A Highlander’s Homecoming (27 page)

With a flick of his wrist, his men closed in, waiting.

“Me?” Agneys sounded indignant in her surprise. “Yer thinking to hold me in my chambers as well?”

“Everyone for now.”

Isa rose to her feet, jerking her arm from the grasp of the man who’d offered assistance as she stood.

“Except Isabella. I’d ask you to stay for a moment, my lady. We have a private matter to discuss.”

The guards on either side of Isa took their leave and she dropped back into her seat, waiting while Patrick crossed the room and closed the door behind the others.

“In this chamber, Isabella MacGahan, between the two of us, with my brother Patrick as witness, I’d ask that we set aside our personal strategies in favor of honesty. Can you agree to that?”

Isa paused, choosing her words carefully. “I see no point to be made in being dishonest with you.”

Again the man steepled his fingers in front of him. “You expect me to believe that? Yer obviously not what you represented yerself to be the last time I saw you. And if you’d lie about that . . .” He left his words hanging in the air like he’d thrown down a gauntlet.

“My disguise was my protection. When I presented myself as that creature, no one bothered me.”

“Except me.” Malcolm stood and began to pace, at last stopping directly in front of her chair. “We have a problem to solve, you and I. I mean to have these lands for my clan in payment of a MacGahan debt. I’d prefer to accomplish this goal without the need to raise a sword, but as there’s no a male descendant and you are the named heir, it seems we must come to some agreement.”

Isa sat back in her chair, wishing she had Robbie at her side to advise her now. She knew nothing of clan politics, only that the responsibility of the decision Malcolm required weighed heavily on her shoulders.

“Why me? Agneys is the laird’s widow. Why do you no just wed Agneys? Wait for the birth of her bairn and name yerself his guardian.”

The smile that broke over Malcolm’s face this time was genuine, lighting his eyes and carving years from his face. “Ah, Isabella, yer too trusting by far, lass. No, I’m afraid that taking you to wife is the only way to rightfully lay my claim.”

It was up to her. This man held Robbie’s future in his hands and her response to him now would determine what he chose to do with that future. What would her father have done in her place?

Probably not what she was about to do. Then again, her father wouldn’t have been in her position—needing to save the man she loved.

“As you say, in the past I may no have been completely honest with you. But you can believe this: I’ve no desire to control anything. I want only to be left
alone. If you’ll but free Robbie, I’ll happily declare these lands yers and leave this place to yer care.”

“So you say. But what’s to stop this Robbie, yer . . . uh, yer
husband—
from coming back later with men of his own to challenge me for what he sees as rightfully his?”

Isa wet her lips, feeling her face heat as she stalled, trying to determine just how much truth she wanted to share with this man. A few long moments of silence and she made her decision. MacDowylt held the power and she had nothing to gain in deceit.

“He willna do that because he has no right to anything here. As you seem to suspect, I lied to you. We’ve taken no vows. Robert MacQuarrie has sought nothing but that I should leave this place so that he could see to my safety as he promised my father he would. If you’ll allow us to go in peace, I’ll give my wedding vow to you in front of the entire clan.”

“I’m no as blindly trusting as you are, Isabella.” He made no attempt to disguise his skepticism.

“Oh?” It wasn’t bad enough he didn’t believe her, but now, for a second time, he’d all but called her stupidly naïve. “Is that so? Well, from what I’ve seen, yer no great judge of character yerself, naming one such as Roland Lardiner yer friend. It’s Roland who murdered my grandfather. He who beat the poor child who’d witnessed the act and he who ordered my home put to the torch with wee Jamie inside. There’s some friend for you. I’d no be turning my back on him if I were you.”

In the silence that followed Isa’s tirade, her own ragged breathing sounded loud.

“This child you speak of.” Patrick’s voice filled the stillness. “He was a small lad with a disfigured face?”

Isa nodded, biting the inside of her trembling lip while she strove for her self-control. Though she hated the thought of crying in front of these men again, the hot tears filled her eyes as she thought of poor, sweet Jamie.

A look passed between the MacDowylt brothers—a look Isa couldn’t interpret other than to know it appeared as though the two men shared a single thought. With a respectful nod of his head, Patrick turned and hurried from the room.

Malcolm strode back behind the table, retaking his seat as one of his men entered and stood beside Isa.

“I’ll give yer words consideration, my lady. For now, I’ll have to ask you to keep to yer bedchamber.”

Isa rose unsteadily to her feet, allowing MacDowylt’s man to support her arm this time.

He’d consider her words, but would he believe them, or would he decide Robbie posed too great a danger to be set free?

Chapter 25
 

“I, Isabella MacGahan, take you to be my husband.” Though it was shock to hear them in her own voice, the words had come out, just as she’d been instructed to say them. She hadn’t choked on them or forgotten a single one.

Assembled in the great hall before as many of the castle inhabitants as they’d been able to quickly round up, Malcolm MacDowylt had spoken his own vow only moments before.

Numbly Isa noted that neither Roland nor Agneys were among the onlookers. Nor Robbie.

“It is done.” Patrick’s words were greeted by a few scattered “Huzzahs,” but for the most part, the spectators seemed more confused than anything else.

Exactly how Isa felt.

The marriage, though irregular, was binding in every way. They’d given their vows in the present tense.

Though she had never really believed she would wed, when she’d allowed herself to dream of a wedding day, she certainly hadn’t imagined it as this quick, detached business transaction. Once she’d agreed to MacDowylt’s demands, his man had escorted her to her bedchamber. She’d hardly had enough time to wash her hands and face before there’d been a knock at her door. They’d whisked her downstairs and into the great hall, still wearing the same filthy, smoke-streaked gown she’d donned that morning, as if they feared she’d change her mind if she had any time to think on it. A few mumbled words and it was over.

She was married.

Now Malcolm and Patrick ignored her completely, discussing the need for new fortifications as they led her up the stairs and toward her bedchamber.

Her husband. She had a husband.

Isa could hardly believe what had happened, feeling almost as if she were walking through a dream.

At the entrance to her room, they stopped, and Malcolm entered the room ahead of her, holding her door open. He still spoke to his brother as he waited for her to pass inside.

“And what of MacQuarrie?” she interrupted. “Will you allow me to see him now?”

Another of those annoyingly inscrutable looks passed between the brothers.

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible. He’ll have to remain in the holding cell where Roland placed him for now.”

Malcolm stepped out of her room, pulling the door to shut it behind him, but Isa jammed her foot into the opening.

“What?” he asked, frowning in irritation as he stepped back into the room.

“I’ve held to my end of our bargain, MacDowylt. I’ve given you my vows. Now it’s time for you to keep to yers and allow me to take MacQuarrie and leave here.”

Isa took it as a bad sign when Patrick backed away, giving them a measure of privacy.

“I’d ask you to consider my current situation, Isabella.” Malcolm took her hand, leading her over to a chair by the fire. Only when she sat down did he continue. “As the new laird of the castle, I canna very well allow my wife to go running off around the countryside with another man.”

“But we had an agreement.” He had no right to do this!

“I agreed to nothing. You offered to wed in return for my allowing you to leave with MacQuarrie. I told you I’d consider yer words. Under the circumstances, I found yer terms unacceptable. Therefore, I decided we would proceed under my terms instead.” Hands clasped behind his back, he strolled to the door.

He’d tricked her?

“
Yer
terms? You gave no terms.”

“But I did. I told you we must wed and that is what we did. That you chose to believe anything else is no fault of mine. I did say that you were far too trusting.”

Isa opened and closed her mouth soundlessly, her mind trying to catch up with the helpless frustration she felt.

“You let me go through with that . . . that sham of a marriage believing you’d let us go, and you without the slightest intention of doing so?”

“It’s no a sham, Isabella, as well you ken. It’s legal and binding what you’ve done. What we’ve done. And now, as laird, I’ve matters requiring my attention. Good day, madam.”

Isa ran across the room but arrived there too late. He’d already shut the door and dropped the brand-new outer bar into place.

“Damn you, Malcolm MacDowylt!” she screamed, dropping her forehead against the wood.

Wait.

What had he said about Robbie? That he’d have to remain in the holding cell where Roland had placed him?

Castle MacGahan had no holding cells. Where could . . .

No!

Surely not even Roland would have tossed Robbie down into that horrible, long-abandoned dungeon.

“Perhaps we’ll meet again in hell, MacQuarrie.”

Robert replayed Lardiner’s parting taunt over and over in his mind as he tried to form his next logical move.

Cold, hard stone bit into his back and head where he leaned against the wall, but he didn’t change his position.

Roland hadn’t bothered with a ladder. His men had simply pushed Robert into the hole. Thank the saints for all the training Coryell Enterprises had put him
through. He’d tucked for the fall by sheer instinct, dropping like a stone. When he finally managed to stand, he’d reached up, unable to feel anything above him with his fingers, which told him the depth was well over seven feet.

After that, just finding the wall in the infinite black of this hole had taken all his energy.

All he could manage for the moment was to breathe through the pain in his chest and the one in his heart.

Fear, despair, frustration. He recognized their ugly feel. Not fear for himself but for Isa. Despair over his inability to protect her. Frustration that the wound in his chest had weakened his body and sapped the strength he’d needed to fight these bastards off.

From his perspective,
this
was hell.

It seemed clear from Lardiner’s comment that they intended to leave him in this hole until he rotted. The memory of the castles he’d toured a couple of years ago with Jessie came back to him. There’d been one place where the proprietor had handed them a flashlight to look down through a metal grate into the dungeon below, pointing out the bones that had been unearthed there. They’d laughed at the time, making some joke about gullible tourists and cow bones.

It didn’t seem so funny now, considering that it would be his bones illuminated in the dull glare of tourists’ flashlights in seven hundred years.

Enough!

He couldn’t let himself sink into that trap. It would be all too easy to simply give up. He wouldn’t allow that. Instead he needed to keep his mind active, focusing on the facts at hand.

The stench of ammonia stung his nostrils, but whether it came from prior occupants or too many rats he couldn’t say, and didn’t really care.

He did care that Isa was somewhere above him in the castle, likely in danger. The thought of her alone, grieving for poor Jamie, tore at his heart.

If he’d only taken the boy with him to hunt for Isa, he’d still be alive.

If he’d paid closer attention to what Isa was up to instead of blindly accepting her word, they might have gotten away before Lardiner’s men arrived.

If he’d simply forced her to leave that first day . . .

“If, if, if,” he muttered, his own voice echoing back to him in the darkness more reassuring than the sound of his labored breathing. Clutching his hand to his side, he scooted into a less uncomfortable position.

He hadn’t done any of those things and now they all paid the price for his lack of action. That was the bottom line.

And all that mattered? Figuring out how he’d get out of here and find Isa before it was too late.

Both of which he fully intended to do, just as soon as he could gather his strength.

Malcolm MacDowylt stared into the fire, an untouched cup of fine Scots whisky at his left hand.

His mind must be clear this night if his plans were to meet with success. Though he’d claimed his right as laird this afternoon when he and Isabella had exchanged their vows, much remained to be done to clear that path
in fact. There were too many small details any one of which could slip through his fingers at any moment.