Chapter 12 #2
The entire four hours he patrolled on watch, Lachlan couldn’t get the floral scent of Isabel to leave his nose.
‘Twas a phantom scent, to be sure, but it haunted him the whole time.
At last James and Padraig returned, no news, which was good news, and he was relieved of his watch, and happy to report to his comrades that nothing had gone on at the inn either.
Exhausted, Lachlan made his way back up the stairs toward Isabel’s chamber. He was going to sleep this night outside her door. While he trusted his own men with his life, and hers, he felt better knowing he was the last line of defense.
Where there was one Sassenach, there were a million more, invading insects that multiplied by the hour. He had no doubt that those few his men had dispatched were only the start of a horde.
Before dawn, Lachlan rose and woke Isabel and her maid with a knock on the door.
Isabel answered the door, her hair mussed, and deep purple smudges beneath her eyes. The lass looked like she hadn’t slept at all, and he felt the same way. Despite her exhaustion, she was still beautiful.
“We must leave, my lady,” he said. “We’ve already tarried too long in one place.”
“Aye,” she said, voice a hoarse whisper. “Allow me a few minutes to get ready.”
Lachlan eyed her hair, sticking this way and that, looking as if she’d tossed and turned on top of her head all night. “Ye look lovely already.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “Cad,” she muttered to his laugh.
The ride to Inverlochy was not going to be an easy one, that was for sure, but they would make it eventually.
Lachlan glanced up from where he sat at a table, a breakfast of warm bread and butter in front of him, but the dough stuck to the roof of his mouth as Isabel swept into the inn’s dining room.
She was put together, her hair in a tight braid.
The woman was stunning to behold. But the truth was, he’d thought she was stunning with her hair standing on end too.
He managed to swallow the bread in his mouth and croaked. “Breakfast?” holding up his piece of bread.
“I’ll have my own, thanks,” she teased, pulling out an empty stool in front of him to snatch her own slice.
Lachlan avoided watching her eat, because every bite of bread left a little slickness of butter on her lips and with every bite he had to fight leaning over the table to lick it off. When he could take the torment no more, he declared, “Time to leave.”
At last, they hit the road, forming the same caravan they’d used before, two by two. This time, Lachlan and Angus led with James and Padraig at the rear.
After a few miles of distance between them and the small town behind them, the heavy scent of smoke thickened in the air. Lachlan judged that it wasn’t a current fire, but one that had burned heavily perhaps the day before.
Angus and Lachlan exchanged a glance. Even Isabel sniffed, looking concerned. This was a scent they all knew well.
Less than a quarter hour later, they came across a burned-out abbey, smoke still piling from the ash of the razed building.
“Mo chreach.” Lachlan crossed himself. “Let us check for survivors.” Though he knew from the crush of beams and ash they were unlikely to find anyone in the rubble. At least anyone still alive.
They dismounted from their horses, Thomas, Duncan, Caelan, Malcolm and Finlay with their backs to the wreckage to keep watch. Isabel and her maid ignored his order to remain on their horses, and instead, followed in Angus, Hamish, Mungo, Padraig, Roy and James’s footsteps.
“Anyone here?” Lachlan called, listening, but there was no reply.
They picked through what they could, skirting around an overturned iron cooking pot and an empty roasting spit, they found no evidence of bodies in the rubble.
“Let us pray they escaped.” The likelihood of escape from a blaze that looked to have quickly spread from the thatched roof to the rough-hewed wooden floor was slim, but that didn’t mean the English hadn’t taken people as prisoners.
“Mount up,” Lachlan ordered. They’d do best not to tarry. As Lachlan passed Isabel, she did not turn toward her horse however, but instead, started for the burned-out abbey once more.
He reached for her elbow, stilling her in her path. “Where are ye going, my lady? Ye canna wander.”
She glanced down to where he held her elbow, and he felt a slight tremble beneath his fingertips. Lachlan cursed himself for making her afraid, but as she glanced at him with a fury that could have burned him to the ground, he saw no trace of fear in her eyes.
“I’m no’ wandering,” she said, her voice clipped. “Freckles has gone exploring. Unhand me so I can retrieve her.”
Lachlan let go of her arm, feeling more contrite than he thought he should. “Where is the wee thing?”
He followed her gaze to the burned timbers, the blackened wood, and the smoke rising in thin curls.
Isabel pointed, but he still couldn’t decipher it. “There. What have ye got Freckles?”
The ferret climbed from between two burned out beams and held something shiny between her small paws.
“‘Tis shiny,” Isabe murmured. “Do ye no’ see it catching the light?”
Lachlan squinted, searching harder, and then he saw something glinting even covered in darkened ash. He went to see what it was, bending down and holding out his hand, but the ferret ran past him to Isabel.
Her index finger dipped into the center of a ring, thumb brushing the ash over the top, where an unfamiliar symbol had been etched into the gold.
Lachlan approached and together they studied it, neither one of them recognizing it. She plucked it from his palm and pressed it onto her thumb, where it dwarfed her. “A man’s ring from the size of it. Perhaps we can ask Alistair Comyn if he recognizes it when we arrive at the castle,” she said.
“Aye.”
She handed the ring back to him, and he tucked it safely into the sporran pouch at his waist. “We must make haste. These English are becoming more violent; there’s no telling what else we might come across.”
“Remount,” Lachlan ordered, hands on Dionysus’ pommel.
He lifted his good leg, putting his foot into the stirrup, which put an immense amount of pressure on his bad leg.
He grimaced, practically chewing off the inside of his cheek with the pain as he hauled himself up into the saddle.
“James, Thomas, ride ahead to make sure there are no traps laid.”
They rode hard over the moors and through the woods, James and Thomas reporting on the safety of the road as they went.
He’d thought they were ahead of the English, but now he wasn’t so sure, as it seemed they had now come up behind them. In any case, they weren’t far in either direction, which worried him.
As they crossed a hill, they finally saw Inverlochy Castle in the distance—the stone walls, and massive turret, strong and sturdy. A stream of smoke swirled from the kitchen fires.
Signs of life.
Signs of safety.
For the first time since Falkirk, Lachlan started to feel perhaps a little relief. But he was not one to let such feelings betray his alertness. Especially now that he knew there was someone close to their cause who wanted to cause harm.
For them to become comfortable meant they could be betrayed—again.