“What of him?” Charlotte asked.
“Well,” Gloria began. “I mean, he and the Duke don’t exactly resemble one another. The Duke is so large and imposing, as well as being fair complected. But Ezra? Slender, tall, dark hair cut in a fashionable way…”
“Oh no, Gloria. Do you mean to tell me you find him attractive?” Charlotte laughed.
“Perhaps just a little,” Gloria replied with a smile. She was older than Charlotte and might be a few years younger than Ezra, but the idea of a servant having feelings for one of the masters of the home was folly.
“I did see him once a few months ago. He was out in town while I was buying some veg for supper. He was in a conversation that seemed to have him startled. So clearly I didn’t wish to interrupt. But he is quite the man,” Gloria continued.
“You say he seemed startled?” Charlotte asked with concern.
“Oh, I don’t know. I suppose it was men’s business, not mine. I’m just a maid, what do I know?” Gloria said.
Charlotte had seen Ezra in a conversation like that once before as well. It was just after she had been returned by Caitriona but before coming back to the house.
She wondered if Ezra had plans to get his brother more permanent help. With the Duke’s growing addiction, was there a chance he would be taken to a sanitarium?
Charlotte could only hope that Isabel would be returned before it came to that.
Chapter 30
“Ride with me, lass,” Edan said with a smile, handing Isabel a pair of boots. He was eager to be outdoors, and Isabel longed to be with him, despite her self-denial.
“I would love to. Where shall we go?” she asked. She gave a hopeful smile that she immediately regretted, for it betrayed everything in her heart that she had wished to put aside.
You fool…she thought to herself with guilt.
“Well, I havnae shown ye me favorite waterfall. It isnae too far, actually. Just right in the forest. I ken ye’ll love it. It’s right beautiful, and so are ye, me lass,” Edan said. His ability to romance her had Isabel constantly on the edge of joy and grief.
Why? Why is he everything I could ever have wanted in a man? Why is he so good and so kind and so romantic? Why is he all of these things when I wish to see him merely as James’s killer? It would be far easier to know only that side of him, she thought. The internal battle was becoming fiercer than ever.
“A waterfall sounds absolutely perfect, my Laird,” Isabel said. They left her room and began to walk down the floors of the castle, passing the castle servants and chatting casually.
“Ye ken, ye dinnae have to call me that. I mean, I willnae lie, it’s quite lovely to hear those words from yer mouth, but ye should ken that I am fine with being closer to ye than that. Me sister and Robert dinnae call me their Laird. Ye dinnae have to either,” he said.
“Well, then, what should I call you?” Isabel asked.
“What do ye wish to call me?” he asked back.
Isabel looked up and down this man that she had grown so fond of over the past two months. Finally, the name came to her.
“My Titan,” she said playfully.
Edan stared dumbly for a moment.
“Ha!” he finally shouted. “Really? That was the best ye could come up with? Only the most popular nickname for all of us with red hair in this country?”
Isabel was embarrassed. “Well, it makes the most sense.”
“Ah, lass, ye are awfully adorable, ye ken that? Perhaps we’ll find another name another time. For now, stick to ‘my Laird’,” he said in a proper English voice.
Isabel smirked at his impression and felt her stomach do a flip. She found that she enjoyed his teasing, even if it was at her expense. She supposed this was truly the difference between mockery and flirtation and Edan had struck a balance expertly.
“Well, my Laird, it appears that we have made it to the stables. Which beast have I the glory of riding today?” Isabel asked.
“That one right there,” he said, pointing to the same speckled mare she had ridden before.
“Perfect,” she replied.
“Ye ken, we discussed what ye ought to call me, but we havnae returned to oor chat about what I’m to call ye, lass. Ye were supposed to tell me yer name by weeks’ end a while back, but with all that happened, it didnae come about again,” Edan reminded her as he mounted his steed.
Isabel also climbed up, taking her time in the effort to avoid his question. “Perhaps I need a bit longer,” she said.
“Lass, it’s been two bloody months near enough. How long do ye need? It’s only a name, ye ken,” he said, showing his irritation enough to make Philip leave them and distract himself grooming another horse.
Isabel sighed.
“It is not merely a name, my Laird. It is my identity. It is a gateway to my father’s identity. It would put his life in danger, and you know it. You would be charged with sending him a ransom for me, and your people would demand action be taken.
"It would mean separation from you as well,” Isabel explained, adding the last part quietly.
Edan considered the truth of that. Once Isabel’s family had been determined, she would be sent back to them. He would no longer have an excuse for keeping her hostage. His clan would expect her to be sent away so they could be rid of the responsibility of her.
If she tells me her name, I might lose all of this, I might lose her presence here, her company. She would return to her faither and I’d nae see her again, he thought.
“Right ye are, lass. And I quite like that name, too. Lass. Bonnie lass. Bonnie? What about that? I can just call ye Bonnie,” he suggested.
Isabel laughed. “You have already had to call me Elyse, then just simply ‘lass’, and now you wish to call me Bonnie as a name? No, I think not. We ought to just stick with ‘lass’ for now.”
“As ye insist, me lass. Just dinnae go getting it into yer head that it’s yer real name. Once we figure out a way to keep ye here as me wife, then I’ll learn yer true name, agreed?” he asked.
“Agreed,” Isabel said softly. “So, you truly want me as a wife?”
Would he want me if he knew what I have done? Or what I plan to do? she wondered.
“Nothing in me heart could ever change the way I feel about ye, me lass. Ye are truly the greatest gift and joy I could have found. Ye ken, it’s been a difficult time. But there ye were. Like a vision, just when I needed ye,” he said.
Isabel could not respond for her emotions were so overpowering that any word she spoke would come out a cry.
“Anyhoo, we cannae spend the whole day up here on oor horses. Let’s go!” he said, using his foot to signal to the horse that he was ready to move forward.
They went along at a trot to begin with until Edan looked at Isabel with a mischievous grin. He kicked a little harder, and his steed charged forward at a rapid pace. Isabel’s mare, Beatrice, tried to follow behind. She kept pace fairly well, considering the differences in the physique of the two.
After the meadow, they rode straight into the forest, where Edan slowed his steed to walking.
Breathless with excitement, Isabel was disappointed to slow down, but also knew the dangers of whipping through branches at a canter.
“That was lovely!” she exclaimed.
“Wait until ye see the waterfall, lass!” he replied.
“I cannot hear any water nearby, you said it was close, right?” she asked.
“Aye, lass. Not too much further. Soon ye will hear a gentle river, then a wee bit along ye will hear a growing roar until ye see it all before ye. Lastly, ye will feel the spray of it,” he promised.
And truly, it was mere moments before the sound of a small rushing river was heard and then seen. As they rode downstream with the water, a low rumble began that soon grew to a spontaneous gushing.
Through the trees, Isabel could finally see where another river merged, and the two fell, creating a stunning thirty-foot cascade.
“I ken it’s nae the
biggest in Scotland, but it’s the biggest nearby, and I do love it here. What do ye think?” Edan asked.
“It is beautiful!” Isabel replied with emotion. They looked down to where it fell beneath them and continued to ride that they might make their way down along the banks where the two rivers split again.
Reaching the bottom, they dismounted and sat on boulders lining a portion of the land along the water. There was a gentle spray here, but they were far enough along that they stayed mostly dry and were able to hear one another speak, although their voices had to be quite loud.
“Hungry?” Edan asked, pulling an apple from the sack tied to his steed.
“Yes, I am quite actually. Thank you,” Isabel replied, taking it from him and chomping a large chunk. A bit of the juice dripped down her chin.
Edan quickly came to her side and playfully licked the juice from her face, making her squeal. He then put his lips on hers and kissed her.
“Delicious,” he whispered loudly enough for her to hear above the waterfall.
He wrapped his arms around her from behind, and she leaned back into his torso.
They sat for hours, relaxing, talking, flirting.
For Isabel, it was a moment of comfort and peace, the kind of serenity that she had been missing. All of her lies seemed to be blossoming into truths. She had lied and told Edan she loved him as a means of gaining his trust.
But at this moment, she knew that it was true—more than she had ever known the truth of anything. No matter her mission, she could not deny that this man who had brought her to the waterfall was the one she longed to spend her days with.
“Well, lass, perhaps we ought to return. Believe me, I dinnae want to, but I fear that if we dinnae head back now, I’ll never find the strength to go again,” Edan said.
“Yes, I understand that completely,” Isabel replied. “And you are right. We must return now. Otherwise it is not our actions I fear, but those of your subjects.”
“I told ye not to call them me subjects. They are me clan, lass. And they will grow to love ye. Maybe. Someday,” he teased.
Isabel gave him a disbelieving smile, knowing he was trying to joke with her. Despite her concern with his words, she remained confident, recognizing that she truly did love Edan.
Chapter 31
The Duke of Gordon and Ezra sat in the cigar room of their famed acquaintance, Lord Edmonds of Surrey. As a man of strategy, decorated for his outstanding bravery in battle, Lord Edmonds was the perfect choice for help with their second campaign to retrieve Isabel from the Scots.
Despite his ferocity in battle, his mannerisms and slender physique seemed better suited to a man of science than of war. His hand held his cigar in a way that seemed to flutter.
“And Your Grace, you are certain that this is the very same young Laird that so cruelly murdered your son and took...your eye?” he asked in a slow, superior way.
“Yes. Well, no. That is to say, he was assuredly the one who made the order. It was some brute of a man that actually carried out the murder,” replied the Duke.
“Ah,” said Lord Edmonds, exhaling a bit of smoke before proceeding. “So, what you really mean to say is that it is merely a suspicion that causes you to think this man killed your son, who would have been the future Duke of Gordon.”
The Duke’s eye narrowed. “I mean no such thing.”
Lord Edmonds chuckled with condescension. “Oh, no, my dear friend. I can see that you are quite stuck in your ways on this. Perhaps that is why you were not successful the first time.”
“How dare you!” shouted the Duke, standing to his full height which was significantly more than that of his newest adversary.
The military man was far from intimidated and merely sat with a gentle bounce of his crossed legs.
“Brother, we had best leave,” suggested Ezra, who was feeling more and more like a nanny for his brother. It was nearly more than he could handle now.
“Ah, yes, perhaps it is better that you do,” Lord Edmonds taunted. “After all, it is nearly dinner, and His Grace needs his wine.”
Ezra clenched his jaw at the comment but kept quiet while the Duke had not registered the insult at all. Rather his mind had turned to the thought of wine and his desire for it.
The knowledge that the Duke of Gordon’s reputation had fallen so low was of great disgust to Ezra. He was furious at his brother for allowing himself to become such a pathetic figure.
The brothers left the mansion of Lord Edmonds, and Ezra convinced his brother to accompany him to a quiet pub rather than his usual high-class gentleman’s club known for high stakes gambling and, in the back rooms, opium.
Perhaps I should take him there, after all, thought Ezra. He had found himself— more and more frequently — wondering if there was a chance his brother was unfit for his position.
The Duke continued to plan and strategize throughout the evening until some semblance of a plan clocked into place. At Ezra’s insistence, the Duke agreed they would call his advisors to form a more thorough plan.
The next day, the advisors to the Duke of Gordon came together as they had planned. The majority were uneasy at being together, wondering what it would mean as the Duke had lost the faith of the majority of them by this point.
Ezra stood to lead the meeting as the Duke was running late, having slept in after the evening spent indulging in drink. Ezra had hinted at such as the men took their seats.
“Thank you all for coming and your devotion to assisting my brother in this matter. I understand that you are all men of wisdom, grace, and generosity. I ask that you would be merciful with my brother this last time as we attempt to bring Isabel home.
“Be on guard, my brother is feeling rash in his urgency to get her back. She has been gone longer than we ever dreamt. He has experienced so much loss, so understand that this is painful and difficult for him,” Ezra finished.
“And what is it he wants now?” asked William, seeming far less generous than Ezra had given the him credit for. After the failure of the previous attempt, the men were clearly jaded.
“He wants to try again, use a different tactic, make better plans now that he knows how they fight. And truthfully, this time I will be taking more energy in the planning. We want my brother to know that he is still the great Duke of Gordon, an honored man, but we have to go about this differently and more thoughtfully,” Ezra said.
“Well yes, there is no chance we are going to follow him in the same way as before. Things have to be different this time if we are to lend any aid,” William replied with venom. He had lost a hundred men and nearly as many horses in the previous battle. Telling the families of those men that their husbands and fathers were dead had not been his favorite moment in life.
“I assure you, it will not be the same as before,” Ezra promised them.
“You must understand,” began the Duke’s friend Iain. “We all lost so much during the previous attempt to rescue Isabel. Asking us to charge forth with him again is a lot. It is more than we can potentially handle.”
“Yes, I understand,” said Ezra.
“We do not want to lose the lives of so many we care about,” William added in haste.
“Agreed. We do not want to lose them either. That is why we need men of strategy. Men like you,” Ezra said.
The sound of the Duke of Gordon came as he shuffled his feet through the hallway. His frame seemed to be growing with every glass of wine he drank, and he had grown fond of comforting himself through food.
The door to the room opened, and he entered, wearing his finest clothing, although it was stretched at the seams.
“Gentlemen! How honored I am to have you here,” he said with enthusiasm. He seemed in good spirits, having no knowledge of the conversation that had just taken place.
“Sit, Your Grace,” Ezra said, pulling his brother’s elaborately carved chair out for him.
“Thank you, thank you,” he replied. “Now, my friends. I am so glad to have you all here wit
h me. You see, I have had some ideas regarding how we might try again to rescue my daughter. I know you all sacrificed so much before.”
“Yes. We did,” said William with sternly-faced resignation.
“I want to make sure that does not happen again. We have to come at them with surprise and from all around. This means we will need a bigger army than before. Not for more casualties, but for more defense. This is the best option we have for getting her back,” the Duke said.
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