“We found a body. A Scot.”
Isabel chewed her lip, her fingernails digging into the wood as trepidation sank in.
“Man, woman or child?”
“A man.” There was a pause. “Throat cut.”
“Any signs his murder was done by Sassenachs? Could be outlaws.”
“Aye. He had this in his pocket.”
There was some shuffling, but Isabel couldn’t see what James presented to Lachlan, and she tried, squeezing one eye shut in order to let her other eye focus, but Lachlan’s back was to her and whatever he had in his hand was not visible.
“Bloody foking hell,” Lachlan said.
“Aye,” James agreed.
They walked off then toward the men, and she couldn’t hear anything else. Isabel smoothed her hair and stared at Elsa who was watching her with wide fearful eyes. No way was she going to tell her skittish maid there’d been a murder. That was only asking for trouble.
A moment later, Lachlan stepped back inside the lodge. His gaze searched and found her by the window, his expression hard. But he didn’t say anything, instead returned to his stool and picked up an oatcake, biting into it with a crunch. He barely paused between bites, as if the act of consuming were an inconvenience. Isabel watched him, the way he chewed around what looked like deep thoughts.
She glanced back out to see his men preparing the horses. She considered asking what the men had seen, what he intended to do, what he thought, but the set of his jaw, and the way he tore into another bite of apple warned her off.
Likely, he’d guessed she’d been listening in. She was, after all, standing right beside a large crack in the wood on the other side of the wall where he’d been talking. Lachlan might have been stubborn, but in the short time she’d known him, she understood one thing, he was not stupid. At least not in the ways of plotting and scheming, which she frustratingly admired. However quiet he was being, she was certain he was coming up with some sort of plan.
While her uncle trusted him with her life, she wasn’t yet certain she did. Though she felt safer with him than she had with anyone else—notwithstanding her uncle—he was still a stranger to her.
Isabel went to where Elsa was packing up their bags, including the one with medical supplies. She debated asking to look at Lachlan's wound but considered his still pensive expression. He might be more open to anything regarding his own wellbeing when they were farther away from the mysterious tracks. The healer in her strained against bowing to his stubborn idiocy, but the logical side of her brain knew not to argue with an idiot. If he was foolish enough to nearly kill himself last night over a pallet, replacing bandages would be like pulling an entire set of teeth. She instead organized the supplies, leaving what she would need later at the top when he eventually acquiesced. Or he fell off his horse, and she had to, yet again, fix him while he lay unconscious. She tilted her head, thinking maybe that was a better idea because he was more attractive asleep and unable to talk back to her.
As they mounted their horses and took off again at a steady pace, she watched Lachlan. He no longer moved with the easy confidence of the day before. His attention shifted constantly, tree line to road. Shadow to shadow. One hand on the reins, the other on the hilt of his sword as if he expected the very air to part and present an enemy.
Isabel, too, was alert, keeping her gaze wide, her ears keen to any sound, not that she might recognize an attack before it happened. Beside her on her own mount, poor Elsa, was much quieter than usual, her face pale, her lips red from chewing them with worry.
Lachlan’s men took turns riding ahead and back, circling constantly and reporting news to him that she couldn’t hear for the quietness of their voices. They moved in a rhythm that was practiced and comfortable. As if they’d done this a million times. And she imagined they must have. To have gained the reputation he had, to have the skills that he had, he and his men had to trust one another. Moving like one body.
It was then she realized this was no longer just a simple escort to Skye.
He was guarding her as fiercely as he guarded the Highlands.
10
Every step Dionysus took jolted Lachlan, sending pain ricocheting through his body. He had ridden his warhorse through battle, thundering over bodies and rough terrain without a second thought. Now, even the steady rhythm of his gait tested Lachlan. The only good thing about this ride was that it was no longer raining. But the damp still clung to him. Tartan heavy against his skin, the scent of wet earth rising thick from the forest floor.
He should have asked Isabel to change his bandages that morning, but he’d been too stubborn. While Isabel mentioned progress in the healing, he still wished that it would go faster.
They rode in a line, with Mungo and Finley at the helm, and Caelan and Hamish at the far rear, the rest of them riding two-by-two in between.
Lachlan returned his attention to the road ahead. The pathway was clear, but that did not mean enemies didn’t lurk just out of sight, or that they might stumble across any more bodies. As it was, James nor any of the others had recognized the Scot they’d buried in a shallow grave on the side of the road, but they had recognized the coin in his pocket–English. This felt like a message, knowing whoever had killed him could have found the coin as easily as they had.
With a keen eye to the forest ground, Lachlan also listened to every sound of every bird, every whistle of wind through the trees, every crunch of vegetation underfoot. The world spoke to him in small ways, and he took each whispered hint to heart.
There’d only been one time he’d been surprised in an ambush attack. The night his father died. And Lachlan had vowed never to make that mistake again. Lachlan rolled his shoulder where the arrow had pierced. Despite the aches in his shoulder, his thigh, he would take down anyone who dared to surprise them. That was, if another fever didn’t take him down to the ground like it had in the abandoned lodge. By gods, but that was embarrassing. Even now he could feel her stare boring in the back of his head. Lachlan led his horse out of the line, letting his men pass, and then slid in next to Lady Isabel.
“Was your nose itching?” she asked.
“Nay, but the back of my head bears your initials,” he teased. Lachlan watched as Isabel rode, noting first how well she sat her horse, balanced and steady, a skilled rider.
Isabel smirked. “How is your leg?”
