There was a long silence, then Philip said, “Fergus, ride with Mistress MacDonell. Stephen, let’s ride ahead and ready the camp.”
Stephen darted Isobel a frantic look, but spurred his horse after Philip’s. They soon disappeared into the trees.
“I wonder what that was all aboot,” Fergus said, coming to ride beside her.
They arrived a short while later at a small clearing amid tall birch trees. Philip was nowhere in sight and Stephen sat on a stone trying start a fire. Isobel dismounted, handing Jinny over to Fergus, and joined Stephen.
He didn’t look up from his assault on the tinderbox. “He knows I told you.”
Isobel let out a disbelieving breath. “How?”
Stephen shook his head. “I should have known—ye canna get anything past that man.”
“But he could not have heard us.”
“It doesna matter. He got afeeling—and when Philip gets a feeling he’s like damn shark. He won’t let up until he shakes the truth from ye—because he already knows, see? So now he’s angry at me because I told you—and because I tried to lie about it.”
Isobel was still speechless, her mouth agape, when Stephen looked up apologetically.
“Oh, and I’m not supposed to talk to you, so I should just leave off.”
“Surely you jest?”
Stephen just shrugged, his eyes on the fire that had finally caught.
Isobel blinked, incredulous. So now Sir Philip was forbidding people to even speak to her? He’d gone too far. And poor Stephen looked so miserable. Guilt tugged at Isobel. She shouldn’t have forced him to tell her. And yet, it was wrong for Philip to withhold the truth from her. It washerlife; she had a right to know.
She stood decisively. “Where is he?”
Stephen thrust his thumb at a light path worn through the trees. “There’s a burn not far.”
Isobel hurried down the path, following the gurgling of water, her anger and indignation galvanizing her. She would tell him justwhat she thought of men like him. He claimed to want to protect her. So why would he not even tell her about Lord Kincreag? Wouldn’t knowledge be protection? She circled the thick flowering bushes that banked the stream.
He knelt beside the water, shirtless. Water glistened on his broad back. His damp hair was pushed from his face. His stared into the stream, his hands braced on his thighs, deep in thought. His ring gleamed dully in the dying light. Isobel was reminded of his kiss, and a sudden weakness overcame her. Her eyes fluttered shut. She fought against these new and unwelcome feelings, trying to steel herself for a confrontation.
She opened her eyes. “Sir Philip?”
He turned, his dark eyes pinning her, then he stood, snagging his linen shirt off a patch of grass. His chest was heavy with muscle and furred with dark hair. Isobel couldn’t seem to find the angry words that had been ready to fall from her lips just moments before. Sinew shifted and flowed beneath smooth skin. She thought of how his body had felt, hard and solid against her, how she’d felt surrounded, protected.
When he’d finally donned his shirt she was able to meet his eyes. The knowing look he gave her scalded her cheeks. He stood expectantly, jack and vest dangling from his fingertips, and sword belt slung over his shoulder. “You had something to say? Or did you just come to look?”
The eloquent speech in her head dissolved into helpless anger. After a moment of useless sputtering, she burst out, “You should have told me about Lord Kincreag!”
Philip sighed. “It’s not my place.”
She rushed forward. “What is your place? Do you even have one?”
“Not with you. I canna involve myself in your life.”
“Why? You can’t even give me a warning? Do you not even care?”
Philip searched her face, his smooth brow creased with worry. “I didna want to frighten you. Can ye not forget this and give the man a chance? There’s no proof he did anything wrong. His wife probably killed herself.”
“Why? Because he was so horrible she chose death over marriage to him? She couldn’t bear to look in his evil eyes? He sounds like the horny himself!”
One whiskered cheek dimpled in a half smile. “Stephen’s tongue runs away with itself. Pay his tales no mind.”
“Why would he make such a thing up? His uncle is an earl—that makes him privy to things even you don’t know, Sir Philip.”
