“Oath-bound,” MacDowylt repeated skeptically. “And just who would have had the audacity to accept such an oath from you?”
“Her father.”
His words tingled down Isa’s spine like tiny fingers brushing against her skin. What he claimed was impossible.
“What could you possibly know of my son?” the MacGahan laird demanded, once again on his feet, Roland rising to stand at his side.
“I know that his last words to me were of his concern for his daughter’s safety. I swore to him I’d see to her protection.”
Though MacQuarrie responded to her grandfather’s question, he did so without taking his eyes from MacDowylt’s face.
Roland snorted his disbelief, his normal sneer altered to one of contempt. “You’d have us believe you were there at his death? A score ago? You could have been no older than that filthy cur.” He gestured toward the spot where Jamie crouched.
“Nevertheless.” MacQuarrie shrugged as if their belief of his story was of no consequence to him. “I gave my oath to Thomas and I’m here to keep that promise.”
His body shifted toward MacDowylt, an almost imperceptible action, but the threat it held was unmistakable. As if charged with his intent, the air around Isa began to shift and flow with his movement.
“I’ll tell you one last time to release the lady’s arm.”
In the long moment that passed, Isa focused on the MacDowylt’s face, watching for any sign of understanding. How could he not feel the tension building as the air stilled to stifling around them? Much more of this and she’d be forced to gasp simply for her next breath.
When the corner of the warrior’s eye twitched again, she felt the tension blanketing her drain away.
He released his grip and lifted his hands in front of him as he slowly backed away.
Though MacQuarrie lowered his sword, he held it loosely in front of him, at the ready. Only then did he fully shift his gaze to her.
When she met his stare, she found herself captured. The eyes she’d found so hard and devoid of emotion only moments before were anything but empty now.
There, swimming in the brown pools, she could almost swear she saw something else. Something reaching out to her as if she were being invited into the very depths of the man’s soul.
Ridiculous. Every bit as impossible as his having been old enough to have been at her father’s deathbed to give the oath he claimed.
And yet...
In those depths she saw no deception. No dishonesty in the dark waters of his gaze. Nothing there but determination, solid and forceful.
“I can trust you?” To her own surprise, the involuntary words issued from her on a breath.
“You may believe me, my lady. Trust this to my care.”
Believe him? No, she couldn’t do that. His story was simply too unreasonable for the facts.
Trust him? Hardly. She trusted no one.
But allow him to deal with this situation? Leave her future in his hands as he’d asked? That, amazingly, she realized she could do. Especially since she was at a loss as to her next step in this delicate political dance.
She nodded her agreement and he smiled before turning his gaze back to MacDowylt.
That smile, a barely noticeable quirking of the corner of his mouth, obviously meant only for her, slammed into her, weakening her knees and her resolve.
This man, this Robert MacQuarrie, was something she’d never experienced before. Something that both frightened and fascinated her.
It was as if he were the human embodiment of a force of nature.
“Under the authority vested in me by the late Thomas MacGahan, I, Robert MacQuarrie, hereby proclaim my rights as Guardian to Isabella MacGahan. From this moment forward, she is officially under my protection and no other’s. If you want something of her, you must go through me.”
Robert noted with satisfaction that his speech was met by total silence. He’d take that as a good sign. He’d spent the better part of his ride to the MacGahan castle working out just the proper words to use if he found he needed to remove the young woman from her home. Granted, the words themselves were drawn from his memories of the hundreds of movies he’d watched over the last decade, but they seemed to have worked well enough.
