She was a damned impressive woman, but that, too, would have to wait for later.
“Come,” he urged, indicating with a jerk of his head.
He led her unerringly through the dark house, her small hand clasped in his. When they made it down to the stables, his horse had already been saddled, the grooms had anticipated his arrival, but hers hadn’t been.
“I cannae wait—” he began, then cut off as Ailsa threw herself onto Geal’s bare back.
“I’ve ridden without a saddle plenty before,” she told him, as if her confident posture hadn’t already said as much. “Let’s go.”
And so, him on his mount and her with only a bridle to lead hers, they raced toward the flames, which grew ever higher with each passing minute.
The scene was chaos.
Buchanan men raced back and forth, passing buckets along in a brigade. Ewan sent up a quick prayer of gratitude for a few brief mercies. There was adequate water nearby to service the distillery, which meant that they didn’t have to take their buckets far between the stream and the blaze. And fire was a big enough threat to a distillery that the men who worked there had trained in this.
As he approached, Ewan could easily tell the difference between the distillery men and the other clansfolk who had come to lend aid, just based on the confidence of their movements as they battled the flames. He saw James, too, shouting out instructions to his soldiers before leaping into the fray himself, using a heavy, wet wool blanket to beat out any offshoots of sparks that threatened to help the inferno spread.
Ewan prepared to join the brigade who was hauling water when something pricked at the corner of his awareness. He drew up short.
There was another group of men on a small outcropping of rocks nearby. They were on horseback, but they weren’t moving. What were they…
“Ailsa. Get back,” he ordered as he realized.
But it was too late. A gust of wind had blown through the glen, causing several of the men to jump back in alarm as the fire rapidly changed directions. The gust also caught Ailsa’s hair, pulling it loose from the collar of Ewan’s shirt, making it billow out behind her like a banner that glowed in the firelight.
She was visible. Too visible.
“Ah, if it isn’t my beautiful bride,” Finlay Gordon called out from up on the bluff, malice thick in his tone. “Tell me, Ailsa,” he called as Ailsa’s head whipped up. “Did ye really think that I would give up just because ye played Buchanan’s whore?”
Ewan growled in fury at the insult to his wife, and though he wanted to charge up the bluff to rip Gordon’s head from his shoulders, he had more pressing things to attend to on the ground with his people—with Ailsa.
Besides, he had no doubt that he’d be filled with arrows before he could even get within a stone’s throw of the bastard.
“Dinnae listen to him, Ailsa,” he commanded quietly, just for her ears. He reached out an arm toward her, and she urged his mount closer to his without taking her eyes from where Gordon sat, watching the destruction he had wrought.
“Oh, dear God,” she murmured as she let him clasp her forearm, her mount obediently coming a little closer when he tugged lightly. “This is because…”
“No,” Ewan said.
He was burning with rage, burning at least as bright as the distillery burned. He couldn’t put out that fire. He couldn’tsalvage the hundreds of hours of labor that his people had put into the whisky that was going up in flames before his very eyes. He couldn’t kill Gordon, not even when he was standing on Buchanan land, brazen as could be.
But Ewan could stand at his wife’s side. And he could put himself between her and whatever bile Gordon tried to spew at her.
“Don’t listen to a word he says,” he commanded. “Do ye hear me, Ailsa Buchanan?”
You’re my wife now, he thought beneath the words.Ye will never be his. Ye bearmyname, ye rose frommybed to get here. Mine. Ye aremine.
She looked back at him, and he could see the conflict in her eyes.
“Ye havenae done anything wrong,” he told her.
If she didn’t believe him now, he wouldmake herbelieve him.
But Gordon’s taunts echoed louder.
“Ye will come to regret what you have done, Ailsa Donaghey,” he called out, and Ewan ground his teeth furiously at the clearly intentional use of her former name. “Ye make think that wedding him has solved your woes, but I will always take what’s mine. And if it doesnae come from ye…” He trailed off, then laughed maliciously.
Even by firelight, Ewan could see how Ailsa’s cheeks paled.
