Her stomach tightened, and Isabel pressed a hand there, not wanting to lose the bit of porridge she’d had for breakfast. Sensing her unease, Freckles climbed into her bodice, her small body curling against Isabel’s heart.
The prisoner had timed the betrayal carefully enough to leave Dunvegan exposed at precisely the wrong hour, when the fog was heaviest. Below them, horns erupted across the castle, and the courtyard exploded into action.
Lachlan turned toward the stairs, barking orders before the nearest men had fully reached him. Warriors rushed toward the walls. Archers shouted from the battlements.
“Get every archer to the southern wall. Close the lower gate. Move the villagers inside the hall.”
The warriors scattered immediately. Then his gaze returned to Isabel. All the steel in him gave way to raw emotion.
Only moments ago, they had spoken truths neither of them could take back now. I love ye.
His hand closed briefly around her wrist, firm and warm despite the cold wind battering the cliffs. For the first time since she had known him, Isabel saw fear tear through the discipline he usually wore so effortlessly. He released her slowly and turned toward his warriors. She watched him for a second before rushing inside to finish preparations, the phantom warmth of his fingers still against her skin.
A quarter of an hour later she stood in the center of the bailey. Lachlan was decked out in weapons. He wore not only the claymore on his back, and daggers strapped to his arms, but an axe and mace and a second sword at his belt.
“Ye must stay inside,” he said. “I beg ye.” The words carried strain she had never heard from him before.
“Lachlan—”
“If they breach the walls?—”
“They will hold.” The certainty of her words left her before she could stop it.
His eyes held hers for one raw heartbeat, and she realized he was memorizing her face. As though men who rode into battle learned long ago never to trust that they’d return.
Then shouting rose from below. The English ships had dropped anchor, and their men were rowing to shore. Lachlan released her instantly, ordering arrows to fly.
“Inside, please. Protect the women and children,” he ordered again, harsher now, “Swear to me.”
“Aye, I swear it.”
And then he ran toward the fighting.
Isabel watched him disappear into the chaos below, her pulse hammering painfully against her ribs. Only hours ago, loving him had terrified her. Now the thought of losing him threatened to hollow the world clean through. Another horn split the air.
Men shouted across the courtyard. Lads ran with jugs of water. Women hurried the elderly and children toward shelter while trying desperately to keep fear from overtaking them.
Isabel forced herself toward the great hall despite every instinct urging her back toward the battlements, ushered inside by Elsa, and several other women, who put a bar up on the door, dulling the sounds of a low roar. For one brief moment Isabel stood frozen while the sounds of battle filtered like hissing wind through the arrow slit windows.
The castle had erupted into controlled chaos. Servants hurried between tables carrying water basins and bundles of linen while frightened children clung to their mothers near the hearth. From outside came the distant crash of steel, muffled by stone walls yet no less terrifying.
She hated remaining behind while Lachlan rode toward danger. Hated it. Yet she had given him her word. So, she seized hold of the nearest task she could find.
“Bring every spare cloth you can find,” she ordered one servant. “Tear the older linens if you must.”
Another young lad rushed through the hall carrying an armful of arrows nearly too large for him to hold. Several slipped from his grasp and scattered across the floor. Isabel immediately bent to help gather them.
“Take these to the south tower,” she told him, forcing steadiness into her voice. “And if they require more, send word at once.”
The lad nodded quickly before hurrying away again.
Around her the hall filled with fear held barely in check, but Isabel refused to surrender to it. If she could not stand beside Lachlan with a sword in hand, then she would hold together every piece of the castle she could reach from within these walls.
Another runner appeared moments later shouting for water and linen for the wounded. Isabel turned immediately, gathering supplies. She did not know Dunvegan’s stores as Lachlan did, but she knew how to look at confusion and force it into order.
With the lads gone, and everyone busy, she was determined to take the supplies herself. And a bow and arrow, just in case she needed it.
Lachlan reached the lower courtyard just as the first English soldiers breached the shoreline path and the battle struck him all at once.
