Chapter Four
Constantine finished breaking his fast and pretended to listen to the conversation around him. He wanted to look at Miss Drummond. Miss Ismay Drummond, but he would have to resist the urge to scowl.
She wanted to know why he helped her. He didn’t have an answer.
She had appeared so weary, so afraid and alone.
He offered his help without thinking first. It was a habit he thought he’d broken years ago.
When she wept while she ate, it tore at his resolve, though he did his best to ignore it.
It tore at all the men’s resolve. Without saying anything to her about it, they had guessed she was a lass early on.
He was glad. He didn’t want them to be fooled by anyone.
Yesterday morn they couldn’t stop talking about her sobbing into her bread.
Lachlan had asked if any of them noticed her shoes with the soles worn down to her flesh.
They all agreed she was running from someone.
Now, Constantine knew she’d been running from her kin and her betrothed.
She’d been running for a long time, proving her fear and her resilience were real.
He wanted to take her to Tor, where she would be safe for as long as she wanted to stay.
But she refused his offer.
What more could he do? She was not his responsibility.
“If ye’re hidin’ from the law,” Fionn addressed her, “the chief will take ye in.”
“I’m no’ hiding from the law,” Mr. Drummond told them in a voice soft enough to leave three of the four men oblivious to what she said.
“Ye will be safe at Tor,” Geoffry assured her with a tender smile that tempted Constantine to kick him under the table.
“Safe from what?” She let out a short, high-pitched laugh that sounded more like the beginning of more weeping. “I told ye I am no’ hiding from the law or anyone else.”
She trusted Constantine not to tell his cousins about her plight. So he didn’t. He turned and cast her an impatient look instead. Would she truly prefer to travel the Highlands alone than travel with him and men who would protect her?
He shouldn’t have indulged his senses by studying her so closely, even for a moment.
It was too reckless, too dangerous. She was beguiling, snatching the breath from his body—a malady he hadn’t suffered in many years.
It wasn’t her large misty eyes, or the hundreds of freckles splayed across her nose and cheeks that made him forget for a moment his name, his past. It wasn’t her straight, pert nose, or, Lord have mercy on him, her full, pouty mouth.
He imagined what she looked like when her hair was set free from under that man’s bonnet.
No. It was the courage and resolve that made her eyes shine and her delicate jaw set that tempted him to offer her his protection until whatever end came to him.
But that was all he would ever offer her.
“Chief? Are there lions in the vicinity?”
He wanted to tell her not to be afraid in his tenderest voice. But she didn’t want to be treated like a woman. She was correct to travel as a man…if she insisted on going, and if anyone believed her. He wouldn’t give away her secret, and neither would his men—if they didn’t want to get trounced.
Without taking his eyes off her, he made another promise. “Even lions dare not enter Tor Castle, young lad.”
“What do lions have to fear?” she asked, daring him with the slightest quirk of her mouth to take the bait and boast about himself, and appear a fool.
He took the bait, fool or not, delighting in the taste of it. “They fear my teeth.”
“Lochiel doesna speak an untruth” Geoffry said raising his cup. “They do fear his teeth.”
“His knives,” Fionn clarified and laughed with the others.
“Lochiel?” she asked.
“Aye,” Lewis answered, coming around to the table. “The Lochiel of Lochaber, deadliest man alive.”
They laughed in agreement.
Constantine didn’t join in the merriment. He didn’t take any joy having to take down a mountain lion that thought to eat Lachlan five years ago.
Lions wouldn’t come near any castle, but dangerous men would try. And they would fail. Always.
“Fer the last time,” he said, rising from his chair and looking down at her, “ye will be safe with the men.”
She let out a little mocking laugh and shook her head.
“With my men, ye will,” he insisted.
“What about ye?” she asked him, gazing up at him. “Where will ye be?”
He finally looked away. “I have things to see to.”
“Such as?”
She was bold, proving to Constantine she was of noble blood. Hadn’t she said her mother had arranged her marriage to a chief? Chiefs didn’t wed servants.
“Such as, doing work on my house—”
“Tor Castle is where ye live,” she observed from their previous conversation. “Yer home is somewhere else.”
“That is correct.”
“Why can I not go there with ye?” she asked him, making him reconsider if she was bold or as innocent as a secluded maiden.
His gaze roved over his cousins to find them all slack jawed and waiting for his reply.
“I willna stay at Tor Castle if ye are no’ there. I will continue on my way.”
On her way? Where? Constantine wanted to ask her. “Is keeping yerself safe dependent on my presence?”
“Ye are the one who announced that ye would protect me,” was her reply.
Should he point out that a public inn was far more dangerous than the home of a Cameron chief? He recalled her telling him that she hated clan chiefs. She’d hated them for a long time now. He was curious why.
But for now, he answered his own question. For her, the chief’s castle was likely more dangerous than a public inn.
“I have been keeping myself alive fer a month now,” she continued when he remained quiet and indecisive. “Yer assistance last eve was verra much appreciated, but yer vow was fulfilled. I willna hold any grudge against ye fer leaving now.”
“A month?” he repeated in a low voice. He’d heard everything else she told him but a month boomed loudest in his ears. He heard Fionn echo her words. “Where have you come from?”
When she didn’t answer right away, he glanced at his cousins and then at the door. “If ye must think about it, ye likely willna tell me the truth.” He turned to leave.
Her voice stopped him. “Why should I trust a stranger and perhaps put my life in jeopardy again?”
Again. Constantine couldn’t help but wonder how many times her life had been in danger.
“Did I not prove last night that I can be trusted?” he asked, pouting.
“Ye could be tricking me into trusting ye fer some secret purpose.”
He scrunched up his face at her. “What secret purpose?”
She shrugged her shoulders and lifted her spoon to her mouth. He watched her for a moment, both in disbelief and in awe that he might forgive anything she thought of him.
“I’m goin’ to find Lachlan,” he muttered. “Drummond—”
“Thank ye fer yer help last eve, Chief, and fer feeding me. We will part—”
“Ye will ride with Fionn.”
“Pardon?” She stared at him as if he had just grown fangs.
“Eat at yer leisure,” he continued, softening his voice some, but keeping his tone commanding, “but dinna make me come and get ye.”
Her lips parted on an angry gasp. Then, “I’m not going to yer castle without ye.”
He didn’t answer her but left the tavern alone.
*
Who did he think he was?
Ismay knew who he was. The Cameron Clan Chief. His name was well-known even as far as Inverness. There were plenty of Camerons, even Constantine Camerons, but there was only one who was the Lochiel.
And now, he wanted to take her to his castle. Was he truly a criminal as was rumored? If so, what was to stop him from—what? Constantine Cameron was a criminal and he hadn’t touched her. He barely looked at her.
“The Lochiel,” said the one the chief had introduced as Geoffry, “has nae secret purpose in bein’ kind to ye, though I have never seen him practice such hospitality before. Ye insulted him.”
She? What? Ugh! She had been petty. She was sorry she insulted him after he had done much for her.
She looked them all over. She should be a bit more afraid alone here with them, but she doubted they would risk their chief’s ire if they touched her after he had given his word about them.
Finally, she bounced to her feet and stormed out of the inn.
Moments after she left, she heard the inn doors open and the chief’s cousins come tumbling out.
She looked around for the chief or his golden-haired cousin Lachlan, but not finding them, she followed her nose and found the stable.
The doors were open, letting in fresh air. Ismay stopped upon seeing the chief reaching up to fit a saddle over a horse. Beside him, Lachlan saddled another horse and chatted on enthusiastically.
Ismay didn’t hear what the younger Cameron was saying, not because he spoke in a low voice, but because her gaze and her thoughts were fixated on the chief.
In the golden lantern light, brightened by the sunlight streaming through the open door, he appeared almost other-worldly.
He was tall and lithe, and quietly dangerous, like a blade sheathed in silk.
She watched his long fingers work the buckles on his saddle.
He pulled and yanked on the leather, mesmerizing her until the boisterous ruckus of his men approaching shattered her thoughts of her protector.
He turned toward the sound and saw her standing by the door.
Ismay had no idea what to say or do as his men barreled past her and into the barn.
She’d come to apologize for being so distrusting of him after he had stayed by her door for two days.
But now, she suddenly felt more mortified than anything else.
She had confessed to him that she was a woman.
Why had she told him so much about Chief MacRae and her mother? She didn’t even know him—
“Lad,” his voice cut through her thoughts, “do ye need help gainin’ yer saddle?”
She blinked out of her reverie, realizing he was speaking to her. “Hmm?”
“Come,” he stretched his hand out to her. “Let us be off.”