Isabel was reminded then, as she watched, as her heart sped up, this was his world—one shaped by discipline, strength, and the constant readiness for violence—and he held it with the kind of authority that came not from title alone, but from trust.
As she stood watching, her own heart clenched. The sting of his rejection all too real. This man, whom she admired, desired, didn’t want her. Meant for someone else. As though she were some trinket, a bauble with someone else’s name tied to it. Isabel had thought he was different, she felt as though she had been tricked. Led down a path where she had belonged, where her opinion had mattered, where she had mattered. Yet, with just one sentence that he hadn’t even met her eyes to make, he had shattered dreams she hadn’t even realized she had. A stinging in her palm had her glancing down to see that she’d been holding onto the ring so tightly that it had broken the skin in a small crescent.
“Lady Isabel.”
She looked up sharply. He’d finally noticed her. An immediate awareness flooded her, and she cursed not only her weakness, but him, too. Their eyes locked, the intensity of his blue gaze cutting straight down the length of her body, as though his eyes were a sword shredding fabric, leaving her bared to him.
With a brief lift of his hand, he dismissed the men without breaking the rhythm of the yard. They slowed at once, stepping back, lowering their blades, the clang of steel fading into the background as space opened between them.
“What is it?” he asked, crossing toward her.
There was no greeting, no preamble. A reminder that they were on formal terms now. That he would not kiss her again. That she was meant for another, even if she didn’t want to be with another.
Isabel did not hesitate. She stepped forward to meet him, the ring already in her hand, and placed it directly into his palm, her skin sizzling as it touched his. “Ulrich says he recognized the crest as belonging to a man who runs a lesser holding within Kerr’s domain.”
Lachlan’s attention dropped to it immediately, his thumb brushing over the metal as he turned it slightly toward the light. His brow tightened, and she forced herself not to smooth that crease. For a moment, he said nothing, studying the engraving with the same care he might have given a map.
“The abbey where we found it,” she continued, her gaze steady on his. “Ye said it made no sense for it to have been destroyed.”
“Aye.” Lachlan nodded, and she could tell by the way he was looking at her, he was picking up her meaning. “Because it was no’ a raid for relics.”
Isabel returned his nod slowly. “What if it was a meeting place?”
He turned the ring once more in his hand, his focus narrowing as he followed the line of her thinking. “For whom?”
“For Kerr,” she said, her voice quiet but certain. “And whoever he was speaking with.”
“The English or the Scots instigator,” Lachlan snarled, crushing the ring in his fist.
“They burned it to destroy evidence. But someone left this behind. Do ye think they left it on purpose?”
“But why? ’Twould only bring a guilty verdict on his head.”
Isabel shrugged. “Or mayhap he had hopes someone would question him and he could stop what happened next.”
Lachlan held her gaze, an admiring smile curling his lips. “I dinna think your uncle has given ye credit, lass.”
“Many a man has overlooked the fairer sex.”
“No’ I.”
She smiled but then caught herself and cleared her throat. When he’d looked at her like this before, his mouth had swiftly been on hers a moment later.
Lachlan didn’t seem to notice her struggle for composure. He seemed, too, to have forgotten his own declaration as he closed the distance between them, taking her hand in his. She tried not to tremble. Cursed the dampness of her palms, as he unfurled her fingers and pressed the ring into the center.
Heat burned in her cheeks at the same time a shiver lanced its way up her spine.
They couldn’t. They shouldn’t. Out in the training yard, in the middle of the open air. Men milling by the barracks where they’d been dismissed. Men up on the walls guarding Dunvegan. Women rushing by with laundry, provisions… The list went on as to who might witness the way he held her hand, the way she didn’t pull away.
“I was wrong,” Lachlan said at last, his voice gravelly, as though it was searching for a way out of his throat.
Isabel’s brow lifted slightly, though she did not step away, if anything, she found herself inching closer. “Were ye now. About what?”
“About ye belonging to another.” His gaze held hers with a steadiness that melted her bones. “Thinking about another man kissing ye…”
Warmth stirred in her chest at the words, and she opened her mouth to speak, to say, aye, no one else, but no words came out.
“I fear I’ll go mad for thinking it. I fear I’ll go to my death making ye mine. But it would be worth it.”
