“I am not so foolish as to believe I have aught to offer the likes of Isabella de Neville.”
And nor do I wish to examine this further.
Hamish pulled his cloak over his shoulders and traced the grooves in the floor with his boot.
“Ye are the Laird of Greenock.” Siegfried laid down the poker and stood up slowly, rubbing at his lower back and wincing.
Hamish’s mind raced. He needed to persuade himself as much as Siegfried that he was not headed down this particular path.
“Greenock is a cold and draughty keep e’en in high summer. Made more so, I’ll wager, after the last siege.” Hamish attempted a smile, closing his mind to vivid memories of loud and ruinous warfare on the battlements. “And if I return to Greenock as Laird, ’twill be thanks to the Lady’s brother.” He rubbed his hands together as if that settled the matter. “Ye do ken, Siegfried, how I hate to be in anyone’s debt?”
Siegfried nodded, but still looked unconvinced.
“Ye dinna have to worry,” Hamish said bleakly. “I willna go near the Lady again. Except to escort her to Wolvesley.”
“In a right and proper fashion?” Siegfried folded his arms.
“Of course.” Hamish felt the distant walls of the hall beginning to close in on him. There was too much for him to digest and try to make sense of. He stood tall with assumedpurpose. “Let us discuss this later, Siegfried. I must tend to the horses. Luar is whinnying fer me.”
It was a lie.
But ’twas rooted in fact. Luar was a creature of routine, and Hamish usually filled her bucket with oats at sunrise. Perchance she was whinnying and the stone walls were too thick for him to hear her.
Siegfried looked at him askance. “Ye have not yet broken yer fast.”
“I am not hungry.” The truth, at last. “Ye should eat something though, my friend. Take yer time. I can see to everything outside.”
Outside, where the air was fresh and clean and he could breathe more easily.
Hamish strode out of the front door and did not look back.
Chapter Twelve
Where is he?
Isabella knew a wave of keen disappointment when she woke and discovered herself alone.
The bed beside her was still warm, where Hamish had lain. She herself was still warm from the imprint of his body pressed against hers. But the highlander had gone.
She lay back on the pillows and allowed a swell of frustration to ripple through her. Last night had been magical. There was no other word to describe it. Finally, she knew the thrill of a man’s touch. Her sisters had not been exaggerating all these years.
But she had hoped for more kisses this morn.
Her eyes traveled over to the bright shafts of sunlight filtering through the shutters.
Is it still morn?
After a lifetime of troubled sleep, in these last hours, she had slept deeper than a babe. No demons woke her, no fits of fear seized her. Hamish had been the balm she needed to soothe her turbulent mind.
But did that mean she had slept too long?
Isabella sat up in a tangle of covers, perplexed to find the chamber pleasantly warm. Then she saw the fire flickering in the grate, and realized that Hamish must have built it up for her before he left.
’Twas kind and practical, just like him.
Happy again, she stretched her arms above her head and rotated her head. What bliss to not be cramped with cold and doubt.
I will go and find him.
