Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
By the third morning after the prisoner was taken, Isobel had learned the shape of being avoided.
Only, it wasn’t a dramatic thing. Ruaridh didn’t shut doors in her face or refuse her questions with cruelty.
In truth, he was almost careful in his neglect, which somehow made it worse.
He came to their chamber late. He rose before she woke, then dressed with quiet efficiency and vanished into Council, or the yard, or the walls, or whatever duty claimed him next.
At supper, he sat at the same table and spoke when spoken to. His gaze found hers often enough that she could not accuse him of forgetting she existed. Yet it never remained. It touched and withdrew, like a hand drawn back from flame.
She told herself she should be grateful. A wife who had been bought before witnesses and forced into an enemy’s household ought to be glad her husband did not crowd her. A sensible woman would welcome distance. A sensible woman would consider his absence a mercy.
Isobel never hated sense so much.
“Ye are frowning at the rosebush again,” Sorcha’s voice brought her back to the present moment.
Isobel blinked. They had been walking through the small walled garden tucked against the southern side of Duart, where the wind came softer and the herbs grew stubbornly between stone borders.
The place was not grand, not like the gardens she had seen farther south, but it possessed a rough sort of beauty.
Rosemary, lavender, thyme, and hardy late roses clung to the beds despite salt air and weather.
Beyond the wall, the sea could be heard but not seen, a steady breath beneath everything.
“I am nae frowning,” Isobel replied. “I was thinking.”
“That is often how frowning begins.”
Isobel glanced at her, and despite herself, smiled.
Sorcha’s answering smile was gentler. She had become, in the last days, a presence Isobel looked for without meaning to.
Sorcha had a way of offering warmth without making it feel like charity, which was a rare enough gift that Isobel had not known what to do with it at first. Now, she found she wanted it.
“I am foolish,” Isobel admitted.
Sorcha’s brows lifted. “That is a serious charge. What evidence have ye?”
“I ken that me husband is busy, and yet I resent him fer being busy.”
“That daesnae sound foolish.”
“He is laird,” Isobel said, as if arguing with herself. “There was a prisoner found near the lower path. Ewen is still a threat. The clan depends on him. Men look tae him fer every answer. He cannae spend his days asking whether I am content.”
“Are ye?”
Isobel stopped. Sorcha did, too. The question had been too simple. That was the trouble with Sorcha. She had a gift for asking simple questions that left no place to hide.
Isobel looked down at the herbs edging the path. “I dinnae ken.”
“That sounds like nay.”
“It isnae that I wish him hovering over me,” Isobel amended quickly. “I would hate that.”
“I believe ye.”
“And I dinnae need him.”
“I believe that, too.”
Isobel frowned. “Ye sound as though there is a but waiting.”
Sorcha’s mouth curved. “But it isnae weakness tae wish someone would choose yer company when he isnae forced tae.”
The words struck softly, which made them worse.
Isobel turned away and continued walking. “Men choose duty.”
“Aye. Often.”
“Me faither always did.”
Sorcha said nothing. That silence, like Ruaridh’s, left space for truth, but unlike his, it did not feel like a wall.
Isobel drew her shawl more closely around herself.
“After me brithers died, I thought he might… I dinnae ken. Turn toward me, perhaps. Remember I was still there. But every time grief entered the room, he followed it away from me. There was always Council, land, or some matter more deserving of his notice.”
Her voice had gone quieter than she intended.
“And now?” Sorcha asked.
Isobel’s throat tightened. “Now I am angry with Ruaridh fer daein’ what lairds dae, because a foolish part of me thought he might be different.”
Sorcha’s expression softened. Isobel hated that the softness nearly undid her.
They reached a stone bench half-hidden beneath a twisted little tree bent by years of wind. Sorcha sat first, then patted the place beside her with a boldness that would have startled Isobel a week ago. Now Isobel sat.
For a while, neither spoke. A bee worried at the lavender.
Somewhere beyond the garden wall, a man called an order and another answered.
The castle continued around them, full of people and work and lives Isobel was slowly learning, even as the one person she most wanted to understand seemed to be slipping farther from her.
“I think he feels guilty,” Sorcha mused.
Isobel looked at her. “Fer leaving me alone?”
“Aye. But guilt has never yet taught a man how tae behave sensibly.”
“That is a dangerous thing tae say in a castle full of them.”
“I speak from experience.”
Isobel studied her. Sorcha suddenly became very interested in the mint leaves in her basket.
“Oh,” Isobel said.
Sorcha’s cheeks pinkened. “Dinnae say it like that.”
“Like what?”
“As though ye have discovered treasure buried beneath the cabbages.”
“Have I?”
“Nay.”
“Sorcha.”
“Nay.”
“Sorcha.”
The maid pressed her lips together, fighting a smile and losing. “Ye are very troublesome fer a lady.”
“So I have been told.”
Sorcha laughed softly, then looked down at her hands. The blush remained on her cheeks, but her smile had changed into something more vulnerable.
“It is Torin,” she admitted.
Isobel’s delight was immediate and impossible to hide. “I kent it.”
“Ye didnae.”
“I noticed the way ye look at him.”
“I dinnae look at him in any particular way.”
“Sorcha.”
“I dinnae,” Sorcha insisted, then groaned and covered her face with one hand. “Saints preserve me, perhaps I dae.”
Isobel laughed then, and the sound surprised her still, like something opened in a room too long shut.
Sorcha lowered her hand and gave her a half-accusing look. “Ye are enjoying this far too much.”
“I am. It is a rare pleasure tae have someone else be embarrassed.”
“That is cruel.”
“Only a little.”
Sorcha shook her head, but she was smiling again.
“How long?” Isobel asked.
Sorcha looked toward the wall as if Torin might appear on command. “Too long.”
“And he kens?”
“I dinnae ken.” Her mouth twisted. “Sometimes I think aye. Other times he speaks tae me with all the warmth of a door in winter.”
“That may be because he is Torin. He looks as though he was born disapproving.”
“He is kind,” Sorcha tried to explain.
The quick defense told Isobel more than the words.
Her teasing softened. “I believe ye.”
“He is steady, and honorable. And he listens, even when he pretends he daesnae. Once, last winter, old Mairi’s son was ill and she couldnae carry enough peat in fer herself.
Torin found out and said naething. Just sent two lads every morning until the boy recovered.
When Mairi thanked him, he claimed he didnae ken what she meant. ”
“That sounds like him.”
“Aye.” Sorcha looked down, smiling to herself. “That is what makes it worse.”
“Why worse?”
“Because if he were only handsome, I could ignore that.”
Isobel’s brows rose. “Torin is handsome?”
Sorcha stared at her. “Ye have eyes.”
“I dae. I have mostly seen him looking as though someone has disappointed him from across a field.”
“That is his thinking face.”
“It is also his eating face.”
Sorcha burst into laughter and quickly pressed her fingers over her mouth.
The sound was so bright that Isobel found herself laughing too.
For a few moments, they were only two women in a garden with secrets between them, and no auctions, no feuds, no fathers, no husbands with burdens heavier than courtesy.
When their laughter faded, Sorcha’s expression grew shy. “I have never told anyone.”
Isobel felt the gift of that trust settle between them. She guarded it carefully.
“Yer secret,” Isobel clarified. “I shall keep it.”
“I ken ye will.”
There was such easy certainty in her voice that Isobel had to look away. Once, she had thought friendship was a thing that happened to other women, women with sisters, and women whose mothers lived long enough to teach them how to soften without surrendering.
Yet here Sorcha was, sitting beside her as if closeness were the most ordinary thing in the world.
Isobel touched one finger to a lavender sprig in Sorcha’s basket. “Then I shall tell ye one in return.”
Sorcha’s attention sharpened with immediate interest.
“I miss him,” Isobel confessed, before courage could desert her. “Ruaridh. Though he isnae gone, and though I am still angry with him.”
Sorcha’s face gentled.
Isobel pointed at her. “Ye may nae look pleased.”
“I wouldnae dare.”
“Ye are looking pleased.”
“I am looking supportive.”
“Poorly disguised.”
“Aye, well.” Sorcha tucked the lavender more firmly into the basket. “I am only glad ye have something worth missing.”
Isobel had no answer to that.