After they ate, they rode to the Doomsday Tavern and Inn for drinks with Lewis.
While Ismay watched Constantine and his cousins, she marveled that the Lochiel was the same man who had stood with his back against the wall while she wept into her stew. He hadn’t laughed then. He hadn’t smiled. He looked mildly interested in the goings on around him—except when his dark gaze found hers.
His cousins also appeared surprised but happy at his recent mood.
“Lady Ismay,” Lewis turned to her, holding his cup to his lips. “Did ye already mention who was yer father? There was a patron here this mornin’ who spoke aboot the daughter of his lord running off in the night.”
Her belly tightened into a knot. She felt lightheaded at the table and tried to conceal it from Constantine.
“Did this patron mention who is the lord whose daughter ran off in the night?” he asked.
Lewis shook his head. “He seemed fiercely loyal to his lord—or his lord’s daughter. He said only this when I asked him, ‘If she left, she likely wants tostay hidden.’”
Ismay sat in silence, fighting to keep her tears at bay. She tried to ask a question twice, and both times a lump in her throat made it almost impossible to speak. Finally, she managed, keeping the quaver that felt as if it were shaking her whole body, out of her voice. “Who was the patron? Did he tell ye that much, at least?”
Lewis shook his head and turned his gaze to Constantine, who was staring at him with a spark in his glaring gaze.
“What?” Lewis asked, sounding hurt.
“Ye upset her,” their chief said in a low growl.
Ismay turned to him. Was he angry over such a thing? “Nae, I’m quite all right, Chief.”
He didn’t look convinced. She turned an apologetic look on Lewis. “Thank ye fer sharing that tale with me, Lewis,” she told him letting him—and the chief—know he was forgiven.
“I didna mean to upset ye, Miss Drummond,” Lewis told her, dipping his repentant gaze. “Fergive me.”
Ismay knew he apologized for Constantine’s sake and not for hers. He was always kind and respectful to her because Constantine was fond of her. She didn’t mind. The lethal Highlander frightened her a bit with his piercing eyes that seemed to penetrate as deeply as twin swords, but he was fiercely loyal to Constantine and she liked that about him.
“If he returns, send fer me,” Constantine told his cousin.
After that, Ismay sat quietly pondering who the patron could be. There had been some kind servants in her father’s house. Many of them loved the baron and would likely be on her side. But who? And did she want Constantine to meet him so he could tell the Cameron chief all about his MacPherson lord and his runaway daughter? It couldn’t be Chief MacRae, could it? Why would he call her father his lord? Nae. It was not MacRae.
The more she thought about it, the more ill she felt. But she smiled when everyone else did, not wanting to seem anxious or afraidin front of Constantine.
She drank all the wine Lachlan and Fionn set before her. At one point, Constantine turned from his conversation with Geoffry and looked at her just as she was swigging her fourth cup.
She wiped her hand across her mouth and slammed the cup down, harder than she intended, on the table.
She expected him to say something. Ask her if she was well or not. Tell her to stop drinking. Something. But he was quiet. Indeed, he let his murderous glare on his two younger cousins do the talking for him. When Lachlan set down another cup a little while later, they seemed to warn:Take it away before ye canna move another thing fer the next year.
No one offered her another drink. By the time they left, the sun had set and Ismay was a wee bit less drunk than before. She didn’t protest when the handsome chief offered to help her to his horse. Though she would admit that when he bent to lift her into his arms to carry her, she doubted she had any wits left to say a word without sounding like a pitifully obsessed admirer.
Cradled against the Lochiel’s chest, she wanted to sleep. Och, to sleep without a care safe in his arms. But she couldn’t sleep because she had to—be sick. Every time she closed her eyes, the ground spun.
“Put me down,” she commanded.
All the men walking close by turned to have a look at her.
“Constantine!”
They all gaped at her calling him with intimate familiarity.
She covered her mouth with her hand. He seemed to understand and set her on her feet. Thankful, she ran the other way, until she realized she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face. How could she forget how dark the night could be? Her feeling of being ill disappeared, replaced by fear.
She turned in a circle. The only light came from the lanterns along the inn. There was nothing else in her vision but black.She heard something snap to her right. Another coyote? Chief MacRae?
“Ismay!”
