Chapter Three #2
She thought about hating him, as she hated all clan chiefs, but this one had gotten her a bed in a private room that locked from the inside. He’d paid for her supper and didn’t allow her to use her last trinket.
He was stunningly handsome in the filtered light, with smooth cheekbones and a sculpted yet gentle jawline.
The slightest trace of melancholy shaped his lips.
Natural waves and strands of his windblown hair framed his face and eclipsed his soulful gaze while he stared longingly toward the window and the great Ben Nevis beyond.
He appeared distracted and mayhap…agonized by what he saw in his thoughts, what they made him feel.
He had likely done terrible things and suffered the guilt of it all. Was she his atonement? Did he still do terrible things? She shivered as a chill crept down her spine.
He turned toward her, and for an instant his faraway gaze fell on her. She felt breathless, lightheaded, incredibly sad.
Then he saw her, and his expression went a bit tender, evoking romance and mystery and compelling her to take another step down the stairs, then another, moving toward him.
He rose from his chair—like a mountain rising with the morning sun, though he was crafted in lean sinew rather than overly bulky muscle. How heavy was the weight he carried on his wide shoulders?
“Lady,” he said, his voice sounding rough with the first word of the day. “Ye rested well?”
She nodded. He called her lady again. “I owe ye much fer keeping yer word and staying the night.”
“Ye must be hungry.” He reached a hand out to the chair beside him and dragged it out from under the table for her to sit.
She did and grabbed at the black bread on a plate close to him. She graced the male server with a smile when he brought her a cup of water. It was lukewarm but clean. She drank and then asked for more.
She felt the chief’s eyes on her. One would have to be an incoherent fool not to feel the power of his gaze. But she was so thirsty for clean water, she could have drunk four cups. And the bread. It was the same she’d had last eve, so good she’d dreamed of it.
“’Twas two nights, lass.”
“Hmm?” She looked at him and stopped chewing. “Pardon?”
“Ye slept fer two days and two nights.”
What? What was he saying? He had not left her for over forty-eight hours?
“I wouldna have ye be confused aboot the days.”
She swallowed, still staring at him. “I havena slept soundly but with one eye open and one foot on the ground fer some time now. I think I made up fer it these last two days.” She smiled shyly before she realized what she was doing.
When her blood warmed her veins at the way he was looking at her, she cleared her throat and darted her gaze to the door.
“No one will harm ye here,” he said in a deep voice coiled in restraint.
“Have ye been home?” she asked after a moment of silence between them.
“All the comforts of home are right here,” he said, turning his attention away from her to dig his spoon into his porridge when it arrived with hers.
He had stayed and hadn’t gone home for two days.
“Thank ye, Chief,” she allowed herself to say.
The faintest trace of a smile slipped across his features. She was glad he didn’t smile more often. She would lose her senses too much.
“Now I am doubly curious why ye made such a promise to me.” She ate a spoonful of porridge and then ended up scraping the bowl when it was all gone.
Feeling his gaze on her again, she looked up to find him watching. Shamefully, she set the bowl down on the table. “Fergive me, it has been a long—”
“There is nothin’ to fergive,” he said and went back to eating.
That was it? He was not going to scold her for eating so much and so quickly?
When he remained quiet, giving his attention to his bowl, she drank more water and smiled. Just a little.
“Ye were about to tell me what yer motive was fer guarding my door day and night for two days. What is it ye want from me? What do ye expect to gain, Chief?”
His expression darkened, frightening her for a moment. “I want ye to arrive safely at yer destination.”
“What else?”
His brow dipped low over his eyes. His decadent lips arched downward. “Nothin’ else.”
“Am I atonement fer yer sins?” she pressed gently. She didn’t want to push too much, but she wanted to know what he expected so she could refuse now.
Laughter bubbled upward and escaped him in a husky serenade that reverberated through Ismay’s defenses and shook the walls. And while they were battering through, he grew serious again and asked, “From whom are ye runnin’, lass?”
She breathed and set her cup on the table. “My mother and the man she intends fer me to marry.”
“Why do ye run away?” he asked, appearing unfazed by her confession. But—
Did she note a thread of compassion in him? Or was she so desperate to hear it that she imagined it?
“The man I am to marry is a cruel man. Cruel men are capable of many things. I would rather be dead than tied to a heartless husband.”
He said nothing while they sat together in the empty tavern—with the innkeeper, Lewis Cameron wandering about.
“Is he the reason ye hate chiefs?” the chief asked, wiping his mouth with his serviette and leaning back in his chair.
Ismay watched as if the passage of time slowed while the cloth rubbed across his full lips. Her heart thumped loudly in her ears. She swallowed, filling herself with the sound of her throat convulsing while she swallowed.
“No, I hated them long before him.”
Again, he said nothing. Being caught staring didn’t seem to bother him. It made Ismay feel awkward and she looked away.
“I dinna wish to speak of it anymore,” she let him know.
“As ye wish,” he answered kindly, quietly. Then, “Would ye like some chicken?”
Her eyes widened on him. Chicken? “Aye! I would love some chicken!”
Well, if he was trying to win her loyalties over to his side, food was the way to do it.
“Ye willna tell the others about me being a lass, will ye??” she breathed, feeling like a young girl sharing secrets with her closest friend. “Can I trust ye no’ to tell them?”
He gave her an impatient look and nodded.
“I am called Ismay.”
He took a moment to gather the sound of it in, then waited for the rest.
She didn’t tell him. She couldn’t. She knew Camerons and MacDonalds were distant kin. He would hate her and throw her to the wolves for killing the MacDonald chief when she was eight. The MacDonalds still hated the MacPhersons for harboring her.
“Drummond. Ismay Drummond.”
He nodded, looking unconvinced.
“Fergive me,” she repented again. “Knowing certain things could be dangerous fer ye.”
His expression warmed on her, but barely. “Let me worry aboot myself.”
“I would like to agree, Chief. But I dinna want anyone dying fer me.”
“Miss Drummond,” he said with a tender scowl, “ye insult me. I willna die. No’ fer ye. No’ fer anyone.”
“I am glad to hear that.”
He was silent. Letting seconds fade away. Then, “Why are ye glad to hear it? Because ye think I am a good person? Or is it somethin’ else?”
She laughed, though it was a shrill sound that burned even her ears. “Aye, it is because ye are a good person. Ye have been kind to me. I dinna want to see ye die.”
She held her breath until she decided he was done examining her words. She hoped he was. After all, she was not being truthful. She did not want him to die because then she would be alone again. She knew it was a selfish reason. That’s why she could not tell him.
“Is that castle yer home?” She pointed in the opposite direction of Mount Nevis.
“Tor Castle. ’Tis where I live.”
Where he lived, but it was not home. Home was the other way. Ismay turned to look toward the window and…Ben Nevis—the destination she had chosen when she had first seen its peak piercing the clouds. What was there for him that he ached to return to? His home, the place where his heart dwelled?
“I would not like to live in a castle or a keep ever again,” she told him as their chicken was served.
“Where do ye plan to go from here then?”
Her eyes widened on him and for the space of a breath, she thought she would start weeping all over again. It was not like her. But she had never lost her father before. “I dinna have a plan, lord.”
His lips parted like a flower rolling back its petals to greet the sun. “Are ye goin’ wherever yer legs take ye then?”
“Aye, I suppose.” And to the colossal Ben Nevis, she thought to herself.
“Well, they took ye here, and to Tor Castle.”
“Fer what purpose?” She had to know.
“Ye will discover that when ye arrive, I suppose.”
“I am no’ going,” she insisted.
He stopped and proceeded to eat his chicken.
Ismay watched him covertly. Why would he believe that her legs took her purposely to him?
Why didn’t he insist that she go to his castle and serve him?
That’s what she expected. He was different.
He didn’t push her around or order her about.
He didn’t care if she stayed or left. In fact, he barely showed any interest in her at all.
Was he married? Was she waiting at their home beyond the mountain?
The door to the tavern opened and two of the chief’s friends from two nights ago came in from the morning cold.
“Chief!” The one with raven hair and bright-blue eyes greeted hurrying toward them. He offered Ismay a friendly smile and she returned it, though shyly. “Did ye sleep here again, then?” he asked.
The chief nodded and then turned to spread his gaze over them. “Why is Lachlan not with ye?”
“He stayed behind to have a word with the bonny Brigid Eloise Baker,” said the other man with sandy hair and topaz eyes. Ismay remembered them and she knew which one was missing.
The chief paused chewing and appeared to be thinking about it, then he scowled. “Who?”
“The baker’s daughter.”
“Ennis, the baker from Mallaig?” asked the chief.
Both men nodded and the chief went back to his bowl. Soon, Lewis, the innkeeper joined them at the table, taking a seat near the one with sandy waves and large topaz eyes. He also inquired on the whereabouts of Lachlan.
“These men are my kin,” the chief turned to her. “I didna introduce ye properly when ye last were with us. That’s Fionn MacDonald,” he motioned to the one with black hair tied back into a neat queue, “and that is his older brother, Geoffry. Ye already met Lewis.”
Geoffry smiled at her and began to remove his bonnet. He froze when his chief glared at him.
All Ismay could think about was that these two Highland brothers would likely kill her if they knew who she was and what she had done.
“This is—”
“Joseph Drummond,” she blurted, interrupting the chief. His kin didn’t look happy about it. “Fergive me.” She bowed her head before the chief without any difficulty in submissiveness. It had been taught to her in her earliest days. “I meant no disrespect.”
“Again,” he said without turning to her. “Nothin’ to fergive. Quit that way of thinkin.”
Quit…How? She leaned in close and whispered. “How am I supposed to do that?”
Finally, he lifted his head and seared brands into her soul when his gaze met hers. “Ye claimed to trust me. Start there.”