Page 121 of The Laird’s Sinful Obsession

The wind came again, stronger this time, and she leaned slightly into Lachlann's shoulder without thinking about it. He shifted almost imperceptibly, giving her his weight to lean against, and she stayed there and looked at the water.

It was the most peaceful she had felt in weeks.

She was aware of how rarely she had that.

The sensation of simply being somewhere, without dread in front of it or guilt behind it, without the constant low hum of Torquil and the Council.

Up there it was just the wind and the glen and Lachlann's shoulder and the dog pressed warm between them.

She turned to say something, she wasn't sure what, something small and true, and found Lachlann no longer looking at her.

He was looking at the sea.

She followed his gaze, and it took her a moment to find what he was seeing. Shapes on the water, still distant, moving against the wind with a steadiness that was not natural drift. Three of them, maybe four, hulls dark against the pewter surface.

His face had changed.

She had seen Lachlann's face in many arrangements over those weeks. She had seen it careful, and warm, and furious, and closed. She had never seen it look quite like that, something hard and very clear settling into it, the way stone settled.

"Lachlann."

"I see them." His voice had dropped, gone flat in a way that raised the hair on the back of her neck.

"What ships are those?"

"Torquil's." He said it with a certainty that left no room for question or comfort. He was already moving, stepping back from the parapet, turning. "We need tae go down. Now."

"How dae ye ken it’s theirs? Be careful Lachlann."

"Alba." He took her hand and his grip was firm and immediate, the same grip he'd used on the stairs, but nothing like it. "Now. Come."

Captain was already at the stairwell entrance, reading something in Lachlann's bearing that had bypassed words entirely, his tail still and his body low.

She didn't argue.

She took the first step down and Lachlann was right behind her, his hand at her back, no longer light and steady but urgent, pressing her forward, navigating the curve of the stair with a speed that made the walls feel closer.

"The loose step," she said.

"I have ye. Keep movin’."

She kept moving.

The torch below came back around the curve and the landing disappeared above them and the stairwell wound tightly downward.

Alba moved through it with her hand on the rope and Lachlann's hand at her back and her heart somewhere in her throat. She did not look down, she did not stumble, and she did not let herself think yet about what four dark ships on the pewter water meant.

There would be time for that at the bottom.

She hoped there would be time for that at the bottom.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

"Ye'll want tae read it yerself," said the man at the dock.

He held out the folded letter with the practiced neutrality of a man who understood that the contents were not his problem.

"From Torquil MacLeod, by order of the king."