Page 132 of The Laird’s Sinful Obsession

"Ye'd better be," she said. Her voice was steady, but he could feel her hands gripping his shirt.

He pulled back just far enough to look at her. "Go tae the keep. Stay with James. Dinnae come out until I come fer ye."

"Lachlann."

"Please," he said.

She looked at him for a long moment, and then she nodded.

He kissed her, quick and hard, and then he let her go and turned back to the armory.

"Mount up," he called to the men. "We ride now."

The courtyard was organized chaos. Horses being brought out, men checking weapons, the controlled urgency of a force preparing to move fast.

Lachlann swung into the saddle and looked back once at the keep.

Alba was standing at the window, her hand raised. Captain sat beside her.

He raised his hand in answer, and then he turned his horse toward the gate and rode.

Alba watched from the window until Lachlann disappeared through the gate, and then she stood there longer, staring at the empty courtyard, her hand still raised like an idiot.

Captain whined softly beside her.

"I ken," she said. "I ken, I dinnae like it either."

She turned from the window.

James had stationed himself at the door to the keep with two men, and his expression when she'd tried to leave had been so apologetic and so immovable that she'd stopped arguing and simply retreated to the window instead.

She hated it.

Hated standing there doing nothing while Lachlann rode toward whatever Torquil had planned.

Hated the helplessness of it, hated the way her heart was beating too fast and her hands wouldn't stop shaking.

She was married now. Legally, formally, in every way that mattered. And her husband had ridden off to defend a village that was burning because of her.

She pressed her forehead against the cold glass.

Time moved strangely after that.

She could see the distant smudge of smoke rising from the direction of the village, could hear the faint, terrible sounds carried on the wind. There was shouting, the clash of steel, things she couldn't identify and didn't want to.

She watched and she waited, and Captain pressed his warm flank against her leg and didn't move.

She didn't know how long she'd been standing there when she heard it.

Not fighting. Not fire.

Hoofbeats.

Fast and purposeful, coming not from the direction of the village but from the south, from the coastal path that skirted the castle's eastern wall.

She frowned.

Captain heard it too. His ears went up. His body went still in that way that meant something was wrong.