Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Innes ducked low into the bushes, glancing behind her to make sure that her horse was disguised by the trees. In the distance, an owl hooted. From inside the Torrisdale Inn, she could hear a few people talking, the last local drunks putting away their ale for the night.
But she wasn’t much concerned about the regular patrons of this place, no. She wanted to see when her husband was going to make his appearance. Where was he anyway? If she had made it there already and found the inn, he must have arrived long before her.
It was close to midnight, and she had been hiding out in the bushes not too far from the back entrance of the inn.
It was here, she supposed, that this clandestine meeting would take place if it were to happen at all.
She kept praying that she might have been wrong about all of this, that her husband would prove her paranoid beyond all reason with her actions, but she got the feeling, the more time passed, that she was not going to be so lucky.
Finally, the door to the inn swung open. A familiar figure stepped out into the dim light—Isobel.
She was draped in a shawl and carrying a lantern, a small smile on her face, as if she already knew that everything had gone exactly as she had intended it to.
Innes almost wanted to call out to her then, to demand what it was she thought she had been doing when she had left that letter for her husband, but she knew she would never be granted an answer.
Isobel did not even see the two of them as being on the same level, and she would dismiss Innes out of hand with no warning.
A few moments later, the clatter of hooves on the soft earth cut through the air, and Isobel turned her lantern to light Lachlan’s passage.
Innes pressed her lips together when she saw that her husband truly was there to meet with another woman.
A part of her had prayed that he would not show his face here, not risk harming his marriage with such nonsense, and yet, there he stood.
“You got my letter, then?” Isobel asked with a hint of surprise in her voice. Was she not expecting him?
Lachlan dismounted and made his way towards her.
“Aye, I did,” he replied.
There was no affection in his voice, though. This was something else entirely. Anger. Distaste. Like he wished he could brush her off right then and there.
“And I’m glad to see that you have recovered so quickly,” he went on, an edge of sarcasm to his voice. “But I must inform you that whatever you think there was between us, it’s gone.”
She laughed, the sound a tinkling tune in the air. “Oh, Lachlan,” she replied, taking a step towards him. “Because of that young filly you’ve married? She doesnae ken how to please a man like you. Not as I do, at least.”
Innes gasped, clasping a hand over her mouth. It wasn’t just the shock of a woman like Isobel speaking in such blunt tones, but to a married man, no less, and while she herself was bound to her own husband. It was almost beyond her comprehension.
Lachlan moved away from her at once.
“Dinnae speak to me as though ye ken me, Isobel.”
“But I do, Lachlan,” she reminded him sweetly. “I know that you’ve tried to make me jealous with this little game. Ye don’t have to pretend any longer.”
“Ye think I took Innes as my wife to make you jealous?”
“I ken that’s what you did,” she claimed, her voice sharpening. “Dinnae play so innocent now. Ye never so much as cast a look in her direction before I rejected ye. It’s revenge. And ye’re cruel to play the girl in such a way. She doesnae ken any better.”
Innes was glad that neither of them could see her in that moment, because she was sure she would not have been able to keep the tears from falling from her eyes. Isobel spoke the truth, as cruel as it was, and the sooner she accepted it, the better.
“Aye,” Lachlan replied, after a long pause. “Aye, I might have taken her as my wife as revenge. But that’s no’ how I see her now.”
Isobel stared at him, confused. “Dinnae tell me you care for the lassie.”
Lachlan shook his head. “More than care for her.”
Isobel jerked back in surprise. “Ye love her?" she exclaimed, hardly seeming to care now if anyone else heard her. “Lachlan, do you hear yerself? You cannae love a girl like that, she’s-she’s nothing.”
“Never speak of my wife that way,” he warned her.
Innes’ head was spinning as she tried to keep up with the revelation.
He loved her?
He really loved her?
He had not come here to tell Isobel that he wished to be with her but because he intended to scare her off from ever trying something like this again?
“Ye’re mad, Lachlan,” she told him, her words as sharp as a thistle. “And ye’ll regret ever choosing that creature over me.”
She whipped her cloak around and stormed back towards the inn. Her face was flushed with humiliation, and, mercifully, she seemed too distracted to pay attention to anything that was happening in the bushes beside her.
Innes’ mind was a tangle. Shock, hurt, and the knowledge that all of this had started because he had seen her as little more than a pawn.
But now? Now things were different. She wasn’t sure if she could forgive what he had done before, but maybe now, if his feelings were real, she could see her way to—
She slipped slightly, her foot crushing a twig beneath her and sending a loud snap through the air. Lachlan looked around at once, and, squinting into the darkness, he closed the distance between them.
“Gods above, Innes,” he muttered, stooping down to pull her to her feet. “What on earth are ye doing here? Did ye follow me?”
She hesitated. Could she admit that she had invaded his privacy the way she had? She was sure he would not have forgiven her such an affront. The only way to manage that, though, was by being honest with him.
“I… I did,” she admitted. “I read the note that Isobel sent to you, and I ken I shouldn’t have. But when I heard ye were getting yer horse to come down here, I thought… I thought…”
He peered down at her, genuine confusion on his face. “Ye thought that I would come here to be with Isobel again?” he asked.
She nodded. She hated herself for letting such thoughts worm their way into her head, but she could not trust that she would have been his first choice if he had been able to decide for himself.
“Do ye no’ trust me, Innes?” he demanded, cupping her face in his hand and pulling her towards him.
It was like he was trying to look into her soul, to sup up some deep part of her that would help him understand why she seemed to have such little faith in him.
“It’s not ye I dinnae trust, Lachlan,” she admitted, meeting his gaze steadily. “It’s… it’s myself.”
Her breath was unsteady as she tried to find the words.
“I ken that things have not always been simple between us,” she confessed. “And I doubt that they ever will be. But love makes me do mad things, Lachlan. You of all people should know that.”
“Ye love me?”
She could not tell whether he was more shocked or glad. His eyes were dark, hard to read in this light, so all she had to go on were her instincts. She nodded.
“Aye, Lachlan,” she murmured. “I heard you talking to Isobel, and I… I love you too.”
He kissed her then, the kind of kiss that knocked the air from her lungs and made her feel that everything else tonight must have been a dream.
She drew herself close to him, letting her body find his, letting her breath mingle with his own as they confessed their true feelings to each other for the first time.
How ironic, she could not help but think, that she likely would not have believed him if he had told her himself. She had needed to hear him say it to someone else, as a statement of fact, before she could accept the deep emotional impact of such a sentiment.
He drew back, pressing his forehead to hers.
“How much did you hear?”
“Everything. And that… that scares me, Lachlan. I cannae keep myself from thinking of all the ways that I could hurt you, all the ways that I could lose yer love, all the ways—”
He kissed her again, quieting her, stilling something within her that she had hardly known could be stilled.
“Say it again, Innes.”
“Say what?”
He grinned. “That you love me.”
And, before she could speak, he kissed her, a wild kiss that quieted every inch of doubt that had been clinging to her yet.