“He didna force me,” she told him woodenly.
He scoffed as if he knew all her family secrets. “We know how ye refuthed every other man that courted ye fer yer hand.”
He didn’t believe her. She didn’t care. She wasn’t here to prove anything to him.
“What do ye gain by doing her bidding?” she asked instead.
He curled his lips up. “Yer inheritance when ye leave the earth.”
Ismay laughed into her hands. “Once ye kill me, are ye fool enough to believe she willna kill ye?”
He was quiet. It either just dawned on the dimwit, or he suspected Lady MacPherson and planned to kill her first.
Let them destroy each other.
Ismay turned her storm-filled eyes on him. “Where are we?”
“We are thill in Lochaber,” he provided, then narrowed his eyes on her. “But we will be moving in the morning. Be ready.” With that, he rose up and wentfor the door.
“The Lochiel will likely be here before sunset.”
MacRae stopped and stared at her as if he were waiting for her to laugh and confess to jesting.
“He’s coming even now,” she warned. “I’m sure of it.”
He left her, quickening his steps. Ismay watched him leave and shut and locked the door behind him.
Was she mad? Was Constantine on his way? Was he alive? She prayed that he was and then began to cry because she didn’t know. Even if he was alive, how would he find her? She hurried to the window, but the shutters were locked. What should she do? There was no way out. She would have to wait until they left. She would escape him once they left. She would run back to Tor or to the house below the great mountain. Aye, she would hide there.
*
Constantine tightened theleather strap crossing one shoulder and then did the same on the other side as he stormed toward the stable.
The sound of Ismay’s voice screaming his name before she was taken away would forever haunt his memory. He’d heard her as if she were in another time or place. He hadn’t been able to move or even wake up as the knife wound in his belly had gushed forth his lifeblood.
“It has been less than a full day since ye were wounded, Chief,” Lewis said, keeping up with him.
Constantine gritted his teeth wondering if Lewis thought he was too simpleminded to know how long it had been since that bastard Ewen MacKintosh stabbed him. Why was his cousin trying to stop him anyway? Didn’t Lewis know—didn’t they all know that he loved Ismay MacPherson enough not to care about her name, her deeds, her kin, or his life? Hadn’t killing MacKintosh’s son when he tried to abduct her proven it? Would killing every MacKintosh left alive prove it? How about Alistar MacRae? John MacBain? The Chattan chief?Would killing them all bring her back?
Thanks to Hilary, he’d learned, through buckets of tears, that her betrothed, John MacBain had taken Ismay under orders from the Chattan chief, who ordered the attack on his castle on the advice of Lady Majorie MacPherson, Ismay’s mother. Which meant, the man he was going to kill, Chief of the MacRaes of Beauly had her.
But where had he taken her? Back toward Beauly, most likely.
“Let us accompany ye,” Lewis practically begged. “Geoffry is oot of his mind because ye are goin’, and goin’ alone.”
“Nae,” Constantine ground out. He tried to sound more angry than in pain. If Lewis knew how badly his wound pained him, he would lock him inside and not let him go. “I want Fionn to stay here and look after Lachlan.”
Aye, MacBain would pay for getting Lachlan run through. According to the castle physician and a local healer, young Lachlan was close to meeting his Maker.
Constantine couldn’t let himself think on it overmuch. If he did, he might be tempted not to leave his cousin’s side. Joan had promised to stay by his bedside. Constantine had to trust her to look after his cousin. He had to find Ismay.
“Ye and Geoffry are to find MacBain. I dinna care what it takes or how many men ye bring with ye. Find him. If Lachlan dies, then MacBain dies, as well. Do ye understand?”
“Aye, Lochiel, but—”
Just before he entered the stable, Constantine stopped walking and turned to face him. “Lewis, I need to do this. I have to find her. If I bring anyone else and MacRae gets wind that we are close, he might harm her. I can find him and get right on top of him before he knows what has hit him.”
Lewis’s lips curled into a smile. “The Ghost Cameron.”
