Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Ruaridh told himself he was training because the men needed it, and that was true enough.
The prisoner below had given him little beyond threats, but threats had weight when they came from Ewen MacDonald’s camp.
So Ruaridh spent the afternoon in the yard, correcting stance, breaking guards, driving two younger men into the dust until their pride improved or died trying.
All of that was true. It was also true that he had left a bow upon the bed in his chamber and had been thinking of it since. There was no note with the bow. Words on parchment were too clumsy for what he had meant.
The bow he left was smaller than the ones his men used, but not delicate. He had told the bowyer exactly how it should draw, how her reach would sit, how her fingers closed around a grip, how much strength she hid beneath all that proud restraint. The man had looked at him oddly only once.
“Again,” he ordered, and the lad before him lunged too eagerly.
Ruaridh caught the wooden blade, twisted, and sent him stumbling sideways into the dirt.
“Ye lead with yer temper,” Ruaridh explained. “Temper announces itself before the sword arrives.”
The younger man nodded breathlessly and scrambled up.
Torin stood nearby with his arms folded. “Ye have told him that four times.”
“Then perhaps on the fifth, God will favor us.”
Torin’s mouth twitched. Ruaridh reached for the skin of water hanging over the fence and poured some over his head rather than drink.
Sweat ran down his face, neck, and chest. His shirt had been abandoned long ago, the heat of training making it useless, though the evening wind had begun to turn sharp across his skin.
He was reaching for his practice sword again when the yard changed. He turned to find Isobel standing at the edge of the yard with the bow in her hand.
For a moment, everything in him stilled.
The gift suited her. He knew that before she drew it, before she tested the curve or set an arrow to string.
It suited the straightness of her spine, the wariness in her eyes, the fierce grace of her fingers around the polished wood.
She looked like a woman who had been handed something that was not meant to tame her, and did not yet know what to do with the feeling of it.
Then her gaze moved over him. Ruaridh felt it as surely as a touch. She stopped, just for a breath, but long enough for her eyes to catch on his bare chest, his shoulders, the sweat still moving down his skin. A dark, male satisfaction stirred in him before he could command it away.
He was in trouble and he knew it.
Her eyes snapped back to his face, and he nearly smiled.
Torin, wise man that he was, stepped back before Ruaridh had to tell him. The two younger men followed, though one of them did so too slowly and earned a look from Torin that sent him moving at once.
Isobel crossed the yard toward him. Ruaridh made himself remain still.
That was harder than it ought to have been.
He wanted to go to her. He wanted to ask whether she liked it.
He wanted to see her draw it. He wanted to take the old hurt from her face and replace it with that startled softness he had caught for one fleeting moment when she first saw him.
Instead, he just greeted her quite formally. “Me lady.”
“Me laird,” she replied in equal manner.
He watched her fingers move over the grip.
A foolish part of him wanted to know whether she had noticed the waves carved into the inner curve.
Another part hoped she had not, because there was something too revealing in it.
He had not chosen flowers. He had not chosen any soft ornament that would make an insult of her strength.
It had to be waves, because she had crossed the sea to him in fury and sickness and pride, and somehow the sea had brought her anyway.
“It is beautiful,” she said quietly.
The words struck with more force than they should have.
“It is made fer use,” he said.
“I ken that.” She looked up. “That is why I like it.”
There she was, the true Isobel, not made shy by being pleased and still sharp enough to cut any man who mistook a gift for surrender. Ruaridh felt something warm and helpless move through his chest.
“Thank ye,” she whispered.
He had heard vows given before priests, oaths sworn before councils, men pledging land and loyalty with hands upon steel. None of them had unsettled him like those two words from her mouth.
“It suits ye,” he murmured back.
Her fingers tightened on the bow. “How would ye ken? I havenae drawn it yet.”
“I had it made tae suit ye.”
The answer came too plainly. He saw the way her breath caught though she tried to hide her reaction. Satisfaction moved through him again, but gentler now, tangled with guilt.
He left her too much of late. He told himself it was duty.
The clan needed him. The threat beneath their walls needed answers.
Ewen needed watching. Every hour spent in Council, at the shore posts, in the yard, among his men, had been justified.
Yet none of that changed the fact that she had been alone too often in a place that had not yet fully learned to welcome her.
“Ye noticed,” she smiled.
He held her gaze. “I notice ye.”
The words left him before caution could catch them. Her face warmed. He saw it, and then he saw something worse for his discipline. Her gaze dropped to his throat, following the path of sweat down his skin before she caught herself.
Ruaridh’s blood heated at once. One corner of his mouth lifted.
Her eyes narrowed. “Dinnae look pleased with yerself.”
“I wasnae.”
“Ye were.”
“Perhaps a little.”
“I can still shoot ye.”
“With the bow I gave ye?” he asked. “That would be poor thanks.”
“I thanked ye already.”
“Aye. Sweetly enough that I am still recovering.”
Color rose in her cheeks. “Ye are impossible.”
“And yet ye came tae find me.”
“I came tae express gratitude.”
“Is that all?”
He should not have asked it. He knew that the instant the words settled between them. But some reckless part of him wanted to see whether she would retreat, or strike, or step closer.
Isobel lifted her chin. “What else would there be?”
Ruaridh let his gaze move over her face, slowly enough that she would understand, yet carefully enough that she could stop him with a single word. She did not.
His attention dropped to the bow, partly to spare them both and partly because an idea had taken hold. “Since ye are here already, I could teach ye a few things.”
“I ken how tae shoot.”
“Aye. Better than some of me men, which has done terrible harm tae their pride.”
Her mouth twitched. “Good.”
“But there isnae always a bow close.”
Understanding sharpened her face. He wanted her armed in every way she could be, not hidden behind walls and not wrapped in his protection until she felt caged by it. If danger came for her again, he wanted his men between her and harm, aye, but he also wanted harm to regret reaching her at all.
“What sort of things?” she asked.
“How tae get free if a man catches ye too close. How tae use his weight against him. How tae make him regret touching ye.”
Something steadied in her. He saw the desire change shape, not disappear, but root itself in something more familiar to her.
“I would learn that,” she nodded.
Ruaridh nodded once. “Set the bow aside.”
She hesitated over it.
His voice softened before he could prevent it. “It willnae vanish.”
“I ken.”
But she set it along the fence with the care of someone placing down a promise rather than a weapon. When she turned back, Ruaridh realized he had moved closer. He held out one hand.
“Give me yer wrist.”
Isobel looked at it. “That sounds unwise.”
“It is a lesson, but I promise ye, it ends whenever ye say so.”
Slowly, she placed her wrist in his hand. He closed his fingers carefully, making certain she felt the hold without feeling trapped by it.
“If a man grips ye here, dinnae pull straight back,” he said. “He is likely stronger, and ye will only tire yerself.”
She glanced at his hand around her wrist. He adjusted his grip, willing himself not to notice the smoothness of her skin beneath his fingers.
“Turn toward me thumb. That is where the hold is weakest.”
She obeyed sharply. His grip opened, and she pulled free. Her surprise came bright and quick across her face. Ruaridh hid his pride poorly.
“Again.”
The second time, she moved faster. Anger sent her strength in the wrong direction, and he caught her easily.
“Too much anger,” he said.
“I was under the impression anger helped.”
“In battle, sometimes. In escape, it makes ye careless.”
She glared at him. “Dae ye intend tae lecture me through all of this?”
“Aye.”
“Then I may prefer danger.”
A laugh escaped him. It had been too long since he had laughed like that, and too long since anything in his life had felt light without being foolish.
They practiced again. Each time he touched her, he had to remind himself why he was doing it.
Each time she freed herself, something fierce and admiring moved through him.
She learned quickly because pride would not allow otherwise, but there was more than pride in it.
She listened. She watched. She measured every instruction and made it her own.
Soon, her hair loosened from its pins. The wind caught strands, her sleeves pulled tight at her elbows. A flush had risen beneath her skin from movement, and her breathing had changed just enough that Ruaridh had to look away once and gather what remained of his sense.
He was a grown man, a laird, a man who had faced blades without flinching. And his wife’s loosened hair was becoming a danger to him.
He stepped before her. “If a man comes at ye from the front, he may try tae seize both arms.”
“Like this?” she asked.
Before he could move, she caught his forearms. Ruaridh went still.
Her palms were warm against his bare skin.
That was his first thought, which was unfortunate, because a better man would have focused on the lesson.
Her fingers rested over muscle and old scars, and when they flexed slightly, his body answered with a speed that made mockery of all his restraint.
His brows lifted. Her gaze dropped to her own hands, to his arms beneath them, and the flush returned to her face.
“Almost,” he replied, and his voice lowered without permission.
Her fingers flexed again. His gaze dropped to them. Around them, the yard faded into an indistinct clatter of wood and breath and men pretending not to watch. Ruaridh knew they were being observed. He knew Torin was somewhere nearby, likely judging him with that grim stare of his.
He did not care as much as he should have.
“Isobel,” he spoke.
It was not a warning. If it had been, he did not know which of them it was meant to protect. She should have let go. She didn’t.
“What now?” she asked.
For one reckless heartbeat, the answer that came to him had nothing to do with training.
Now he would put his mouth on hers.
Now he would see whether she still tasted of the kiss stolen in the yard.
Now he would forget the watching men, the threat in the dungeons, the whole cursed weight of clan and duty, and take what she offered only if she offered it again.
His control slipped enough that he knew she saw it. Her eyes widened slightly, not with fear. That nearly finished him.
“Now,” he continued slowly, “ye step closer.”
Her breath caught.
“Tae throw me,” he added.
“Of course,” she replied, though her voice had gone soft.
His mouth curved. “Of course.”
She stepped closer. Her skirts brushed his legs. Her hands remained on his arms. She was near enough that he could see the pulse at her throat, and the fierce uncertainty in her eyes as though she had walked into fire and refused to step back merely because it burned.
“Put yer foot there,” he murmured.
She looked down. Ruaridh knew the moment she realized how close they stood. He knew it because he realized it again himself, more sharply. The space between them had become a thin, heated thing.
He placed one hand at her waist to correct her stance in a proper touch for the lesson. Nothing more. Her body answered beneath his palm. His fingers tightened once before he forced them to ease.
“Like this?” she asked.
“Aye.”
His voice sounded rougher than it should have.
“What next?”
“Ye turn yer hip and push.”
She did. He did not move.
She frowned up at him. “I thought ye said tae use his weight against him.”
“I said that. I didnae say it would work if ye pushed like ye were apologizing.”
“I wasnae apologizing.”
“Then stop being gentle.”
Her eyes flashed. “I am never gentle.”
His gaze dropped to her mouth before he could stop it. “Nay?”
The word ruined what remained of the lesson.
He knew it. She knew it.
For one impossible heartbeat, neither of them moved. His hand was still near her waist. Her fingers were still on his arms. Her mouth was close enough that he could remember too clearly how it had opened beneath his.
Then a wooden practice blade struck the ground somewhere behind them with a loud clatter.
Ruaridh turned his head. Half the yard became suddenly fascinated by anything but their laird and his wife.
One man bent to adjust a boot that did not need adjusting.
Another stared at the wall as if expecting divine revelation from stone.
Torin stood near the far side of the yard, looking like a man who had endured much and expected worse.
Isobel stepped back, with color high in her cheeks. Ruaridh cleared his throat and tried to remember he possessed authority.
“Again,” he urged quietly.
And when she twisted free this time, Ruaridh knew the lesson had become something neither of them was trying very hard to escape.