“It’s nae what I want!” Isabeau said. “Dinnae ye dare.”
“Then eat.”
For a while, Isabeau made no effort to move. When he kept looking at her expectantly, though, she finally picked up the bowl and placed it in her lap, spooning a tiny bite of food.
Michael didn’t miss the fact that she was using only one hand to eat—her left, which was the one that seemed uninjured.
For a while, the two of them sat there in silence with Isabeau taking small bite after small bite and Michael stealing crumbs off the bannock on her tray, just to have something to do with his hands. But then, Isabeau sighed and dropped the spoon in the bowl, looking at him.
“Ye can go,” she said.
“Aye,” said Michael. “An’ I will. Eventually.”
With a roll of her eyes, Isabeau picked up the spoon once again, but she said nothing more—something that Michael took as a victory. He stood, tossing a few logs in the fire and stoking it back to life, its warmth instantly pouring into the room.
Once she had eaten and gotten warm once more, it didn’t take long for Isabeau to fall asleep right there, on the chair. The fight drained from her face, leaving her looking far calmer than the fierce, feisty woman he had met in the woods. When her chin dropped to her chest, Michael exhaled softly.
He rose, every motion deliberately quiet, and lifted her from the chair. She stirred faintly, her head falling against his shoulder, a soft sigh escaping her lips.
“Thank ye,” Isabeau mumbled, the words barely audible, settling like a blanket around Michael, warm and comforting.
The faint scent of heather clung to her hair, and Michael inhaled gently through his nose, taking it in. She was warm in his arms, feather-light, a small, fragile thing, and Michael carried her with great care to the middle of the room, laying her gently on the bed. As he pulled the furs over her, her fingers, small and cool, brushed his hand, and for the briefest of moments, they wrapped around his own in a gentle hold.
He stayed there for a moment, his heart pounding. She was like the dawn, pale and breathtaking, soft and cold at once. Then, with care, he freed his hand and backed away a single step, watching her until her breathing deepened into heavy sleep.
Hadn’t he practically handed her back to her father on a silver platter?
That thought hit like a blade between his ribs. He’d brought her to the village healer; he hadn’t pushed for her name, hadn’tguessed she might be the very daughter of the man he was planning to destroy.
She’d named the wrong village to protect herself. She had lied to him to keep herself safe, but Michael had brought her to the only place he shouldn’t have.
Even if he couldn’t have known, even if he couldn’t have possibly suspected, he couldn’t help but feel guilty for this. Had he taken to her the village she had requested, perhaps her father would have never found her and she would now be a free woman.
But Alyson—Alyson had been the only thing on his mind.
I kent she was a noble lass. Who else could she have been so close tae the castle? I should have kent. I should have forced her tae tell me who she was.
Michael's jaw clenched. The truth of the matter was that even if he had known, he wouldn’t have let her go, for fear of people suspecting him. Being seen last in the village with the laird’s daughter—especially when said daughter had a knife wound in her stomach—would only have drawn unwanted attention to him, and it was something he couldn’t risk.
A single wrong move would have thrown everything into chaos and Alyson’s rescue would have been compromised. The alliance between the Campbells and the Grants could have shifted too early. Tòrr’s plan depended on timing as much as subtlety.
And yet, he could not shed the feeling that he was to blame for the state of the girl.
His fingers curled slightly around the edge of her covers, tension creeping up the back of his neck.
She’s alone up there. Locked away. An’ ye brought her back.
In his own chambers, Michael stripped off his tunic, draping it over the back of a chair. A bath had been prepared for him at his request, a large tub sitting in the middle of the room, fragrant with oils. Steam rose around him, curling through the morning light that streaked across the stone floor, and he sank into it with a low groan, muscles finally releasing their tension.
And though his body was there, his mind kept drifting back to the room upstairs, where Isabeau slept. In those moments, she had seemed so peaceful—so unlike the woman she was when she was awake.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The day passed with the quiet strain of a bowstring drawn too tight. Michael spent the morning shadowing Laird Campbell through a series of tedious Councils and feigned courtesies, his borrowed name—Michael Gordon, envoy of Clan Grant—rolling easily off the tongues of men who would have slit his throat had they known his true identity. The chamber reeked of smoke and sweat and old distrust; every word that left Angus Campbell’s mouth dripped with false civility.
Michael played his part well. He nodded at the right moments, mumbled the expected pleasantries about unity among the Highlands, as everyone in the Pact of Argyll liked to call their cause, and kept his gaze respectfully down when the laird’s temper flared. But under that mask, his mind was elsewhere—down in the dungeons, where Alyson waited in the dark, and up in the tower chambers, where Isabeau rested, pale and bruised, behind a locked door.
Every hour stretched into an ache.
