Page 12 of When a Highlander Loses His Heart
Graham made a derisive noise in his throat. “Yer father would wed ye to the devil himself to get what he wants, Isobel.”
Graham sounded so sure that a moment of doubt seized her. Findlay had betrayed her. How could she be sure her father was not doing so as well?
No! Graham wanted her to doubt so she would not fight him.
“My father would never betray me,” she ground out between clenched teeth.
“He already has,” Graham snapped, his warm breath tickling her ear. “Yer father is conspiring with my uncle and others to overthrow King David. He wants to marry ye to my uncle so that he will keep giving yer father support in his endeavors, and then Jamie will run Brigid as yer father commands, which would mean refusing safe sea passage to anyone who supports David. In return for all this, yer father has been helping and will continue to aid my uncle in trying to steal Dunvegan, my family’s castle, and my brother Iain’s lairdship from him.”
“Nay!” Isobel cried and covered her ears with her hands. His words echoed in her mind anyway, and her heart raced with denial, but also with fear. What if he was telling the truth? What if she was wrong about her father? But how could it be? It simply could not! She knew her father. He loved her! He had kept her safe all these years.
Mayhap, a nasty voice in her head whispered, he had kept her safe because he had not been able to use her yet. He could not gain control of Brigid through her until she was eighteen because he could not marry her off until then.
She felt sick. She tried to gulp it down, but the feeling lodged in her belly, her throat, her heart. “Ye lie. Ye lie because ye wish me nae to fight ye. Ye lie because ye are a MacLeod,” she flung out in desperation as she pressed her palms harder to her ears. If her father had betrayed her, too, then she was truly alone…
Graham yanked her hands away from her head. “I dunnae lie. I speak the truth. ’Tis ye who are lying to yerself. And either ye dunnae ken yer father or ye are just as wicked as he is. Which is it, Isobel?”
“I am nae wicked,” she bit out. “Ye say my father is evil and he will use me, but ye are using me!” It seemed a wall of iron suddenly surrounded her, Graham grew so tense. She took in a breath, her anger and fear galvanizing her to say more. “Ye have taken me against my will! Ye are nae any better than yer uncle or Findlay!” she shouted over the increased pounding of the horses’ hooves as the beasts sped up.
She saw his hands grip his horse’s reins so tightly his knuckles turned white. “Dunnae ever compare me to yer brother,” he said in a deathly calm voice that sent a chill over her.
“And why should I nae?” she hissed. “Ye intend to use me just as he intended to.”
“Nay,” he growled. “Yer brother would have seen ye married to my uncle, who would sorely abuse ye. I would nae allow ye to be married to such a man.”
“Would ye nae?” she mocked. “Then ye intend to see me married to a kind man? Ye have the power to vow this?”
For a long moment, he said nothing, and she knew her instincts had been right. He would use her for revenge, regardless of the consequences to her. But then he spoke. “I vow to ye here and now, I will ensure ye marry an honorable, decent man.”
“But nae a man of my choosing,” she muttered. There was to be no love in her future, she feared, mayhap not even if she could get to her father. She was no longer certain of anything, and for that, she hated Graham with her whole heart. He had made her doubt her father, and that had made her doubt herself.
Chapter Four
Graham drove the horses relentlessly through the early-morning hours. Jamie and Findlay would stop at nothing to get Isobel back, and the best way to prevent that was to ensure the enemy did not overtake them. Findlay and Jamie had far greater numbers on their side, and Graham was not such a fool to believe his small party of men could defeat what appeared to be well over a hundred warriors that Findlay had brought back with him from battle.
The air warmed as the sun took fully to the midday sky, but Isobel’s upper body still shook with the chill, and she looked as if she was hunched in on herself in an effort to find warmth. She had not said a word to him since accusing him of using her and harming her, and she had strained against his hold until he had released her and allowed her to shift as far forward as the space permitted.
Graham considered reaching out and pulling her into his embrace to warm her, but two things stopped him: he knew well that she would fight him, and he did not care for the intense reaction she was causing in him. A combination of desire and guilt battled for dominance within him. Guilt was no stranger to him, of course. He’d lived with feelings of culpability all his life. First with his failure to protect Lena as he had been tasked to do by his mother, and then later with the shame of how his jealousy toward Lachlan had driven him to make such terrible choices. What was strange about this guilt was that it was caused by a woman whom he’d previously considered an enemy. Yet her actions were introducing doubt into his head, and he did not like it.
The yearning she lit within him came as a surprise but not a shock. She was a beautiful woman, enemy or not. What shocked him was the force of the desire she sparked. When he had beheld the outline of her body for the first time, and when he had held her in his arms atop Dante, the need to caress her had almost overwhelmed him. It had taken great will not to run his hands along the smooth, perfect slope of her cheekbones. Never had he felt a yearning so strong before for such a simple thing as to touch a woman. He had no notion why he felt this way now, and for a woman of whom he was so wary.
He had joined with women before, but most of those experiences had been purely carnal; his only thought at the time was to satisfy what felt like an itch. What Isobel elicited in his body was no itch. He could not allow desire for the daughter of his family’s greatest enemy. He’d made too many bad decisions in the past that had hurt his family, and he’d not make another. He carried guilt in his heart for Lena, and he would spend the rest of his life making amends for failing his family when they had counted on him.
In front of him, Isobel started to slowly lean far to the right, and with a start, he realized that she had fallen asleep. He reached out and grasped her around the waist to hold her upright while whistling for his men to decrease their pace. He fully expected Isobel to jerk awake, but instead, her head drooped forward, and she let out a deep sigh. Once Dante was walking, Graham gently pulled Isobel fully between his thighs and against his chest, and tilted her head back so that it rested on the front of his right shoulder.
He stared at the hollow space between Isobel’s collarbones and watched her slow heartbeat. For better or worse, this woman was in his care and handing her over to the king would not be as simple as he had anticipated. He had taken her with only revenge on his mind, yet she was right. If he delivered her to David as promised and simply stood by and said nothing as the king married her to whomever he pleased regardless of how the man might treat her, then Isobel would be correct in accusing him of being no better than Findlay.
Isobel could very well be as much a victim of the war for power as Graham’s sister had been. He sighed. He was not certain he could deliver her to David, but nor was he certain he had a choice. To defy the king’s wishes of husband for her, if the necessity arose, had consequences not only for himself but for his family.
Whatever he did from this point forward, he suspected guilt would accompany each choice. He looked away from Isobel and found his brother’s gaze, as well as that of Marsaili Campbell, upon him.
“Did ye slow us down for the woman?” Cameron demanded, his displeasure clear in his tone.
“Nay,” Graham responded in a hard tone. “I slowed to give the horses a moment’s respite and drink.” That was partially true. The horses did need to cool, but he had also wanted to safely shift Isobel into a position where he was certain she would be protected while she slumbered.
“Thewomanhas a name,” Marsaili hissed, surprising Graham. And by Cameron’s flinch, it appeared her outburst surprised his brother as well. “It’s Isobel,” Marsaili growled. “She’s clearly weary, and ye need to keep yer voice low so as not to wake her.”
Graham led the horses off the path and toward a stream he had spotted in the distance. “Yer defense of the sister ye just betrayed seems rather odd,” Graham commented, ensuring he kept his voice low.
