Laird Campbell chuckled. “I dinnae fear trouble, Mr. Gordon. But I like tae be prepared.”
“What’s down there?”
“Wine stores, old corridors… places rats like tae hide. I prefer mine where I can see them.”
Michael’s heart pounded behind his ribs, the paranoid thought that he had been discovered surging in his mind. He glanced at Laird Campbell from the corner of his eye, trying to decipher something, anything about the man, but he gave no signs of either ignorance or knowledge.
So, he only nodded and said, “A wise approach.”
As they neared the kitchens, the scent of roasting meat drifted into the hall. Behind the great ovens, he caught a glimpse of a narrow service corridor, dark and unguarded. Its mouth was half-concealed behind a pantry shelf, and his eyes lingered on it for a moment.
If the stairwell led to the dungeons—and he’d wager his sword it did—then that corridor might even snake under the main wing.
Might even lead tae Alyson.
Laird Campbell paused at a heavy wooden door. “These will be yer chambers while ye’re our guest. We shall have a proper meetin’ once ye’ve rested. ‘Tis very late.”
Michael bowed. “I look forward tae it.”
Laird Campbell lingered a moment longer, then nodded once and walked away, boots echoing down the stone. Michael watched him leave and then entered the chambers to find a large room, delicately and tastefully furnished, with a warm fire burning in the hearth. On the walls, rich tapestries of hunting scenes stretched from the ceiling to the floor, and the bed was large—far too large for a single man.
The door shut behind Michael with a quiet thud and only then did he exhale, letting the mask drop. He moved to the window, staring out across the dark courtyard, where the only thing he could see was the flickering light of torches in a cloudy, pitch-black night.
Stay strong, Alyson… I’m comin’ fer ye. An’ I’ll kill any bastard who stands in me way.
CHAPTER SIX
The door creaked open. As usual, there was no knock—only intrusion, followed by a tense silence.
Isabeau didn’t turn. She stood at the window, her spine straight, her fingers curled, white-knuckled, on the sill. She had heard the heavy tread of boots approaching long before the iron latch gave way, as she always did. The footsteps were distinctive, familiar to her. The scent of pipe smoke and oak-aged whisky seeped in ahead of him like a warning.
“Close the damn shutters,” her father growled. “Ye’re nae some maiden in a tower tae be moon-gazin’ like a fool.”
Isabeau turned slowly, not because he’d commanded it, but because it gave her a few more seconds to lock her expression into stillness.
Her father stood framed in the door like a shadow cast by the firelight behind him—broad and scarred by age, with crueltyetched into the lines of his mouth. He was like a shadow that cast itself over everything around her, a cloud that followed her no matter where she went.
She had the distinct notion that even if she had managed to escape him, his presence would still loom over her for the rest of her days, no matter how far she managed to go; no matter how much she removed herself from his world, reaching a place where no one knew who she was. His mark was etched into her skin—years of pain and scars that she kept hidden under her heavy dresses and cloaks, the sleeves always drawn tight over her arms, as far as they would go.
He shut the door behind him.
“I ought tae drag ye out intae the courtyard,” he said. “Let the dogs decide what’s left o’ ye. Runnin’ off like some tavern wench. Dae ye think it shames only ye?”
Isabeau’s jaw ached from the force she used to keep it still. “I was goin’ tae the kitchen gardens. I needed air. That’s all.”
“Dinnae lie tae me,” he snapped, stepping into the room with the slow, deliberate tread of a man who was used to owning every room he entered. “Ye were found hours from home, with a wound in yer stomach! Look at the state o’ ye!”
Her father gestured wildly at her body, and Isabeau glanced down at her ruined dress—the cut across her torso, under which the fresh wound was hidden. The old healer had stitched and bandaged it well, but even now, it stung and throbbed with pain,the bandages around her waist getting drenched in more blood with every move she made.
She didn’t know how she was still standing. She should be resting, but then again there were a lot of things that should have been different.
Her father should have been concerned about her. He should have been asking about her health and urging her to lie down.
The man who had saved her should have been a kind stranger, but it turned out he was an envoy from Clan Grant—the very man who would sign off the end of her life.
It willnae be so different when I’m Cody Grant’s wife? I suffer here, I will suffer there. All sufferin’ is the sane.
“I didnae leave,” Isabeau insisted, though she knew it was a lost cause. Her father would never believe that she was taken from within the keep. “I was simply in the gardens an’ someone grabbed me. I didnae see who it was.”
