“You ken very well what I want, Innes.”
“Then tell me. So we can both be sure.”
She narrowed her eyes, tracing her small, pointed tongue along her bottom lip before she replied.
“I want you to leave Lachlan Fraser. Tonight.”
Innes stared back at her. None of this made sense. She had been the one to dismiss Lachlan after he had poured all that attention on her head. Why now, why this, after the marriages were already settled, the vows already spoken?
“I’ll do no such thing,” Innes declared, drawing herself up to her full height. “I dinnae ken about you, Isobel, but I take my marriage vows seriously.”
Isobel laughed.
“Oh, come now,” she mused, that patronizing tone Innes had come to recognize so clearly from her filling her voice. “Youcannae think that Lachlan truly cares fer you. He was looking to marry me for so long, and he cannot simply brush off his desires—his true desires, at least.”
Innes tried her best to keep the words from snaking beneath her skin, but they threatened to anyway. She took a deep breath, steadying herself.
“Ye’re the one who has been trying to kill me, are ye nae? Wi’ the poison, sending those men after me.”
Isobel’s evil smirk was answer enough.
“Is that not enough? What have I done to draw yer ire so cruelly when we were meant to be family?”
All at once, something flashed in Isobel’s eyes, something of her true form, Innes was sure of it. Her glower darkened, the torchlight flashing in her eyes, and Innes drew back, almost a little shocked to see her in such a fashion.
“Because you took him from me!”
“You chose Arthur!”
“They both wanted me, Innes,” she reminded her, pacing towards her, her hands clenching. “They both would have done anything for me.”
“Aye, and Arthur would still do anything in his power if he thought it would bring a smile to yer face!”
“But Lachlan,” she uttered, shaking her head. “You batted yer lashes at him and played wi’ yer flowers, and now he thinks that he’s got no time fer me. He forgot what I was worth.”
Innes could hardly believe what she was hearing. She had suspected Isobel of being a little vain, perhaps too focused on the social mores that seemed to consume her, but this? This was far beyond anything she could have imagined, the pure selfishness that she displayed almost impossible for her to make sense of.
“Arthur would always have given me a good life,” she reasoned. “Love. Security. A quiet place to raise my children. But Lachlan gave me something else. Something I needed justas dearly. And you…” She shook her head contemptuously. “You took that from me.”
“I took nothing from you, Isobel. You made yer choice!”
“You took what I was owed,” she snarled curtly. “And I have no choice but to take it back.”
She gestured for her men behind her, and Innes’ head whipped around, terror grasping at her throat. How could she have been so foolish to come down here? She should have known that Isobel would plan some cruelty for her, but this was beyond the realms of even what she could have imagined from the other woman.
“Ye dinnae deserve to love anyone,” she shot back angrily, giving up on diplomacy. “You… you did nothing but use my brother and Lachlan to bolster yer own sense of self!”
“There’s no point making yer case now, Innes,” she cut off, almost soothing, like she was pushing Innes to simply accept her fate. “I’ll have it my way. Your body will not be found, and Lachlan—poor, betrayed Lachlan—will crawl back to me.”
“No!” Innes cried out as the men closed in around her. They took one arm each, and she tried to wrest herself free like her life depended on it.
Because, as far as she knew… it did.
Lachlan knocked on the chamber door, listening for any sign of movement inside. None came. He sighed. Hardly a surprise, with the way he had spoken to his wife before. Perhaps he deserved the cold shoulder, given that he had practically dismissed her from his study when she had tried to reason with him.
“Innes?”
No answer. Perhaps she was asleep. Or just not interested in speaking to him.
