Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Her lungs were burning as the chill spread through her body.
She gulped down air desperately, blinking rapidly to clear the water from her eyes. It took a moment for her vision to focus on what was in front of her. But when she did…
When she did, she found her husband staring back at her. His eyes were written with panic, but as soon as she looked at him, something seemed to shift.
“Innes! My love, can ye hear me? Please… please stay with me,” he pleaded, his voice breaking.
She felt her throat hoarse and her mouth frozen, but she managed a small smile. “Is this Heaven? Are ye an angel?” she breathed.
“Oh! Thank God, Innes,” he cried.
He drew her into his arms, pulling her towards the bank, the current that had so cruelly buffeted her unable to touch him.
“I’m just a man,” he replied. “A man who’s sorry he was so stubborn as to make you feel that you had no choice but to come here and make things right.”
She touched his cheek, her eyes settling on him.
“Lachlan…”
“Innes, I’m here. Ye’re alive. I’ve got ye, lass.”
He had saved her. He had risked his life to save her…
She was shivering desperately as she clutched onto him. The cold deep in her bones brought her back to Earth. She was out of the water, at least. That river would not take her, as Isobel had so hoped. No, she would survive. Somehow, she would survive. Only to get back to her love.
“It’s over,” he said, once he had her on the bank, safe from the forces that had tried to tear her away from him. “It’s over, Innes, I swear to you.”
He pulled her into his arms, so close that it seemed he would never let her go.
“Careful,” she whispered. “Ye’ll catch yer death from the cold.”
“I dinnae care.”
She smiled, pressing her face into his neck, breathing him in, reminding herself that this was real, that he had truly come for her when she had needed it most. She had no idea how he had found her, but it didn’t matter.
What mattered was that he had saved her. Even when Isobel had stood before him and tried to take everything from her, he had saved her, diving into the river without a second thought to pull her from beneath the dangerous current.
Isobel. Had she fled? Innes’ heart dropped as she lifted her head, knowing that she would not be able to live in any kind of peace if that woman was still out there, so insistent on working against her.
“Isobel,” she choked out. “Where is she?”
“Keith has her,” Lachlan assured her, pulling back and nodding through the trees.
Keith stood with a now-bound Isobel. Her hands were lashed to the reins of his horse, and she seemed to be laying into him with a barely restrained fury.
“I am a Lady,” she told him angrily. “You cannae just tie me up like some common bandit!”
“Then might I suggest you act like one,” Keith spat at her, and Innes had to bite back a giggle.
She could not imagine what it felt like for Isobel to have her plan shattered like this. She was a woman used to getting what she wanted, and this would no doubt be a first for her.
“We must get ye back to the Keep,” Lachlan told her, as the trembling began to settle in through her body. “If this cold reaches yer bones…”
“I’ll be alright, Lachlan,” she promised him as she leaned up to plant a kiss on his cheek. “Just as long as I’m wi’ you.”
He brushed his lips along her forehead, lifting her into his arms as though she weighed nothing at all.
“I love you, Innes," he told her gruffly. “More than anything in the world. I shouldnae have raised my voice to you. I should have listened. I should have…”
She shook her head.
“I should have been more understanding myself. I was harsh to you. Ye just wanted to protect me. And ye did. Ye almost gave up yer life fer me…”
“And I would do it again. You know why?”
He stopped near his horse and looked at her in the eye. Her already labored breathing came harder as his eyes shone with unconditional love.
“Tell me,” she whispered.
“There is no world without ye. Ye are the very reason I’m breathing now, Innes. My heart, my soul is yers.”
“And my heart is yers, Lachlan.”
“Ye promise?”
She smiled weakly. “Always.”
“I will hold ye on that promise. Especially when I become unbearable again,” he joked.
“In those moments I’ll love ye a little more, my husband,” she vowed.
His eyes closed, savoring her words like he tried to mark them on his soul. She knew that he would do whatever it took to keep her safe, whatever it took to ensure that she never had to fear again.
Isobel might have tried her best to keep her from the man she loved, but he had proved himself to her in all the ways that mattered.
And there was nothing in the world she would have changed about it.
Lachlan carefully climbed down from his steed as he came to a halt in the courtyard of the Keep once more, reaching to draw an exhausted Innes into his arms again. Her eyes were heavy as she lifted her hands to rest on his shoulders, and he could feel her shivering unstoppably beneath her dress.
“Draw some hot water for a bath!” he called to the maids who had assembled to see the returning guardsmen. “Hurry! In my chambers!”
They sprang into action as Innes lifted her gaze blearily to his.
“I think I just need to rest.”
“You cannae sleep with so much chill in yer bones,” he pointed firmly, as he strode towards the entrance, taking the stairs two at a time. “You must warm up. That river has taken many a life, and I willnae let it take yours, too.”
She did not protest, either because she knew he was right or because she was too exhausted to muster the energy for it. He knew there was more to think of than her well-being; what he was going to do with Isobel, for one, now that she had been exposed as the conniving witch she really was.
But that could wait. All he could think of was making sure that his wife was comfortable, and, after everything she had been through at his expense, he knew it was the least he could do.
The maids rushed to and fro to bring hot water to the room, filling a tub till the room was cloaked in steam.
Lachlan dismissed them and carefully undressed Innes on the bed, drawing the sopping fabric from her shoulders and her back.
He grimaced when he saw the mottling on her skin, the bruises where she had struck rocks on her way into the river.
They would be worse tomorrow and would take some time to heal, but at least she had a chance to heal them at all.
He gently eased her into the tub, the warm water enveloping her delicate form as she let out a sigh of relief.
He had imagined himself washing her carefully as he knelt at her side, but he could not stand to be so far from her.
He stripped down himself, sliding beneath the water, and wrapped his arms around her so that he could pull her against his chest.
And it was there that something seemed to unfurl within her, some of the tension she had been carrying undone. She half-turned her head, letting her cheek rest against him softly.
“I… I never thought I would see you again, Lachlan.”
The tears began to fall at last, that pain of all she had been through rising to consume her at once. The drops fell into the water, sending ripples of fear and relief alike across the surface as he pulled her close to him.
“I would never have let that happen,” he murmured, thumbing along her bare shoulder.
He had never been the finest with his words, but he needed her to know how he felt—some part of it, at least, of the way she made him feel, so comforted and accepted for who he was.
“Did you mean what you said to her?” she asked softly, her eyes red-rimmed as she turned to look at him. The shivering seemed to have stopped now, some of the color returning to her cheeks at last.
“About what?”
“About… about me.”
He smiled slightly. He had almost forgotten what he had said to Isobel about Innes; those words had come from so deep inside of him that they felt like common sense, but her hopeful gaze told him that she still needed assurance.
“Aye,” he murmured. “Aye, I did. Every word. When I was pursuing Isobel, it was only for the sake of appearances. And she knew it, too. She knew that I performed the version of myself that would have been suitable fer a woman like her. But you…”
He gazed at her, for a moment so overwhelmed by emotion that he struggled to get the words out.
“I ken that you dinnae expect anything from me but to be the man I am,” he finished up, voice slightly gruff. “And I will never stop being glad fer that. For you, Innes.”
She smiled at him, but he could tell her mind was somewhere else.
“Are you feeling alright?”
“Aye, I’m fine,” she answered, shaking her head. “I just couldnae help but think of what I saw when I was… when I thought that the river would take me.”
He frowned.
“What did you see?”
“I saw… you,” she admitted. “Our family. I ken that we dinnae have one yet, but my mind was giving me what I needed to go in peace. You and I, dancing at a feast, our little ones watching, sitting wi’ my brother. A life together, Lachlan. And I almost lost it.”
“Aye, but you didnae,” he kissed her brow. “All of that is still waiting fer us, Innes. We’ve no rush to get there, but if you think that I willnae make that come true.”
He shook his head.
“Ye’re mad.”
Her happiness finally reached her eyes. Whatever tension had been lying there lifted.
“My Laird, I must say, you have quite a way with words,” she chided.
“Strange, what the thought of losing yer love can bring out in a person,” he simply stated.
He clasped her a little closer. It struck him, then, just how close he had been to seeing her slip away in front of him. Had he arrived a few moments later, waited a second longer to dive into the river…
“I love you, Lachlan,” she told him, drawing him back to the moment before he could sink too deeply into those painful what-ifs. “And I’ll love our family just as dearly.”
He locked his eyes on hers once more.
“And I love you too, Innes.”
He kissed her—there was no need behind it, no expectation of more, just the soft certainty that she was finally safe. Her fingers interlinked with his where they lay against her belly, and she held him tight, a silent promise that she felt exactly as he did.
But when he pulled back, there was a slight furrow in her brow. Something was bothering her. He lifted his chin.
“What is it?”
“What’s going to happen to her?”
“What do you want to happen to her?”
She fell silent for a moment, biting her lip.
If he’d had his way, he would have made the foul woman pay for everything she had done, pay for the mockery she had tried to make of his marriage.
But his wife was a kinder person than him, and she clearly did not have the same lust for revenge he did.
After all, this was her brother’s wife, and the familial bonds must have given her pause.
“Send her back to my brother,” she decided firmly. “But share wi’ him everything that we ken of her. He must know the woman he is married to, and I trust that he will make the right choice in what is to come next.”
He inhaled deeply. He would have taken some revenge on Isobel, given the chance, but he knew it would not have made Innes any happier. He nodded.
“As you wish,” he agreed. “I’ll have her locked away tonight and send fer the Anderson guards tomorrow.”
Innes couldn’t help but smirk slightly at the thought.
“I wonder what she’ll make of being in the dungeons for the night,” she giggled. “Hardly what she’s used to, eh?”
“No, but she might have to be if she insists on acting the way she has.”
She laughed and turned to kiss him once more. And, in the warmth of the water, the distance between their bodies had been entirely blurred.
There was no point at which he ended and she began.