Chapter Six #3
He had folded his arms across his chest and was gazing back at her with his head tilted to the side.
“Would ye like me to teach ye?”
He sounded genuine, but Isabella could not decide if he was still baiting her.
“Teach me?” she echoed.
“Aye.” He nodded slowly. “We could begin with something easy.”
Despite herself, she was caught up in the narrative. “Such as?” She raised her eyebrows with all the haughtiness she could summon.
He pursed his lips. “Vegetable broth.”
Isabella felt her lips twitching into a smile. “And then move onto something more complex?”
“Such as good manners,” he finished for her, leaning over the back of a chair as if truly interested in her response.
Isabella could not help it. A chortle escaped her and she looked about for a napkin with which to cover her mouth.
Of course, there were no napkins in sight.
She reached for her tankard and drank until her emotions were back under control.
“That is an interesting proposition,” she said. “That a highland thief could educate an English lady in the ways of good manners.”
He reached for his own tankard. “I speak as find,” he declared. “And I am no thief.”
Once again, Isabella found that she could not help herself. “What can you mean? You speak as you find.”
Hamish regarded her steadily. So steadily, she began to blush.
“I was raised to eat what food was prepared for me,” he said eventually. “And also to show thanks to those that prepared it.”
A rebuke!
Isabella dabbed her lips with the back of her hand and took a breath.
“Forgive my rudeness,” she said as prettily as she could manage.
“Thank you kindly, sir, for the lavish spread you have prepared for me.” She lowered her eyes and considered again the offerings on the table.
“In particular the bread, which I imagine can be no less than a sennight old. ’Tis a wonder indeed that there is no mold growing upon it. ”
He winked at her. “Milady, I had the foresight to scrape away what mold I found.”
She laughed out loud before she could stop herself. “Such chivalry,” she managed from behind her hand.
“I spoke the truth when I claimed to be civilized.” Hamish too was entertained; she could tell by the slight trembling of his shoulders as well as the humor in his blue eyes.
He is a man who likes to laugh, she thought suddenly, picturing him in a different setting, surrounded by family and friends.
This would never do.
Before much more time passed, Isabella imagined she might find herself fawning over his every word.
And he, the man who was keeping her prisoner in her own brother’s house.
She rose abruptly from the table.
“Have you come to any conclusion with regard to my future?” She relished how he flinched from the question and added icily, “I mean, whether I am to live or die?”
Hamish recovered quickly, grasping the back of the chair with his large hands and allowing his gaze to meet with hers.
“I still say this situation we find ourselves in would resolve itself more easily if we were to help one another.”
’Twas a simple statement. And one she was almost moved to consider.
Almost.
“And I still say that I do not negotiate with those who seek to threaten me.” Isabella gripped her own chair, taking strength from the memory that Frida had likely once stood here. And not just Frida, but Esme and Mirrie and Jonah.
And Tristan.
“And I remind you of my family connections. And the wrath you will face when all of this is discovered.” She threw back her head defiantly.
“Ye dinna need to remind me of yer family connections. They are the reason we are still here. Ye ken?”
Isabella was breathing hard as a strange mixture of anger and adrenaline surged through her limbs. It took a moment for her to make sense of his words. But as his meaning became clear, she felt colder than she had in the depths of last night.
In all the time she had spent with the highlander, she had imagined a sort of connection existed between them. A meeting of minds. A feeling of kindness.
Mayhap more than kindness.
But this morn and last night, he had been thinking only of her family connections.
Of Tristan, no doubt, and how he might help further his cause.
When Hamish considered whether she should live or die, ’twas Tristan who came into his mind, not her, however much he gazed at her golden hair.
Isabella had long known the power she wielded over men. It had been part of her, like her long fingers and narrow feet. But clearly, her powers were fading.
Perchance her purpose was no longer even decorative. She was merely the sister of one powerful man. The daughter of another.
No one’s wife. No one’s mother.
She backed away from the table, glad after all that she had not partaken of cheese and berries as nausea churned in her belly.
The highlander still might kill her. He still carried his sword at his hip. He stood like a man braced for action.
“I am willing to talk, whene’er ye are willing to listen,” he said.
Isabella shook her head, still backing away from the table. “I will never be willing,” she whispered, afraid that her voice might shake.
“I am a patient man,” he countered.
Isabella looked him in the eye with the last of her courage. “You will have to be.” She took a breath. “This house belongs to my family. You are an imposter here. Again I say, do not follow me.”
Until she had reached the top of the stairs and was confident he had obeyed her desperate command, Isabella held her breath. Then she clung onto the banister as a wave of dizziness broke her vision into countless dancing dots.
God’s blood, how could she ever hope to manage this?
Isabella straightened her legs and breathed deeply until the grooved lines of the floorboards came back into focus.
She would stay alive the only way she knew how.
Behind a locked door.