he had spoken so loftily to Ian about learning to make good decisions, he had felt as if Teàrlach MacGillony’s ghost were waiting to leap to life and fling lightning bolts at him by way of reproaches.
Instead, that talk seemed to have eased his sense of urgency more.
After Ailvie had retired to her own cot, Catriona lay in bed trying to sort out her thoughts about Fin. For a time, she let herself dwell on memories of their kiss and thoughts of where he might be imagining it could lead. Was that why he wanted to