Chapter Two #3
He shook his head. “It doesna matter,” he said. “From this moment on, it doesna matter in the least. I’ll come tae know ye and ye’ll come tae know me, and we’ll understand each other.”
“But why me? Surely there are fine lasses in yer village who have caught yer eye?”
He shook his head, a glimmer in his eyes when he looked at her. “No fine lasses,” he said. “They want men with position and money, and I have neither. But a lass from the hills might not care about such things. Besides… the one I’m thinking of is rather pretty.”
“Me?”
“Only ye.”
The familiar mottle was back in her cheeks; she was flattered in a way she’d never been flattered before. “’Tis a kind thing tae say, but I’m—”
A shout cut her off and they both whirled to see two young men approaching with an older gentleman in between them. It took Cam a split second to realize that the older man was his grandfather.
He dropped Isadora’s hand.
Before she could stop him, Cam rushed at the men, dropping one of them with a brutal blow to the face. He was cocking his arm to throw a punch at the second man when Isadora abruptly put herself between Cam’s ham-sized fist and the second man’s surprised face.
“Cam, nay!” she gasped. “Dunna hit him. ’Tis my brother!”
Cam almost didn’t stop himself in time; he was inches from Isadora’s lovely face and the force of restraining a fist already in motion had him reeling off balance.
But he grabbed Nikolaus, yanking the old man with him, pulling him away from the pair that had captured him.
As he looked to Nikolaus to make sure the old man was well, Isadora and her brother were pulling a very dazed young man to his feet.
“Ossian!” Isadora hissed at her downed brother, whose eyes were rolling back in his head. “What is the meaning of this? Why have ye abducted the old man?”
“We dinna abduct him,” Ewan said, slapping at his brother’s face to try to bring him around. “We found him lurking in the vale. He was following ye!”
Cam heard them. He looked straight at his grandfather. “Ye were following us?”
Nikolaus did not look pleased. He eyed the woman and her brothers, straightening out his tunic where they’d grabbed him.
“I told ye that I was coming with ye,” he said. “Did ye think my words tae be hollow? I came tae make sure ye came tae no harm.”
Cam stared at him a moment as if in disbelief. With some remorse, he turned to Isadora and the men.
“This is my grandfather, Nikolaus Netherton,” he said. “It seems that he followed me from home.”
Isadora could see his chagrin. She gestured to the men next to her. “And these are my brothers, Ewan and Ossian,” she said. Then, she looked at the pair unhappily. “I told ye tae go away; what on earth possessed ye tae follow me?”
Ewan was eyeing Cam suspiciously. “We were leaving when we saw the old man in the trees,” he said. “I thought he might try tae harm ye, but I dinna know ye were with that man. Whoever he is.”
They were referring to Cam and Isadora could see that they had no intention of leaving now that they realized their sister had secretly met a man.
Whatever wonderful spell that had been cast between her and Cam, if only for a few minutes, had vanished with the introduction of intrusive family members.
It wasn’t an ideal situation.
With a regretful sigh, she stepped away from her brothers, motioning to Cam as she moved a few feet away. Leaving his grandfather, Cam followed her until they stood next to the brook, out of earshot of the others.
“My brothers willna leave us alone now,” she whispered. “In fact, they’ll run back and tell my da. He’s likely tae come looking for ye with a pike.”
Cam could see the wariness in the expressions of the brothers and he, too, realized his time with Isadora was at an end.
For now.
“Do ye know where the bridge crosses over Coe’s Burn?” he murmured.
Isadora nodded. “I do.”
“Meet me there tomorrow. And leave yer brothers at home.”
She fought to keep the smile off her face as she nodded. As Cam returned to his grandfather and practically dragged the man back down the path, Isadora watched him go. She was sad that their time together had abruptly ended, but so very glad they’d spent any time together at all.
At least, that was her feeling until she turned to see Ewan and Ossian standing there, looking at her in a way that set her blood boiling.
Judgment.
Isadora could have done one of two things at that moment: she could have been defiant about whom she chose to spend her time with or she could have tried to politely explain her position to her brothers so they wouldn’t tell their father that they’d caught their sister alone with a man they didn’t know.
True to Isadora’s nature, however, she chose a mixture of both options.
The three eggs that Cam had given her ended up on Ewan and Ossian when she threw them like missiles and threatened to do worse should their father hear of this little incident. Knowing that their little sister meant what she said, Ewan and Ossian opted for the only possible choice.
Not surprisingly, Niall Keith never heard a word about it.