Angus scrutinized the two of them. As astute as he was, there was no doubt he knew exactly what he’d just interrupted. “A messenger has arrived.”
“From where?”
“Robert the Bruce.”
Lachlan let out a curse under his breath. If ever he needed a reminder in that moment of why he should not have been caressing her arse and licking her mouth, here it was.
Angus dismounted quickly, handing over a sealed letter. Dust coated his boots, and his horse’s flanks were damp with sweat. The ride had been fast. Lachlan broke the seal without hesitation and read.
As his eyes moved across the page, the calm of the morning disappeared.
“What is it?” Isabel’s voice was filled with the same dread he felt in his gut.
He lowered the letter slowly, the wind catching the edge of the parchment and snapping it in his grip. Lachlan crinkled the missive in his fist.
“Peace,” he said quietly, “may no’ last as long as we hoped. The Bruce warns that Longshanks has made plans to travel from the mainland to the Isle of Skye, and that he’s bringing half his army with him.”
19
Isabel walked back toward the castle alone, her mind abuzz with a hundred complications. The kiss, his hands on her body, the feeling of home she had when she spoke with the MacLeod women, and then the hammer of reality in the missive from her uncle.
Dunvegan, the Isle of Skye, Lachlan… everything felt like a dream. So far away from danger and reality. She’d almost let herself believe that were true.
The wind coming off the sea loch rustled the pines and tugged at her cloak, whipped loose strands of her hair across her face, but she hardly noticed. The path curved upward beneath her feet, and she couldn’t help but feel the tranquility had been a smoke screen, and her desire a trick of the mind.
As she hurried back toward the castle, her thoughts refused to settle. They circled back again and again to the same moment, the same man, the same impossible choice she had not truly realized she was making until it had already been made for her.
She had been kissed before.
That fact, once so simple and unremarkable, now felt almost irrelevant. Men at court had offered gestures shaped by expectation rather than desire—careful, measured touches that spoke more of alliances than affection. A gentleman’s lips pressed to her knuckles at the close of an evening. A polite brush of a kiss against her cheek when a dance ended or a promise was implied but never spoken aloud. Those moments had been easy to understand. Easy to accept. Easier still to forget.
What had passed between her and Lachlan had not been anything like that. There had been no politeness in his mouth pressed with ardent passion to hers. No courtly gesture in the way his large, strong hands had touched her buttocks. In the arms of Lachlan, she had been a woman free of responsibility. A woman living in the moment. A woman giving in to desire.
Her fingers lifted unconsciously to her mouth as she climbed the final stretch of the path, her breath catching slightly as the memory returned with unsettling clarity. The heat of his mouth, the slide of his tongue… She could still feel the strength of his hands at her waist, the way he had drawn her closer without hesitation, without apology, as though the distance between them had been something to overcome rather than respect. The warmth of him had cut through the cold wind, steady and unyielding, the hardness of his body against her softer frame had been intoxicating, and the kiss itself had carried a certainty that left no room for doubt.
Isabel was undone.
But what unsettled her most was not that he wanted her—it was how she had responded to that want. Not only without hesitation, but with enthusiasm.
The realization moved through her like heat, sharp and disorienting, settling low in her belly and spreading outward in a way she could neither ignore nor control. Isabel slowed just beyond the courtyard gate, her steps faltering as she exhaled slowly, trying—and failing—to steady herself. She had never imagined that something like that could feel so consuming, so immediate, so impossible to dismiss. Even now, standing alone in the open air, the memory of his touch made her pulse quicken, her breath catches in a way that felt precariously close to surrender.
They had crossed a line, aye, and she was not certain she wanted to step back from it. She was ready to take on her uncle and break her betrothal with Comyn. Would Lachlan step up for her? Would he support her? Or would he bow in supplication to Robert the Bruce??
What if he didn’t feel the same as her? Mayhap for him, kissing her was only a game. A distraction from the English, and the traitors that crept along the outskirts of their minds. That thought unsettled her more than anything else, and she shuddered. That full body movement snapped her out of her thoughts. She was no country lass in love with a laird. She was Robert the Bruce’s niece. She was a lady with brains, and she would slap herself out of this pity spiral she was going down. She told herself she was a prize, and if this MacLeod brute didn’t want a prize, then he was just a stupid oaf, and she could and would stab him. Wasn’t she? Wouldn’t she? She hated how unsure he made her feel. Or was it that he made her feel sure. And there she went spiraling again. Isabel was very close to screaming or throwing herself off one of the many cliffs around the loch. Isabel made her way back into the castle and up to her chamber where Elsa was fretfully pacing.
“My lady, I thought ye were…” She clamped her mouth shut, obviously not wanting to finish her sentence.
“What?”
Elsa shook her head. “Ye’re back. Doesna matter.” Color rose into Elsa’s pale cheeks. The poor dear had clearly been out of her wits with worry.
Two sharp raps on the door had both women facing the wooden planked entry as if Longshanks himself was waiting on the other side of it.
“My lady.” A man, not Lachlan, called from the other side.
When Elsa opened the door, Freckles slinked around her ankles into the chamber, evidently done with her play time with Zeus.
“Is Lady Isabel within?” Malcolm’s tone was respectful, but the way his eyes scanned the chamber when Elsa widened the door, Isabel noted the change. Rather than the jovial glances of homecoming the day before, his gaze exposed that everything had changed.
