“A man who wears a ring like this is no’ a common soldier,” she continued.
“Nay.”
“He is someone of rank.”
She turned it slowly between her fingers, her focus intent. “Someone important enough to be recognized, to press his signet into wax. Someone important enough to be missed.”
Lachlan frowned slightly. “Ye think it belonged to the man who burned that abbey?”
“I think it belonged to someone who did no’ expect to lose it,” she replied. “Or did they?”
He studied her for a moment, taking in the crease of her brow, the purse of her lips. “What do ye mean?”
She turned the ring over in her hand thoughtfully. “Maybe they wanted us to find it, to put us off their trail.”
“Ye think the ring does no’ belong to our traitor?”
“Aye. They could be deliberately trying to mislead us.”
“I’d no’ put it past someone who was willing to risk the lives of their people on a battlefield to throw someone else off a cliff.”
They reached the edge of the sea loch, where gentle waves lapped against the pebbled embankment, and a small village across the harbor teamed with life. For a time, they stood in silence, the salty wind moving between them.
“Did ye recognize the signet,” she asked quietly.
“Nay. But I swear we’ll find out who it belongs to.” He pressed his walking stick into the earth, a subtle show of how he planned to carve out the enemy.
“I’m relieved no’ to have recognized it myself,” she said. “That means ’tis no’ someone so close to me.”
“Aye.” Lachlan turned to face her fully, reaching out with his free hand to tuck her windblown hair behind her ear. “I’ll no’ let any harm come to ye, lass. I swear it.”
She smiled, searching his gaze. For what, he did not know. Or maybe he did and didn’t want to put words to it. His gaze roved from her blue eyes to her lush mouth and everything inside him tightened.
Unbidden, he stepped closer. The decision felt inevitable, though he could not have said when it had been made. His hand found the curve of her waist, steady and certain, drawing her toward him as though the movement required no thought at all.
Isabel did not pull away. If anything, she leaned into him, the soft curves of her body pressing to his.
“Ye should no’ do that,” she murmured, though the protest lacked conviction, as she pressed a hand over his heart, her fingers curling.
“Do ye want me to let go?” he asked, his voice low.
“Nay, I dinna want ye to let go,” she breathed softly.
A faint smile touched his mouth. “I dinna want to either. And I know I should. That ye’re meant for another. That touching ye… kissing ye, goes against my orders, duty. But I find I dinna much care.”
And that, perhaps, was the most dangerous truth of all. That he was willing to risk the wrath of his future king just to feel her mouth on his. With that knowledge floating between them, Lachlan threw caution to the wind. He bent his head and captured her mouth with his. Soft at first, then more urgent, his tongue pressing between the seam of her lips. And when she opened for him, he nearly died at the soft stroke of their tongues.
The wind tore at them, pulling at cloak and hair, but neither of them seemed to notice. Isabel’s hands rose to his shoulders, gripping tight and drawing him closer, his hand sliding along her back with a possessiveness that should have startled her, but she reciprocated in kind. Pressing closer, as though the world beyond them had narrowed to something far smaller and far more immediate. Far more forbidden.
Lachlan’s hands roved lower, over the swell of her hips, to her bottom. Cupping the supple roundness and… my god… Isabel groaned against his mouth, tucking her hips close to this tightening groin.
He should stop. Now. Or else he was going to?—
“My laird!” The voice cut through the moment like a blade.
Lachlan yanked back just as Angus rode up the path, the urgency in his posture unmistakable. Isabel’s face was red, her lips swollen from his kiss, her hair mussed from more than the wind. He stepped in front of her, shielding her from Angus’s view.
“What is it?” Lachlan asked, his voice already shifting back into command, the desire that had taken over a moment ago still gripping him like a vice.
