Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Ruaridh reached their chamber wet, half-dressed, and in a temper made worse by the fact that he was not, in truth, angry. A man could not be properly angry while the sound of his wife’s laughter still followed him through the yard like sunlight breaking over stone.
He shut the door behind him with more force than necessary and threw the damp fishing net aside. It landed near the hearth in an undignified heap, which, he thought grimly, suited the morning. His shirt clung coldly to his skin, his plaid was badly arranged, and his hair dripped down his neck.
The Wolf of the Western Isles, reduced to creeping through his own yard like a thief caught at a window.
He stripped, dried himself quickly, and reached for fresh clothes. He had just dragged a clean shirt over his head when the door opened.
Isobel entered without knocking. She was still laughing, although not loudly. But it remained in her eyes, bright and wicked, and in the curve of her mouth as she closed the door behind her.
Ruaridh stilled. “Ye are bold, coming in here after committing theft.”
“It wasnae theft.”
He lifted an indignant eyebrow. “Me clothes vanished from the shore and appeared in yer hands. It is a crime.”
“It is education,” she said, lifting her chin. “Ye told me few people stumble there. I have improved yer understanding of risk.”
He reached for his belt. “Ye left me tae cross the yard naked.”
“Nae naked,” she grinned. “Ye had a net.”
“A net.”
“A poor one, admittedly.”
His eyes narrowed. “Dae ye ken how many people saw?”
Her smile deepened. “Enough that I believe Morag shall have material fer gossip until winter.”
He should have reprimanded her. He should have reminded her that he was laird here, that there were limits even to mischief, that his authority was not some toy to be stolen with his boots. Instead, his mouth betrayed him and almost smiled.
Isobel saw it. Of course she did.
“Oh,” she said softly. “Ye arenae nearly as furious as ye wish tae appear.”
“That is a dangerous assumption.”
“So is bathing without guards.”
He took one step toward her. “Careful, wife.”
The word changed the air, not because it was new. It was not. But in the close warmth of the chamber, with her cheeks still flushed from laughter and his hair still damp from the sea, it sounded less like law and more like something dangerous they had both begun to understand.
Her smile faltered, but didn’t disappear. “Careful, husband.”
There it was again, that spark. It reached him quicker than anger could.
Ruaridh moved before he had decided to, with purpose enough that she stepped back. Her skirts brushed the side of the bed, and only then did she seem to realize where he had guided her.
Her laughter had gone, and his own amusement with it.
The room seemed suddenly too small for the both of them.
Firelight moved across the carved bedposts, caught in the loose strands of her hair, warmed the soft skin at her throat where her pulse beat too quickly to be hidden.
He was aware of everything: the faint salt still on his own skin, the clean linen half-fastened at his chest, the scent of her hair, the rise and fall of her breath.
“Ye think this funny?” he asked.
His voice had lowered. Her eyes moved to his mouth and back so quickly he might have missed it, had he been a better man.
“A little,” she whispered.
“A little.”
“A great deal, perhaps.”
He stepped closer.
She put one hand back upon the bedpost, not to retreat now, but to steady herself. “Ruaridh.”
His name was no longer laughter, and not quite warning either. He set one hand on the bedpost beside her shoulder, caging her without touching. The other remained at his side, clenched hard enough to remind him of every promise he had made.
“Ye stole from me,” he echoed.
“I borrowed.”
That made her mouth twitch again, but the attempt failed beneath the weight of his nearness. Her gaze dropped to the open throat of his shirt, where he had not yet tied the laces. Her breath caught softly.
He desperately wanted to kiss her. The thought came with such force that it was less thought than hunger.
He wanted to do it because she stood before him laughing, bold and alive, and had made the whole of Duart laugh with her, because she had looked at him on the cliffs as though his life mattered, because she had put her hands on his wound and told him the truth of her grief, because he was beginning to want her not as a wife owed to him, but as Isobel.
Her smile had vanished entirely.
“The bet,” she whispered.
Ruaridh went still. The words struck like cold water.
He remembered the yard, the bow, her victory and his own vow, spoken low enough for only her to hear.
If ye win, I willnae touch ye until ye beg me tae.
He had meant it as challenge then, as provocation. But now, with her backed against the bed and his blood running hot beneath his skin, the words returned as a line drawn between the man he was and the man he refused to become.
“Aye,” he nodded.
Her fingers tightened on the bedpost. He should have moved away at once. He did not.
Instead, with effort that felt almost physical, he lowered his hand from beside her shoulder and asked, very quietly. “Is that truly what ye want?”
She looked at him. No sharp answer came, no insult, no swift defense thrown up between them. All she had was silence.
Her lips parted slightly, then closed again. The absence of an answer was more dangerous than any surrender could have been. It told him nothing certain, and therefore told him everything he needed.
Ruaridh stepped back. Every part of him resisted it. He stepped back anyway. The space between them opened like a wound.
Isobel remained where she was, with one hand still gripping the bedpost, her hair loosened about her face, and her cheeks flushed. She looked disheveled, startled, and angrier perhaps at herself than at him. The sight nearly broke what little restraint he had managed to gather.
He turned toward the door.
“Where are ye going?” she asked.
He didn’t look back at first. “Somewhere I will remain honorable.”
“That sounds unlike ye.”
The old sharpness had returned, but it trembled.
He paused with his hand on the latch. “Aye. I am making sacrifices all over the place.”
That earned the faintest breath of would-be laughter.
Ruaridh opened the door. Only then did he look back.
She still stood beside the bed, with one hand at her throat now, as though she could hold herself together by force.
Her eyes met his, dark and shaken and full of something neither of them was ready to name.
He wanted to go back to her. Instead, he bowed his head once.
“Lock the door, Isobel.”
Her mouth softened in surprise. He left before it could undo him.
In the corridor, the air was colder, clearer, and no help at all. Ruaridh stood for one moment with his hand against the stone, breathing like a man who had run from battle.
He closed his eyes. He had kept his word.
Barely.
And never in his life had honor felt so much like defeat.
Dinner had barely begun before Isobel realized something was wrong. Only, it wasn’t wrong in the dangerous sense. This was different. This was wrong in the way Torin would not meet her eyes, and Brodie looked far too pleased with himself.
Isobel sat very straight beside Sorcha, aware of Ruaridh across the table and equally aware that he seemed determined not to look at her for too long.
That, in itself, would have been suspicious enough.
After what had happened that afternoon, she expected some awkwardness.
She didn’t expect half the table to watch them as though waiting for a sermon to turn scandalous.
Brodie lifted his cup. “Well,” he spoke with dreadful solemnity, “I hope that the peace is restored in the household.”
Torin shut his eyes.
Isobel’s fingers tightened around her spoon. “Peace?”
“Aye,” Brodie nodded. “After such… unrest.”
Ruaridh went still.
Torin reached for his cup with the air of a man hoping ale might drown him. “Naething, me lady.”
The heat rushed up Isobel’s throat so quickly she nearly choked on air.
Surely the entire household did not think they had made peace that way after the little joke in the yard?
Isobel wished the rushes beneath her feet would open and swallow her whole.
Someone at the lower end of the table coughed into his hand. Torin looked as if he wished to be struck dead. Ruaridh’s expression had become so controlled that Isobel knew he was either furious or very close to laughter, and she did not know which possibility offended her more.
“Nay one will speak another word of this,” Ruaridh ordered.
“Aye,” Brodie replied. “A private matter.”
Isobel stood so quickly her chair scraped against the floor.
“I think I require air,” she said.
Then, before anyone could stop her, or worse, pity her, she turned and walked out of the hall with as much dignity as a woman could manage while her face burned like a hearthstone.
Outside, the cold struck her full in the cheeks. She welcomed it. She crossed the yard and stopped near the low wall where the sea could be heard below, black and restless against the rocks. For a few moments, she only breathed. Then footsteps followed.
“Go away,” she snarled.
“They will think I am a coward if I let ye face the cold alone.”
“They already think far worse.”
Ruaridh stopped beside her, leaving a careful space between them. “They are fools.”
“They are yer fools.”
“Aye. I shall remind them of it painfully.”
Despite herself, her mouth almost trembled into a smile. She crushed it at once.
“It is nae funny,” she pouted.
“Nay.”
“They thought we…” She stopped, unable to force the words out. Her shame rose again, hot and miserable. “I made a fool of meself.”
Ruaridh’s voice softened. “Ye didnae.”
“I did.” She gripped the cold stone wall. “I couldnae even deny it properly. I sounded like some ignorant girl who didnae ken what she was denying.”
He said nothing. That silence was almost worse, because it was not mocking. It was listening.
Isobel stared at the sea. “Me maither died before she could tell me anything useful. Me faither only ever spoke of duty. A daughter’s duty. A wife’s duty, silence obedience, modesty.” Her throat tightened. “Nay one ever thought tae explain what any of it meant before I was handed tae a husband.”
Ruaridh’s jaw tightened, but not at her.
“Then I shall tell ye plainly,” he said.
She looked at him, startled.
He kept his gaze on the dark water, as if that might make the words easier for her to bear. “Naething happens between us unless ye wish it. Nae because of a priest, nae because of the Crown and certainly nae because fools at supper have decided tae invent stories.”
Her breath caught.
“And what if I dinnae even ken what I am meant tae wish fer?” she asked quietly.
“Then there is nay shame in asking.”
The answer unsettled her more than teasing would have. For a moment, she said nothing. The wind tugged at her skirts and loosened a strand of hair across her cheek.
“What happens?” she asked at last, barely above a whisper. “Between a man and wife?”
Ruaridh’s eyes moved to her face, then away again, careful as ever. “There is touching first. Kissing. Closeness. A man should take time. He should learn whether his wife wants him near or wants him gone.”
“And if she wants him gone?”
“Then he goes.”
She looked at him quickly.
He gave her a dry glance. “I have done it before, as ye may recall.”
Her cheeks warmed, but not with the same humiliation as before. “And… if she daesnae want him gone?”
Something changed in the air between them.
“Then he stays,” Ruaridh spoke in a low voice. “And if she trusts him enough, they may lie together. Their bodies join. It can hurt the first time, if she is afraid or if he is careless. It shouldnae be something taken from her.”
Isobel swallowed. Her heart had begun to beat too quickly.
He turned toward her fully then. “It should be chosen.”
The words settled into her with a strange ache.
Chosen.
So little in her life had been. She looked down, then back at him. He was standing closer than before. Or perhaps she had moved. She did not remember doing so.
“If I wanted ye tae kiss me,” she whispered, “would that make me shameless?”
His face changed at once, his eyes darkening. “Nay.”
“It feels as though it would.”
“Then ye were taught wrongly.”
Her breath trembled. “By everyone.”
His hand lifted, then stopped short of touching her. He was not taking, nor claiming… just waiting.
Slowly, Isobel leaned into his hand. His fingers touched her cheek, warm despite the cold. The gentleness of it was so unexpected that her eyes stung. He stepped closer, giving her every chance to move away. She did not.
When his mouth met hers, the kiss was careful, almost a question. Isobel stood very still, startled by the warmth of him, by the softness of his lips, by the sharp, sweet pull low in her chest that felt nothing like shame.
Then she answered him. Her hand rose to his cloak, closing in the dark wool.
Ruaridh made a low sound and deepened the kiss, still restrained and still careful, though she felt the effort it cost him.
His hand slid to the back of her neck, his fingers threading into her hair, and the cold night seemed to vanish around them.
For one stolen moment, there was no hall, no auction and no feud, only him and the choice she had made.
Then a voice came from behind them.
“Ruaridh.”
They sprang apart. Torin stood several paces away, looking anywhere but at them. Isobel’s face burned hotter than ever.
Ruaridh turned very slowly. “This had better be urgent.”
Torin’s expression sobered. “A man has been captured near the lower path.”
All softness left Ruaridh at once. “Whose man?”
Torin glanced once at Isobel, then back at him. “We believe he belongs tae Ewen.”