Chapter Nineteen
The yard lay drenched in shimmering puddles.
Moonlight clung to the wet grass, turning each blade pale as frost. The practice posts stood in a rough line, dark against the glow, their surfaces scarred from years of steel and fury.
Lachlan struck again.
Wood cracked beneath the force of the blow. The impact traveled up his arm, into his shoulder, into his chest, never far enough. Never deep enough to quiet the storm inside him.
He struck again and again.
Each swing measured. Controlled.
If he stopped, he would think. And thinking would drag him back.
To a name he had not spoken in years. To a brother he had buried without a grave.
Alasdair.
The sword cut through the air with a sharp hiss and slammed into the post. The wood split slightly this time.
Grand.
Something, at least, could break.
“You are not sleeping.”
Her voice moved through the yard like a breath of warmth against cold stone.
Lachlan stilled and for a moment, he did not turn.
He could feel her behind him—close enough the space between them felt thinner than it should. He lowered the blade slowly and said, “Neither are ye.”
The words came rougher than he intended.
He turned then. Claire stood at the edge of the yard, her cloak wrapped tightly around her, hair the color of the sun stirred loose by the wind. Moonlight traced her face—too clear, too soft for a night like this.
She should have been tucked safely inside away from all of this.
Instead, she stepped closer.
The wet grass darkened the hem of her skirts. She did not seem to notice. “You never told me you had a brother.”
There was no accusation in her voice. Only quiet insistence.
Lachlan exhaled slowly, shifting his grip on the sword. “There was little reason.”
Claire’s gaze did not waver. “And now?”
His jaw tightened. He looked toward the far wall, toward the shadows, anywhere but her.
“Now he rides with men who would burn this keep to the ground.” The words tasted like iron, and he felt them settle between them.
Felt the weight of them.
Claire studied him in silence with perceptive, steady appraisal. “You still care whether he lives.”
Lachlan’s hand tightened around the hilt. The leather straps creaked beneath his grip. He could not answer.
Because if he spoke, he might say something he could not take back.
The quiet stretched until boots sounded softly against the stone beyond the yard.
Still, he did not turn, he knew the stride.
“Ye’ve been attacking the post near an hour,” Shamus said, voice low, carrying easily through the night. “If it could surrender, it would’ve done so already.”
Lachlan let out a breath that might almost have been a laugh.
Almost.
Shamus stepped into the moonlight—broad-shouldered, dark-haired, his presence as steady as the hills beyond the keep. His gaze flicked once to Lady Claire, assessing, respectful—then returned to Lachlan.
“Scouts have returned from the southern ridge,” Shamus continued. “They’re no’ moving yet. Setting camp proper.”
Lachlan nodded once. “Then they’re waiting.”
“Aye.”
“For what?” Claire asked.
Shamus glanced at her again—this time longer. For the first time, there was something like approval in his expression.
“For the laird to make the first mistake,” he said.
Lachlan snorted softly. “They’ll be waiting long.”
Shamus’s mouth curved faintly. “’Tis what I told them.”
Silence settled again. But this time, it was not empty. It was full. Of what they all knew. Of what none of them said.
Shamus shifted his weight slightly, gaze sharpening. “’Tis him, then.”
Not a question.
Lachlan met his comrade, nay brother’s eyes. “Aye.”
Something flickered across Shamus’s face. Recognition, mayhap the harsh memories of Alasdair’s treachery. How he’d betrayed the clan, their father. Selling cattle, land, their souls. And when he’d taken arms against an allied clan, their father had banished him.
Steel hardened the edge of his comrade’s gaze. “Then we plan for more than soldiers,” he said with heady resignation.
Lachlan’s grip tightened again. “We plan for him.”
“Aye.”
Shamus stepped closer, lowering his voice. “He kens ye,” he said quietly. “Kens how ye think. How ye fight.”
“Aye.”
“And ye ken him.”
Lachlan’s gaze drifted—not to the yard, not to the walls—to his English Rose. He gripped his friend, his brother’s shoulder. “Aye,” he said again.
Standing there, listening to their exchange with rapt interest, too close to all of this. Certainly, too tied to it now.
Shamus followed his gaze. Understanding dawned slowly, then settled. “He’s come for her,” Shamus said.
Claire did not flinch.
Lachlan did. He kenned Shamus saw it. Of course he did. All of the years, he’d always had Lachlan’s back.
“Then we’ll no’ let him take her,” Shamus said simply with certainty and no question what they put their mind to, they’d accomplish.
Lachlan looked back at him. At that moment, there was no laird. No titles.
Just two men who had stood back-to-back more times than either could count.
“Aye,” Lachlan said.
But the word came quieter now. He knew if Alasdair wanted something he would not stop. And for the first time since the rider had spoken of his brother’s presence, Lachlan felt something perilously close to fear.
Shamus nodded then ambled off. Presumably to grab an ale or enjoy some whiskey.
Lachlan mounted the stairs and stood alone upon the wall walk.
Below, the loch caught the last light of evening, silver broken by wind. The keep had quieted around him. Somewhere in the hall, laughter drifted upward. Claire's laughter.
The sound should have eased him. Instead, it stirred old ghosts.
He remembered another evening long ago. He and Alasdair had stood atop these same walls as boys.
Their father had been below in the bailey, overseeing repairs after a storm. Clan folk moved about with hammers and carts while the brothers leaned against the parapet.
"One day all this will be mine," Alasdair had said.
He had been fifteen then. Tall and starting to form the muscles of a man. Serious beyond his years.
Lachlan, barely twelve, had shrugged. "I'd rather have the horses."
Alasdair had looked at him as though he were daft. "Why?"
"Because horses dinna argue."
For a moment, his brother had laughed. A real laugh. Not the bitter thing it became later.
Then their father had crossed the bailey.
Every clan member who passed greeted him. A nod. A smile. A word was exchanged.
Alasdair watched the scene below with narrowed eyes. "They love him."
Lachlan had frowned at the sneer in his brother’s tone. "Aye."
His brother's jaw tightened. "They obey him."
"Because he's laird."
"Nay," Alasdair said quietly. His gaze never left the bailey. "They obey because they want to."
Lachlan remembered looking at him then. The strange edge in his voice.
The hunger.
At twelve years old he had not understood it. Now he did. Alasdair had not wanted power.
Not at first.
He had wanted what Duncan Cameron possessed.
The love of his people.
And no matter how hard he reached for it, the harder it seemed to slip away.
For the first time in years, Lachlan wondered whether he had missed the signs.
Or whether his brother had been lost long before any of them realized it.
# # #
Claire had never seen him like this. Granted, she had not known the man long, but she felt as if she had.
As if each day she had lived was filled with a knowing of the man before her.
The shifting of his gaze, the nuances of his speech, and the clenching of his muscles—especially the tick at the base of his jaw when he was concerned, all familiar to her.
This side of the man before had remained hidden. Not even when he had taken her from England with iron certainty and unshakable control.
This was something else.
He stood in the moonlight like a man holding himself together by force alone. Every movement deliberate. Every breath measured.
As though if he loosened his grip, even slightly, something inside him would break free.
And she would not be able to put it back. “You still care whether he lives or not.”
The words had slipped from her before she could stop them. But she did not regret them. The truth lived in the following silence. She saw it in the way his shoulders stilled. In the way his hand tightened on the sword. In the way he did not look at her.
He cared.
God help him.
He cared.
And it frightened her more than any enemy beyond the walls. Because caring made him vulnerable. And vulnerable men made grievous choices.
Shamus’s arrival shifted the air.
Claire felt it immediately. The ease between the two men. The unspoken understanding. The way Lachlan did not have to explain himself. Did not have to pretend.
She watched them as they spoke. Watched the quiet exchange. The way Shamus did not press but did not retreat either.
This was not just a friend. This was a man who would stand in fire beside him.
The idea steadied her more than she expected.
Until—
“He’s come for her.”
The words landed like a blade straight to her gut. Claire felt them sharp, immediate and real.
For a heartbeat, no one moved.
Then Lachlan shifted. And something inside her twisted. Not fear, not exactly.
Something deeper. Because in the moment she understood this was not just about war, not just about land or loyalty or old grudges.
This was about her.
She straightened slightly and lifted her chin with a confidence summoned from deep within her. Pulled from the grit she had earned living with her father and having to fight for each desire no matter how small. If she was to be the reason for this, she would not be a weak one.
“Then perhaps,” she said, her voice steadier than she felt, “you should stop speaking as though I am something to be taken.”
Both men looked at her.
Lachlan’s gaze sharpened. “Claire—”
“I am not a prize,” she continued. “Nor a pawn. If this man comes for me, then he will find I do not go easily.”
The wind shifted, tugging at her cloak. She did not move. Did not yield.
Shamus’s brow lifted slightly.
Approval, again.
Lachlan—Lachlan looked at her as though she had just done something foolish and reckless. Maybe something incredible.
“Ye think this is a game?” he said quietly.
“No,” she replied. “I think this is my life.”
Silence.
Then she stepped closer. Close enough now she could see the tension in his jaw. The faint line between his brows. The storm he kept buried beneath control.
“And I think,” she added more softly, “you do not have to face it alone.”
Something in his expression shifted just enough for her to witness. For a heartbeat the wall cracked. Lachlan looked at her not as a responsibility, not as something to protect, but as someone standing beside him. With him.
And it unsettled them both.
He exhaled slowly, rubbed the back of his neck while he released a curse. Then, quietly. “Aye,” he said.
Not agreement nor surrender. Something deeper. A beginning.
And in the silvered quiet of the training yard with war gathering beyond the hills, something else gathered between them.
Not peace. Not yet, but something just as powerful.
Something not easily undone.