Chapter Four #2
A strange look passed between the earl and her brother. His mouth moved, but no sound came out. Then he pierced her with his gray eyes. “Your brother has been so kind as to invite me to be a guest of your family for Christmas.”
“Has he?” she asked sweetly, while casting Stuart a venomous glance. “How thoughtful he is. Will you be staying through to twelfth night?” She almost feared his answer. When he nodded, she gritted her teeth. Two weeks with the earl. She’d rather have a tooth pulled.
“Well?” St. Clair drawled, offering his arm. “Shall we? I would be honored if you would enjoy the ride with me.”
“Of course, my lord. I shall change and be with you directly. Stuart, you will be chaperoning, of course.”
“Of course.”
Of course. Everything was arranged. She was to be married off to the earl. She would be a countess, a true lady. She would have estates in England and Scotland. Her future husband was handsome and rich. And she was most likely the most miserable woman in Scotland.
Thank goodness Fiona and Stuart were sharing the sleigh with them. Isobel was not yet ready to be alone with the man. Lord, she didn’t even know his Christian name. Or his favorite color, or . . . or any of the other meaningless things couples learn about each other during a courtship.
Worse, she didn’t think the earl was the sort of man who knew the first thing about courting.
He seemed most uncomfortable sitting beside her.
Whenever their shoulders or knees would touch, he stiffened as though a brisk gust of air had blown down his collar.
And sharing a lap fur with him was far too intimate for Isobel.
Across the sleigh, Stuart blew on his hands to warm them, and Fiona reached for them, drawing them inside her rabbit fur muff. Isobel arched her brows and looked out at the beautiful hills that passed them by. If the earl hoped she might bestow the same sort of kindness, he was hoping in vain.
“Shall we sing a carol?” Fiona asked. Stuart groaned and the earl positively glowered.
“Oh, let’s!” Isobel agreed, relishing the look of pain on the earl’s face. “I love singing, though I croak like a frog.” She laughed, watching as his expression of pain deepened. “Don’t you love singing, my lord?”
“I . . . I . . .” He moved his head, stretching his neck as though his tie was strangling him. “I do not sing myself, but would like nothing more than to hear your voice. I’ve always thought you sing like an angel.”
Drat. She had sung every year at the ball, and St. Clair had heard her. There went her idea for sending him packing by singing like a fishwife.
“I only know the words to ‘God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen,’ ” Stuart replied irritably. “If you would sing, it’ll have to be that one.”
“Well, then, shall we begin?”
As they sang the opening bars of the carol, St. Clair maneuvered the reins to turn the sleigh in the direction of the forest. Despite her attempts to be sulky, Isobel found herself enjoying the ride and the fresh, crisp air of the afternoon.
She loved Christmas. The food, the carols, the presents.
But most of all she loved spending time at MacDonald Hall.
For most of the year, her family was in London.
Stuart and her father owned a steel factory that supplied the railroads.
It was only during Christmas that Isobel came back to the country of her birth, and the home they had shared when her mother was alive.
“Shall we stop and take a stroll?” the earl asked.
“I’d love a walk,” Isobel agreed. “And I’d like to find some more holly for the centerpieces.”
“Then we are agreed.” The earl pulled the dapple-grays to a stop right before the forest. “This seems as good a place as any to stop.”
Isobel froze as she remembered being in the forest and emerging from the exact spot where the sleigh now stood.
She recalled the stag. The raven. The voice she had heard whispered on the breeze.
She was certain it was those memories that provoked her into dreaming of that strange man.
A man who was vastly different from the Earl of St. Clair.
“Shall we?” St. Clair offered her his hand. “I believe we will find lots of holly in the woods.”
Isobel followed beside him while Fiona and Stuart contented themselves with picking pine cones from the trees at the edge of the wood.
“Are you not afraid of venturing into the wood?”
“Of course not, my brother is only footsteps away,” she replied.
The earl chuckled. “I do not refer to myself, Miss MacDonald, but the other creatures who reside there.”
“Rabbit and deer, do you mean, my lord? Hardly imposing creatures,” she laughed, deftly stepping over a thick tree root.
“I meant the Otherworld folk.”
Isobel stopped short. “Do you mean to tell me that you believe in faeries and trolls and unicorns?”
“Not trolls and unicorns, but faeries, aye. I believe in the Sidhe.”
“You’re superstitious.”
“Do you not believe in the stories of our ancestors?”
She had once. It seemed like such a long time ago when her mother and grandmother had spoken of the faeries and their enchanted forests. Of course, they meant to frighten her away from venturing into the woods. Only the stories hadn’t frightened her, but enticed her.
She’d been enticed into the woods yesterday, as well.
“Have you ever been in the woods, Miss MacDonald, and heard something strange? Have you ever felt as though there were eyes upon you, watching you from the cover of trees and moss? ”
Isobel shivered. “I . . . I don’t know what you mean, my lord.”
He smiled. “I think you’re every bit as superstitious as me.”
“Does that surprise you?”
“Aye. And it pleases me as well. We’ll have something to talk about once we are wed.” Isobel gritted her teeth at the smugness she heard.
“You presume much,” she said haughtily, letting her hand drop from his arm. She walked away from him, ignoring his sharp intake of breath. He reached for her arm and pulled her to a stop.
“You cannot feign ignorance, Miss MacDonald. I made my intentions quite clear to you this past summer, before you turned tail and ran off to London. Your father has agreed. I will have you for a wife.”
“Why?” she asked. “There are many women who would have you in a trice. Why pick me?”
“Your father and I—” The earl stopped and looked up at the swaying trees. “Did you hear that? Someone called my name.”
She hadn’t, but Isobel was eager for a reprieve, no matter how short. “Stuart, I think. I’ll wait while you see what he wants.”
St. Clair looked skeptical, but then his eyes narrowed and his head cocked to the side as if he were listening. “Do not go any farther. I will return in a minute.”
Isobel scowled at the command and lifted the hem of her long cloak.
She would do what she pleased. Besides, she had her clan pin to find.
She had a feeling it would be where she had seen her stag.
She remembered her scarf getting tangled in the branches and knew that was what happened to her pin.
And she would get it, despite what St. Clair, the stuffed shirt, had to say about going deeper into the woods alone.
Rounding the clearing of trees and roots, Isobel stepped over a few of the branches that had fallen to the ground. She was certain this was the spot. Falling to her knees, she searched through the thin layer of snow, pine needles and dried leaves for the silver pin.
“ ’Tis a shame to ruin such a charming view, but I would hardly be a gentleman if I left you on that cold ground.”
With a squeak, Isobel jumped up and whirled around.
“Is this, by chance, what you’re looking for?”
A figure of a man came out from between the trunks of two trees.
He was tall, his legs muscular and fit in his snug-fi tting buck-skins and black shining boots.
Around his waist he wore a belt with an intricately carved sword that sported a jeweled hilt.
On the belt was a leather pouch decorated with a Celtic triscale.
As he emerged from the darkness into the daylight, she saw he was wearing a long black cloak and a richly embroidered waistcoat. His throat was bare, despite the cold, and his skin was bronzed as if it were summer, not the first day of winter.
As he stepped slowly out of the shadows, Isobel felt herself moving back until her shoulders brushed against the oak. She watched with a mixture of fear and curiosity as the man’s face was revealed.
The sight robbed Isobel of breath. The shoulder-l ength black hair that blew freely around his broad shoulders, the aquiline nose and the high cheekbones, the mesmerizing violet eyes all came back to her in a blurry image. It was the man from her dream.
Holding his hand out to her, he uncurled his fingers and allowed her to see what he held in his palm. Their gazes collided and he took a step closer to her. “I have been waiting for you, Isobel MacDonald.”