Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
Ruaridh had never liked teaching children to shoot.
Men, at least, knew what they feared. They hid it badly, cursed it loudly, or pretended it was anger. Boys, however, bore disappointment with such naked misery that a man was made uncomfortably aware of his own size, his own voice, and the possible cruelty of every correction.
Young Fergus stood before him in the yard with a bow too large for his bones and a resolve too fierce for his strength. He had the look of a lad who wished very much to impress someone and had already begun to suspect the universe was not inclined to assist him.
“Again,” Ruaridh ordered.
Fergus swallowed, lifted the bow, and drew.
“Nay. Yer elbow.”
The boy lifted it.
“Too high.”
The boy lowered it.
“Now ye have dropped yer shoulder.”
Fergus went red from collar to brow. Ruaridh bit back a sigh. Patience, he had discovered, was much admired in a laird by those who were not required to practice it before half a yard of idle witnesses.
Fergus loosed the arrow. It struck the outer edge of the target and fell with a sorry little clatter to the stones. The boy’s face collapsed before he managed to stiffen it again.
“Ye are aiming with impatience,” Ruaridh pointed out.
“I am trying, me laird.”
“Then try with sense.”
The words were too hard. He knew it the instant they left him. He was about to correct himself, which was the most humiliating form of teaching known to man, when a woman’s voice came from the archway.
“It may be easier if ye corrected what he is daein’, rather than what he is failing tae become.”
Ruaridh turned. Isobel was standing beneath the shadow of the arch, and for a moment the morning seemed to gather itself around her.
She was wearing one of the gowns Sorcha had found for her, plain enough for the day and warmer than the silks she had arrived in. The wool was dark, but the wind had put color in her cheeks. She looked lovely, which was something he refused to acknowledge.
“Lady Isobel,” he greeted her. “Have ye come tae inspect me yard?”
Her chin lifted at once. There it was, the spark. “I came upon it by accident.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “And yet ye had advice tae offer.”
“I had an observation.”
“Are they different, in Dunnyveg?”
“Often. Men are more likely tae survive an observation.”
Fergus’ mouth twitched. Ruaridh saw it. Isobel saw it, too. The boy looked down, but not quickly enough.
Some small, unexpected amusement moved in Ruaridh’s chest. He crushed it before it could reach his face.
“Then observe, me lady,” he said.
Her gaze moved to Fergus, and there her expression changed. It softened by no more than a thread, but Ruaridh saw it. She had not spoken from vanity. She had seen the boy’s humiliation and answered it before prudence could stop her.
That knowledge struck him oddly.
“The bow is too heavy fer him,” she pointed out.
“It is the bow he has.”
“Then his stance must account fer it. He is leaning back because the draw overmasters him. His left foot should turn a little more, enough tae let his weight settle. And he is gripping too tightly, which is why the arrow pulls.”
Fergus stared down at his offending feet. Ruaridh looked from the boy to Isobel. She was correct. Worse, she was precisely correct.
“A MacDonald lady with opinions on archery.”
“A MacDonald lady with practice in it.”
Practice.
The word was too modest for the certainty in her voice. He knew weapons well enough to know when a person had watched and when a person had done. Isobel spoke like one whose hands remembered.
“Practice seems a generous word,” he mused.
Her eyes sharpened. “Then test it with another.”
There were challenges a man ignored because they were foolish, and challenges he ignored because accepting them would cost him.
This one, unfortunately, was neither. It was dangerous because every watching man in the yard had heard a MacDonald woman correct their laird, and every one of them now waited to learn whether she would be put in her place.
Ruaridh looked at the men. Then at the boy. Then at Isobel.
She was alone. She would never admit it. She might sooner bite through her own tongue. But she stood in the heart of Duart with enemies on every side, and still she had spent her first unguarded morning defending a boy from shame.
No one else in the yard knew what that cost her. He did.
“Would ye like tae show us?” he asked.
A flicker passed through her expression, the swift calculation of a woman wise enough to know she had stepped into a snare and proud enough to remain there.
“I would,” she replied.
He held out the bow.
She looked at it, then at him. “That bow is made fer ye.”
“It is the bow I have.”
“How fond ye are of instruction when it serves ye,” she retorted.
“How fortunate that ye are fond of giving it.”
Fergus made a small sound that was almost a laugh. Ruaridh gave him a look, though without much force. The boy immediately arranged his face into innocence… badly.
Ruaridh called for another target. The command drew more attention than it should have. Men turned openly now. By evening, half the castle would have a version of this scene, each less accurate than the last.
Good. Let them see that the woman he had brought into Duart was not some trembling hostage to be whispered over and pitied when no one was listening. Let them see she possessed skill, wit, and the reckless courage to provoke him in his own yard. Let them see he would not punish her for it.
Isobel took the bow. Her fingers settled, adjusted, rejected discomfort with visible disdain.
“Still certain?” he asked.
“Painfully.”
That almost undid him. The new target was set beside the first. Ruaridh took another bow and tested the string, though his attention remained upon her. She stood very straight, but not from ease. Pride had set her spine where comfort could not.
He stepped near her. Too near, perhaps, but the yard was watching, and what he had to say was not for every hungry ear in Duart.
“If ye win,” he murmured, “I willnae touch ye until ye beg me tae.”
Her breath changed only slightly, yet he was close enough to hear it. Her face remained composed, but color rose at the edge of her cheek.
She turned her head just enough that her eyes met his. “And if ye win?”
There were a dozen gentler answers. He chose none of them.
“Then taenight,” he said, low enough for her alone, “ye come tae me as me wife.”
She stiffened. “That is a bold wager fer a man who promised he wouldnae force me.”
The words struck him harder than they should have, because they found the exact place he had meant never to leave undefended.
“I did promise,” he confirmed. “And I keep what I swear. A wager is nae force. Refuse it, and there is nae bargain.”
For a moment, he thought she would. Some part of him wanted her to. Another part, darker and less civilized, wanted to see what she would do when cornered by her own pride.
He told himself the wager was strategy. He told himself she needed to choose something, even if it was only the shape of a contest. He did not tell himself he wanted to know whether her pulse was beating as hard as his.
“How many arrows?” she asked.
“Three each.”
“Equal distance?”
“Equal distance.”
“And nay MacLean trickery?”
The corner of his mouth almost moved. “Dae ye require me tae define the term?”
“Nay. I suspect I shall recognize it by instinct.”
Sharp-tongued, proud, furious woman.
He stepped back before proximity made him foolish.
“Then we begin.”
Ruaridh took the first arrow. It was a respectable shot, good enough to maintain authority, as it struck near the center. Approval moved through the men. He felt, at once, both satisfaction and annoyance. That had been better than intended.
Isobel’s face gave nothing away. She took her place. The bow was heavy for her. He saw the strain in the way her arm steadied, but she corrected for it exactly as she had told Fergus to do.
She drew. The line of her body changed. She was no longer merely a lady holding a weapon. It was memory made visible. She loosed. The arrow struck a hand’s breadth from his.
Ruaridh’s interest sharpened. He took his second arrow. The arrow flew cleaner than the first and landed closer to the center. The boy near the target lit with admiration. Several men made low sounds of approval.
Isobel lifted her bow. The first shot had proven she would not be humiliated. The second seemed to remind her that she had not come there merely to survive his test. She released and her arrow struck inside the mark of his first.
This time the yard did admire her. Ruaridh felt something in his chest loosen.
There she is, then, the unwilling wife of the Wolf of the Western Isles, as herself.
He wondered how long it had been since anyone had permitted her to be that in public.
The third arrow remained. By then, Ruaridh knew two things. The first was that Isobel was better than he had expected… considerably better. The second was that the yard needed to see her win even if it meant he would be humiliated.
Still, he did not decide until he drew the final arrow. The bow bent. Ruaridh adjusted by the smallest degree. He released. The arrow struck wide of the inner ring. Still good, though not his best shot.
He stepped back. Isobel came forward for the last shot. Her hand flexed once upon the bow. He saw fatigue in her arm. The weapon was too heavy, and the morning wind had turned mischievous. Yet she did not complain. She did not even look at him.
She lifted the bow. The yard quieted. Ruaridh found himself holding his breath. Her draw was not as smooth as his, but her aim was cleaner, more patient. Her whole attention went to the target with such fierce stillness that he thought, absurdly, she might command the arrow by will alone.
She released. The arrow flew. It struck inside his last mark.
For one perfect second, no one moved.
Then Fergus shouted. “She won!”
The boy’s own horror at having spoken came too late. The yard broke into sound.
Ruaridh lowered his bow and looked at Isobel.
She stood as if victory had reached her more slowly than the arrow.
She had expected him to resent it. He could read that expectation plainly enough.
It had lived too long in her, the anticipation that men would dislike any proof of her ability unless they had arranged it themselves.
He inclined his head.
“A clean victory,” he told her.
Her expression concealed surprise, but he saw it. The words struck somewhere she had not guarded.
“Then ye will remember the terms,” she reminded him.
He took the bow from her, his hand closing over the place where hers had warmed the wood.
“I remember all me debts.”
She turned away quickly after that. As she passed Fergus, she gave the boy one last piece of instruction, as cool and precise as though she had not just defeated the laird of Duart before half his own household.
“Turn yer foot. And dinnae grip so tightly. The bow isnae trying tae escape ye.”
“Aye, me lady,” Fergus said, with worshipful solemnity.
Ruaridh nearly pitied the lad. A boy could recover from a poor shot. He was less certain anyone recovered easily from Lady Isobel MacDonald’s approval.
She disappeared beneath the arch and the yard breathed again. Men resumed speaking, and the world, having tilted, began rearranging itself around the new fact that the MacDonald woman could shoot.
Brodie came to stand at Ruaridh’s shoulder. Torin joined him a moment later, wearing the expression of a man determined not to smile and failing in spirit if not in form.
“Ye pulled the last shot,” Brodie mused.
Ruaridh looked toward the target. “Did I?”
“Aye,” Torin said. “Badly, fer a man who usually lies better with a bow.”
“I didnae pull it badly.”
Brodie snorted. “Ye missed the center by choice.”
There was no use denying it.
“She is in enemy territory,” Ruaridh reminded them. “Every face she passes tells her so. She needed a victory more than I needed pride.”
The two men fell silent. That silence was not agreement, exactly. But neither was it protest.
Torin looked toward the arch where she had gone. “And the first two?”
Ruaridh exhaled. “The first two were luck better than I deserved. Her arrows were cleaner than mine.”
Brodie glanced at him sharply, then at the target.
Torin’s brows lifted. “That will trouble some men.”
“Good,” Ruaridh nodded.
Then, he looked again toward the dark passage. He did not know whether she would be pleased, furious, or both if she understood what he had done. With Isobel, those emotions seemed to occupy neighboring rooms and throw open the doors without warning.
Across the yard, Fergus had taken up his bow again. This time he turned his foot, settled his weight, and loosened his grip. The arrow still struck poorly, but it struck the target and stayed there.
The boy turned at once toward the arch, as if hoping Lady Isobel might somehow have seen. Ruaridh saw, instead.
He had brought a MacDonald woman into Duart because politics, danger, and decency had all left him no better choice. He had expected anger. He had expected resistance. He had expected the old feud to sit between them at every meal and lie cold in the bed they did not share how they were meant to.
He had not expected her to defend a boy’s pride. He had not expected to feel, while watching her walk away with the yard staring after her, that Duart had shifted by one narrow inch toward making space for her.
That was a dangerous thought.
Ruaridh handed the bow back to one of his men.
“Again,” he called to Fergus, more quietly this time. “And mind what the lady told ye.”
The boy grinned and reached for another arrow. Ruaridh looked once more toward the archway. His wife was somewhere inside the castle now, likely already gathering her temper around her like armor. He could almost hear the words she would use if she learned he had spared his final shot.
And if victory gave her even one morning in which she did not feel wholly surrounded, he could endure being thought a poorer archer than he was.