Chapter 2
Chapter Two
“Me Lady, is everythin’ well? Ye’ve ridden her hard.” A stable boy rushed forward as Isobel dismounted in the courtyard, his eyes widening at the state of her mare.
The Graham household had, thankfully, appeared just as the last rays of sunlight vanished behind the western hills.
Isobel’s mare was soaked in sweat, her sides heaving from the tough ride home.
The familiar stone walls should have offered comfort, but Isobel’s chest stayed tight, her thoughts still tangled in the events at the stream.
She could not shake the image of the Highlander from her mind.
The way he’d moved with such deadly grace, the cold fury in his sparkling eyes, and the bitterness in his voice when he had realized that she was English remained.
And during that moment at the end, when he had looked at her with something that was akin to disdain, her stubbornness had been dwarfed by a sense of alarm.
In her panic, she’d flown from the sight of him and all that his presence wrought.
“Yes, I’m fine.” Isobel’s voice came out in a clipped manner. She had not meant to be short with the lad, so she tried to speak in a pleasanter tone as she elaborated on the situation. “Just… I lost track of time at Margaret’s. Please see to Star’s every need; she’s earned extra oats tonight.”
The boy nodded and led the exhausted animal away, leaving Isobel standing alone in the fading dusk. The house loomed ahead, windows glowing warmly with candlelight, but something about the atmosphere felt strange.
The air itself seemed to hum with tension, and as she moved toward the large, wooden doorway, she could hear raised voices from inside.
“…had nay right… Thomas, ye had nay right to do this without…”
“I was not given a choice, Catriona. There is no…”
“There is always a choice! Ye simply…”
Isobel quickened her pace; her earlier fright at the stream momentarily forgotten in the face of this new concern.
What’s happened while I was gone? Have they heard word of raiders? Should I tell them what I saw?
She pushed open the heavy oak door and stepped into the entry hall. The warmth greeted her immediately, along with the scent of tallow candles and the peat fire burning in the large hearth. Servants hurried around with worried looks, and at the center of it all were her parents.
Her mother, Catriona, looked pale and gaunt, one hand pressed to her throat as if struggling to breathe. Her father, Thomas, had his back to the door, but Isobel could see the tension in his shoulders and how his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides.
“Mother?” Isobel’s voice cut through the commotion. “Father? What’s happened?”
Thomas Graham turned, and the look on his face made Isobel’s blood run cold. His weathered features were ashen, his eyes red-rimmed as though he’d been fighting back tears. When he saw her, something in his expression crumpled.
“Isobel.” He crossed the space between them in three long strides, his hands reaching for hers. “Thank God. I was beginning to worry you would not return before…”
He trailed off, but the unfinished sentence hung heavily in the air.
“Before what?” Isobel looked between her parents, dread coiling in her stomach. “What’s going on? Why does everyone look as though someone’s died?”
Her mother made a small, choked sound that might have been a laugh or a sob. Her father’s grip on Isobel’s hands tightened almost painfully.
“Come,” he said, his voice rough. “We must speak. In private.”
He didn’t wait for her agreement; he simply turned and led her toward his study. Isobel glanced back at her mother who offered a tremulous smile that did nothing to ease the panic rising in her chest.
Something is terribly wrong.
Whatever had happened in her absence, the consequences were worse than raiders or lost shipments or any of the other minor disasters that occasionally disrupted their household.
The study door closed behind them with a finality that made Isobel’s skin prickle.
The room was exactly as it always was, lined with ledgers and maps.
Her father’s desk was covered in correspondence and accounting books.
But somehow the mess felt different tonight.
The room was smaller and more oppressive.
“Father, you’re frightening me.” Isobel pulled her hands free from his grip, wrapping her arms around herself. “Please, just tell me what’s happened.”
Her father moved to stand behind his desk but didn’t sit down. Instead, he gripped the edge of the polished wood as if it were the only thing holding him upright. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper.
“I’ve failed you, Isobel. Failed you and your mother both. I’ve made choices, terrible choices, and now we must all pay the price.”
Isobel’s heart hammered against her ribs. “What kind of choices? Father, you’re not making sense.”
He looked up at her then, and the devastation in his eyes made her breath catch. “We’re ruined. Everything I built, everything I worked for, is all gone. I’ve known for months that this was coming but…” His words fell away as her father lowered his head and stared at a stack of papers on his desk.
“But…?” Isobel urged him to speak again.
“I’ve just been too much of a coward to tell you the truth.”
The words didn’t make sense. Isobel shook her head slowly, trying to process what he was saying. “You’re not a coward, Papa.” She hurried to defend her father against his own harsh words. “You’ve never…”
“This is my fault. All my fault.” He lifted his hands and used them to cradle his head.
Isobel stared at him, feeling bewildered. Her mind rushed to piece together the fragments of his words. “Ruined?” She plucked that description from the batch. “You said our family was ruined. But… how? Our shipping business, the warehouses in Edinburgh, the contracts with—”
“All gone.” Her father’s laugh was bitter and hollow. “Seized by the Crown or dissolved when my partners learned what I’d done. What I am.”
“What have you done?” Isobel moved closer to the desk, her legs unsteady. She feared she would faint before she learned the whole truth. “Father, I do not understand. What are you trying to tell me?”
Thomas Graham sank into his chair, suddenly looking every one of his sixty years and more besides. He ran a hand over his face and stared at the desk rather than at her.
“After the rebellion, when the Crown started its work in the north, men came to me. Men who had nowhere else to go.” A long pause stretched between them.
It was so lengthy that Isobel was able to count sixteen heavy heartbeats.
“I helped them. Arranged passage. Used the ships, the warehouse connections—everything I had built.” He stopped again.
His jaw clenched. “I cannot tell you that I did not know the risk. I knew. I just… I made a choice, and it was the wrong one, and I have spent eight months trying to find a way to deal with the consequences of it that did not end here.”
He gestured at the desk, at the papers on it, and perhaps at the room and everything it represented.
“You offered aid to men when they needed it.” As she spoke, Isobel’s mind produced an image of the Highlander.
She envisioned the blood on him and how she had wanted to show him an ounce of kindness.
While the warrior had rejected her assistance, she could see nothing wrong in her father’s actions or comprehend how others could fault him for showing compassion.
“Someone talked,” he continued. “Or the manifests drew attention, it does not matter which. The licenses were revoked. The assets were seized. The men I had called partners and friends for twenty years disappeared, because that is what men do when association becomes dangerous.” His voice was flat and devoid of all emotion.
The man who had engaged with her mother in a shouting match just moments ago was long gone now.
“I kept thinking there was still something I could do. Some avenue I had not tried. I waited too long to tell you, and your mother, and by the time I accepted that there was nothing left to try…” He stopped. “Here we are.”
Isobel stood at the edge of the desk, silent. She watched his face, noting how he couldn’t hold her gaze, and how his hands lay flat and still on the wood.
“I still do not understand,” she confessed. “How can helping your fellow man be…”
“It is of no consequence now,” her father said blandly as he continued to stare at his splayed fingers. “What I did…the severity of my crimes…All has been forgotten…must be forgotten…now that further matters are here to preoccupy our thoughts.”
Isobel stared at her father uncomprehendingly. Never in her life had she been so bewildered by him or his actions. Typically, she felt like the man was an open book. She could read him well enough and understand what he wanted or needed from her. But now, she felt as if he were speaking in riddles.
Thomas pushed away from the desk slightly and pulled a leather folder out of the drawer. He thrust it over to her without saying a word. She opened it. The numbers appeared slowly at first, then all at once, and she stood looking at them for a moment before setting the folder back down.
“We owe more than the house is worth,” she said, summarizing what she thought she’d read.
“More than the house and the land and everything on it.” He still did not look at her. “There are men waiting for payment who are not accustomed to waiting. Without the protection my position once afforded, without allies…” He trailed off. The implication required no elaboration.
Isobel remained quiet. She glanced at the folder, then at her father, and finally at the window, with the silence lingering heavy enough to carry weight. Her eyes focused on the last golden rays of daylight that danced about the window frame.
“What has been done to satisfy your creditors?” she said at last.