“A Sassenach!” Talia accused.
There was no hiding that truth, but he did his best to make himself seem friendly. “I’m here to protect Iseabail. I’m her husband, and she’s my responsibility. I have no wish to stir up trouble.”
“And yet it’s trouble ye’ve brought,” she said with a harsh spit at his feet. Then she looked back at Iseabail. “Oh lass, if ye’ve found yerself a fine Sassenach husband, whyever did ye come back?”
“Because this is my home. You are my family. Why wouldn’t I want to be here?”
“Because Hamish will claim ye, that’s why. And who here will stop it? We were all there when he married yer necklace.”
“This necklace?” Iseabail asked as she held up her pendant. “I don’t know what he married, but it wasn’t my token.”
“And what difference does that make? The baron said it was, and he’s got the men to make it so.”
That was Reuben’s cue. “Does he though?” he pressed. “Hamish and five others went down to London to get her. They attacked her in broad daylight as if she were a common thief without a word first. Have they come back?”
Talia opened her mouth to answer, but it was Fergus who spoke from the doorway. “The baron’s been grumbling that the Sassenach killed them. Cut them down—”
Iseabail snorted. “The English did nothing but stand there and gape. Except Reuben here, who was caught without a weapon. He kept them from rushing me while Sadie Allen and I fought. I put a dagger in Albie’s leg, I did. And then my husband and I headed back here to find out what nonsense my uncle’s been spouting.” She lifted her chin. “I’m not married to anyone but Mr. Reuben Bates, and by the Archbishop of Canterbury, no less.”
Both the Scots gaped at her. “Never say so,” Talia breathed.
“I do say so. And with the Countess of Byrn at my side.” She touched Talia’s hand. “You know I would never agree to Hamish. You sent Lizzy to me, didn’t you, to warn me?”
That had been Reuben’s guess, and it seemed he’d been right. Talia looked at her hands. “Hamish was bragging about it, and I sent Lizzy to find you.”
“And warn me.” She lifted both Talia’s hands and squeezed them. “Thank you for that. Thank you. I couldn’t be standing here now if you hadn’t—”
Fergus clunked down his drink and glared at his wife. “It wasn’t her place. We don’t interfere in the baron’s ideas. We don’t do it.”
Talia’s gaze dropped to her hands, but Reuben had seen this dynamic before. Here was a wife who bowed to her husband’s decrees to his face, and yet still found ways to do what she thought was right. In this case, she’d sent her daughter to save Iseabail from a surprise wedding.
“I’m right glad you did,” he said, his voice as earnest as he could make it. “Iseabail deserves better than that bastard.”
Fergus glared at him. “And is that you, Sassenach?” His tone was derisive, clearly meant to be an insult. But rather than bristle, Reuben held up his hands.
“Me? No. She deserves far better than me, and that’s the truth.” Then he smiled at Iseabail. “But I’m the lucky one who caught her fancy.”
She smiled back with equal warmth. “That he did, and I accepted his touch.” She looked down at her belly. “And maybe more.”
Silence descended on the four of them, each one staring at Iseabail’s belly. She looked positively beatific at the idea. Fergus and Talia looked alarmed. But Reuben was absorbed in a wave of love that had his jaw flapping open in shock. He certainly knew that bed sport could result in children, but that hadn’t been in the forefront of his mind until this moment. Until the possibility of their child growing beneath Iseabail’s handsright nowthrust into his brain like a knife blade of clarity. His child could be beneath her hands right then. Her child in her belly.
Theirchild. Reuben swore right then that the child would have a future unlike anything he’d had growing up in London or she’d had beneath her uncle’s thumb. Their child would have every advantage, every possible future. He could not have felt it more strongly if God Himself had set a babe in his arms.
“The baron will kill it,” Fergus said, his voice dull. “No Sassenach in his kin.”
“His grandda was a bluidy Sassenach collaborator!” Iseabail snapped.
Fergus shook his head. “Don’t matter. He’s denied that. Won’t hear a word—”
Reuben spoke, the words as final as the death in his tone.
“I’ll kill him.”
Fergus eyed him darkly, but Iseabail turned to him with hope in her eyes.
“Will you? Truly?”
“No one will harm you,” he stated firmly. “I swore that to you on the day we wed.” Then he reached out a shaking hand. She gently set it on her belly. There was no movement there yet, no bulge to indicate a babe. It was too soon. And yet, he felt a child there all the same. “No one hurts our child.”
