Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
By the time Ruaridh set her on her feet inside the lower passage, Isobel was certain she could stand. She was also certain she could breathe. Both beliefs lasted only until he released her.
Her knees weakened. Ruaridh caught her at once.
“I have ye,” he spoke.
The words should not have undone her. Isobel gripped his shirt with both hands and tried to steady herself, but her fingers would not stop shaking.
“I am well,” she replied.
Ruaridh looked at her cheek, her mouth, her torn sleeve, her scraped fingers.
“Nay,” he said. “Ye are alive.”
The distinction cut through the fog around her.
Her throat tightened. “I didnae think.”
“Aye,” he said roughly. “Ye did. Ye thought of them.”
She could not answer. The boy’s scream still lived somewhere beneath her skin.
His head lifted. The laird returned to him piece by piece, though his hand stayed firm at her back.
Isobel knew what that meant. He would leave. His duty demanded him. Yet the moment he said it, something in her broke open so swiftly she could not hide it. Her hands tightened in his shirt, not enough to hold him, only enough to reveal she wanted to.
“Go,” she said, forcing her fingers to loosen. “I ken ye must.”
Ruaridh did not move.
“I am fine,” she added, though her voice betrayed her with its thinness.
Behind him, Torin approached, stopping short when he saw them. “The Council is gathering.”
“Aye,” Ruaridh said, but his eyes never left Isobel.
She tried to straighten and give him back the fierce woman he knew better how to face. But the effort failed somewhere between her bruised cheek and trembling hands.
Ruaridh saw, then he turned to Torin. “She comes with me.”
Torin blinked once.
Ruaridh bent and picked up her bow from where Torin had set it against the wall. He placed it carefully in her hand. “Ye come with me.”
“I cannae sit in Council.”
“Ye can.”
“The men willnae want me there.”
His expression darkened. “They will survive the hardship.”
When Ruaridh placed his hand at the small of her back and guided her toward the council chamber, Isobel went. The room fell silent when they entered. It was not a welcoming silence.
Fergus was the first foolish enough to speak.
“Me laird,” he began, “perhaps Lady Isobel should rest while we discuss?—”
“Nay.” The word struck the table like a blade laid flat.
Fergus stopped.
Another man shifted uneasily. “This concerns the safety of the clan.”
Ruaridh’s hand settled at Isobel’s back.
“Then it concerns me wife,” he said.
The room went still. Isobel felt every eye on them. She should have felt exposed. But Ruaridh stood beside her. That mattered more than she was prepared to admit.
Mairi stood near the entrance of the Great Hall with the two children.
The older girl near Mairi suddenly pulled free and ran toward her.
Isobel barely had time to react before the child threw her arms around her waist. Pain flashed through Isobel’s bruised side, but she did not step back.
Her free hand came down carefully over the girl’s hair.
“Thank ye,” the girl whispered.
The words broke something in the room. The little boy followed more slowly, eyes still red from crying. He stopped before Isobel, then looked up at Ruaridh as if asking permission. Ruaridh’s face softened enough to answer without words.
The boy wrapped both arms around Isobel’s skirt. Isobel looked down at him, and for one awful moment she thought she might weep before all of them.
Mairi’s voice was thick when she spoke. “She put herself between them and the prisoner.”
A murmur moved through the council.
Brodie’s gaze snapped to the children. “He had them?”
The older girl nodded, still holding Isobel. “He wanted the servant stairs. He was asking how tae go deeper in.”
The mood changed then. Men who had looked at Isobel and seen only MacDonald blood now looked again and saw the torn sleeve, the bruised cheek, the scraped fingers, the children clinging to her as if she were safety itself.
One of the older men near the table stepped forward. Isobel recognized him vaguely as a man who had refused to meet her eyes at supper more than once and had gone silent whenever she passed.
He bowed his head.
“Me lady,” he spoke in a rough voice, “I spoke poorly of ye when ye first came here.”
Isobel stilled. Ruaridh went still beside her for a different reason.
The man swallowed. “I said nay MacDonald would bring aught but trouble tae Duart.” His gaze dropped briefly to the children, then returned to her. “I was wrong. Ye saved our own taenight. Ye have me thanks.”
The room fell quiet again, but this silence was different. Isobel’s throat felt too tight.
“I only did what anyone should have done,” she said.
“Nay,” Brodie said from the other side of the table. His voice was unusually serious. “Many would have run fer help. Ye ran toward him.”
Ruaridh’s hand remained steady at her back. The Council continued around her after that. When she spoke once, quietly, to say the prisoner had asked for the shortest way deeper into the corridors and not merely the way out, every man listened. Ruaridh listened most of all.
When the Council was dismissed, the men left quietly. When the door closed behind the last of them, the room seemed suddenly too large.
“Come,” Ruaridh urged.
She did not argue. By the time they reached the chamber, she could barely keep herself upright. Ruaridh opened the door and guided her inside. Only then did the last of her composure fail.
“I am tired,” she whispered.
His expression changed as though that confession hurt him more than any wound.
“Aye,” he said softly. “I ken.”
He helped her out of the torn gown with a care so deep it made her chest ache.
He said nothing of the bruises forming along her arm or the red mark at her cheek, though his jaw tightened each time he saw another sign of what had been done to her.
He only gave her a clean shift, turned away while she changed, then helped her beneath the covers as if she were something precious and breakable.
He removed his sword belt and boots, then paused beside the bed as if uncertain whether to lie down. Isobel moved the covers back.
“Stay,” she whispered.
His gaze lifted to hers, then he lay down beside her. Ruaridh reached for her slowly, giving her time to refuse. She did not.
His arm came around her, drawing her against the solid warmth of his chest. Isobel went stiff at first, not from fear of him but from the shock of being held after spending so long holding herself together.
Then the fear and exhaustion caught up. Her body trembled once.
“I have ye,” he murmured.
She turned her face into his shirt and closed her eyes. His hand moved over her hair once, then stilled, as if he feared too much tenderness might wake the pain again.
She lifted her head enough to look at him. His face was shadowed by the dim firelight, hard with exhaustion, but his eyes were on her as though sleep could wait and the world could wait and nothing mattered until he knew she was still there.
His hand rose to her cheek, careful of the bruise. Isobel leaned into the touch before she could think better of it. Ruaridh’s thumb brushed softly along the unhurt side of her face.
“Sleep,” he murmured.
She should have obeyed. Instead, she lifted her mouth to his. His mouth moved over hers as if asking whether she was truly there. She answered him as best she could. When they parted, her eyes were already heavy.
Ruaridh drew her close again, his chin resting lightly above her hair. Isobel let herself settle against him. And with Ruaridh’s heartbeat steady beneath her ear, she fell asleep before fear could find its way back in.
Morning found Ruaridh awake before the sun had fully lifted over the sea.
Isobel still slept beside him, tucked against his chest as if she had forgotten, in sleep, that she was meant to be wary of him.
One of her hands rested against his shirt, with her fingers curled loosely in the fabric.
The bruise at her cheek had darkened through the night.
Every time his gaze found it, something cold and violent moved through him. He had nearly lost her. The thought had not left him once.
By the time she stirred, Ruaridh had already made his decision.
“There will be a feast taenight,” he told her.
Isobel blinked up at him, still soft with sleep. “That is a cruel thing tae say before I am properly awake.”
His mouth almost curved. “A small one.”
“In whose honor?”
“Yers.”
That woke her.
She pushed herself up on one elbow and stared at him. “Mine?”
“Aye. Ye saved two children of this clan.”
“I did what anyone would have done.”
“Nay,” he corrected. “Ye did what ye would have done.”
Color touched her face, faint but immediate. “I dinnae want tae be made a spectacle.”
“It isnae a spectacle.”
“It sounds very much like one.”
“Me friends are expected soon,” he said. “Colin, Niall, and Domhnall. We will mark their arrival and what ye did together.”
“How convenient,” she muttered. “Me humiliation hidden beneath other men’s welcome.”
Ruaridh shifted closer. “It isnae humiliation I want fer ye.”
“Then what?”
He looked at her for a long moment. Her hair was loose from sleep, her eyes still shadowed by the fear and exhaustion of the night before. Yet even bruised and tired, she watched him as if she would accept no answer that did not cost him something true.
“I want me people tae accept ye,” he revealed.
Something in her expression changed. The softness left her slowly, replaced by uncertainty.
“And dae ye?” she asked.
Ruaridh stilled.
She did not look away. “Accept me?”
The question struck deeper than he expected. Perhaps because the answer had once been no, and he would not insult her by pretending otherwise.
“At first,” he said carefully, “I didnae ken how.”
Her gaze lowered. He caught her chin lightly, not forcing her to look at him, only asking. After a moment, she let him lift her face.
“Me faither died because of MacDonald blades,” he continued.
“Men I loved died because old hatred kept asking fer more blood. I was raised on the cost of trusting yer name, Isobel. When I brought ye here, I saw a woman wronged, aye. I saw courage. But I also saw Dunnyveg. I saw every grave that name had helped dig.”
Her eyes glistened, though she held herself still.
“I ken,” she whispered.
“Aye,” he sighed. “And that was the trouble. Ye kent it, too. Ye carried yer own dead in the same way. We both looked at each other and saw ghosts before flesh.”
Her breath trembled. Ruaridh brushed his thumb carefully beneath the unbruised side of her cheek.
“But ye arenae yer clan,” he spoke. “Nay more than I am only mine. Ye are the woman who stood before me men and spoke sense when they were too proud tae hear it. Ye are the woman who took a bow intae danger because children were afraid. Ye are stubborn, sharp-tongued, impossible, brave beyond reason, and far kinder than ye wish anyone tae notice.”
Her lips parted, but no words came. He leaned closer, his voice lowering.
“And aye, Isobel. I accept ye… more than that.” His throat tightened around the admission, but he forced it free. “I am honored tae call ye me wife.”
For a moment, she only stared at him. Then her hand rose slowly to his chest, resting over his heart.
“Ye should be careful,” she whispered.
“With what?”
“Saying things like that.”
His mouth curved faintly. “Why?”
“Because I might believe ye.”
He smirked. “I would prefer that.”
A fragile smile touched her mouth, and it nearly undid him.
Ruaridh bent his head. She met him halfway.
The kiss began softly, still shaped by the weariness of the night before, but warmth gathered quickly beneath it.
Her fingers tightened in his shirt, and his hand slid into her hair, holding her close with all the care he possessed and none of the distance he had once thought necessary.
When she sighed against his mouth, he kissed her deeper.