Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
They rode until the road narrowed and the land fell away toward the sea. Isobel did not ask where they were. She would not give Ruaridh MacLean the satisfaction of hearing uncertainty in her voice.
Still, she watched everything, from the dark sweep of the coast to the pale edge of foam where the water struck stone. She watched the men riding before and behind her with the easy silence of those who knew both the road and one another too well.
MacLean men.
She sat among them like a stolen thing.
The thought made her grip the reins harder.
Her mare picked her way over the rough ground, and Isobel forced herself to move with the animal rather than against it.
The gown made even that difficult. It dragged at her legs, caught beneath her knees, and pulled tight whenever she shifted.
She hated it more with every mile. She hated the mask still tied to her face.
She hated the cold. She hated the man riding beside her most of all because he had not once looked uncertain.
At last, the horses were brought down toward a small sheltered inlet, where a birlinn waited upon the black water. The sight of the wooden vessel made something in her stomach tighten.
She knew boats. Any child of the western clans knew boats. But knowing a thing and wanting to climb into it under a night sky, in a heavy gown, surrounded by enemies, was not the same.
Ruaridh dismounted first. His men moved at once, efficient and wordless. Gear was passed down. Horses were led away by men who would not cross with them. The boat rocked gently where it waited, its long dark body rising and falling upon the tide.
Isobel dismounted before Ruaridh could offer his hand. It was not graceful. Her skirts caught, and her boots struck the stones harder than she intended, sending a jolt through her ankles. But she landed on her own feet, and that was what mattered.
Ruaridh saw, but he said nothing.
“Ye will step where I tell ye,” he said as they approached the boat. “The boards are slick.”
“I have seen a boat before.”
“Then ye ken they dinnae care fer pride.”
She looked at him coldly. “Nor dae men, it seems.”
One of his men glanced away too quickly, as though suppressing a reaction. Ruaridh only held her gaze for a moment, then stepped down into the birlinn and turned, not offering his hand this time. Isobel gathered her skirts and followed.
The boat shifted beneath her weight. For one dreadful heartbeat, the world lurched. A hand closed around her elbow before she could stumble.
She pulled away the instant she was steady. “Dinnae.”
“Then stand steady.”
“I was steady.”
“The sea disagreed.”
She opened her mouth to answer, but the boat shifted again, and she decided silence was less humiliating than proving him right by falling at his feet.
They pushed away from shore soon after. At first, the crossing seemed almost bearable.
The inlet sheltered them from the worst of the wind, and the men took their places with practiced ease.
Oars dipped and rose, dark with water. The coast began to pull away behind them, Inveraray and everything that had happened there receding into shadow.
For a foolish moment, Isobel thought distance might bring relief.
Then, they left the shelter of the land.
The sea changed. It rose beneath the birlinn with sudden force, lifting the boat as though it meant to throw it from the water entirely, then dropped it hard into the trough beyond.
Isobel’s stomach dropped with it. She caught the side before she could sway, her fingers tightening against damp wood.
No one else appeared alarmed. That offended her.
The boat pitched again, sharper this time. Spray struck her cheek, cold as a slap. Wind tore at the loose pieces of hair around her mask and pushed beneath her cloak until the chill reached the skin of her throat.
She swallowed once.
Dinnae be ill, Isobel. Dinnae make a fool of yersel’.
The command was immediate and useless.
The sea heaved beneath them. The horizon tilted, disappeared, then returned in fragments between the movement of bodies and sail and dark water. Isobel fixed her gaze on a point beyond Ruaridh’s shoulder, then on the line of the boat, then on her own gloved hands. Nothing helped.
Her stomach turned. She straightened.
She would not be sick before MacLean men. She would not bend over the side like some helpless, frightened girl while they watched and remembered, later, how poorly the MacDonald woman had borne the first hardship of the journey.
She would not give them that. She would not give him that.
Another wave struck. Her breath caught.
“Sit down,” Ruaridh ordered.
She had not noticed him watching her. That, too, angered her.
“I am fine.”
“Nay, ye are nae.”
Her eyes cut to him. “Is that another MacLean skill? Calling women liars?”
“Nay. Watching someone turn the color of old linen is enough.”
Heat rose to her face despite the cold. “Leave me be.”
The birlinn dropped hard. A cry almost escaped her, but she bit it back. Her knees weakened. She tightened her grip on the side until the edge of the wood dug through her gloves into her palms.
Ruaridh moved. He did not ask permission. He crossed the shifting boards with irritating balance, caught her around the waist, and drew her away from the exposed side of the boat.
“I told ye?—”
“Aye. Ye told me many things.”
She struggled once, more in fury than with any real hope of freeing herself. “Dinnae drag me about like a sack of grain.”
“If ye were a sack of grain, ye would be less trouble.”
She twisted to glare at him, but the movement made the world spin worse. Her stomach lurched, and she went still at once.
He guided her down near the center of the boat, where the motion was not gentle but less violent. “Sit.”
“I dinnae take orders from ye.”
“Then consider it advice from the sea, since it has made the stronger argument.”
She hated him. She sat. The humiliation of it burned almost as fiercely as the sickness. She folded one hand over her stomach and looked away from him, willing the nausea to obey. The boat rose, fell, then rose again. Each movement seemed to pass through her bones.
Ruaridh crouched beside her and looked toward one of his men. “Water.”
The order was answered at once. A skin was passed down the length of the boat. Ruaridh took it, uncorked it, and held it toward her. She stared at it.
“I have nae poisoned it,” he frowned.
“A pity. Then I might have done with this night sooner.”
One of his brows lifted slightly. “Funny. Drink.”
She wanted to refuse. She truly, deeply, stubbornly wanted it, but her mouth was dry, her throat tight, and another wave was already coming. She took the skin from him and drank a little.
The water was lukewarm and tasted faintly of leather. It helped. She resented that.
The next wave struck harder than the last. The birlinn pitched sideways, and Isobel slid despite herself.
Ruaridh’s arm came behind her before she could hit the boards.
He braced one hand against the side and the other at her waist, holding her in place as if the sea itself had challenged him and been found wanting.
For once, she did not pull away. She told herself it was because she was too ill and if she moved too quickly, she might disgrace herself entirely. Not because his arm was steady.
The wind rose. Men shouted to one another, but there was no panic in it, only command and answer. The sail snapped. Oars shifted. The birlinn drove onward, cutting through the dark with a violence that seemed impossible to survive and ordinary to every man aboard.
Isobel closed her eyes briefly.
“Dinnae,” Ruaridh urged.
Her eyes opened. “Dinnae what?”
“Close yer eyes. It makes it worse.”
“I suppose ye are an expert in being sick over boats.”
“I am an expert in watching other people pretend they arenae.”
“I wasnae pretending.”
“Aye,” he snorted. “And I am king of France.”
Despite herself, a breath left her that was almost a laugh, though too bitter and tired to become one properly. She hated that, too.
Silence settled between them, broken only by the slap of water, the creak of wood, and the low commands of his men. The cold soaked deeper. Her anger remained, but the sea had blunted its edges. It was difficult to sustain the full force of hatred while trying not to be sick on one’s own skirts.
After a time, she huffed in sore amusement. “Dae yer men enjoy seeing a MacDonald brought low?”
Ruaridh did not answer at once. His arm was still behind her, not holding her closer than necessary, but ready when the boat lurched.
“Me men are more concerned with reaching Mull alive.”
She looked toward the shapes of them through spray and dark. None stared openly. A few glanced now and then, but not with the satisfaction she had expected. They watched the sea, the sail and their laird.
“They hate me,” she whispered.
“Aye.” The plainness of it stung, though she had asked for truth in all but words.
Her fingers tightened around the water skin. “At least ye dinnae dress it prettily.”
“I see little use in pretty lies.”
“Only ugly ones?”
His mouth tightened faintly. “When needed.”
Another stretch of silence passed. Then Isobel turned her head enough to look at him.
The wind had pulled strands of dark hair loose near his temples.
Spray clung to his face and cloak. He did not look like a man pleased with his prize.
He looked grim, watchful, and deeply displeased with the world. He also looked devilishly handsome.
“Why?” she asked, focusing on anything else but that.
His gaze shifted to her. “Why what?”
“Why buy me if ye despise me people?”
Something moved in his eyes then. Perhaps he had known the question would come. Perhaps he had been waiting for it.
His gaze held hers. “I couldnae let Ewen have ye.”
The name seemed to make the cold sharpen around her. She looked away first.
“I am a MacDonald,” she said, though it came out quieter than she intended. “So is he.”
“A name daesnae make a man safe.”
“And MacLean daes?”
“Nay.”
The answer was immediate. She looked back at him. Ruaridh’s expression had gone hard again, but not with anger at her. His eyes were on the water beyond them, as if he could see through the dark to all the dangers waiting on every shore.
“Having ye would give Ewen more than a wife,” he explained. “It would give him claim, leverage, allies who would rather bow tae him than bleed against him. It would tighten his hand around the Isles.”
“And that is why ye took me,” she mused. “Fer land, power… fer Duart.”
“Fer Duart,” he agreed. Then, after the briefest pause, he added. “And because I couldnae let Ewen have ye.”
“Ye already said that.”
“Aye.”
“There is more in it than politics, then.”
He looked at her. This time, he did not answer quickly. The boat lifted hard over another wave, and his hand came firm against her side to keep her from sliding. His touch was practical. Yet the steadiness of it made her throat close in a way the sea had not managed.
He cleared his throat. “There are things said of him.”
“Things are said of all men.”
“Nae like this.”
She searched his face, trying to find mockery, triumph, calculation, anything familiar enough to hate cleanly. There was nothing.
A slow unease moved through her, different from sickness.
She had heard whispers of Ewen, of course.
Women heard what men dismissed as gossip.
She had told herself rumor was rumor, and danger was danger, and all of it had become meaningless once she was placed upon that stage.
But Ruaridh’s voice held no relish in the telling.
He did not wield Ewen’s cruelty like a weapon to make himself appear merciful.
If anything, he seemed to regret having said even that much.
“Nay woman should be sold tae a man like him,” he whispered.
The words were almost lost beneath the wind. Isobel heard them anyway. For one moment, she had no answer.
The sea surged. The birlinn pitched. Ruaridh braced her again without comment, and this time she let him. It wasn’t because she forgave him or because she trusted him.
It was because the dark water was vast, the boat was small, and the world she had known had already fallen away behind her.