Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Sorcha and Torin,” Isobel mused.
Ruaridh blinked once. “What?”
“Are they… thegither?”
For a moment, the question was so far from ships, scouts, and the threat moving somewhere upon his land that he only stared at her. Then he looked toward the door, where Sorcha’s blush might as well have been left glowing upon the wood.
“Nay,” he replied.
Isobel arched a brow.
“Nae yet, I think,” he amended.
Her mouth curved before she could stop it, and the sight of it unsettled him more than it ought. “That is a very different answer.”
“I suppose it is the truer one.”
“And Torin? Daes he ken?”
“Torin kens how tae track men over stone and command scouts under poor light. In this, I suspect he is less gifted.”
Her laugh was small, but real. The sound moved through the room with a dangerous softness. Ruaridh found himself watching her longer than sense allowed.
“Poor Sorcha,” she sighed playfully.
“Aye.”
Isobel looked at him, the amusement still lingering faintly in her eyes. “Ye are fond of him.”
His expression closed by habit before thought could prevent it. “He is one of mine.”
The words were simple enough and they were also true enough. Yet the moment they left him, he felt their weight. He was used to command, loyalty, responsibility. He was less used to explaining affection without making it sound like possession.
Isobel said nothing. But some quick thought passed behind her eyes before she looked away.
“I should leave ye tae yer maps and threats.”
“That would be wise.”
“Then I must reconsider.”
She turned toward the door. She had taken only two steps when her gown caught hard upon the edge of the chest near the wall. A sharp tear sounded and Isobel froze.
Ruaridh’s gaze dropped to her back. “What was that?”
“Naething.” Her answer was too stiff.
“It didnae sound like naething.”
She reached awkwardly behind herself, her fingers finding the torn lace before he could offer help.
One tie had snapped, and another was loosened.
The fabric gaped slightly between her shoulder blades, revealing no more than a narrow glimpse of skin, and yet enough to make her go still with mortification.
“Damn,” she muttered.
Ruaridh lifted a brow, utterly shocked at her words. Shocked, and amused, it would seem.
“I require Sorcha,” she said, glancing at the door.
“Sorcha has gone.”
“I am aware of that,” she frowned, and her eyes flashed at him.
“I can call fer another maid.”
“Nay.”
The refusal came too forcefully. He saw her catch herself. He saw pride rush in to cover whatever panic had escaped.
“Nae. I willnae stand in yer passage while half the castle learns I cannae keep me gown intact.”
He looked at the torn lace, then at her face. “Turn around.”
She stared at him. “Absolutely nae.”
“Then walk out with torn laces.”
“I would sooner walk intae the sea.”
He lifted an inquisitive eyebrow. “That seems excessive fer a ribbon.”
“It is nae just the ribbon.”
“What is it, then?”
“Me dignity.”
This was where he nearly smiled. “Isobel.”
Her name left his mouth before he could make it more formal, and the sound of it changed the air between them. He didn’t refer to her as Lady Isobel or his wife. Only Isobel. Her eyes sharpened, but she did not step away.
“What?” she snapped.
“I can mend a lace.”
Her eyes widened. “Can ye?”
“I have tied wounds closed in worse light.”
“That isnae reassuring.”
“It is honest.”
She looked toward the door. Then toward the hounds. Then back at him, as though every possible escape had betrayed her at once. At last, she turned her back to him.
“Fine,” she said through clenched teeth. “But be quick.”
Ruaridh stepped closer. That was his first mistake. The second was noticing the faint warmth of her, the scent of wool and rosemary. She was standing rigidly, with her hands folded before her, and her spine so straight it looked less like composure than defense.
“Hold still,” he urged softly.
“I wasnae planning tae dance.”
His fingers found the torn lace. The moment he touched it, she went utterly still.
He worked carefully, more carefully than the task required.
He drew the loosened edges together, untangled the torn thread, and kept his hands to the fabric as much as he could.
He had bound wounds under rain, darkness, and shouting men. This should have been nothing.
It was not.
Then the back of his knuckle brushed her skin, only once and only lightly, but her breath caught.
Ruaridh stopped at once. The room seemed to tighten around them.
The fire cracked softly behind him. One of the hounds shifted near the hearth.
Outside, the sea moved against stone with slow indifference, while every part of him became fixed upon that small place where his hand hovered near her back.
“It is tangled,” he mused quietly.
The words were ordinary. His voice was not.
He should have stepped back. He knew it.
He should have called for a maid and let the whole castle gossip if it pleased them.
Instead, he resumed. This time, when his fingers slid beneath the edge of the torn lace, he touched her skin again.
He refused to admit that it wasn’t entirely by accident, at least not as much as it should have been.
It was just a slow brush of calloused fingertips along the warm, narrow line of her back.
She did not move away. Her eyes closed. He knew it, though he was standing behind her. He felt the change in her body, and the sudden tremor of restraint. His own breathing altered.
“Ruaridh,” she whispered.
He could not tell whether it was warning or plea. That was reason enough to stop. His hand withdrew at once.
“There,” he said with his voice down to a whisper.
She turned, too quickly, and he discovered that speed was no protection at all. She was too close. Her face was flushed, her eyes bright with confusion and something he dared not name.
His gaze dropped to her mouth, only for a heartbeat, but it was still too long.
“Ye didnae need tae—” she began.
“I ken.”
The simplicity of the answer seemed to take the rest of her words from her. The hound gave a soft huff near the hearth, as if disappointed in them both.
Isobel stepped back. Then another step.
“I should find Sorcha.”
“Aye.”
“And ye have ships tae concern yerself with.”
“Aye.”
Neither of them moved. Then she gathered herself, lifted her chin, and went to the door with all the dignity of a woman retreating from a danger she refused to name.
At the threshold, she glanced back. Ruaridh had not moved. One hand remained slightly raised, empty now, as though some foolish part of him had not yet accepted that he had let her go.
Her eyes widened a little. Then she left, closing the door behind her.
For several moments, Ruaridh stood alone in the study, with the maps spread uselessly before him, the coast under threat, and his thoughts fixed not upon ships or soldiers, but upon the warmth of his wife’s skin beneath his hand.
Over the next few days, Ruaridh slept little and trusted no report until it had been answered twice.
He sent men over the ridges, through the lower paths, along the burns and the narrow places where a boat might come ashore unseen.
He stood over maps until candle wax hardened beside his hand, listened to scouts with his jaw set, and walked the walls before dawn while Duart still breathed in sleep around him.
No sign of Ewen’s men was found. That ought to have eased him. It didn’t, because absence was not safety. It was only a more patient kind of threat.
By the fourth morning, however, the castle had begun to feel as though it were holding its breath, and one person in particular had borne confinement with all the grace of a trapped hawk. Ruaridh went to Isobel’s chamber before he could reconsider.
She opened her eyes the instant he entered, her hand already reaching to hide herself from the onslaught of the sun’s rays upon him pushing the curtains apart.
“Up,” he said.
She propped herself onto one elbow, with hair loose over her shoulder, while her eyes narrowed with sleep and offence. “Is that how ye greet all ladies before dawn?”
“Only the troublesome ones. We are going tae the village.”
That woke her fully. For one brief, unguarded moment, astonishment softened her face. Then suspicion rushed in to cover it.
“Now?”
“Aye.”
“Is it safe?”
“It is safer,” he corrected.
An hour later, they rode down from Duart with four men behind them and the morning wind sharp from the sea. The village sat below the castle in a scatter of stone, thatch, smoke, and weathered wood, with nets drying near the shore and gulls crying overhead like disagreeable old women.
Ruaridh felt the change the instant they entered.
Doors didn’t close. No one ran. No one spoke insult aloud.
But silence still gathered. A woman at a doorway looked at Isobel’s brooch and then looked away in disgust. Two men near a cart stopped speaking.
A child stared until his mother pulled him sharply behind her skirts.
Isobel rode beside him with her chin high and her hands still upon the reins.
He knew that stillness now. It was not ease.
It was armor. That was why Ruaridh kept his horse close to hers.
They had gone only as far as the well when a man stepped forward from beside the smithy.
Murchadh MacLean was broad, grey-bearded, and too proud of the sons he had buried to fear his laird’s displeasure as much as he ought.
His gaze fixed on Isobel’s brooch.
“So this is what Duart shelters now,” he snarled. “A MacDonald in silk, while our dead lie cold fer want of justice.”
The village went utterly still. Ruaridh turned his horse. Isobel’s face had not changed, but he saw the quick, sharp wound of it in her eyes before she buried it. That was enough.
“Careful, Murchadh,” Ruaridh warned.
The man looked at him, surprised perhaps by the coldness in his voice. “Me laird, I meant nay insult tae ye.”
“Aye,” Ruaridh agreed. “That is why ye are still standing.”
A faint sound passed through the villagers.
Murchadh flushed. “Her people?—”
“Her people arenae under me protection at this moment. She is.”
The words struck the square with more force than a shout. Ruaridh dismounted. He did it slowly, which made several men step back. He crossed the few paces between them until Murchadh had to lift his chin to meet his eyes.
“Ye may hate Clan MacDonald until yer last breath,” Ruaridh allowed. “God kens they have given ye cause, as we have given them cause. But ye willnae use me wife as a vessel fer every grief ye carry. Nae in me village and nae under me name.”
Murchadh’s jaw worked. “Me son?—”
“I remember Cailean,” Ruaridh said quietly.
That silenced him. Ruaridh did remember a fair-haired lad with a quick laugh, dead at nineteen with salt water in his lungs and a MacDonald blade mark under his ribs. Grief deserved reverence. It did not deserve permission to become cruelty.
“I remember all of them,” Ruaridh continued. “And because I remember, I willnae have more hatred fed where it need nae be. Lady Isobel didnae kill yer son.”
For a moment, only the sea spoke. Then Isobel dismounted behind him. Ruaridh turned slightly, but did not stop her. She came to stand at his side, pale but composed, her MacDonald brooch bright against her gown.
“Nay,” she echoed, her voice carrying clearly. “I didnae kill him.”
Murchadh’s gaze moved to her, hard and wet with anger.
Isobel did not flinch. “And I willnae insult his memory by pretending yer pain is naething because it belongs tae a MacLean. Me brithers are dead, too. I have hated yer name fer it with all the strength I possessed.”
The villagers listened now.
“But hatred,” she continued, “has never returned a son tae his faither, nor a braither tae his sister. It only asks fer another grave and calls the asking honor.”
Ruaridh looked at her. He could not help it. She was standing there in the middle of his village, surrounded by people prepared to despise her, and offered them neither apology for existing nor prideful contempt. She gave them the truth, and it was sharper than either.
Murchadh’s expression shifted. He didn’t show forgiveness. That would have been too much to ask of any man in a single morning. But something in him faltered.
Isobel’s voice softened. “I am deeply sorry fer yer son.”
The old man looked away first. That, in the square, was no small thing. A woman near the well crossed herself. Someone exhaled. The child behind his mother’s skirts peered out again.
Ruaridh felt it then, the smallest fracture in the wall around her. It wasn’t enough to call her welcome, but it was enough for light to pass through.
He stepped back to Isobel’s side. “We’ll go on.”
She glanced up at him. Yet in that glance there was something he had not seen from her before. It was the astonishment, as though she had expected to stand alone and found him there instead. It struck him harder than gratitude would have done.
They walked on through the village, the people parting before them with less coldness than before. Ruaridh kept his gaze ahead.
But beside him, Isobel’s hand brushed his sleeve once by accident, and for the first time, she did not immediately draw away.