Gaspar clamored to his feet and faced the man quickly, before the woman was close enough to speak.
“Blame me, Laird Ross. I begged your wife to give me some way to distract you. I would not relent until she gave up the tale. My actions were shameful. I withdraw the victory. Just do not punish the woman, I beseech you.”
“It’s a lie, Montgomery. Don’t listen to him.”
Surely it was dangerous to step so close to her angry husband, so Gaspar tried to pull her back and behind him.
The man growled. “If I will not allow ye to put yer hands on my sister, what makes ye believe I’d allow ye to touch my wife?” His voice had grown louder with each word.
Gaspar put his offending hand in the air and stepped to the side. Their audience laughed, but Gaspar could not see the reason.
“Did you hear him?” Ross asked his wife as he reached out and pulled her to him again, her rounded belly notwithstanding. “He was defending ye. And tome.Have ye ever heard such nonsense?”
The woman’s hands worked their way up the man’s arms and behind his neck, though he had to bend far forward to allow it.
“I did offer him a little advantage, husband.”
Monty smiled.Smiled!“Aye, because he was sorelydisadvantaged.”
“As are we all,” she whispered. “As we should be,yer lairdship.”
It might have been Jillian’s exaggerated brogue, or the fact that she’d called him laird, but the big man lowered his mouth to his wife’s in spite of an attentive audience.
Since Gaspar was forgotten, he turned to take advantage, and had just enough time to open his arms before Isobelle flew into them.
“Gaspar, my love! Ye’ve beaten him!”
He held her tight a long moment, remembering all those days and nights when they’d had a cold metal wall between them. He reveled in the feel of her while he could, before he had to dash her hopes again.
“No, Isobelle,” he whispered. “Your brother has beaten me.”
She looked up and her lips parted when she noticed his chin. She shook her head frantically, pressed her head to his chest, and wrapped her arms securely around him.
“What is this?” Montgomery barked. “I’ll not take a victory that isna mine. Yer dragon looks a bit long in the tooth, Sister, but ye can keep him if ye still want him. He tried to defend my guilty wife. He’s a saint for all we ken.”
Gaspar remembered what Isobelle had told him in the beginning about the men she knew who treated their women well. Isobelle claimed Monty was not one of them, but she’d been wrong.
He bent to kiss Isobelle again, this time in the dizzying knowledge that they could truly be together. There were no secrets left to bare, no other’s approval to seek. Nothing to separate them—most especially 500 years. Isobelle seemed to be celebrating the same as she met his passion with equal fervor. In the distance, he heard the clearing of a throat or two and dredged up the will to at least pause for a breath.
He opened his eyes and was a little too pleased to find Isobelle was having a more difficult time opening hers. He also found that Lady Ross had been set aside and her husband was moving toward him. Gaspar had scarcely released his hold on Isobelle before he fell onto his backside. Again.
“Saint or no,” the man bellowed, “the next time ye kiss my sister will be after ye’re wed and not before.”
Gaspar got to his feet and fisted his hands, then leaned close to his would-be brother. “How far is the church? For I will be kissing her again, and soon.” He held a hand out to Isobelle and pulled her close again, ignoring her snorting brother. “Will you have me to husband, Isobella—Isobelle?”
She nodded and rose onto her toes to whisper close to his ear, sending delicious chills up his back. “Perhaps when we’re alone in the night, ye can call me Isobella.”
He thought that sounded like an exceptional idea and wished to reward such inspiration with a kiss, but he remembered the brother before he laid his lips on his beloveds once more. He looked at Ross and asked permission with a raised brow. The man rolled his eyes and nodded, and while Gaspar kissed his Isobelle, he realized the laird of the clan, the mighty Montgomery Ross, was all bluster when it came to matters of the heart.
EPILOGUE
University of Edinburgh library, a year later…
“Who isthat?”A brunette American student, approached her blond English flatmate and slid sideways onto a chair. “Tell me he’s not a professor.”
“Unfortunately,” said the blond, “he is, alas, a professor.” She tried not to stare at the man at the other end of the table, but failed. His face was pure perfection, except for the minor detail of an angry white scar that slashed across his face. But it simply made him look…perfectly imperfect. “Teaches History, Art History, and Italian. Oh, and some class on the Ottoman Empire.”
“I’m changing majors,” said the brunette.
