Page 4 of Scot of Desire
“I’m here.”
She turned at once.
Bran had just walked in through the door of the study. The sight of him made Ilyssa’s breath hitch in her throat. He was the tallest of all of the Mackintosh family now, his dark blond hair cropped short across his temple, and the sharpness of his features suggesting he could be a brute of a man, though Ilyssa knew the truth. There was no man in this world with a heart as soft as Bran’s. Those blue eyes looked straight back at her, gleaming almost silver in the candlelight.
She itched to move toward him, as she so often did these days, though she didn’t know why. It was as if their old friendship had a power over her, more and more these days, as she faced the prospect of no longer being as close to him as before.
“Well?” Bran asked, stepping further into the room and looking between her and Tad expectantly.
“Ask me dear older braither.” She jerked her head toward him, her wryness plain. “He keeps saying we need more time.”
“I am doing all I can,” Tad said, his sharpness matching her own.
“Then it’s nae enough,” Catreena suddenly cried. She crossed the room and moved to Ilyssa’s side, clasping their hands together. Ilyssa held tightly onto her friend. “Tad, ye are a laird. Can ye nae just tell this man he has nay claim on Ilyssa? That he cannae marry her?”
“I’m a laird, nae a king,” Tad muttered.
“Yer arrogance suggests ye believe ye are.”
“As kind as always, Catreena,” he said mockingly.
“Enough.” Ilyssa pleaded. She was in no mood for Tad and Catreena’s repeated arguments and dislike for one another. She was facing a future far away from them, married to a man she did not know or like. She needed to face this future now. “I cannae marry him, Tad. I cannae dae it.”
“And I would never, ever, give ye away tae this man,” Tad said, standing tall. He looked almost as tall as Bran at that moment, and as intimidating. “Yet it isnae the case of clicking me fingers and changing the world. It does nae work like that.”
Ilyssa looked at Bran, pleadingly. She said nothing, but there had to be something in her gaze that communicated her desperation for he grimaced. A small whimpering sound escaped her lips. She released Catreena’s hands and fell back down into the nearest settle bench near the fire. Her rigid spine and elegant posture left her as she kicked out her feet in front of her.
“Let me see the contract again,” Bran pleaded.
Ilyssa’s eyes traced Bran. She had no idea why she did it, she just watched him in the firelight as he took the contract from Tad’s grasp.
“It just appeared in me study last week, I swear it,” Tad declared with vigor. “I went over every inch of our faither’s study when he died and thereafter again. Nae once did I findthis.”He gestured to it with derision. “Now, it’s suddenly there, with me grandfaither’s signature at the bottom? I cannae understand it.”
“Hmm.” Bran frowned, staring down at the contract.
Ilyssa felt an urge to raise a hand and softly draw her fingers across Bran’s creased temple, to somehow soften it and make him smile again, in the way that he only ever seemed to smile at her. When her stomach somersaulted, she looked away.
What is wrong with me?
“And ye are certain this is yer grandfaither’s signature?” Bran asked, his manner calm, though Ilyssa knew him well enoughto know he was feeling anything but. As chief advisor to his elder brother, it was Bran’s job to stay calm when the darkest of dangers hovered.
“It looks like it,” Tad murmured.
“And yer opinion is something we are trusting, is it?” Catreena asked bitterly.
“Catreena, enough,” Bran warned.
Ilyssa looked between the Mackintoshes. It didn’t seem to matter that Laird Alec was the eldest. Any one of them would have probably called Bran the fatherly figure of the lot of them. He was certainly the most protective.
“Listen tae me, Ilyssa.” Tad walked toward her and sat down in a settle bench opposite her. He leaned forward, his tanned features strong in the firelight. “I have a plan, but it will take careful organizing.”
“What is it?” she asked impatiently.
“Ye must go tae meet Cillian Grant and his faither, Laird Gilroy.”
“Are ye mad!?” Catreena cried aloud before Ilyssa could even respond.
“I’ll agree with me sister on this occasion,” Bran said, marching toward the settle bench where Tad sat. “Ye are surely nae going tae hand Ilyssa over tae him?”
