Chapter 21 #2
As she stood watching, her own heart clenched.
The sting of his rejection all too real.
This man, whom she admired, desired, didn’t want her.
Meant for someone else. As though she were some trinket, a bauble with someone else’s name tied to it.
Isabel had thought he was different, she felt as though she had been tricked.
Led down a path where she had belonged, where her opinion had mattered, where she had mattered.
Yet, with just one sentence that he hadn’t even met her eyes to make, he had shattered dreams she hadn’t even realized she had.
A stinging in her palm had her glancing down to see that she’d been holding onto the ring so tightly that it had broken the skin in a small crescent.
“Lady Isabel.”
She looked up sharply. He’d finally noticed her.
An immediate awareness flooded her, and she cursed not only her weakness, but him, too.
Their eyes locked, the intensity of his blue gaze cutting straight down the length of her body, as though his eyes were a sword shredding fabric, leaving her bared to him.
With a brief lift of his hand, he dismissed the men without breaking the rhythm of the yard. They slowed at once, stepping back, lowering their blades, the clang of steel fading into the background as space opened between them.
“What is it?” he asked, crossing toward her.
There was no greeting, no preamble. A reminder that they were on formal terms now. That he would not kiss her again. That she was meant for another, even if she didn’t want to be with another.
Isabel did not hesitate. She stepped forward to meet him, the ring already in her hand, and placed it directly into his palm, her skin sizzling as it touched his. “Ulrich says he recognized the crest as belonging to a man who runs a lesser holding within Kerr’s domain.”
Lachlan’s attention dropped to it immediately, his thumb brushing over the metal as he turned it slightly toward the light. His brow tightened, and she forced herself not to smooth that crease. For a moment, he said nothing, studying the engraving with the same care he might have given a map.
“The abbey where we found it,” she continued, her gaze steady on his. “Ye said it made no sense for it to have been destroyed.”
“Aye.” Lachlan nodded, and she could tell by the way he was looking at her, he was picking up her meaning. “Because it was no’ a raid for relics.”
Isabel returned his nod slowly. “What if it was a meeting place?”
He turned the ring once more in his hand, his focus narrowing as he followed the line of her thinking. “For whom?”
“For Kerr,” she said, her voice quiet but certain. “And whoever he was speaking with.”
“The English or the Scots instigator,” Lachlan snarled, crushing the ring in his fist.
“They burned it to destroy evidence. But someone left this behind. Do ye think they left it on purpose?”
“But why? ’Twould only bring a guilty verdict on his head.”
Isabel shrugged. “Or mayhap he had hopes someone would question him and he could stop what happened next.”
Lachlan held her gaze, an admiring smile curling his lips. “I dinna think your uncle has given ye credit, lass.”
“Many a man has overlooked the fairer sex.”
“No’ I.”
She smiled but then caught herself and cleared her throat. When he’d looked at her like this before, his mouth had swiftly been on hers a moment later.
Lachlan didn’t seem to notice her struggle for composure.
He seemed, too, to have forgotten his own declaration as he closed the distance between them, taking her hand in his.
She tried not to tremble. Cursed the dampness of her palms, as he unfurled her fingers and pressed the ring into the center.
Heat burned in her cheeks at the same time a shiver lanced its way up her spine.
They couldn’t. They shouldn’t. Out in the training yard, in the middle of the open air.
Men milling by the barracks where they’d been dismissed.
Men up on the walls guarding Dunvegan. Women rushing by with laundry, provisions…
The list went on as to who might witness the way he held her hand, the way she didn’t pull away.
“I was wrong,” Lachlan said at last, his voice gravelly, as though it was searching for a way out of his throat.
Isabel’s brow lifted slightly, though she did not step away, if anything, she found herself inching closer. “Were ye now. About what?”
“About ye belonging to another.” His gaze held hers with a steadiness that melted her bones. “Thinking about another man kissing ye…”
Warmth stirred in her chest at the words, and she opened her mouth to speak, to say, aye, no one else, but no words came out.
“I fear I’ll go mad for thinking it. I fear I’ll go to my death making ye mine. But it would be worth it.”
“I could no’ bear for ye to die on my behalf,” she whispered. “But I would die if I married another.”
The distance between them had narrowed until she could feel the warmth of him, the steady rise and fall of his breath, the muscles of his well-trained body pressed flush to hers.
Every inch of her sparked with heat, with need.
His fingers brushed a loose strand of hair from her cheek with a gentleness that stood in contrast to everything she had seen of him in the yard and yet felt no less intentional.
She pressed her cheek against his palm, closing her eyes for the briefest moment, wishing with all the breath in her body that the circumstances were different.
“Isabel…” Her name on his lips was a sound she would never tire of hearing.
Isabel placed her hand against his chest, feeling the solid line of him beneath her palm, the steady beat of his heart that seemed just slightly quicker than before. A cadence that matched her own.
“Ye pulled away last time.” She cursed herself for bringing it up, but before she let herself fall harder for this man, she needed to know he wasn’t going to push her away.
His breath caught at that, subtle but unmistakable. A flicker of regret flared in his gaze.
“That was a mistake,” he said. “No’ a mistake I intend to make again.”
This time, when he kissed her, there was no hesitation.
The world around them melted away. Isabel slid her hands up around his neck, crushing her body to his.
His mouth slanted over hers, his tongue pressing between her lips.
Strong hands circled her hips, her lower back, splaying along the planes.
Tingles prickled her skin, and she itched to be closer still.
When his mouth shifted from hers to the curve of her neck, a shiver ran through her that had nothing to do with the cool air moving across the training yard.
She tilted her neck allowing him further access, hissing at the delicious sensation of his mouth on her skin.
Zounds, but she did not want this to end.
A whistle sounded from one of the men, and Isabel pushed against him.
Lachlan called for his men to get back to training, and then his gaze returned to hers. Searching with that same quiet intensity, she knew he understood it just as clearly as she did.
“When I’m with ye, I forget where I am. This is no small thing,” he said, his voice roughened now, as though restraint had already begun to slip.
Isabel’s pulse fluttered beneath her skin, but she did not look away. “Nor is it something I will pretend does no’ matter.”
His hand tightened slightly at her waist, his thumb brushing just enough to make her aware of the heat building between them. “If we do this…there is no stepping back. Your uncle will be furious…”
“I will speak to him,” she answered. “I canna deny my heart.”
That was all it took. The last of his restraint gave way.
When he kissed her again, it was deeper, more demanding, his mouth moving over hers with a hunger he no longer tried to hide.
Isabel met him fully, arms wrapping over his shoulders, as she leaned into him, her body answering his without hesitation.
The world beyond them blurred. The men in the yard forgotten. The rules of propriety long since abandoned.
His hands moved with more certainty now, no longer testing, no longer holding back.
They slid from her waist along the curve of her back, drawing her closer until there was no space left between them, until she could feel the full strength of him, the heat of him, the unmistakable evidence of his desire pressing against her.
Her breath caught at the contact of his arousal to her belly. And something inside her answered, heat pooling low and insistent. Isabel shifted closer, her hips moving against him without thought and Lachlan groaned low in his throat, the sound rough and unguarded.
“Isabel…” he warned, though there was no real warning in it.
“I dinna want to stop,” she said, her voice unsteady now, but certain.
Lachlan lifted her with sudden, effortless strength, his mouth never leaving hers as he carried her from the open yard into the castle, up the circular stairwell and into a chamber that was not her own.
She half expected Elsa and any other number of staff to come barging through the door demanding him release her. But no one came as he set her down and pressed her back to the cool, stone wall. No one came when his mouth crashed hot and heady against her again and again.
His mouth moved from hers to her throat, his lips and tongue tracing a path that made her breath catch, then shudder. Every touch seemed to settle deeper than the last, awakening something she had not fully understood until now.
Her fingers fumbled slightly at his clothing, grasping the edge of his leine, pulling at it until he caught her hands with his own, a rough laugh escaping him.
“Easy, lass,” he murmured, though he did not sound inclined to slow at all.
“Then dinna make me wait,” she returned, breathless. “I need ye.” And she did, desperately.
Heavily lidded eyes met her gaze, and what she saw there made something inside her body soar. The intense look of desire was enough to drag her under.