Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Ruaridh was returning from practice with sweat cooling beneath his shirt and the weight of a wooden practice blade still in his hand when he heard the laughter.
It came from the back yard, cutting through the usual sounds of Duart like sunlight through mist. Children’s voices rose together in delighted squeals, and beneath them was a woman’s voice, warm with command.
Isobel.
He slowed before he reached the archway.
In the yard beyond, she was standing with her bow in hand, her gown gathered slightly from the damp ground, and the wind stirring loose strands of hair about her face.
Around her clustered six or seven children of varying ages, all of them watching her as though she were a queen of some wild and excellent country they wished to enter.
“Nay, Hamish,” she urged with laughter in her voice as a small boy attempted to pull the string with all his strength and no sense at all. “If ye mean tae fight the bow, the bow will win. Stand steady. Let it belong in yer hand.”
The boy frowned with solemn importance. “Like this?”
“Better. Now breathe before ye loose.”
Another child bounced impatiently. “Me next, Lady Isobel!”
“If ye shout in me ear again, ye shall be next tomorrow.”
The little girl clapped both hands over her mouth. The others giggled.
Ruaridh remained where he was. He had seen Isobel proud, furious, frightened, tender, and brave enough to shame men who had thought themselves warriors.
But this was something different. She was easy with them, lively and patient in a manner that had no softness of weakness in it.
When one child missed the target entirely, she did not laugh.
She tilted her head and studied the arrow stuck miserably in the earth.
“Well, we have discovered where the enemy is nae.”
The children collapsed into laughter. So did she.
The sound struck him squarely in the chest. A servant passed behind him with a basket of linen, then stopped. Her gaze followed his into the yard. Her expression changed slowly, touched first by surprise, then by shame.
“She is good with them,” the woman murmured.
Ruaridh did not look away from Isobel. “Aye.”
“I didnae think she would be.”
He turned then.
The woman flushed, clutching the basket closer. “I mean… I was unkind in me thoughts. In more than me thoughts, perhaps. When she first came.”
Ruaridh’s gaze settled on her. “I am nae the one who should hear that apology.”
The woman lowered her eyes. “Nay, me laird.”
He nodded once, and she went on, chastened but not rebuked past repair.
In the yard, Isobel stepped behind the little girl, gently adjusting her elbows. “There. Dae ye feel the difference?”
The child nodded eagerly.
“Good. Now dinnae aim at Colin’s pride. It is too large a target and therefore nae challenge.”
The children laughed though half of them likely did not understand the joke. Ruaridh did. His mouth softened before he could prevent it.
Another man, one of the older clansmen who had grumbled loudest when Isobel first crossed Duart’s threshold, came to stand near the archway. He watched in silence as the little girl loosed her arrow and struck the outer edge of the target. The yard erupted.
Isobel gasped as if the child had felled a stag. “There now! Did I nae tell ye the bow would listen if ye stopped shouting at it?”
The girl turned and flung her arms about Isobel’s waist. Isobel stilled only for the smallest moment. Then, her hand came down, gentle upon the child’s hair.
The old clansman cleared his throat. Ruaridh glanced at him.
“I misjudged her,” the man said gruffly.
“Aye.”
“And spoke out of turn.”
“Aye.”
After a pause, the man gave a rough nod. “I’ll tell her.”
“See that ye dae.”
The man lingered a moment longer, watching Isobel as if the shape of her had altered before him. Then he moved away. Ruaridh stayed.
He told himself there were reasons. She was still a target. The yard was open. The children were gathered too close. Any laird would watch. But a laird’s duty didn’t make his heart ache.
Isobel turned then, as though some sense in her had found him.
Across the yard, through the bustle of children and servants and wind, her eyes met his.
Her smile changed. And in that instant, the truth came upon him with no thunder, no warning, no grand violence worthy of a tale. It came as plainly as breath.
He loved her.
It wasn’t because she was beautiful, though she was, nor because she was brave, though God knew she had courage enough to make lesser men ashamed.
He loved her because she stood in the place that had once rejected her and gave its children laughter, because she had every reason to become hard, and yet here she was, teaching small hands patience, because she could wound him with wit, steady him with a touch, and make his home feel, impossibly, more like home.
Isobel lifted one brow, as if asking why he stared. He shook his head faintly. Her mouth curved.
One of the boys tugged her sleeve. “Lady Isobel, is the laird better than ye?”
She looked from the boy to Ruaridh, wickedness bright in her eyes.
“With a sword, perhaps,” she teased. “With a bow, we try nae tae embarrass him.”
The children turned to Ruaridh in delight. He should have defended himself. He should have crossed the yard and reminded them all that he was laird of Duart and not an object of amusement. Instead, he laughed.
Isobel’s eyes softened when she heard it. And Ruaridh thought that if every soul in Duart came to her one by one with apologies, it would still not be enough for what she had endured.
But it would be a beginning, and she deserved it.
By the time Isobel escaped the yard, her arms ached pleasantly from drawing the bow and her cheeks hurt from laughing.
The children had gone off in a riot of triumph and argument, each insisting they had improved most, and she had left them with a stern warning that no one was to shoot at chickens, servants, or brothers.
Now, in the quiet of their chamber, she let out a slow breath as Sorcha’s maids carried the last steaming bucket to the tub. Warmth rose in soft clouds, scented faintly with lavender and rosemary. Isobel dismissed them with thanks, loosened her gown, and sank into the water with a sigh.
For one blessed moment, there was only heat. Then, the door opened. She turned, with water lapping softly against the sides of the tub, and found Ruaridh standing in the doorway.
He stopped. His gaze moved over her face first, not lower, and something in that restraint touched her more deeply than boldness might have done.
“I… can leave,” he whispered.
She rested her arms along the rim of the tub. “Nay. Stay.”
He closed the door and came toward her. When he knelt beside the tub, the scent of leather, cold air, and steel from the practice yard still clung to him beneath the softer smell of soap.
“I saw ye with the children,” he spoke softly.
“So did half the castle, I think.”
“Aye.”
She glanced at him. “Have I frightened them all with me terrible MacDonald influence?”
“Nay.” His voice softened. “Ye made them love ye.”
The words were too simple, and therefore impossible to defend against.
Isobel looked down at the water. “Children are easily impressed by arrows.”
“Men and women are less easily made ashamed.” His fingers brushed a damp strand of hair back from her cheek. “Yet ye did that, too.”
Her breath caught at the tenderness of the touch.
Ruaridh’s thumb traced once along her jaw. “I am proud that ye are me wife.”
The water seemed suddenly warmer.
Isobel tried to smile and found herself perilously near tears instead. “That is a dangerous thing tae say to a woman in a bath. She has naewhere dignified tae go.”
“Then stay where ye are.”
His hand lowered to her shoulder, then paused near the faint mark she still carried from the violence days before—a healing bruise, yellowed now at the edges, with a small scrape beneath it where stone had caught her. His face darkened, not with anger at her, but with memory.
“It daesnae pain me,” she said softly.
“I ken.” His voice was rough. “But I hate that it is there.”
He reached for the cloth folded beside the tub, dipped it into the warm water, and washed carefully around the tender place. His touch was reverent enough to undo years of feeling unseen, unwanted, set aside until she was useful.
Isobel closed her eyes.
“Nay one ever tended me like this,” she admitted.
The cloth stilled.
Then his mouth touched her bare shoulder, just below the hurt. “Then they were fools.”
The answer went through her more surely than desire. It found the neglected places in her and laid warmth over them.
“Ruaridh,” she whispered.
He lifted his head. There was a question in his eyes, and she answered it by touching his cheek with wet fingers. He turned his face into her palm and kissed it once, twice, then, he leaned in and kissed her mouth, softly at first, with such care that it felt almost like asking.
Isobel answered. The kiss deepened. The cloth slipped forgotten into the water. His hand moved to the nape of her neck, steadying her, while hers found the front of his shirt and drew him closer until the edge of the tub stood between them like a foolish argument.
He gave a low breath against her lips. “Tell me if this is too much.”
“It isnae enough.”
His eyes flared. After that, everything became warmth and choice.
He helped her rise from the bath, wrapping her in linen only long enough to dry the water from her skin with hands that trembled despite their strength.
She saw it and loved him for it. She loved that he could command men, face enemies, terrify half the Isles, and still be undone by the need to be gentle with her.
She drew him down to her. He came willingly, and the linen slipped between them, warm and damp where it had drawn the bathwater from her skin. He pressed a kiss to her neck, soft enough to break her, and when he set another beside it, lower this time, something inside her gave way.
Ruaridh’s hands moved over her as if he could not help himself and yet would never take more than she offered. He traced the line of her spine, the dip of her waist, the curve of her hip, every touch slow and reverent.
Isobel answered by lifting her face to his. His mouth moved over hers with aching restraint while his hands gathered her closer, pressing the linen between them until it became useless and fell at their feet.
Her fingers found the laces of his shirt.
He helped her only when her hands faltered, drawing the garment over his head and casting it aside without looking away from her.
Firelight gilded the hard lines of him, the scars she knew now by memory, the broad chest that had shielded her, the arms that had carried her from fear into safety more than once.
Then he lifted her. Isobel’s arms went around his neck, as he carried her from the bath to the thick rug before the hearth. He knelt with her as if laying down something sacred, one hand protecting her head, the other braced beside her as he lowered her towards the fire’s warmth.
The linen lay tangled beneath them.
Ruaridh followed, his body covering hers by degrees.
He kissed her as though every part of her deserved patience.
Her hands found his hair again, then his shoulders, restless with the need to bring him closer.
He took one breast into his mouth, and she turned her face into his neck to soften the sound that escaped her.
His hand slid over her ribs and down her stomach, pausing there briefly, spread wide and warm as if he wished to hold all of her at once.
Then, he went lower. Her breath caught. His fingers moved between her thighs, finding her velvet heat.
The pleasure came softly, then sharper. The chamber blurred into sensation of fire on her skin and the rasp of his breath beside her ear.
He knew exactly how to build up the pleasure that was taking hold of her.
“Oh…” she moaned softly, and he drank in the sound.
His fingers slid inside of her over and over again, and when release took her, it rose gently at first, then swept through her with enough force to bow her body beneath him. Ruaridh gathered her close, his mouth covering hers as she trembled through it.
Still trembling, Isobel guided him closer, her legs parting around him, and her body already welcoming the weight and heat of him.
He entered her so slowly she felt every inch of him, every careful pause, every effort not to overwhelm her.
The fullness made her fingers tighten against his back.
Each stroke was slow and deep, drawing a quiet gasp from her.
Isobel met him, her body rising to his, her hands sliding over the damp heat of his back.
Their rhythm gathered not with haste, but with inevitability.
The tenderness did not leave. It deepened.
It became the way his hand cupped the back of her head so the floor would not be too hard, the way his mouth found hers whenever she trembled, the way he held himself still whenever her breath caught too sharply, waiting until her fingers urged him on.
She gave him that permission again and again. The pleasure returned, warmer now, fuller because he was inside of her. It built around the place where their bodies joined, spreading outward.
Ruaridh’s control frayed slowly. His movements deepened. His breath turned rough. Still, he watched her, even through the gathering storm of his own release, as if he could not bear to go anywhere she did not follow.
Isobel touched his face. He turned into her palm once more. The sweetness of it broke her open.
Her release came with his name caught soundlessly on her lips, and he followed a breath later, burying his face against her neck as the force of it moved through him. His body shuddered over hers, around hers, his strength finally surrendered to the implosion of pleasure.
Afterward, he did not pull away. He remained inside her, with his heartbeat pounding against her own until the two seemed to slow together. Then they remained like that.