Chapter 15 #2
Isabel looked ahead at the warriors riding before them.
Thought about the ones riding behind. Loyal men, she had assumed.
Lachlan’s men. Men who obeyed without question, moved like extensions of his will, watched the hills with the same grim discipline he did.
But what did she truly know of any of them?
What did Lachlan know? Betrayal did not arrive wearing a villain’s face.
It sat beside the fire. Shared its bread.
Rode beside allies and waited for the right moment to draw steel.
“Ye think it could be one of your own,” she said.
“I think war makes fools of men who believe trust is the same as certainty.”
Isabel nodded solemnly, understanding how crushing it would be if one of his own men turned traitor.
But she did not pity him. She suspected Lachlan would hate pity and possibly throw it off a cliff.
But grief, aye. For the burden of command.
For the knowledge that every man he loved might have to be measured against suspicion.
For a life in which affection could not be separated from strategy.
“Ye are much quieter today than when ye were dying of fever,” she said, because the sadness in her chest had become too full.
A low sound rumbled behind her. Almost a laugh. “A man says many things when he believes death is near.”
“Ye did more than speak,” she whispered, heat filling her cheeks.
The horse took three careful steps before he answered. “Aye,” he said quietly. “I did.”
Her pulse betrayed her, quickening against the cage of her ribs. “Do ye remember?”
He leaned close to her ear, whispering, “Enough.”
Isabel swallowed, and somehow managed to reply, “That is no’ an answer.”
“’Tis the safest one, trust me lass.”
She should have let that be the end of it. She should have remembered the men ahead of them, the English below them, the blood politics surrounding them like wolves. Instead, the words tumbled out before she could pull them back, “And if ye had no’ been fevered?”
The forest seemed to hold its breath just like her.
The heat of his breath on her ear sent a shiver down her spine, and she tightened her hold on the reins in front of her.
“Then I would have known exactly what I was about.” There was amusement in his tone, mixed with something very close to desire.
Heat moved through her so swiftly she hated him for it.
Or hated herself. Or hated the fact that danger had stripped away the polite distance she had tried to keep between them.
She was the Bruce’s niece. He was a Highland warrior sworn to deliver her to safety.
There were enemies behind them, traitors perhaps among them, and a war ahead that did not care whether a man’s voice could make a woman forget her own good sense.
And here she was quivering like a ninny on a hillside.
“That would have been foolish,” she said.
“Aye.”
“And improper.”
“Aye.”
“And dangerous.”
His breath touched her neck again. “Most things worth wanting are.”
Before she could answer, a bird call cut through the trees, and every rider drew their horse to a halt.
The change in Lachlan was instant. Whatever had passed between them vanished beneath command. His arm hardened around her, and his body grew taut, shielding hers even before the threat had a shape.
Another bird call answered from farther down the ridge. Isabel had a thousand questions, but she knew the answer to the main one—the English were close.
Lachlan guided his horse deeper into the woods, descending into a cluster of trees where the others were already dismounting. Hamish caught his bridle. Finley pressed a hand against his horse’s muzzle to quiet it. Lachlan swung down with a suppressed grunt, then reached for Isabel.
She slid into his arms because there was no time to do anything else.
His hands closed around her waist. For one heartbeat, they were face-to-face, close enough that she saw the strain around his eyes, the dark urgency there.
Then he pulled her down behind a fallen trunk slick with moss and age, where Elsa already crouched.
The chill of the cold ground seeping through her skirts.
Damp seeped into her palms. The scent of earth, dirt, and pine filled her lungs.
“Dinna move,” he breathed.
She nodded, afraid to even draw air. Hoofbeats reached them through the trees, slow at first. Then clearer.
Steel clinked. Leather creaked. A man coughed.
Another voice muttered something in English about the cursed fog.
Isabel’s blood turned thin and cold. The enemy was close.
Not somewhere on the road below, not safely distant, but close enough that a careless movement, a startled horse, one snapped twig could undo them all.
Lachlan crouched beside her, one arm angled across her body, not touching her now as a lover might, but as a shield. His other hand rested on the hilt of his sword. Isabel looked at that hand and understood something with sudden terrible clarity.
If the English found them, Lachlan would fight.
Injured or not. Outnumbered or not. Fever-weakened or not. He would spend the last of himself buying her time. The thought was unbearable.
A rider passed beyond the screen of trees. She saw only pieces of him through the fog. A dark boot, a wet horse flank, the dull flash of metal. Another followed. Then another. One of them laughed, low and ugly.
“Tracks went this way,” a voice said.
Isabel stopped breathing. Lachlan did not move, but everything in him tightened.
Another Englishman answered, “Could be deer.”
“Could be Scots.”
“Everything is Scots in this damned country.”
The men laughed again, but one horse shifted closer. Too close.
Isabel’s fingers dug into the wet earth. Her heartbeat sounded impossibly loud to her own ears. Surely they could hear it. Surely the whole forest could hear it. Lachlan’s hand left his sword only long enough to cover hers. A command without sound.
Steady. She clung to that pressure. Did the same with Elsa who looked ready to faint.
One of the English horses snorted.
A moment later, an English rider cursed. “Leave it. Road’s below. If they climbed up there, they’ll break their own necks before we find them.”
Slowly, painfully, the hoofbeats began to move away, and still they did not move. Did not breathe.
The sounds faded into mist, swallowed by distance and dripping trees until the forest returned to itself by degrees. Isabel remained frozen, her body still convinced death stood on the other side of the fallen trunk.
Then Lachlan turned his head, meeting her gaze.
Elsa was lifted by Angus, and taken back to his horse, where it seemed he was going to be having her ride with him.
But Isabel only had eyes for Lachlan. There was mud on his sleeve, blood darkening the bandage beneath his plaid, and a hard wildness in his eyes that should have frightened her. Mayhap it did. But not enough.
Perhaps that was the danger.
Not the English, or the unsteadiness of the trail. Nor the traitor hiding somewhere in the shape of an ally, and the English on their tail. But this. The uneven pulse in her chest. The way her breath hitched. The need for his lips to be on hers.