He shook his head. “Not a prisoner.”
“What then?”
“Wife.Mywife.” The words felt good on his tongue, even though he suspected they didn’t sound quite so appealing to Isabail. There wasn’t much about being wed to an outlaw laird that prompted a smile.
“Wife?”
“Aye,” he said. “When I return, we’ll say the proper words before a priest.”
“And if I choose not to say those words?” Her expression was suspiciously calm.
“Do not be hasty,” he urged. “Think on it.”
“I will have a hand in choosing my husband,” she said slowly. “Whether it suits you or not. Simply being a wife is not enough for me. My mother was a wife, and that did not save her from my father’s fists. She ended her life at the bottom of the castle steps, a blossoming bruise upon her cheek.”
Aiden’s gaze dropped to his large hands. Ah, that explained so much. How brave his lass had been to face his wrath under such circumstances. “I’ve told you before, I’m not a man who beats women. I will never hurt you, Isabail. You have my word on that.”
She smiled faintly. “I know.”
“Then why caution me with a tale of your father?”
“Because I want more than a simple vow before a priest. I married once for practical gain, but I am a woman of means now. If I wed again, it will be for love.”
He smiled. “We’ll speak again on my return.”
Then, to avoid the argument he could see building in her eyes, he turned on his heel and left.
Chapter 13
Isabail lay back on the blankets and stared up at the thatching. Had MacCurran truly just offered to wed her? Without a single mention of love or devotion? Was he mad? Offers of marriage were supposed to be delivered on bended knee and accompanied by some sweet-smelling bouquet. Not delivered in the form of a threat.
“Did he truly say I could never leave?”
“He’s not thinking straight at the moment,” Ana said. “He’ll come to his senses in time.”
Isabail turned her head to look at the other woman. A woman she had falsely accused of killing her brother and condemned to die in a pit. The very same woman who had just healed a near-fatal wound in Isabail’s gut.
“How can you be so forgiving?” she asked.
Ana wielded her pestle with mastery, crushing handfuls of dried leaves in a small wooden bowl. “I’ve been on the wrong side of a judgment or two,” she said ruefully.
“I accused you of a crime you did not commit. Why would you agree to heal me?”
Ana paused to wipe sweat from her brow with her sleeve. “There is no room for intolerance in healing. I simply do what I am called upon to do. I can no sooner turn from a wounded person than I can cease to breathe. Whether the patient lives or dies is a decision to be made by God, not by me.” She smiled. “I am not worthy of such power.”
Isabail blushed and looked away. During the trial, she had called Ana Bisset a godless demon. Now she was writhing in shame.
“Do not feel any blame, Lady Isabail,” Ana said. “You, like many others, fell victim to the twisted mind of Friar Colban.”
Isabail shook her head. “Surely you must feel some anger toward me. No one can be as understanding as you profess to be.”
The other woman chuckled. “Aye, I felt anger. And aye, I cursed your name when I was wasting away in that pit. But before John’s death, before I was accused of poisoning him, you were kind to me. When I tended to the talon strike on your arm the day you got your merlin, you blessed me and pressed a gold coin into my hand. First one I’d ever seen.”
Isabail smiled. “Aye, well, I was rather certain I was going to lose the arm. When you told me it would heal within a fortnight, I was overjoyed.”
All that seemed so long ago. It was as if it had happened to another person. Isabail felt no connection to the young widow who’d lived for nothing more than to hunt at her brother’s side. So much had happened in the last year, not much of it pleasant. John’s death, the trial, the arrival of Cousin Archibald to take up the reins of the earldom.
Before that she’d been happy. As happy as any woman can be who had lost her husband prematurely and been left without children.
