by Paula Quinn
“Do ye love her?”
“I… I dinna’ want to love her,” Tristan answered, lifting his gaze from her face to her brother’s. “But I do.”
Cam’s smile was so slight, Tristan thought he might have imagined it. “Why do ye not want to love her? Because she is a Fergusson?”
Tristan shook his head. “Because I am afraid.”
“Ye?” Cam’s smile was gentle, not mocking. “I do not believe it.”
“The last person I loved was taken from me. I dinna’ know if I can survive it a second time.”
They were quiet for a time, listening to the sound of Isobel’s breath. “Do ye always speak the truth so openly, Tristan?”
“How do ye know that everything I tell ye is the truth?”
Cam shrugged and looked at his sleeping sister. “Sometimes when ye watch a person, ye can hear more.”
Tristan grinned at him. “In that case then, aye, I usually find myself bein’ truthful.”
“Honesty is an honorable virtue to possess.”
“Ye’ve been listenin’ to my tales about the knights of the Round Table, then, aye?” Tristan laughed.
“Aye, but I fear I do not remember their names as well as John does.”
“ ’Tis their virtues that should be remembered, no’ their names.”
Cam nodded and was quiet for another moment or two. “Tristan?”
“Aye?”
“I love Annie Kennedy.”
Tristan went silent, playing over in his mind how many times the lass had giggled at him like a lovesick kitten these last few days.
“I know she is a bit smitten with ye at present.” He held up his hand to stop Tristan when he tried to interject. “If ye could win Isobel, I know ye could help me win Annie. Will ye?”
Tristan sat forward in his chair and beckoned Cam to come closer. “I’m goin’ away fer a few days.”
“Why?” Cam asked him quietly. “I did not mean to—”
“I will return,” Tristan assured him. “But while I’m gone, here is what ye must do with Annie.”
In the sitting room the next morning, Isobel paced before the hearth fire, wringing her apron into a tight knot. By the time she was well last night, it was too late to send Andrew off alone, so he sat with Patrick now quietly watching her while they waited for Cameron to finish his morning chores and join them.
“I do not understand why ye are so vexed by MacGregor’s departure,” Andrew said after another ten minutes of her marching back and forth.
Isobel flicked her scalding gaze to him and bit her lip. This was all his fault and she wondered, not for the first time since last eve, how such a foolhardy man would ever lead his clan.
“I do not know why he left so suddenly, Andrew,” she practically barked at him. “He had no idea that my father did not kill his uncle until ye blurted out Cameron’s name.”
“How was I supposed to know what ye told MacGregor and what ye haven’t told him?”
Now Isobel turned on him. Oh, how could Patrick think she would ever take this man for a husband? “Do ye think Tristan would have been so friendly and kind to Cameron if he knew? Do ye honestly think any one of us would have confessed to the Devil MacGregor’s son that it was Cameron who killed the earl?” Just speaking it made her stomach clench and her breath falter. But truly, could the man be so dull-witted?
“I saw him before he left,” Annie said quietly, sitting by the fire. “He did not say he was leaving, but he asked my fergiveness fer frightening me last night.”
“He did not know what I meant, Isobel,” Andrew defended.
“He is verra clever, unlike ye, Andrew,” she told him. “Why would ye expect him to kill Cameron? Why Cameron and not Patrick or Lachlan? Ye said Cameron! He would have no reason to kill anyone else save fer if they killed his uncle!”
“He does not know it was me,” Cameron said quietly as he entered the room, shutting the door behind him.
“Ye were just a babe.” Isobel hurried to him. They never spoke of that terrible day. She did not want to speak of it now, but perhaps it was time. Cameron had lived with his guilt, his remorse that their father had died in his place for too long. “Ye were younger even than Tamas. Father should not have taken ye with him.” Her hands shook as she placed them on her brother’s arm. Dear God, it was a tragic accident that had cost her family so much—and Tristan’s as well. She hadn’t even known the earl had been killed until two days after when the MacGregor Chief had come to take his revenge. They were children, terrified and desperate to hide from the unholy fire that raged in Callum MacGregor’s eyes as he slowed his mount at their front door and shouted her father’s name. Isobel would never forget that day, or the look on her father’s face as he left the manor house. She had watched by the window with Cameron while Alex fought with Patrick to keep him inside. She could not look away as Archibald Fergusson stepped up to that great, snorting warhorse. She thought her father would be trampled before her eyes, but she could not look away. She tried to block Cam’s vision when MacGregor dismounted. He was so very big compared to her father, so fit and strong and silent as he drew his sword.
She turned her gaze now to Andrew. The MacGregors would have never suspected that the fatal arrow had not come from Archibald’s quiver if it wasn’t for Andrew’s father. Kevin Kennedy had gone to Campbell Keep with her father. He had known it was Cam’s arrow, and he shouted for Archie to save himself, to plead his innocence before the Devil. But her father had refused to give up his son.
Isobel had watched, horrified, while MacGregor’s sword disappeared into her father’s chest. She didn’t remember screaming, though she must have done so, because those murderous eyes found her through the window. She thought he was going to come inside and kill the rest of them, but he let her father fall at his feet, and then he was gone.
Oh, how could she have let down her guard with Tristan? She didn’t want to believe she had been correct about him all along, that he had come here because his father wanted the true killer’s name. But why had he left the holding before dawn without so much as a farewell, taking his horse and a few days’ worth of food? And why had he done so after Andrew had implicated Cam in something terrible?
“Ye were the last one to speak with him, Cameron,” she said softly to her brother. “Did he not mention where he was going?”
Cameron shook his head. “He said he would return. That is all.”
But with whom? His father? An army? Isobel closed her eyes to stop the panic rising in her like bile.
She’d almost made it to the kitchen when Cameron’s voice stopped her. She turned, swiping at the tears she tried to hide from him.
“He will not bring harm to us.”
“How do ye know that, Cam? His family has hated ours fer ten years.”
“Because he is a good man.”
“I know that, but he said things would be different.”
Her brother gave her an addled look. “What things? How would they be different? Bel, ye are makin’ no sense.”
“I asked him if he would take vengeance on the man who killed his uncle if the man still lived, and that was his reply. Things would be different.”
“It does not mean—”
“Cam, did ye not see how close he came to killing Andrew last night because Andrew spoke poorly of Robert Campbell? No matter what he has done fer us, or how much we have come to care fer him, he loved his uncle more than anyone in his life. He told me this. I fear he will avenge him.”
“He is in love with ye, sister. He told me this as well. He remained at yer side all through the night.”
Isobel wiped her tears. She wanted to believe he loved her. She had almost believed it last night when he spoke of making her his wife. But if she had truly won his heart he would not have left her the morning after she had an attack—the morning after he might have deduced the truth. “Whatever he told ye, Cam—whatever he told any of us—where is he now?”
Her brother looked away, unab
le to give her any answers.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Hours stretched on into days filled with growing terror for Isobel. She tried not to think about hordes of MacGregors hurdling over the hills, ready to hack them all to pieces, ensuring that this time, they killed the right man. But where the hell had Tristan gone but home? Oh, if he had betrayed them she would kill him. She would poison the drink she offered him before they cut her down. She prayed it would not come to that, and for the first time, she prayed it for more than just Cam’s sake. She’d fallen victim to Tristan’s wondrous charms. She’d discarded every warning going off in her head for the thrill of being in his arms, the delight of his warm, hungry mouth on hers. The sight of him, whether he was working in the fields or teaching her brothers how to wield a sword, heated her blood, and her cheeks along with it. She loved his easy laughter and effortless smiles, and had hated him all week for continuing to exhibit those smiles in Andrew’s presence.
She looked up from her garden and squinted toward the hills. Please, she beseeched God, let him come back, and let him be alone.
Cameron walked past her, shirtless, on his way to the field. Isobel was worried about him. He’d been acting strangely since the morn that Tristan left. He seemed not to care at all about his fate, only about impressing Annie Kennedy. At night, he brought her mead to the sitting room and boldly sat near her. He wasn’t as quiet as usual, but he spoke just enough to heighten the mysterious air he already possessed. The biggest change in him, though, besides his traipsing around bare-chested, was the way he let his eyes linger over Annie, even letting her catch him looking, rather than always shielding his beautiful eyes behind his lashes.
Isobel wanted to be happy for him, especially since his new approach seemed to be working wonders on Annie—who’d asked to stay another week. But she couldn’t relax. Not with his possible demise so close at hand.
“If they wed,” Isobel told Patrick later that night while Cam and Annie laughed together beside the fire, “and Andrew comes here to visit every other day, I still will never marry him.”
Patrick checked her bishop. “Who do ye wish to marry, then?”
“What?” Isobel looked up at him from the board. “No argument?”
“I would not let ye marry Andrew after he proved to me that he is as foolhardy as Alex. And I also do not want ye to marry a man just because he is the only one available at the moment.”
“I am glad ye changed yer mind.”
Her brother shrugged and said quietly, “I had already changed it before he provoked Tristan to nearly kill him in our hallway.”
“Oh?” She glanced at him curiously.
“After a conversation I had with Tristan about it a few days ago. He told me that ye would wither away and die wed to a man who did not love ye passionately and with purpose.”
Isobel sank back into her chair. Passionately and with purpose. It was how Tristan lived, how he would love the woman who captured his heart. She wanted to weep. She had never cared about having another man in her life. She already had six, and that was enough, until Tristan stepped into her life and swept all her carefully laid plans aside with the flash of a frivolous dimple and kisses that set her heart to ruin. He fired passions in her she hadn’t even known she possessed. He excited her, angered her, and made her feel like a woman instead of a caretaker. “He was correct to tell ye that. I would wither and die.”
“I know,” Patrick told her. “And I am sorry it took him to help me realize it. It seems he knows my sister better than I do.”
It seemed he did, indeed. Tristan had crawled under her skin and into her veins… and stolen her heart.
“Why do ye suppose he left?” she asked Patrick, forgetting the game.
“I do not know. But I cannot believe that after saving Alex from his family, Tamas from himself, and the rest of us from the Cunninghams, he would put us in danger. Have faith in him, Bel. I do.”
“I want to,” she admitted. “More than anything, I want to.”
Two days later, Tristan still had not returned. Isobel had begun to miss him more than she feared him. The days were duller without him in them. Her brothers felt the impact of his absence, too. Without the extra pair of hands to help with the daily chores, Patrick could barely keep awake at night long enough to finish a game of chess. John spoke of him constantly, reminding the rest of them what Tristan would say about this thing or that. It near drove Isobel mad. Tamas was the only one glad to see him gone, except that the Highlander had stolen his sling.
By the end of the seventh day of his absence, they had all begun to suspect that he was never coming back, so when John plunged into the kitchen shouting that a rider was approaching over the hills, Isobel nearly dropped her bowl of rabbit stew.
“Is it Tristan? Is he alone?” She didn’t wait for John to answer but raced him back to the door and pulled it open. She stopped in her tracks at the sight of him dismounting a few yards away. He was alone, save for Patrick and the others surrounding him and welcoming him back with warm smiles and eager questions.
Dear God, she had tried to forget how beautiful he was, but it all came back to her like a cannonball to her chest. With a flick of his head that swept his hair from his face and sent it tumbling over his shoulders, he turned toward her as if he could hear her heart beating against her ribs. Their gazes met and he seemed to forget everyone else around him as his smile deepened. No man had ever looked at her before with such replete joy, as if his life had just been returned to him. Isobel wanted to run to him, but John beat her to it. She could only watch, her breath stalled at the tenderness of their reunion. Did Tristan truly care for her—for all of them?
She moved toward him slowly, not wishing to steal his attention from John’s cheerful questions.
“We thought ye were not coming back.” Her brother laughed when Tristan mussed his fiery hair. “Where did ye go?”
Tristan lifted his gaze to hers, stopping her advance. “Did ye miss me, then?”
She did not answer him. She couldn’t. She feared if she opened her mouth, her heart might drop out of it and fall at his feet. She was angry with him for leaving, frightened of where he had gone, and so happy to see him again, and alone, that her legs nearly gave out beneath her.
“Aye, we missed ye,” John assured him hastily, saving her from speaking. “Isobel feared ye went home.”
She opened her mouth to deny the charge, but Tristan cast her a repentant grin. He moved to retrieve a long parcel from his mount and then another large bag tied to his saddle.
“I went to Glasgow, to a marketplace I had seen when I traveled with my kin to England.”
“To Glasgow?” Isobel asked on a tenuous whisper when he turned back to her. “Whatever fer?”
“Fer this,” he said, reaching into the bag and pulling out another sack secured in twine.
“What is it?”
“Butterbur.”
He held it out to her, but she did not accept the gift right away. Oh, how she had doubted him. He hadn’t gone to his father but all the way to Glasgow. For her. For butterbur. It was almost too much for her to take in, and Isobel stared at his offering through misty eyes.
“I spoke to a merchant and he told me that mullein also works fer what ails ye, so I purchased some of that as well, and—”
Her arms around Tristan’s neck halted the remainder of his words, and his breath, for he did not breathe in her tight embrace.
“Thank ye,” she whispered, clinging to him, delighting more than she ever could have imagined in the feel of his arms closing around her. He hadn’t betrayed them.
“Tristan?”
Isobel broke away from their embrace at the sound of John’s voice. She blushed and then smiled at the clear effect she had on Tristan’s normally unruffled composure.
“Did ye purchase anything fer me in Glasgow?”
“John!” Isobel scolded, but Tristan only smiled, gaining back what he’d lost a moment ago locked in her arms.
Isobel blinked back the tears stinging her eyes. She didn’t know why Tristan’s declaration would make her weep like a fool, except that he cared for them and, finally, she trusted him.
“Come now,” he prodded John tenderly. “I’ll show ye what I brought fer ye inside the house.”
When Cam drew close to help him with his offerings, Tristan tossed his free arm around him. “And how goes it with ye, Cameron? Did ye do as I said?”
“I did.” Cam grinned at him, a bit shyly still, but changed, with a dash of confidence he had not possessed before.
“And?”
“And she has agreed to let me court her.”
Isobel looked at the two of them laughing together. She should have suspected that Tristan had something to do with Cam’s bold behavior. Her brother must have asked him for help with Annie, and Tristan had given it. Clearly, Tristan did not suspect what Andrew had implied. Or mayhap he did and he didn’t care. Oh, it was almost too much to hope for.
“I love it when I am correct.”
She looked up at Patrick and smiled, taking his hand as he led her back to the house behind Tristan and the others.
“He is not what any of us expected, aye, Bel?”
No, he wasn’t. Although she had seen traces of his chivalrous character from the beginning, she had never allowed herself to believe that a MacGregor could be so kind, so thoughtful, so… honorable. But Tristan MacGregor was a man who thought a different way. He was not what she expected. He was infinitely better.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Tristan stepped inside the house and paused to inhale. Hell, he’d dreamed of her cooking while he was away. He’d dreamed of this house with its warm, intimate rooms and a bed that was too small to house him. And he’d dreamed of Isobel, a woman who had somehow looked beyond what everyone else saw and shown him a path toward home. Not toward Camlochlin, for though he loved the place of his birth, he had never truly fit in. He didn’t want to. What he wanted was gone, and he had made himself an outcast, never belonging to anyone or anywhere again. Until he met Isobel. It scared the hell out of him to let himself feel again, but he had no defense against it when he looked into her eyes, her smile, and saw home.