Luar whinnied a warning, but Tristan held tightly to her head.
“Take him to the dungeons,” Tristan ordered calmly.
“Why the dungeons? What the devil is happening?” Isabella twisted in the saddle and for a precious moment, her eyes met his.
He read confusion and mounting anger in her gaze, and wanted to tell her that she should not say or do anything to risk her own safety. Not on his account. But before he could speak a word, a gag was forced over his mouth. He winced at the tightness of it, but at least the cloth was clean had no particular smell or taste. Just as he counted his blessings, rough hands grasped his arms and legs, and he roared with pain. Fingers clamped around his injury and Hamish was unable to curb his instinctive response to lash out at his aggressor.
But this only made his captors more eager to restrain him. The more he struggled, the tighter they held onto his flailing limbs.
“Let him go.” Isabella’s voice was loud and imperious, carrying through the stable yard like an imperial command.
Perhaps confused by the contradictory instructions, the men-at-arms released their iron-like grip, but they still carried Hamish like a sack of straw. He was conscious of the slick stone cobbles beneath him, and half hoped they would not carry out Isabella’s order.
Booted footsteps travelled closer and soon Tristan’s face loomed over him. His blue eyes and angular features were reminiscent of Isabella, but the simmering anger in his expression was something Hamish had never seen in the woman he loved.
“Stay still, man,” he said impatiently. “You might consider yourself fortunate I have not already run you through with my sword.”
Hamish forced himself to breathe slowly, to meet the man’s gaze and communicate his peaceful intentions as best he could.
I mean no harm,he tried to convey.
Ridiculous.
How can I inflict harm on anyone just now?
Tristan de Neville’s reputation was of a courageous yet fair-minded knight. But Hamish saw no flicker of fair-mindedness in this man’s eyes.
“Tristan, I tell you, he is my friend.” Isabella jumped down from Luar and threw the reins to a waiting stable hand. If he could have spoken, Hamish would have asked her to stay away. He had no wish for her to see him gagged and bound like a criminal.
’Twas Tristan himself who held up his hand and, glowering, demanded she keep her distance.
He turned back to Hamish. “Answer me this, and answer honestly or suffer the consequences on the morrow. Have you held my sister prisoner these last days?”
What could Hamish do but nod?
Tristan’s expression became cold and disdainful. “Take him away,” he said.
Hamish closed his eyes as his captors bundled him over the cobbles and down a series of stone steps, which jolted his wounded arm and made him clench his teeth around the cloth. The air grew colder and foul-smelling, and he concluded they had passed into the dungeons. As a last attempt at self-preservation, he opened his eyes to try and take notice of his surroundings, but all he saw was a dark granite wall and a floor covered in straw. The tramping of footsteps echoed the pounding in his head. A door was unlocked with a large iron key, and as Hamish craned to take a look at the cell, he noticed a small, slight figure in the corner of the large room they were passing through.
Perchance ’twas no more than his imagination, for the figure neither moved nor spoke. Hamish was dropped, with little ceremony, onto a thin and stained straw pallet. The door swung closed behind him and he heard the key turn in the lock.
Then everything went dark.
Chapter Sixteen
“You’re making amistake.”
Isabella could not believe this turn of events. She had been less surprised to encounter a band of highland raiders at Ember Hall than she was to behold such stubbornness in her beloved brother.
“A terrible mistake,” she added, folding her arms and tossing back her braid of hair.
Tristan seemed hardly to hear her. Even in the darkness, she could see that his face was pale and he was breathing hard. ’Twas almost as if he had been the one to grapple Hamish to the ground. But he had done no more than give the order. And wounded as he was, Hamish hadn’t even put up much of a fight.
Isabella stifled a sob, along with the urge to rain her fists upon her brother’s chest to make him listen.
“Have you been treated ill?” he asked, scarcely even glancing in her direction.
“Nay, not once.” She pushed away memories of Alaric pinning her to the floor of her bedchamber. “But I will answer no more questions until you come to your senses and release Hamish. He is—myfriend.”
