“What is it?” There was a slight tremble to her words, a mix of passion and surprise.
Lachlan forced himself to step back another pace, though every instinct pushed against his actions. He needed distance. Needed control. Needed something solid to hold onto before he did something he could not undo. “The timing,” he managed to say, his hands gesturing toward the ruined maps. “’Tis no’…” But his words trailed off, sounding like an excuse even to him.
Hurt registered on her face, and she looked away, smoothing her hands down her skirts while they trembled.
“Ye’ve kissed me quite a lot for a man who think ’tis a mistake.” She did look up at him then, her gaze every bit as fierce as a warrior on the battlefield.
That look felt like an axe to the chest.
Lachlan opened his mouth to answer—and found that he could not. Not because he did not know the truth, but because the truth itself was the problem. Kissing her was not a mistake, quite the opposite. He’d been wanting to kiss her since the moment he’d first laid his delirious eyes on her. But she was not his to kiss. Not his to touch, as much as he wanted to press her back to the planks of that table and sink deep inside her. To bring her to the heights of passion and watch her fall apart beneath him. To show her exactly how much he wanted her…
Instead of answering, Lachlan turned away, his gaze fixing on the oak doors that led out to the courtyard and the battles that would be waged just beyond. He should say something. Comfort her. But the only words that came out were, “Ye are meant for someone else. That is why I should no’ have kissed ye.” But lord help him, he wanted to fight for her. And yet… he avoided her gaze.
The silence that followed was not empty. It stretched, heavy and unspoken, filled with everything he had not said and everything she now understood without needing him to.
With his gaze on the door, he didn’t see so much as heard the rustle of her skirts, the steady footsteps of her shoes on the rushes as she left the great hall with a quiet finality that settled into the space between them like a closing door.
And then she was gone.
He remained where he was, his hands braced on his hips, wishing he could turn back time, pull back what he’d said. Declare that he would ask for her hand instead. The war inside him battled almost as fiercely as his enemies soon would.
The English would be here before nightfall; he had a gut feeling. And the battle would be fought upon his lands and under his command, where every decision would carry weight and consequence. This was no longer a war he could ride toward or leave behind—it was one that would unfold at his gate, among his people, with everything he could not afford to lose standing directly in its path.
With her…
With Kerr leading the English directly to his gates, Lachlan had at least succeeded in one task set forth to him by the Bruce.
But the second one—to protect Isabel, he was certain he’d already failed.
21
After helping those in the castle to prepare for the imminent arrival of Longshanks’ men—gathering provisions, creating salves and healing stations, filling water jugs from the well—Isabel had been certain she’d fall into a deep sleep. But, in reality, her sleep had been restless and full of terrors.
Her bedchamber was warm, the hearth banked low through the night, the heavy blankets soft enough to coax even the crankiest bairn into a deep and dreamless rest—but not her. The wind had quieted after midnight, its earlier force softened to little more than a distant sigh against the stone walls. By every measure, it should have been a place of comfort. If anything, sheer exhaustion should have carried her away.
And yet her mind had refused to follow her body in sleep.
Each time she closed her eyes, the same image returned, uninvited and unrelenting: the burned-out abbey.
Blackened timbers collapsing inward like the bones of a crumpled body. Ash drifting through the air in slow, weightless spirals. In her nightmares the smell of smoke clung to everything, even after the fire itself had long since died. And beneath the carnage, the glint of metal in the soot. The ring Freckles found. The one she believed to be Kerr’s.
Deciding she’d sleep when all this was over, Isabel climbed out of bed, careful not to disturb Elsa who was also tossing and turning. She sat on a narrow stone bench by the arrow slit window of her chamber. Stared into the darkness, imagining all manner of horrible things until the pale morning light spilled slowly across the land. When she glanced down at her finger, those first sprays of sunlight caught the rubies on her thumb that surrounded the crest. At some point in the night, she’d put Kerr’s ring on her thumb.
Isabel had cleaned the ring carefully the night they arrived, wiping away the soot that had dulled its surface, revealing the engraving beneath. The fire had shockingly not destroyed it. Whatever story this ring carried, had survived. She just needed to find out what.
She studied the engraving. A hawk, with wings half spread, as though caught mid-flight. Beneath it, a shield.
Isabel frowned slightly as she studied it again, her fingertip tracing the edges of the carving. She had spent more time than she cared to admit turning it over in her hands, searching for something—some detail she had missed, some meaning that might explain why it unsettled her so much.
The English burned villages during raids. That was common knowledge, spoken of in courts and whispered in fear among those who lived too close to the border. Isabel herself had comforted many a family left destitute from the English’s hungry flames. But that abbey had not even been visible from the main road. How had the soldiers stumbled across it and what happened to its inhabitants?
A knock sounded at the door, soft but insistent, pulling her from her thoughts. When she opened it, one of the castle maids slipped inside, carrying a folded blanket draped over her arms. Elsa sat straight up on her pallet and then shot to her feet, issuing apologies to both Isabel and the newcomer.
“Dinna fash, Elsa. We both had a rough night of sleep.”
The maid set the blanket aside but did not leave immediately. Her gaze dropped to Isabel’s hands.
“Pretty ring. Does it belong to your da?”
