Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
With her horse tied outside, Innes pushed open the door of the tavern, announcing her arrival with a loud creak. A few men were scattered around the tables, and several lifted their heads, their gazes lingering on her rather longer than they had any need to.
She fixed her eyes on the ground, praying that whoever had sent for her would make themselves known swiftly, because she did not know how much longer she could stand in this place without being noticed.
She moved towards a table at the far side of the room, glad for the dim light and hoping nobody recognized her. No doubt her absence back at the Keep had been noted already, and Lachlan would have sent his men across the county to get her back.
She had to pray that he believed she had taken his orders to stay in place seriously and that he would not think she’d do something so foolish. Guilt roiled in her guts; he was only trying to keep her safe, and she had turned her back on him to defy him and come to this place alone anyway.
A candle flickered on the table before her, dripping wax unevenly onto the surface of the wood.
She picked at it where it had dried, trying to distract herself as best she could.
Though she felt like she might be caught at any moment, dragged back to her chambers where she would not be able to help her brother when he needed it most…
And then, a shadow was cast across the table, and she looked up to find two men staring down at her. One leered, letting his gaze linger pointedly, and the other looked rather more focused.
“Come,” he ordered. “With us.”
She stayed in her seat. Were these the men who wrote her the letter? Surely not. But she had not come all this way just to give up now.
“Who sent you?” she demanded, crossing her arms over her chest.
“That’s no’ fer you to worry yerself about,” he replied. “Come with us, lass. Fer yer own good.”
“Is that a threat?” she retorted.
Her sharp tongue was only there to convince them that she was in control, when she knew she was anything but.
Or perhaps there was a part of her that did not want to acknowledge that it was possible it could be Isobel.
That it could have been anyone from the Anderson Keep, sending word to her for reasons beyond her understanding.
If it was that woman, she did not know what it meant or what chance she stood against her.
“It doesn’t have to be,” he snapped, planting his hands on the table. “Unless you make us wait any longer than we have to.”
She flicked her eyes back and forth between them, calculating. Should she trust them? What choice did she have? She suddenly felt distinctly exposed, all alone out here, so far from the Keep.
“Are ye working at the Anderson Keep? Did my brother ken any of this?” she pressed on, knowing very well that it might backfire.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way, lass,” the other man said pointedly, grabbing his dirk in one hand.
She recoiled in her seat, flinching for showing her fear.
“That’s a good lass. Come on now.”
She mustered every inch of her courage and rose to her feet, allowing them to lead her towards the back door of the tavern and to a small alley that stood on the other side.
And there, in the dim light of a torch, stood Isobel.
Innes froze. Her sister-in-law was wearing the same cloak that she had seen that woman in at the market today, and there was no longer doubt in her mind that it was her. But why had she sent for her again? When would the chaos she had caused since Lachlan and Innes’ marriage, be enough for her?
“What do you want from me, Isobel?” Innes demanded, mustering up every inch of courage she could in the hopes she would not be able to hear the wavering in her voice. Isobel smirked, gesturing for the two men who had brought her out to leave.
“You ken very well what I want, Innes.”
“Then tell me. So we can both be sure.”
She narrowed her eyes, tracing her small, pointed tongue along her bottom lip before she replied.
“I want you to leave Lachlan Fraser. Tonight.”
Innes stared back at her. None of this made sense. She had been the one to dismiss Lachlan after he had poured all that attention on her head. Why now, why this, after the marriages were already settled, the vows already spoken?
“I’ll do no such thing,” Innes declared, drawing herself up to her full height. “I dinnae ken about you, Isobel, but I take my marriage vows seriously.”
Isobel laughed.
“Oh, come now,” she mused, that patronizing tone Innes had come to recognize so clearly from her filling her voice. “You cannae think that Lachlan truly cares fer you. He was looking to marry me for so long, and he cannot simply brush off his desires—his true desires, at least.”
Innes tried her best to keep the words from snaking beneath her skin, but they threatened to anyway. She took a deep breath, steadying herself.
“Ye’re the one who has been trying to kill me, are ye nae? Wi’ the poison, sending those men after me.”
Isobel’s evil smirk was answer enough.
“Is that not enough? What have I done to draw yer ire so cruelly when we were meant to be family?”
All at once, something flashed in Isobel’s eyes, something of her true form, Innes was sure of it. Her glower darkened, the torchlight flashing in her eyes, and Innes drew back, almost a little shocked to see her in such a fashion.
“Because you took him from me!”
“You chose Arthur!”
“They both wanted me, Innes,” she reminded her, pacing towards her, her hands clenching. “They both would have done anything for me.”
“Aye, and Arthur would still do anything in his power if he thought it would bring a smile to yer face!”
“But Lachlan,” she uttered, shaking her head. “You batted yer lashes at him and played wi’ yer flowers, and now he thinks that he’s got no time fer me. He forgot what I was worth.”
Innes could hardly believe what she was hearing.
She had suspected Isobel of being a little vain, perhaps too focused on the social mores that seemed to consume her, but this?
This was far beyond anything she could have imagined, the pure selfishness that she displayed almost impossible for her to make sense of.
“Arthur would always have given me a good life,” she reasoned. “Love. Security. A quiet place to raise my children. But Lachlan gave me something else. Something I needed just as dearly. And you…” She shook her head contemptuously. “You took that from me.”
“I took nothing from you, Isobel. You made yer choice!”
“You took what I was owed,” she snarled curtly. “And I have no choice but to take it back.”
She gestured for her men behind her, and Innes’ head whipped around, terror grasping at her throat.
How could she have been so foolish to come down here?
She should have known that Isobel would plan some cruelty for her, but this was beyond the realms of even what she could have imagined from the other woman.
“Ye dinnae deserve to love anyone,” she shot back angrily, giving up on diplomacy. “You… you did nothing but use my brother and Lachlan to bolster yer own sense of self!”
“There’s no point making yer case now, Innes,” she cut off, almost soothing, like she was pushing Innes to simply accept her fate. “I’ll have it my way. Your body will not be found, and Lachlan—poor, betrayed Lachlan—will crawl back to me.”
“No!” Innes cried out as the men closed in around her. They took one arm each, and she tried to wrest herself free like her life depended on it.
Because, as far as she knew… it did.
Lachlan knocked on the chamber door, listening for any sign of movement inside.
None came. He sighed. Hardly a surprise, with the way he had spoken to his wife before.
Perhaps he deserved the cold shoulder, given that he had practically dismissed her from his study when she had tried to reason with him.
“Innes?”
No answer. Perhaps she was asleep. Or just not interested in speaking to him.
He had spent most of the evening making sure that his men were properly dispersed, keeping watch over the hills that led up to the Keep so that no more bandits could attempt to make their way inside.
Keith had insisted on dragging himself out of bed to help, though he had tried to insist that his friend take all the rest he needed for the time being.
He pushed the door open an inch or two, peering inside. At first, it was dark enough that he couldn’t make out much, the room only lit by the slight glow from the fireplace beyond. But then, as he stepped inside, his heart dropped.
The room was empty. Innes was nowhere to be seen.
He cast his gaze around, certain that he must have misunderstood, that she must have been there somewhere.
How could she have crept out beneath his watchful gaze so easily?
But then, his men had been scattered as he had tried to organize them anew.
Perhaps a gap had been left in his guardsmen, letting her break free…
However, why would she have left? She seemed to have been intent on getting him to see the light of the matter at hand. It was hard to believe that, after all that they had shared, she would be so quick to turn her back on him.
And then he spotted it, a small note tucked beneath a book at her desk. He was sure it had not been there the last time he had come by her room, and, striding over, he pulled it out, casting his eye over the page before him.
His heart hollowed at the sight of those words, insisting that she come to the tavern at the local inn if she wished to protect her brother from future chaos.
He knew that she would not have been able to ignore it, no matter how evidently suspicious it was.
She was too kind for that, too good, too decent, and she would have done anything to protect her brother. But this…
He recognized the handwriting. Isobel. There was no chance it could have belonged to anyone else. And if she was trying to coax Innes down to the inn after he had rejected her as bluntly as he had… he could not imagine for a moment that she meant anything good by it.
He tossed the letter onto the bed and took the stairs two at a time as he rushed down to the courtyard. It was nearly eleven now, and she was due to meet with Isobel at midnight, which gave him hardly enough time to gather his troops and tell them what was going on.
No, he needed to act now if he had any hope of getting to her at all…
Bursting out into the courtyard, he called out to Keith as he made his way towards the stables
“Gather the men and follow after me!” he ordered.
“What’s going on?”
“You heard me!” he barked back. “No time to explain. Get the horses ready and go to the village!”
He could feel Keith’s bemused stare, but he paid no attention to it.
He didn’t have time to explain himself. What mattered was the woman who had fled from this place in the hopes of doing some good—the woman who would do everything in her power to try and put right everything that had happened between his clan and hers.
“My Laird, you dinnae ken what yer riding into.”
He paused in the doorway, turning to face him.
“No, I dinnae,” he agreed. “But I ken that it’s my stubbornness that brought us here. She wanted to resolve this wi’ forgiveness, but I…”
He stopped, shaking his head.
The guilt was almost overwhelming now, his mind tortured with images of what might be happening to her.
She was not a weak woman, but whoever had sent her this note expected her to go alone, and that could be for no good reason.
They wanted her where they could hurt her, where they could steal her away.
And Innes, in all her kindness and good spirits, would never have looked upon someone and thought them capable of such a thing.
“I have to do something,” he muttered. “I have to get her out of there. If she’s gone, if she’s hurt, I could never…”
His words failed him. Images of Innes hurt, dead, or worse ran through his mind. What if she decided to go back to her brother? To someone who she thought was willing to listen to her? He had to move, and fast. What Keith had to say on the matter did not give him pause. Nothing would.
He tacked his horse swiftly, clambering astride it and grasping the reins.
Driving his heels into the beast’s side, he galloped towards the gate, which had already been pulled back to allow his exit.
In the distance, on the far side of the Keep, he could hear thunder beginning to rumble, the grim convergence of storm clouds above them.
As he crested the hill, he could make out the lights of the village below, twinkling in the distance.
What had once seemed to him like such a peaceful sight now screamed with urgency, and he sank lower into the saddle, streamlining himself to make up whatever time he still could.
Not far behind, he could hear Keith calling to his men, the hoofbeats of his horse only a few moments behind Lachlan’s.
“Hold on for me, Innes,” he muttered to himself. “Just a little longer. Hold on.”