Page 56 of The Outlaw's Bride
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll go somewhere else.”
Lachlann’s mouth thinned. “Ye deserve better than that.”
Adaira stared back at him, sickly panic rising within her. “Are ye going to abandon me?”
Lachlann cursed, rising to his feet and scattering the remnants of his bread and cheese. “No, of course I’m not.”
“So what are ye saying then?”
He stared down at her, his face suddenly fierce. “I’d bind ye to me, Aingeal,” he said, his voice low and firm. “I’d make ye my wife … but I have nothing to offer ye but myself. No fortune, no lands. Only a price on my head that makes yer life forfeit as well.”
Adaira stared up at him, her gaze widening. “Are ye proposing to me?”
His throat bobbed. “Aye … and I’m making a mess of it.”
Adaira’s breathing hitched. “No, ye aren’t,” she whispered. “Ye have just caught me by surprise. This all seems so sudden.”
It was. Just two days earlier she’d hated him, and he’d seemed indifferent to her suffering. It felt like a lifetime ago now though.
Lachlann loosed a deep breath, his gaze never leaving hers. “Time runs against us. I promised to look after ye … but I fear that soon something, or someone, will stop me.”
Adaira swallowed. “Lachlann,” she said softly, her vision blurring. “Ye don’t have to wed me to keep me safe. I’d never let ye do that.”
Lachlann shook his head, his expression turning strained. “What if I told ye that I’m in love with ye?” he rasped. “Would that change things?”
Adaira’s lips parted in shock.
“I can’t give ye a lady’s life,” he pressed on. “But I will protect ye … I will love ye.”
Adaira drew in a shaky breath. Her mind whirled as she struggled to take his words in. His proposal, and his declaration, had completely thrown her—and yet underneath the confusion a warmth welled within her.
Lachlann watched her for a long moment, a nerve feathering in his jaw. When he spoke, his voice was husky. “Will ye be my wife, Adaira MacLeod?”
Adaira drew in a shaky breath. Tears escaped then, spilling down her cheeks, but she smiled through them, joy flowering in her breast. “Aye,” she whispered back, “gladly.”
Chapter Twenty-three
The Lady of Duntulm
ADAIRA CRANED HER neck to view Duntulm’s proud outline against the darkening sky. Perched high upon a basalt cliff, the fortress overlooked a stretch of water called ‘The Minch’ and the isles of Tulm and Lewis in the distance.
It was a bleak evening; a wind whipped in from the sea, and the sky had turned leaden with the promise of bad weather. Yet the sight of the MacDonald stronghold filled Adaira with such relief that her vision swam with tears.
Caitrin. She’d see her again.
They approached the castle over a hump-backed stone bridge spanning a river and then through Duntulm hamlet. The village was small, little more than a scattering of stone cottages around a central dirt square. The peaked roof of a kirk rose to the south. There were few folk about, just one or two women bringing in washing before the foul weather hit. Adaira breathed in the pungent odor of peat from cook fires and the aroma of what smelled like mutton stew.
Her belly growled in response.
They rode up the hill toward the keep. Adaira couldn’t think of any fortress as well defended as Duntulm. The steep cliffs provided protection on three sides while on the landward side a deep ditch surrounded the high curtain wall. Even Dunvegan, although bigger, wasn’t as secure.
Peering around Lachlann, Adaira spied the outlines of men in the gloaming as they readied themselves to raise the drawbridge for the evening.
“Wait!” Adaira called out. “We’re here to see Lady Caitrin!”
That got the guards’ attention. They halted at the sound of Adaira’s voice, and the sight of the huge horse bearing down upon them, before shifting back to let them pass.
A moment later the stallion thundered over the drawbridge and into the fortress.
