Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
She was at the stables before the castle had properly woken up.
The sky to the west was the color of a bruise, heavy and low, and the wind coming off the glens had a bite to it that had not been there yesterday.
She noticed both of these things and decided they were not her problem.
She needed air. She needed space and speed and the particular mercy of a horizon that did not have walls around it, and she needed it before she had to sit across a table from anyone and perform composure she did not currently possess.
“I want a horse,” she told the stable hand. “The gray mare, if she is available.”
The stable hand, a boy of about fifteen, glanced at the sky and then back at her. “There’s weather comin’, me Lady.”
“I can see that.”
“Donal said this mornin’ it’d be a bad one.”
“I will be back before it breaks,” she said in the tone that ended conversations, and the boy went to saddle the mare.
She was checking the girth herself when she heard Jane’s voice behind her, slightly out of breath, which meant she had walked faster than her usual pace.
“Ye’re nae goin’ out in that weather,” Jane said.
“I am.”
“The clouds are black to the west.”
“I have seen clouds before.”
“Isobel.” Jane only dropped the formality when she was genuinely worried. “It’s nae a mornin’ ride kind of sky. It’s a stay inside and find somethin’ to do with yer hands kind of sky.”
“I have found something to do with my hands,” Isobel said. “I am going riding.”
Jane looked at her for a moment. Then she said, “I’ll just go and check on somethin’,” and left at a pace that was quicker than her usual pace in the other direction.
Isobel looked at the mare. “I wonder what she’s up to,” she told the horse.
The mare offered no opinion.
She was in the saddle and gathering the reins when Alasdair walked in.
He was already dressed, coat on, hair tied back, and he looked at her on the horse with an expression that showed he had already made up his mind and was not interested in discussing it. “Get down,” he said.
“Good morning,” she said.
“There is a storm comin’.” His jaw tightened. He stepped forward and put his hand on the mare’s bridle, and the horse dropped her head agreeably, traitor that she was. “Ye’ll get down and go inside.”
“I will not.”
“It’s nae a request.”
“I know it isn’t.” She looked down at him from the saddle. “I am going for a ride. The storm is not here yet, and I will be back before it is.”
“Ye daenae ken these glens.”
“I know enough to turn a horse around when the sky changes.”
“Ye daenae.” He stopped. His hand on the bridle had tightened. She watched the effort it took him to find the next sentence and thought, with a clarity that surprised her, that he was not angry.
“If you are so concerned, you could always ride with me.” She looked at him steadily. “Unless you fear I will outride you.”
The stable went quiet. Even the mare seemed to be waiting.
Something moved through Alasdair’s face; a rapid sequence of expressions that settled finally into something she could only describe as cornered. His eyes narrowed.
“Saddle Rionnag,” he said to the stable hand. “Me Lady and I are goin’ for a ride.”
* * *
He had told himself it was practical.
The storm was approaching, and she did not know the glens.
If the mare spooked on the open ground with no one beside her, that was a clan problem, not a personal one.
He had repeated this to himself with some conviction all the way from the stable gate to the first rise, and it held up fairly well until she let the mare out into a full canter.
He watched her go and felt something shift in his chest that had nothing practical about it at all.
He held the Rionnag level with Isobel’s mare and said nothing.
She had kissed him last night. He had kissed her, technically, but she had kissed him back, and the distinction had been occupying a significant part of his mind ever since he had closed the study door and stood in the corridor outside it with his hand still on the doorframe and his blood still pounding in his ears.
He had not looked at her since the stable gate. He was aware of this. He was aware of her anyway, the way a man was aware of a fire in a room he was pretending not to stand near, a peripheral warmth that registered whether he attended to it or not.
They crested a low rise, and the full force of the wind hit them. The mare tossed her head and skittered sideways two steps. She brought her back smoothly, steady, her body relaxed in the saddle. He watched her do it and looked away before she could catch him watching.
“She doesnae like the wind,” he said.
“She doesn’t,” Isobel agreed. “But I’m sure she’ll settle.”
“Ye rode her this easily on yer first try.”
“I told you I grew up with horses.”
“Lowland horses,” he said.
He did not know why he kept saying that. It was not an argument he was winning.
“You keep saying that as though Highland horses are a different species.”
“Highland terrain is different.”
“The horse doesn’t care about the terrain. The horse cares about the rider.”
He looked at her then. The wind had pulled strands of her hair loose across her face, and she had not bothered to push them back. She was gazing at the land ahead with that expression she sometimes had—open and unguarded, the one she did not know she was wearing. He looked away.
She sensed his gaze. He noticed it in the slight stiffening of her spine and the careful way she avoided looking back at him, and he felt a grim, humorless amusement at the fact that they were essentially reduced to this—two people on horseback pretending not to see each other at a distance of four feet.
They rode further out, further than he had intended, but the land was wide, and the storm was still holding, and he did not suggest turning back, and she did not ask.
“Did you ride here as a boy?” she asked.
“Every day.”
“With your father?”
“Sometimes,” he said. “Before.”
She did not push it. He had expected her to, but once again, Isobel had surprised him.
“It’s beautiful,” she said instead. “The land.”
He looked at it. The long gray folds of the glens, the heather brown and flattened by the wind, the hills dark against the pressing sky.
He had looked at this land every day of his life and had not, in a long time, looked at it the way she was looking at it now, as though it was something worth seeing.
“Aye,” he said, quietly. “It is.”
The lightning hit without warning. It struck the hillside two hundred yards north, a white crack followed by thunder, and the mare screamed, going down on her front knees.
He was already moving before he thought; his hand shot out and grabbed her at the waist, pulling her back hard as his whole body braced for her weight.
She did not fall.
The mare scrambled upright, trembling, and he had both sets of reins and her waist. He was speaking low and fast—either to the horse or to her; he was not entirely sure which—only that his hand was at her waist, she was upright, and he could feel her breathing through his palm. He was not ready to let go.
“I have her,” she said, breathless. “I am all right.”
He did not move his hand.
She settled the mare with her voice and one hand on the animal’s neck, calm and confident, and he watched her do it, feeling his own pulse still racing and knowing it had nothing to do with the lightning.
His hand remained on her waist. He was aware of this with a clarity that nearly hurt.
The coat and her shirt were between them, yet he could still feel her form, her warmth, and the specific solidity of her.
Last night, there had only been thin linen, and he had felt her breasts rise and fall with each breath under his palm.
He needed to stop thinking about last night.
The thunder rolled away across the glens. The echo faded. Neither of them spoke. He could hear her breathing, slightly faster than usual, and he thought she could probably hear his, and the sky pressed down full and dark and ready to break.
“Isobel,” he quietly.
“We need to go back.” His hand dropped.
“Yes,” she agreed and then they were off.
They rode hard for the castle through the rain. The wind whipped his hair, and the icy cold rain soaked his flesh, but Alasdair did not care what the elements did to him. His eyes stayed locked on Isobel, and they did not leave her form until they rode back to the safety of the stables.
Alasdair dismounted swiftly, then helped Isobel out of her saddle.
“I…I am sorry,” she panted. “Last night…I was confused and distraught and…”
Alasdair clasped both her hands in his own, then lifted them to his lips and briefly kissed her knuckles.
“Go inside. Get warm.”
“But what about…?”
He shook his head. “Do what ye can to erase last night from yer memory. For in just a few short days we wed and…”
“And after that, everything between us will be changed?”
She had finished his sentence for him, leaving nothing left for him to add. So, Alasdair kissed her trembling hands once more, then pulled her toward his side, and sheltered her the best he could with his body as they hurried back toward the castle.
Soon, we’ll wed…Soon enough our lives will change.
The wide wooden doors swung open before them and immediately servants surrounded them, making it impossible for Alasdair to stay next to Isobel.
But as her lady’s maid fussed over her wet garments and his own groom tsked about the dampness seeping into the stone floors, Alasdair caught Isobel’s eyes and held her gaze.
He looked forward to their wedding ceremony and welcomed all that came along with becoming this headstrong woman’s husband.