Chapter 10 #2
Philip slapped the reins in one of Colin’s outstretched hands, continuing past him. “See to Horse, will ye?”
Colin’s eyes narrowed on the reins in his hand. His gaze darted to Isobel and Stephen. “Take care of that will ye?” Colin said to Stephen, his gaze riveted on Isobel. He shoved Horse’s reins at Stephen. “Let me help ye down, my dear.”
Isobel thought Philip had left them in the courtyard, but when she reached to place her hand in Colin’s, his hand was knocked aside.
Philip was there, his firm grip spanning her waist and swinging her from the saddle.
Isobel was a bit breathless when he dropped his hands, but he didn’t notice. He stared over her head at Colin.
“See to the horses.” His hand curved around the base of her neck. “Stephen?” Stephen handed Horse’s reins back to Colin with a grin and trotted after them.
“What was that about?” Isobel whispered. They had caused something of a stir. People had stopped to watch and even now stared at them as they walked to the keep. “Don’t you have servants to tend the horses? Surely your brother shouldn’t have to.”
“That matters not,” Philip said. “He needs to be reminded of his place from time to time.”
Isobel tried to look over her shoulder, but the fingers on her neck squeezed. “Now don’t be looking at him. Can’t have him thinking he’s caught your attention, or he’ll be all puffed-out tonight.”
Isobel walked dutifully beside him, facing forward. “I don’t understand.”
“Nor will you anytime soon.”
Before she could ask what that meant, she realized Philip’s steps had slowed.
A man exited the oldest part of the keep.
Tall and broad, he was an older version of Philip, his dark hair and beard streaked with gray.
He stopped just outside the enormous double doors, placed his hands behind his back and waited.
He wore faded trews, a worn leather doublet, and sturdy boots.
Philip stopped before him. “Father.”
Dougal Kilpatrick glanced dismissively at Isobel, then back at Philip. “Where’s Colin?” His voice was deep and gravelly, and laced with disapproval.
“At the stables, I imagine, seeing to our mounts.”
The lines beside Dougal’s eyes deepened with humor, but he didn’t smile. His mouth was a hard and uncompromising line in his well-trimmed beard. “Stephen—what am I to tell your uncle when he writes, looking for you, eh?”
Stephen shrugged. “Tell him the truth.”
Dougal said nothing for a long while, his flinty gaze fixed on Stephen. After a moment, Stephen lowered his eyes and scratched at his neck, moving behind Philip slightly, as if to shield himself.
Seeing he’d cowed the lad, Dougal turned his gaze back on Philip. He rocked on his heels as he looked Philip up and down dispassionately. “Why are you here?” he asked in Gaelic.
“I’m here for a horse—the gray,” Philip answered in English.
Dougal raised a skeptical brow, but continued the conversation in English. “They’re your horses, you can take them all for all I care. What do you need it for?”
“A gift.”
Dougal turned his gaze on Isobel again. The urge to quail under his piercing stare was great, but Isobel squared her shoulders and returned his gaze.
“What is this?” Dougal asked.
“Isobel MacDonell, daughter of MacDonell of Glen Laire. I’m escorting her home.”
Dougal’s brows raised in surprise. “The witch’s spawn? Hmm…we all thought you were dead, lass.”
Isobel’s smile turned wooden. Witch’s spawn? Was that how she and her sisters were known? “I’m quite alive, it seems.”
“I’d be careful,” Philip said mildly. “You’re speaking to the future countess of Kincreag.”
Dougal turned his sour gaze on Philip. “Lord Kincreag is not my chief.”
“He is the Colquhoun’s overlord. And the Colquhoun is your chief.”
Dougal grunted, apparently unmoved by this truth. “So you’re still serving other chieftains, rather than tending your own inheritance.”
Philip cocked his head in mock confusion. “Is it mine? Last we spoke you threatened to name Colin tanist.”
Tanist. Isobel searched her memory. Though Highlanders did practice primogeniture, she remembered that tanistry was an old Highland custom that chiefs and chieftains called upon when they either had no heir or found their own heir unfit.
Dougal shook his head disgustedly and began speaking in low, rumbling Gaelic.
Philip cut him off abruptly. “Ye’ll not speak the Gaelic in front of Stephen or the lass. Ye ken yer Scots as well as I do.”
Though his face hardened, Isobel saw a flash of respect in Dougal’s eyes. He nodded at Isobel. “Ye should marry this one. A MacDonell tie couldn’t hurt. Things are getting ugly with the MacGregors.”
“That might trouble the earl of Kincreag somewhat.”
Dougal made a purely Scottish sound, dismissing the significance of an earldom. Philip just shook his head.
“What does it matter?” Dougal said. “Ye’ve no need for a wife or heirs, aye? As ye’ve no intention of heading the clan.” He started past them, but stopped when he was beside Philip. “Come see me when you’ve got the lass settled.” And he was gone, striding out into the courtyard.
The hand on Isobel’s neck had tightened unconsciously.
“He never gives up, does he?” Stephen mused with admiration, watching Dougal’s retreat.
Philip’s hand slid down to Isobel’s back, and the tension seemed to flow out of him. “No, he does not,” he agreed, and urged her forward, into the keep.
Isobel blinked when she entered the great hall, momentarily blind in the dark, firelit room.
Rushes covered the floor. Two deerhounds squabbled over a bone near the hearth but stopped when Philip entered.
They scrabbled to their feet and bounded over to him with excited barks.
Philip scrubbed their wiry gray fur as they licked and pawed at him, yipping with delight.
“Lucifer. Daemon. How are the lads?”
Isobel held out a hand so the dogs could sniff at her, but they whined and shied from her, one of them baring its teeth threateningly.
“Hey,” Philip said sternly, giving the dog a harsh look. It whined, tail between legs and pressed against his legs, watching Isobel cautiously.
Philip gave Isobel a questioning look, and she shrugged. “I like animals, but sometimes they don’t like me. With time, though, they usually come around.”
A small smile curved his mouth when he straightened. “I’ve no doubt of that.”
Stephen had left them, heading straight for the kitchens, in search of food.
Philip glanced at her as he led her from the hall. “Why do you look at me so?”
“It’s nice to see something about your home makes you happy, even if it’s only the dogs.”
“They’re good dogs, usually,” he said.
He led her down a dark corridor, then up a set of curved stairs. They were in one of the newer towers. No torches were lit, and the air was musty and cold. Philip took her hand, moving familiarly through the darkness. Isobel heard squeaking, then something brushed past her foot.
She gasped, clasping Philip’s wrist with her other hand. “Don’t you have a cat?”
“Used to. But it’s been two years since I’ve been here.”
“You haven’t seen your family in two years?” She couldn’t imagine staying away from home voluntarily. She’d spent twelve long years yearning for her family.
“I didn’t say that. Colin sought me about…oh, about nine months ago and tried to kill me.”
“What?”
He laughed softly. They were on a landing. Isobel only knew that because there were no more steps. There was a soft creaking, and the darkness lessened, narrow strips of sunlight in the room ahead. Philip pulled her forward, then released her hand, crossing the room and throwing the shutters open.
Isobel surveyed her surroundings. An enormous bed, hung with heavy velvet curtains, stood against the wall. The room was sparsely furnished. A chest, a table and two chairs, and a cabinet against one wall. All sturdy and well built, but unadorned. Everything was covered with dust and cobwebs.
He turned, hands on hips, and viewed the room.
“This is your room?” she asked.
“Aye…well, yours tonight.”
“They obviously weren’t expecting you,” Isobel said.
“And if they had been, it would look no different.”
When she gave him a quizzical look, he explained, “My father uses any means he can think of to remind me of how I neglect my duty.”
“Your brother tried to kill you?”
He shrugged. “I told you my father encourages him, thinking it will make me show an interest in Sgor Dubh.”
“Your own father encouraged your brother to kill you?”
“Och, no, but he feeds Colin’s desire to possess this place. I dinna think he believes Colin capable of murder. At least not of murdering me—and so far he hasn’t been successful, so perhaps he’s right.”
Isobel studied him in the dim light. He seemed more relaxed than he had in days. Perhaps it was because the confrontation with his father that he’d been dreading was behind him. He strolled over to the cabinet and opened a door.
“I don’t think I have anything of Effie’s in here…” He straightened, frowning as he gazed around the room absently. “I’ll probably have to go to her room.”
“If possible, I need something of hers that has not been handled a great deal. Cloth or precious stones and metals are best.”
“That might be a problem.”
“Were her things given away?”
He shook his head, still not looking at her. “No. Like my room, hers is probably just as she left it…only cleaner. But her things have probably been handled a great deal.”
“Really?”
He nodded, distracted. “My stepmother.”
“Oh.”
His mood changed, and he began to pace the room restlessly, scratching at his beard. He stopped at the window to stare out.
Uncomfortable suddenly, Isobel looked at the bed, then back at Philip.
His back was to her, his shoulders wide and strong, and she had an image of those shoulders, naked as they’d been at the burn, bent over her in that bed.
Her cheeks burned. She knew he did not mean to share the room with her, and, of course, she didn’t want him to.
She didn’t. Why did she think such things?
“Where will you sleep?” she heard herself asking.
He shrugged.
Isobel went to the window and stood beside him. Below them the choppy gray sea stretched away for miles. Two islands were visible in the distance.
“Why do you resist all this? You are heir to it…why do you stay away? Your Father clearly longs to give it to you.”
“Colin can do it. Father threatened to name him tanist, but he hasn’t yet. If Father would just do it, Colin could stop hating me.”
Isobel frowned, thinking about his words and how they contradicted his actions.
He’d gone out of his way to antagonize Colin.
He’d behaved forcefully to his father—in a way that commanded respect from Dougal Kilpatrick.
Isobel could see why Dougal persisted. Philip would be an excellent leader.
If he really didn’t want to be chieftain, why then did he behave so?
“Is that what you’re waiting for? Someone to take the decision out of your hands?”
He turned to face her, his brow furrowed. “What?”
“I won’t pretend to understand you or your family, but it seems as if you resist your role as heir apparent not because you don’t want to do it, but because you think you can’t. Or shouldn’t.”
He said nothing, staring down at her, his expression odd. After a moment he turned his head, looking out the window again, his fingers tapping thoughtfully against the stone sill. “Have I mentioned that you frighten me?”
“I think you might have.”
His smile was thin. “It bears repeating.” He turned away from the window, his dark eyes shot with amber and unfathomable. “Come, let’s see if we can’t find something of my sister’s so we can finally get you home.”