Once they’d dismounted and had both had a few moments of privacy, Cal guided Isla to a long, flat-topped boulder where they were far enough from the trail not to be seen, yet the trees didn’t crowd them in. They shared one loaf and drank from the skin of ale as they sat on the boulder’s edge with their feet firmly on the forest floor.
Cal looked up into the sun-dappled canopy overhead. ‘I know your uncle is at Restenneth Priory, but what will you do there once he learns about your father’s passing?’
‘I suspect he will find me a place to stay where I can learn new skills and dedicate my life to God.’
He turned his attention to the woman sitting beside him. ‘Is that what you want to do?’ Was he the only one who didn’t know what he wanted?
‘I have little choice.’ She shrugged one shoulder as if she was resigned to her fate, but only because she didn’t have any other options.
She did have a choice. He was riding ahead of them with his personal bodyguard, searching for his betrothed. There must be more to what happened between her father and Dalziel.
‘Or you could marry.’
Isla’s upper body stiffened and jerked backward as if she’d been burned. She turned her face away and pressed her fisted hands into her stomach. ‘Nae.’ She turned her head toward him to speak the single word before turning away once more and slowly shaking her head. ‘I will never marry Dalziel.’
Cal knew so little of what had gone on between Thane and Dalziel, but now they were nearing Isla’s destination, Cal needed to know why he was delivering on one promise at the expense of another’s.
‘Why?’
Chapter 11
Isla’s stomach churned. Why did Callum have to ask such a question when they were so close to reaching the priory and her last remaining kin? She clenched her hands, knowing she’d never have made it this far without him. Sharing her reasons for refusing to wed Dalziel was the least she could do after he had done so much for her.
Fabric shushed against stone as Callum shifted his position beside her. The full weight of his attention settled upon her like a transparent veil.
Isla dipped her chin and then held it high. ‘My mother was beautiful. Aside from the local men in Aberdeen, she had many suitors. Men travelling through Aberdeen or sailors pulling into port for a short stay. Any who saw her fell under her spell.’ Speaking about her mother rewarded Isla with a clearer memory of her loving face.
‘Father happily retold the stories of his and Dalziel’s rivalry over my mother’s hand. He was so proud of his “victory”, as he called it. Mother would laugh and playfully slap his arm, but the expression on her face proved she loved hearing the stories and she also loved him.’
She lowered her head. ‘I miss her.’
Warmth settled over her hands clenched in her lap. The feel of his touch and the gentle squeeze of encouragement before he released her was much the same as she’d given him the evening before.
‘I was born six years after my mother and father married. As far back as I can remember, Dalziel and a young Morgan came to visit every day, but they stopped coming when I was ten and they learned my mother was with child again.
‘Several months later, Morgan came alone. I told him Father hadn’t yet returned from the market. He said it dinnae matter. He’d come to see Mother.
‘My sight was often blurred by then but I was certain I saw blood covering the right side of Morgan’s face when he stormed out of the outbuilding where Mother was rending tallow.’ Isla curled her fingers into tight fists at the memory. ‘I found my mother on the floor by the fire pit struggling to climb to her feet.’ Isla’s finger nails bit into her palms. ‘I was sure she hid a knife beneath her skirts … before she asked me to fetch Father as the babe was coming early.’
Isla’s heart started pounding as it had that day. ‘I helped her inside the cottage and I ran and ran as fast as I could to find Father. But we were too late … mother lost the child, a little boy.’ Her heart squeezed at the remembered loss of the little brother she never had. ‘There was so much blood. Mother died the next day, but she made me promise to never tell Father about the knife or Morgan’s visit.’ Her pounding heart slowed to a thud and her nails bit deeper.
‘Morgan never returned to our cottage, but Dalziel visited now and then over the next few years. Mostly to tell father how well his trading business was doing. Father wasn’t interested. I think part of him died along with my mother.’
Isla stopped to gather the shattered pieces of her memories and juggled them into some sort of order. Callum said nothing and she appreciated his silence. ‘We stumbled through the next few years, Father cutting and selling meat when he managed to rise from his bed, while I rendered tallow and made candles like Mother had shown me. On those days when we went to market to sell our goods, we stood side-by-side, but there was a distance between us. I asked him often if all was well and he always said everything was fine, but nothing was ever fine again.
‘I know he lost the woman he loved and the son he’d always wanted, but I was still there. I missed him then. But when he stopped lying his arm across my shoulder and drawing me in to press a kiss on the top of my head, I started to think I was nothing but a burden.
‘Then one day, soon after my fourteenth birthday, Dalziel came to boast of his travels and his growing wealth. I hid behind the curtain dividing the cottage’s main room and where we slept. They argued. I’d never heard them speak to each other or to anyone with such rage in their voices. Dalziel stood still and watched father pace from one side of the room to the other. They spoke of my mother. I peeked out. My eyes had worsened but I could still see them both and what they were doing.’
Isla edged forward on the boulder and gripped her knees with both hands. ‘I’d made a large pot of beef broth and had set it over the fire to keep hot. Father lifted it from the iron hook and was setting it on the stones when he lost hold of it and it spilled everywhere. I looked on in horror as it splashed over Father’s booted feet, waiting for him to scream out in pain, but instead his anger grew and he lifted the iron pot upright with his bare hands.
‘Dalziel said nothing, only stared at father, then the pot, then the steaming broth running over the floor and seeping into the rug, for what seemed like forever. Dalziel left without another word. I stayed behind the curtain and watched Father fall to his knees. That was the first time I saw my father cry. I covered my mouth with both hands and cried with him, while he stared at his blistered fingers and palms, yet felt nae pain.’
Of all the memories Isla wished to keep, this was one she’d rather forget, yet couldn’t.
‘Dalziel returned two days later and requested to see me. Still I didn’t understand all that had gone on between him and my father, but when he took hold of my chin with his thumb and forefinger and turned my head this way and that as if assessing me, I pulled free from his grasp, expecting his anger. Instead he chuckled and said I’ve waited this long, I can wait a while longer. He left. Father then sat me down and told me he had the illness and to keep us from being separated immediately, he’d agreed to Dalziel’s vow to keep quiet about his discovery if he promised my hand in marriage after he died.’
Her stomach had turned at hearing such a bargain. ‘I felt betrayed and hated Father and Dalziel, but I soon realised if I didn’t go along with the plan, Father would be taken from me there and then.’ She inhaled deeply. ‘From then on Father and I became recluses and were self-reliant. We rarely left the cottage unless absolutely necessary. In the early days, Father ventured out, but as time wore on, evidence of his condition began to show on his face. I was then the one to leave the cottage, but only a handful of times. The last was to tell Sorcha we could no longer visit each other.’ She’d left her friend, the only one she’d ever had. She’d cried and stumbled all the way home.
‘Father had known he was ill, but didn’t know much about the condition he was suffering from. He was afraid for himself, but his fear of me catching whatever the sickne
ss was turned out to be the reason he’d stopped hugging me and kissing the top of my head.’ Knowing his illness was to blame for him distancing himself from her had been like a balm to her tattered heart. But not being able to feel his arms about her or touch him in any way had been a torment that had stolen him from her years before he’d left.
Isla consoled herself the way she’d learned to whenever her loneliness became an agony too painful to bear. She folded her arms around herself and squeezed tight, drawing strength from her own comfort.
‘I will never marry Dalziel. I refuse to be his victory.’ She lifted her chin and turned toward Callum. ‘I would also rather die than be a stepmother to a man who killed my own mother and brother.’
* * *
Cal stared at the woman forged of strength and sorrow sitting beside him. She’d withstood so much loss in her life yet refused to give up or give in without a fight. He now understood much more about Isla’s circumstances and her reasons for not upholding her betrothal to Dalziel and committing her life to God instead. The hatred he’d glimpsed on Morgan’s scarred face on the night he and Isla had escaped made him glad he was honouring Thane’s final wish.
Her father had made a misguided promise to a man who was taking advantage of his ill circumstances, someone who’d never gotten over losing the woman he wanted for himself. Cal now understood Thane’s reason for making the promise in the first place. He wanted to spend more time with his daughter. He didn’t want to leave her alone, to be left at another’s mercy at such a young age and with her eyesight fading. He understood her father’s action, but did she?
‘Your father loved you very much. He was protecting you the only way he could.’
Isla nodded. ‘I know. I also dinnae think he understood what Dalziel and Morgan were truly capable of. I miss him. I have missed him for much longer than the weeks since he left the cottage. I missed not seeing him for the last two years, but it was not being able to hold his hand or to touch his face to remind me of what he looked like, that is what I miss the most.’ Her hands slid down her arms and folded across her chest. She cupped her elbows. ‘I never truly hated Father, but have begged forgiveness every day since.’ She released her elbows and moved her hands to her lap.
Cal looked at her hands, scrunched tight to one another as if she was afraid to let herself go. She’d lost her sight and then her father’s illness had taken away her ability to seek reassurance from his touch, the sense she used to learn, to feel, to remember things she could no longer see. She’d lost so much. Lost the people she loved and trusted and was now running from those who would use her for their own gain. Until she reached her uncle at the priory, Cal was all she had. But she didn’t know him, couldn’t even see him. She’d had no choice but to put her trust in him.
He’d made a promise and he’d ensure she made it safely to the priory. But before they moved anywhere, there was something he needed to do. For her.
Cal shifted along the rock’s flat surface, and leaning forward, he cupped the tops of her hands in his palm. ‘I am sorry for all you have lost.’ Isla leaned back and lowered her chin a mite as if she could see his hand covering hers. ‘Isla, whatever you do, I know you will do it well. You are a woman to be admired and have a strength many men and women would covet.’
Her hands relaxed beneath his, but Cal didn’t let go. Instead he shifted along the stone, closer. She raised her chin.
‘You know my name.’ He lifted her hands from her lap and small twin lines formed between her brows. ‘It is my pleasure to know you.’ He leaned further forward and separating her hands, he set them on each side of his face. ‘Now, ’tis your turn to know me.’
Her cold fingers didn’t move. The twin lines of uncertainty between her brows deepened and her top teeth worried her lower lip. Cal hadn’t meant to alarm her or make her feel uncomfortable. He just wanted her to know him better, to remind her she wasn’t alone and to give her back something precious she had lost.
Cal was on the verge of retaking her hands and setting them back on her lap, when she drew a long audible breath and released it just as slowly, as if preparing to begin something she enjoyed but wanted to savour. Cal waited and watched the lines smooth from her forehead. Her tongue darted out to moisten her full lips.
Chestnut lashes lowered, fanning her high-boned cheeks, the pads of her chill fingers moved a fraction downward along his whiskered jaw and stilled as her brows rose and her mouth curved upward in surprise.
‘It has been some time,’ he said, and paused as her concentration shifted to the sound of his voice and the changes she could feel through his words, ‘since I have scraped the whiskers from my face.’
Her fingers resumed their search, skimming his whiskers upward toward his ears. The slight tilting of her head revealed her changing thoughts. ‘’Tis more prickly this way.’ Again her fingers stopped moving at the end of his jawline. ‘What colour is yer hair?’
A tingling sensation ran down his nape as her fingers left his face and found the edge of his hairline behind his ears. He focused on her question. ‘My hair is of a brown hue, like when the earth has been turned and left to dry one full day.’ Not dark, nor light, but a shade in-between. She nodded as if she were imagining the colour he described.
Cal wore his hair shorter than Lachlan, or Duff or Adair, and he was wise to the precise moment Isla discovered the length, as her fingertips danced along the base of his neck. Cal managed to withhold a shiver but needed to draw a long breath when her touch retraced the sensitive skin up the sides of his neck to his face. By the time the barely there tips of her cool fingers had skimmed their way up to his forehead, Cal was questioning his senses for making Isla such an offer.
But he hadn’t expected his skin to tingle and erupt into tiny bumps at the touch of her questing hands. He hadn’t thought about how much he would enjoy the feel of her learning his features. Hadn’t believed he would fall under the spell of her touch as she followed the line of his brows and the shape of his closed eyelids.
‘What colour are yer eyes?’
‘Both grey and blue.’ His tone rang soft and low. ‘Blue like a midmorning sky when the sun is shining. Grey when clouds move in to steal the light.’ His voice, his words sounded as if they’d been spoken by another.
Her thumbs, first one then the other, traced down along the ridge of his nose to the small whiskered dip below. Subtle shifts and changes to her face, a quirk of her mouth, the return of the double lines on her forehead, the angle of her head, all lured him closer until her thumbs leaped over his lips and rested against his chin. Her fingertips stilled, fanning the flesh above his upper lip.
The feel of her hands encircling his mouth drew his gaze to hers. She spoke. ‘Ye are a fine-looking man, Callum.’
He stared at her smiling, slightly parted lips, while her hands surrounded his. Her mouth drew him, pulling him in. He went willingly, his blood pulsing swift in his neck. His fingers reaching, aching to touch her. Cal stilled and stopped his mouth moving nearer, stopped his hands cradling each side of her head. He searched her face, so close. ‘Forgive me,’ he said softly. ‘I was about to kiss you.’ There, he’d admitted what he’d almost done. What he wanted to do.
‘And now yer not?’
Cal heard the disappointment in her whispered words. Had she sensed what he’d come so close to doing? Did she want him to kiss her? Was she experiencing the same feeling of warmth flowing through her body, the same longing to cover her mouth with his?
He lifted his hands and cupped her face, his gaze watching closely for any sign she no longer wanted his kiss, any change to show she’d changed her mind, silently hoping he saw none. His need to kiss her became a need he couldn’t control. He inched closer.
Her hands slid from his mouth, along his jaw and down his neck and halted on his shoulders. Her fingers flexed, pulling him. ‘I’ve never been kissed before.’
‘Nor have I.’
Warm and soft, her lips gave in to the gentle press
ure of his. He withdrew a little then pressed his lips against her mouth again; more firmly this time, firmer the next. Isla responded with equal pressure, her mouth tasting, her fingers digging into his shoulders, tugging him closer. He wanted to be closer still.
He leaned forward and angled her face upward. A small shivered breath escaped her mouth between kisses, encouraging him to take more, telling him he was doing it right. His tongue swept across her lips, parting them, needing to know more. She tasted of bread and fine ale. She tasted delicious. He now understood his earlier thoughts. Cal was suddenly ravenous.
How could he have survived for so long without her kiss? He wanted to devour her, to sup, to drink in her goodness, to take her in and protect her. He wanted her to know how beautiful she was, how sorry he was for all she’d suffered. He needed her to understand he would never let another hurt her again.
A moan sounded deep inside her throat.
What in God’s name was he doing kissing the woman he’d sworn to deliver safely to the priory? He stopped, lifted his head and stared down into Isla’s face. Cheeks flushed and glowing, eyes closed, her lashes lowered at rest. Her lips moist and swollen, the pulse point in her neck beating as wildly as his own, their breaths mingling, loud and fast in the small space separating their hungry mouths.
Starving again, he ran his thumbs across her high cheekbones and set himself back and away from the temptation of tasting her again. Kissing Isla was dangerous. The newfound knowledge only reminded him of why he’d never kissed a woman before. The hardening beneath his plaid was more proof that when it came to the desires of the body, he was weak. Just like his mother.
‘Thank ye.’
Cal’s heart pounded so loud with regret for what he’d done, he thought Isla had just thanked him.
‘I often wondered how a kiss would feel,’ her hands skimmed up his neck and cupped his jawline, her thumbs softly tracing the length of his mouth. ‘I’d begun to believe I’d never know.’ Her tongue swept out across her lips, leaving them glistening and moist and wearing a smile. ‘But now I do.’
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