“I still say this situation we find ourselves in would resolve itself more easily if we were to help one another.”
’Twas a simple statement. And one she was almost moved to consider.
Almost.
“And I still say that I do not negotiate with those who seek to threaten me.” Isabella gripped her own chair, taking strength from the memory that Frida had likely once stood here. And not just Frida, but Esme and Mirrie and Jonah.
And Tristan.
“And I remind you of my family connections. And the wrath you will face when all of this is discovered.” She threw back her head defiantly.
“Ye dinna need to remind me of yer family connections. They are the reason we are still here. Ye ken?”
Isabella was breathing hard as a strange mixture of anger and adrenaline surged through her limbs. It took a moment for her to make sense of his words. But as his meaning became clear, she felt colder than she had in the depths of last night.
In all the time she had spent with the highlander, she had imagined a sort of connection existed between them. A meeting of minds. A feeling of kindness.
Mayhap more than kindness.
But this morn and last night, he had been thinking only of her family connections.
Of Tristan, no doubt, and how he might help further his cause.
When Hamish considered whether she should live or die, ’twas Tristan who came into his mind, not her, however much he gazed at her golden hair.
Isabella had long known the power she wielded over men. It had been part of her, like her long fingers and narrow feet. But clearly, her powers were fading.
Perchance her purpose was no longer even decorative. She was merely the sister of one powerful man. The daughter of another.
No one’s wife. No one’s mother.
She backed away from the table, glad after all that she had not partaken of cheese and berries as nausea churned in her belly.
The highlander still might kill her. He still carried his sword at his hip. He stood like a man braced for action.
“I am willing to talk, whene’er ye are willing to listen,” he said.
Isabella shook her head, still backing away from the table. “I will never be willing,” she whispered, afraid that her voice might shake.
“I am a patient man,” he countered.
Isabella looked him in the eye with the last of her courage. “You will have to be.” She took a breath. “This house belongs to my family. You are an imposter here. Again I say, do not follow me.”
Until she had reached the top of the stairs and was confident he had obeyed her desperate command, Isabella held her breath. Then she clung onto the banister as a wave of dizziness broke her vision into countless dancing dots.
God’s blood, how could she ever hope to manage this?
Isabella straightened her legs and breathed deeply until the grooved lines of the floorboards came back into focus.
She would stay alive the only way she knew how.
Behind a locked door.
Chapter Seven
Luar tossed herglossy black mane and pawed at the stone floor of the stable. Hamish reached up to stroke her neck, crooning words of comfort, but his charger was not so easily soothed. She snorted with impatience and pranced to one side, jerking her head up and down as if to tell him that enough was enough.
“I ken ye dinna want ter be here,” he murmured.
