“Anyone in the Highlands of Scotland has had cause tae fight,” she said. “Are ye saying that ye’ve never had a cause tae fight since I last saw ye?”
If he thought she was being evasive again, he didn’t let on. He pondered her question. “A smithy doesna have much cause tae fight unless a man willna pay ye for the work ye’ve done,” he said. “I’ve only had that happen a couple of times.”
“What did ye do?”
He shrugged. “I hit one man over the head with an iron rod,” he said. “But I only did that because he threw a horseshoe at me. He’ll not do that again.”
She chuckled. “And the other man?”
“He had my grandfather by the neck,” he said, sobering dramatically as he thought on that particular dispute. “No man will touch my grandfather. I whacked him across the back of his head with the hilt of my hammer and tossed him out intae the street.”
Given the sheer size of Cam’s shoulders, arms, and hands from his years at a blacksmith’s forge, Isadora was quite sure he meant that heliterallytossed the man. It was an exciting thought.
“Did he get up?”
“Painfully, after my grandfather went tae the street and kicked him a few times where it hurt the most.”
Her laughter grew. “Ye see? Yecanfight.”
He shook his head. “But I dunna like tae,” he said. “Fighting never seems tae solve anything. I’ve only done it as a last resort.”
There was a flash of that gentle young man she’d met those years ago. He believed in peace; he was still peaceful. Still, he wasn’t afraid to use force when there was no other choice.
“Sometimes men dunna give ye a choice,” she said quietly. “Sometimes… sometimes they’ll accept nothing less than violence.”
There was something in her tone as she spoke, the tone of a woman whose clan had seen some violence over the years. In her case, it was from a man named Drostan Lindsay. It was always Drostan Lindsay, the chieftain of Clan Lindsay of Kirkburn Castle. Though the fortress was less than ten miles away, Drostan and his animals might as well have been in Isadora’s lap, for it was the Lindsay who prowled Keith lands, looking for men to kill and women to assault.
But Cam didn’t have to know that.
It wasn’t his fight, anyway.
Still, that fear, that constant fear, was in her tone as she spoke and Cam looked at her, sensing something more than just a comment on the nature of men. Gently, he squeezed her hand.
“Tell me of the men who have been violent against ye and I’ll whack them on the head with my hammer,” he said, smiling at her when she looked at him. “I’ll not have anyone being violent against my little demon.”
She smiled wanly. “I’m capable of using a hammer, too, and a few other things,” she said. “It seems as if ye and I live in different worlds. Ye live in a busy village… I live in the hills where life is more difficult.”
He shook his head. “It doesna matter,” he said. “From this moment on, it doesna matter in the least. I’ll come tae know ye and ye’ll come tae know me, and we’ll understand each other.”
“But why me? Surely there are fine lasses in yer village who have caught yer eye?”
He shook his head, a glimmer in his eyes when he looked at her. “No fine lasses,” he said. “They want men with position and money, and I have neither. But a lass from the hills might not care about such things. Besides… the one I’m thinking of is rather pretty.”
“Me?”
“Only ye.”
The familiar mottle was back in her cheeks; she was flattered in a way she’d never been flattered before. “’Tis a kind thing tae say, but I’m—”
A shout cut her off and they both whirled to see two young men approaching with an older gentleman in between them. It took Cam a split second to realize that the older man was his grandfather.
He dropped Isadora’s hand.
Before she could stop him, Cam rushed at the men, dropping one of them with a brutal blow to the face. He was cocking his arm to throw a punch at the second man when Isadora abruptly put herself between Cam’s ham-sized fist and the second man’s surprised face.
“Cam, nay!” she gasped. “Dunna hit him. ’Tis my brother!”
Cam almost didn’t stop himself in time; he was inches from Isadora’s lovely face and the force of restraining a fist already in motion had him reeling off balance. But he grabbed Nikolaus, yanking the old man with him, pulling him away from the pair that had captured him. As he looked to Nikolaus to make sure the old man was well, Isadora and her brother were pulling a very dazed young man to his feet.
