Chapter Six
Ismay laughed where she sat next to Hugh MacDonald at one of the long trestle tables in Tor Castle’s Great Hall.
She would much rather find Constantine Cameron and hit him over the head with something for leaving her alone for so long.
She’d waited for him to show up all through their supper filled with some entertainment from musicians and jugglers.
Hugh stayed with her the entire time. He was quite nice, but he behaved oddly, ofttimes alluding to a prior meeting between them.
He also barely took his eyes off her, which made eating uncomfortable.
Lachlan and Geoffry came by several times, as if keeping an eye on her. Did they think she would bolt? Why would any of them care if she did? She wasn’t a prisoner here. Was she?
“I take it from yer laughter,” Hugh said with mild amusement, “ye are not watching the doors fer any sign of the Lochiel.”
“’Tis a silly assumption.”
“Aye,” Hugh agreed all too easily. “Though I will say, he rarely sleeps this long. Two hours a night at the most.” He turned to Geoffry sitting opposite them. “Ye are sure he hasna left his chambers?”
“I’m not dull-witted,” Geoffry said woodenly. “Go check fer yerself.”
Hugh began to answer, then looked toward the doors and stopped.
Ismay followed the direction of his gaze.
It was Constantine. The Lochiel, she corrected silently.
Her eyes poured out on him, her heart beat erratically, her mouth went dry.
Barefoot and disheveled, he was wonderfully, irresistibly handsome in his floor-length, blue velvet night robe, edged in black ermine.
He stood in the doorway, staring at her table…
at her, like a dark dragon ready to pillage.
Seeing her seemed to propel him forward. He took long, determined strides that fanned his robe out behind him.
He looked majestic and virile, and he made her blood go warm in her veins.
She had tried to learn more about him from his friends while he made her wait, but no one would say anything either good or bad about him.
She’d seen him kill, and she had been told that he killed his wife.
She could almost believe it since he was a chief.
Unlike the chiefs before him though, he had not made any advances towards her.
He kept his hands and his smiles to himself.
And this chief was also a thief and a cattle raider.
She hated herself for being the least bit attracted to him. He offered protection. Not kindness. Not warmth. Just silence and steel.
“Miss Drummond.” His greeting was heavy with unspoken relief. “I fell asleep.”
She almost laughed again. This time it would have been kinder and more genuine than what she’d offered Hugh.
She didn’t know why his direct excuse sounded like the most innocent thing in the world.
He fell asleep. According to Hugh, the Lochiel rarely slept.
Yet she believed the chief. Partly because his eyes were sleepy.
He looked as if he’d just rushed out of bed.
She felt a smile forming on her lips.
“I’m relieved to find ye settling in so well.” His dark gaze slid to Hugh for just an instant. “Ye may go.”
“Ye dinna look relieved,” she interrupted when Hugh rose from his seat and promptly left.
Ismay wasn’t bothered by Hugh leaving. She was happy about it.
The steward’s eyes lingered on her a wee bit too long—as if he were trying to see all her secrets.
She had tolerated him because she wanted to wait for the chief.
Fool that she was. “Ye look angry,” she continued.
“Did ye not wish fer me to settle in here—at least fer a few days?”
His eyes hardened further and he looked away. “No’ angry. Nae.”
He fell into a chair near her and motioned for a drink to be brought to him. With his brooding glare fixed on no one in particular, he remained quiet, speaking to no one, though no one remained but Lewis. When his drink came, he lifted the cup to his lips and guzzled its contents.
He set the empty cup down on the table and turned his gaze to Ismay. “I would know what ye mean by a few days? Where do ye intend to go when ye leave Tor?”
“Dinna concern yerself, Lochiel,” she said, waving his questions away.
He stared at her, slack-jawed. He seemed to be deciding who spoke to him in such a disrespectful manner.
“Fortunate fer ye, lass,” he said, “I am concerned.”
Fortunate? Ismay decided then and there that, although everyone else considered Constantine Cameron a detached outlaw, uncaring whose son he killed—and they were all correct in their consideration—very few of his kin saw any other side of him.
She guessed she was fortunate indeed that he had shown her the man behind his mask of indifference. A man with a heart beating slowly and with its last shreds of warmth for a runaway bride with nowhere to go.
“Where will ye go, Miss Drummond,” he repeated, proving her right about him. “I know ye have traveled a far distance alone and ye lived to tell me aboot it, but I dinna think yer luck will last withoot a plan. Do ye have one?”
“I am going to find a convent to join.”
He stared at her for a moment, and then he burst into hearty laughter that drew the attention of the few servers still serving, and of Lewis. They stared with disbelieving eyes and ears, but no one spoke a word.
“What in the world do ye find so humorous about me wanting to live in a convent?”
He raised his cup for more wine, drawing a scowl on her lips.
“Ye will nae doubt hurl the holy sisters over on their arses.”
“Pardon me?” she said with a stunned, insulted look.
“Come now, Miss Drummond, ye know ye are saucy.”
She let out a short snort of disbelief. “I know nae such thing!”
“Now ye do.” He took his freshly filled cup and raised it to his lips. He paused his hand in the air when she slammed her palm on the table.
“Cease drinking!” she commanded with such authority and anger he set the cup back down. “I willna sit here another instant speaking to a man who is too drunk to know what he might do later.”
He dipped his gaze to his cup.
“Set it aside, please, or I will retire to bed.”
“Are ye givin’ the Lochiel orders, lass?” Lewis asked, surprised and offended.
The Lochiel did as she said and stared at Ismay while he spoke. “’Tis all right, Lewis. Go to bed.”
Lewis remained for another moment or two and then stood up and smiled at the back of the Lochiel’s head. “Aye, cousin.”
The Lochiel was silent as Lewis left, his gaze still fixed on her. “I know what I might do later,” he said when they were finally alone, “and it doesna involve ye.”
He tried to make his words sound like an insult but there was a trace of regret lacing his declaration. Did he want his night to include her? Hadn’t they spent the last three nights together—or, at least under the same roof?
She rubbed her eyes. She was weary. That had to be the reason she was entertaining such thoughts about a Highland Chief.
“That is a relief to hear,” she didn’t realize she sounded as regretful as he did until he lifted his gaze to look into her eyes.
“Ye dinna sound relieved,” he remarked with a glint in his eyes, reminding her of her own words.
She cast him a wry look. “Should I feel sad or disappointed that ye dinna wish to spend the night with me?” Her eyes opened wider as what she said dawned on her. She choked out a feigned laugh. “What I mean is that ye dinna want to spend more time with me.”
He raised his eyebrows but did not refute her claim. Instead, he looked around the emptying Hall, and then asked, “What are ye doin’ here so late into the night?”
She blew out a slight sigh, careful not to seem disappointed by his careful evasion. So what if he did not want to spend time with her? She didn’t care about spending time with him either.
Even as she thought the words, she knew she was lying.
She enjoyed trying to break through his rigid indifference to spark that glint of curiosity and warmth in his eyes that she’d seen once or twice.
A challenging task to remove that heavy mask, but she much preferred a man with self-control than a man without it.
“I was waiting fer my protector, who abandoned me. You can speak as much as ye like on the honor of the men here. Ye are seeing one side of them. Would ye have me ask one of them to escort me to my chamber? Joan is gone, thanks to ye, and the others are all busy with the seamstresses.”
He was quiet for a moment, but his gaze never left hers. She had not broken through his indifference tonight. There was no warmth in his eyes. “Who did ye such harm that ye hate authority and power and dinna trust any man?”
She had opened up to him about her arranged marriage to a beast. At the time of the telling, she believed she simply needed to tell someone and he was available. He hadn’t been shocked or overly concerned about any of it and that was strangely comforting. He had listened and then continued eating.
What more should she tell this stranger, and why did she want to tell him everything?
“I was abandoned as a babe and taken in by an important chief. He abused me and when I was eight years old, he tried to force himself on me.” She didn’t tell him the chief’s name or that she had killed him.
She left out that Baron John MacPherson had saved her and taken her to her new home where she lived for the next sixteen years until he died.
For the first time, Ismay witnessed emotion darkening the Lochiel’s expression. His jawline, stark and chiseled, trembled as his teeth grinded together. “Who is he? Tell me his name.”
Why, Ismay wondered. What would he do if… “He is no longer a part of this world.”
She didn’t tell him how Chief MacDonald had left the world or how relieved it made her to know that he no longer shared air with her.
Constantine Cameron gave her a look that was like the one her father, John MacPherson, had given her when he came upon her about to be stoned to death by the MacDonald clan for killing their chief.