His hair as black as night and grazing his broad shoulders.Everything about him exuding strength and power, from the breadth of his chest to the muscular litheness of his body as he straightened to tower over her.Her gaze fell to his hand still smeared with blood, which made her stomach flip all over again.
“Are you sure you’re not wounded, Laird Campbell?I would never forgive myself…”
Lisette had fallen silent at the startled look he gave her, his tone now not half so gruff.
“Aye, lass.”
He didn’t say anything more.With a sigh of weariness, he settled down onto his own blanket—though this time, he didn’t roll over and turn his back to her.
Instead, Lisette felt him watching her as she closed her eyes to try and sleep.
Saints help her, how could she rest with him lying so close to her?Tomorrow night at this time, mayhap they wouldn’t be lying upon blankets on the ground, but sharing a warm bed somewhere as man and wife.
Laird Conall Campbell, her husband!
Conall stared at Isabeau with some consternation, the sweetness of her last words not what he would have expected from her at all.
I would never forgive myself…
Aye, she’d said it, he had heard her, the poignant concern in her voice having soothed him more than he cared to admit.
He should still be pacing the camp in fury for her daring to run away from him!
He should have tied her to a tree so there would be no chance of another escape attempt, instead of allowing her to sleep unfettered on the blanket.
He could tell that she wasn’t sleeping from the rapid pulse beating at the base of her throat…and a lovely throat, too.
Pale like alabaster, just as King Robert had said.Her beauty rare indeed, with her lustrous dark hair flecked with red against so fair a complexion, her delicate features in perfect proportion from her winged brows to her lush red lips.
God help him, how was he to sleep with so wondrously fashioned a woman lying next to him, no more than a forearm’s reach away?
He could hear the rise and fall of her breathing, not at all the gentle repose as when she hadn’t yet awakened from the potion, but faster and shallower as if she could not sleep, either.Was she thinking of trying to evade him again?Her kindhearted concern just another way to deceive him and lull him into thinking she had accepted her fate—when all the while she was plotting her next move?
Now Conall did roll onto his back, though he had no intention of sleeping.
He couldn’t risk her slipping away again in a forest full of wolves—och, he didn’t want to think of it!If he hadn’t caught up with her in time…
Conall shoved the grisly thoughts away and glanced over to see that her breathing seemed to have slowed down a wee bit, a good sign.Either that, or she sensed him still watching her and wanted him to think she had truly settled down for the rest of the night—aye, but he didn’t trust her any more than he wanted to take a bride.
He doubted he would ever be able to trust her—or her, him—for how they had started out in life, with an abduction.Odd, it occurred to him then that she hadn’t asked him about what had happened at all, or the why of it, but mayhap she had surmised all she needed to know for now.
He had told her that King Robert had made him fetch her and that they would be wed in the morning.What else was there to say?Yet for a woman that had been torn from her betrothed, he would have expected more screams and tears.
The only outrage Isabeau had shown him was that the potion could have killed her.No demands at all about what lay at the heart of her abduction.Conall thought she would have wanted to know right away, but mayhap she was as clever as she was beautiful and had already surmised her former husband-to-be’s support of King Edward had made her a tempting target.
Or mayhap Euan MacCulloch had boasted to her of his part in capturing King Robert’s two brothers—aye, and she had already guessed that revenge for their execution had fueled her sudden change of fate.
Bitterness swelled inside Conall that Isabeau might have been proud of MacCulloch’s role in so heinous a crime, but let him not forget that she was from France.What did she truly know of the hatred between those Scots loyal to England and King Robert’s supporters?
Och, she would learn soon enough after their marriage tomorrow.Conall had no intention of being heavy-handed with her, but he would forbid her from ever speaking of any loyalty to England, whether she harbored some herself or not!
Heaving a sigh, Conall rubbed his hands over his face, his body craving sleep no matter he should stay awake to watch over Isabeau.
The wolf had leapt upon him with tremendous force, the snarling creature’s massive paws striking his chest.He felt bruised and sore, but there was no healer with a remedy until he returned to Dumbarton Castle.Regretting again throwing away the basket that had held liniment for such aches, Conall did his best to stay awake though his eyes kept drifting closed.
He knew the guards positioned around the camp would shout out to him if Isabeau tried to escape, but even the slightest chance that they might miss her and she run into the woods—
“Blast and damn!”Conall smiled wryly that he sounded so much like his elder brother Cameron, but those accursed wolves were no laughing matter.He rolled back onto his side and shifted closer to Isabeau, not caring that he was no longer lying upon the blanket.
