Page 83 of When a Highlander Loses His Heart
“It seems we are to be married today,” James drawled.
“I’m already married,” Isobel snapped, her belly tightening with trepidation.
“Nae anymore, Sister. Yer husband is dead.”
“Nay!” she denied fiercely, even as fright threatened to suffocate her.
“If he is nae dead yet, he will be shortly. He’s surrounded on every side by my men, Isobel. And their only order is to kill Graham MacLeod so we could free ye from the marriage we ken ye were forced into.”
Pain squeezed her heart in a viselike grip.
“Ye may thank me later when we arrive at Brigid,” Findlay said with a chuckle. “Bring forth the priest to perform the ceremony!”
It took a moment for Graham to get his breath back. As he clambered to his feet with his sword in hand, he touched the hidden breastplate which had saved his life and thought of Isobel and then of the king, who was the only person other than his brothers who had known the secret passage Graham was taking to Brigid. Had the king betrayed them or had the king told someone who had was not loyal to him?
A swift look around him ripped a curse from his lips. Most of his men were scrambling to their feet, but he counted five lying unmoving, dead. As he let out the bird call intended to warn the men he had ordered to fall back to now come forward, the second wave of the attack came. Campbells streamed down the sides of the mountain, but Graham was prepared. His additional men surged through the valley toward them. The Campbells advanced, too, and it almost seemed the majority of them seemed to be intent solely upon him. But he cut them down easily as they came. By the time he had struck his seventh deathblow to a Campbell, his other men had joined in the fight, which was over quickly.
Panting, he looked around the fallen Campbells and frowned. If they had meant to kill him and all his men, they had grossly underestimated how many warriors they needed. Unless…
He looked to the woods where he had sent Isobel to safety with Cameron. Fear lodged in his throat with the awareness that he had not sent his wife to safety at all. He had sent her into the arms of his enemy.
“Rory Mac!” Graham roared as he swung up onto his destrier and galloped toward the woods. The first thing he saw when he entered the thicket was his brother limping toward him. Graham swept his gaze over Cameron, noted the arrow lodged in his leg, and slowed his horse. “Brother?”
“I’ll live,” Cameron assured him. “Ride fast for Isobel.”
Graham nodded, and with Rory Mac and ten more of his men joining him, he set a thundering, swift pace through the woods.
Isobel gripped the slight waist of James, who she had just been forced to marry with the point of a sword to her throat, except she refused to believe she was actually married. Her brother led them into the woods. Toward Brigid, she presumed. Worry pumped through her veins as the trees flew by in a blur, putting more distance between her and Graham. Or possibly not, she thought, as she noted a new hum in the air.
She listened for a moment, almost sure it was horses in pursuit, and when the distinct call of a bird filled the air, she knew well it was her husband. She smiled grimly. “James,” she said, pressing her lips close to the ear of the disgusting man in front of her. “Ye will die this day.”
James’s response was a chuckle. “Soon I’ll show ye just how virile I can be, Isobel, and ye will wish for yer own—” A dagger flew so close to Isobel’s head that it hissed in her ear. The dagger lodged in James’s skull, and Isobel released him as he fell from the horse.
All around her men were drawing swords, but it was too late. Graham was the first to arrive, and the rage on his face made Isobel shiver. He cut a path through the men, striking deathblows as if he were killing horseflies. He was beside her, pulling her off her horse with one hand while battling a Campbell with the other. Once she was seated behind him, she wrapped her arms around him, feeling his back tense with the strain of his anger.
His men surrounded them, placing her and Graham in the center of a protected circle. Graham jumped off the destrier, and his men parted to let him through. Even as she protested, the circle closed once more. She could see nothing, but she heard the steady clank of metal meeting metal. Suddenly, the noise stopped, and Isobel realized Graham’s men had felled all the Campbells, but when she glanced through a crack in the circle, she saw Findlay on his knees with Graham standing behind him, his sword raised high.
“For Lena!” he shouted, swinging the sword down to end Findlay’s life.
When the deed was done, Graham dropped his sword and came to her, taking her off his destrier and silently leading her a short distance away from his men. His breathing was heavy and took a long spell to slow. As he faced her, their gazes locked. Sweat dampened his brow and hair, and it took many slow, steady breaths before the rage faded from his eyes.
He cupped her face in his hands and pressed his lips to hers. Love flowed through her as she reached up and cradled him as he did her. “Mo chridhe, ye saved me,” he said. “Yer gift saved me.”
She nodded as tears of thankfulness coursed hotly down her cheeks. “I told ye, ye stubborn man. Ye are stronger with me.”
“Aye,” he agreed. “I am that,mo chridhe. I love ye,” he murmured before giving her a long, deep kiss that held the promise of so much more love to come.
Not long later, they rode up the long, narrow stone bridge that led to Brigid. At the end of the bridge, standing between two towers, was a lone figure. Deep in her bones, Isobel was certain it was her grandmother. A long cloak flapped around the tiny figure, and long silver hair fluttered around her shoulders.
Isobel began to tremble the closer Graham drew them to her grandmother. When they were so near that Isobel could make out the older woman’s features, she startled, seeing her resemblance to her grandmother in the color of her eyes and set of her mouth, and wondering if she also looked like her mother.
Graham dismounted and then helped her from the horse, but when she started to walk toward her grandmother, Isobel paused and turned to her husband, realizing he was not beside her. She arched her eyebrows in question, to which he answered first with a gentle smile. “I thought ye may wish to meet her alone at first.”
Isobel shook her head. “I wish ye by my side always, Graham. I am stronger with ye, just as ye are with me.”
With a chuckle, he strode to her side and took her hand in his. She smiled at her grandmother as she moved to stand in front of her. Her grandmother gave Graham a probing look before she focused on Isobel. “Does this man please ye as a husband, Granddaughter?”
“Aye,” Isobel replied, feeling so strange to be in her grandmother’s presence.
