by Elise Ramsay
“Right, I see.” He frowned at her and, to his chagrin, the woman looked as if she were about to weep.
“I’m... Sorry,” he went on, and he genuinely was sorry for her, for who could not be sorry for the woman who had so long shared the bed of a devil?
“But, what are you doing here? Why have you come to me?” Perhaps he needed her, perhaps she knew where Isobel was.
“I am escaping, Lachlan. I am running away from my husband. I am running to the woods, where you can rescue me.” She smiled again, in a way that both saddened and disturbed him. The poor woman.
“Lachlan? But I am Gunn Kincaid.”
She smiled at him, seeming not to notice his correction of her.
“And Isobel?” he ventured. “Do you know where she is?”
Nairn frowned briefly. She looked about her, then looked back at his face, at his bright blue eyes. The moment had finally come. Lachlan Kincaid had come to rescue her, and yet here he was, procrastinating. Of course, he wanted the girl! He must rescue the girl! Always, Effie would come first and she, Nairn, would come second.
Gunn could sense that the woman knew more of Isobel than she was saying. He looked about him. The way to the castle was clear, but the sun would be fully up soon and time was running out. Torn as he was between running for the castle and coaxing more information from Tormod’s wife, he knew he would have to act soon if he was to save Isobel. He turned sharply towards Nairn, firmly taking her by the shoulders and looking into her eyes.
“I need your help, Nairn. Can you help me?”
She nodded weakly in response.
“I need you to take me to Isobel. I need you to take me in the very way you so cleverly escaped lass, do you understand me?”
She smiled broadly at him. How she liked to be called lass! It reminded her of her younger days when she had been a bonny wee thing, the same age as Isobel. Isobel! Not Effie! How could she have forgotten? What on earth was going wrong in her mind? She focused hard until she returned to the memory of seeing Isobel slumped on the floor, weeping and utterly broken by her fear of Tormod. The wee lassie who had reminded her so much of herself. The lass she had sworn to save if only she could find the key. The key!! Reaching into the pocket of her skirts, she seized the big iron key and produced it with a flourish.
Gunn had watched in astonishment as the woman, who seemed to have snapped back into her senses, pulled the key from her pocket and held it aloft, just inches from his face.
“Come, I shall take you to her. Move yourself, boy, we’re running out of time!”
Nairn took off at speed, her long black cloak flying out behind her. Gunn’s muscles, cold and stiff after a night’s chilled inactivity and extreme exhaustion, protested painfully in his broad thighs. Quietly cursing himself for the error of not remaining limber throughout the evening, he pounded through the pain and easily stayed with her. They rounded the castle wall and sped back along the route down which Nairn had left it. She stopped so abruptly that Gunn almost collided with her. Initially thinking that they had been discovered, he made to draw his sword, but just kept a tight hold on the grip when he realized that she was pushing open a tiny wooden door. He had to stoop several inches to pass through the door and, once on the other side, he stayed her hand from sliding the old bolt across again. He knew he would need as unimpeded an escape route as he could make possible. He followed her along the near dark corridor, his senses as sharp as a knife’s point. He felt beads of cold sweat trickling down his now warm chest as Nairn halted at the door of what he knew would be Isobel’s prison.
Nairn fumbled with the key, so much so that he nearly took it from her. Finally, she got it open, and he pushed past her and on into the room, where Isobel lay, seemingly unconscious, on a tangle of textiles which lay strewn across the small pallet. He dropped to his knees and gently tugged at the layers in an attempt to draw Isobel out. He needed to move fast, but Isobel was frozen and extremely sluggish. He needed to rouse her now.
Putting his broad arms around her shoulders and pulling her into the warmth of his chest, he whispered urgently into her beautiful, somewhat disheveled hair.
“Wake yourself, lass. I’m here now, I have come to rescue you. I’ve come to take you home.”
Isobel began to come to, and she looked up at him in loving amazement.
“Oh,” she cried weakly, “I knew you would come for me. Take me home, please, take me home.”
The clouds of confusion descended upon Nairn once more. All her old fears returned, and the sense of hopelessness and abandonment began to overwhelm her. For years, she had suffered at the hands of Tormod Sinclair. It was her turn to be rescued. It was her turn to be taken home to the Castle of Kincaid. Now that Lachlan had finally come, he was going to rescue Effie once again! And, once again, she would be left here all alone and at the cruel mercy of the vilest man ever to draw breath! Well, not this time! She retreated backward out into the passage, catching Isobel’s eye as she did so.
“Nairn?” Isobel called desperately, fearing what the woman was about to do. Gunn spun around too late to do anything.
“No Effie, it was my turn. It isn’t fair! It just isn’t fair!” And, with that, she closed the door and turned the key in the lock before Gunn had even reached it. Gunn and Isobel looked at each other in pure horror as they helplessly listened to the scurrying footsteps of the woman who could so easily have helped all three of them escape to safety.
Chapter 13
Isobel sank back down on the bed, not in fear or frustration, just exhaustion and a strange sense of relief. Gunn was here, and that was all that mattered. He had simply appeared in her doorway and she had hardly been able to believe what she was seeing. He had actually come for her. It was not a girlish daydream, it was not somebody else’s story, it was real, and it was her story. What happened next almost didn’t matter.
She tried to piece together in her mind just how he had come to be here. He must have tracked her. Tracking had always seemed to her to be some sort of magic, but never more so than now. How could he come from the vantage point of knowing absolutely nothing to finally finding her in the heart of the castle of his enemy? Yes, it was definitely magic of some sort.
She wondered about Nairn. What on earth had she been talking about? She had called her Effie. Isobel’s head was beginning to cloud with confusion. She was sure she could work it all out, just not now. She looked up to see Gunn studying her and sat up once more and leaned her face against his chest. The feel of his arms as they wrapped around her shoulders and pulled her in close made her heart beat quicken. So many times he had held her in her daydreams, and now it was a reality. A grim reality, for at least in her dreams they had not been prisoners.
Gunn could not believe that he had trusted the mad woman with the key. Why had he not taken it from her when instinct had compelled him? At a point where he had almost tasted the victory of freedom, just minutes away from riding off from this evil place with the woman he loved in his saddle, Nairn had finally slipped into insanity and sealed their fate. Try as he would to feel pity for a woman who had been so brutalized over the years that she had lost her mind, Gunn could not. He looked down at his beloved Isobel. The girl was so innocent and kind and funny, she had done nothing in the world to deserve this. Gunn felt his heart harden towards the poor creature. If only she could have kept a firm hold on reality for just a few seconds longer.
Still, it was no use turning it over and over in his mind now. Time was running out for both of them, and he did not want to waste their last, precious moments.
Sooner or later, Tormod would discover them, whether or not Nairn actually gave them away. He was still armed with his sword, and he would kill Tormod at the first opportunity. If nothing else, he would spare his beloved Isobel the torment of being molested by Tormod. What would happen next, he was not so sure of.
Tormod’s men could not be fought off single-handedly. Gunn was the best of the best when it came to fighting, and he knew it, but he w
as still sensible enough to know that he could not take on an entire castle’s worth of Clansmen. Still, he would die trying. He would die trying to save the life of his lass. Again, he was wasting time. There was no thinking to be done. There were no further plans he could possibly make. All that was left now was to tell her how he really felt.
Her small body felt oddly relaxed in his arms. As if she was not fearful at all. How he loved her! He laid a hand on the back of her head and began to stroke her bonny curls. She hugged him tighter, and he could hear her breathing come faster.
“Isobel, I have so much to say to you, with no telling how long I have to say it, so I’m going to just say it outright. I love you, lass, and I have done for a very long time.”
Isobel tilted her head back to look at him. His bright blue eyes did not flinch from her own as she studied him. Finally, what she had always hoped for, he really did love her. She reached up to touch his face and felt the first sting of the tears that were forming. The love she had always hoped, they would share had finally blossomed, and there was no time for them to enjoy it. She felt suddenly angry at the cruelty of the joke. She didn’t want this to be all they ever had.
Gunn wiped at her tears with his large hands and then cupped her face. He drew her towards him and kissed her, gently at first, then with more urgency. Drawing back, Isobel gasped. In concern, he looked at her, his eyebrows raised in question.
“I love you too, Gunn. I always have.” She leaned back into him and raised her face for another kiss. He willing obliged, this time kissing her very deeply. As his pleasure increased, Gunn forgot about their plight. There was nothing more to be done. He could plan no more. He could not affect the outcome, but what he could do was make her his. In what little time they had left, he would make her his, and they would be as man and wife. He had never wanted a woman as much as he wanted Isobel at that moment. The first man’s touch she felt would not, after all, be that of Tormod Sinclair. It would be him, Gunn Kincaid, the man who truly loved her.
Digging his hands deeply into her long, thick hair, he pushed her face from him enough to be able to look at her. He gently set her back down onto the pallet and studied her beautiful green eyes. Love stared back at him, and he knew he had made the right decision.
Nairn had scampered all the way back to her chamber and thrown herself face down on her bed. She had wept, at first for the betrayal she felt once again. Her beautiful Lachlan, the man she had first spied all those years ago fighting at the tournament held in the castle of her uncle. How beautiful he had been. She wept further still for the fog of confusion that she could feel descending upon her. How was he so unchanged? More than twenty-five years had passed, and Lachlan looked to her exactly as he had on that day. Even the muscles in his arms had stayed taught, and the skin which covered them as smooth and as brown as ever it was. Yet, here she was, a woman ravaged badly by time. Her hair had gone gray, and her skin had gone slack. Years of fear and abuse had taken its toll on her, she knew this. What must Lachlan have thought when he’d seen her? It was little wonder that he had chosen Effie yet again. Effie still looked young and firm and smooth skinned. She slapped the palm of her hand against the bed, over and over again. It was just not fair! And what had become of Isobel? Nairn felt very confused, and fell to weeping, loudly.
Tormod opened one eye to find himself staring at the ceiling, and he was disappointed. His dream had included all manner of women, crooning over him, then, just as it got interesting, he was disturbed. He could hear that silly wife of his weeping, and she had made enough noise to wake him. She was waking him early, too, for he could feel the grogginess of last night’s wine still clinging to him. Ordinarily he slept through this part, and so felt ever angrier with his noisy wife. She would pay the price for this, the selfish midden!
Tormod rose with a groan, standing and stretching for a moment to right himself. He slid his hands into his pockets and began to make for the door of his chamber. Something was wrong, but what? He stood, fat and ponderous while his brain caught up with his waking body. The key! It must have fallen out of his pocket in the night. He shambled back to the bed and rummaged like a mad man through the dressings, finally ripping them off and hurling them to the floor in frustration. The key was not there. Angrily, he lowered his paunchy frame to the floor, where he lay down and looked about under the bed. Still no key. His suspicion was beginning to rise with the volume of his wife’s sobs and he knew, at that moment, that she was somehow at the root of this. He dragged himself painfully to his feet and strode out of his chamber to seek her out. The noise of her weeping was coming from her own chamber and, on reaching the partially open door, he kicked it hard with his foot and watched it swing roughly on its hinges, finally stopping as it boomed against the wall.
Nairn sat up in shock on the edge of her bed. Tormod looked fit to kill her there and then. What could be wrong with him now? She felt dazed and weak from weeping.
“Where is my damned key, woman? I know you have it, and I will kill you for it if I need to!” He was bellowing like some kind of beast. Nairn was shocked back into lucidity. The horror of what she had done began to unfold before her.
Poor Isobel! She had promised to help the child, and what had she done? Locked her in again. In her madness, she had made the lass her own prisoner, instead of her husband’s. That poor girl who’s plight had reminded her so much of herself as a young bride! That young man could not possibly be Lachlan Kincaid. Whoever he was, he had come to rescue Isobel and she had stopped him. The shame which swept over her was intense. She knew she was losing her hold on what was real and what was not. She also knew that she must act before she lost that hold again. She must do something to help the two young lovers escape from this hell.
Tormod bore down on her. Shoving her roughly back on the bed, he rifled through her skirt pockets until he felt the cold iron of the key. Snatching it from her, he tore from the room, stopping briefly at his own chamber to lift his sword. He did not know what that foolish woman had done or what he might find when he reached the small stone room.
Stomping through the dim corridors, he berated himself for not going with his mood and taking the lass as his own on the previous night. He should have done the very worst when his body had screamed for him to do just that. Well, if she were still there, by God he would do it now. She would pay. His wife would pay. The damned Kincaid would pay. Reaching the door, Tormod swiftly unlocked it and kicked it open with an angry roar.
Chapter 14
Pushing his horse harder than ever he had done, Lachlan Kincaid tried to calculate just how much longer before they reached the walls of Sinclair Castle. Ten minutes? Twenty? It had been a good long while since he had ridden over to the Sinclair territory, and he was relying on memory.
Duncan was galloping along at his side. Lachlan had been impressed by the young man. He had been awake for a day and a night, was in fear for his beloved wee sister, and still had come to him with the clearest possible account of the circumstances. Circumstances which were firmed up within minutes as that wretch, Rory, had admitted his drunken crimes. His hands gripped tighter on the reins, and he could feel his blood rising again. This would not do, raw emotion would not help to win this fight. Raw emotion would not keep his Clansmen safe. It would only lead him to make unsound decisions and give away the upper hand he currently held. Sinclair, though he might by now have Gunn, would not yet be expecting the might of the Kincaid to be following so close on his heels. He had briefed his men, and he knew they were ready. Not one of them had given any sign that they were anything other than happy to stand shoulder to shoulder with their Chieftain. In his twenty-five years as Chief, he had never tested them in this way before. The result had filled him with a certain pride. Still, he squashed that now, pride was another emotion that could get in the way. All of this he had taught his son, and he fervently hoped that the lad was employing all he had learned right now.
Isobel sighed gently and laid her head on Gunn’s shoulder. Ne
ver would she believe that so much pleasure could come at a time of so much fear. Gunn had been gentle with her, and soon she was swept up into his arms and engulfed with his love. Though it had hurt for a moment when he took her, the pain was soon replaced with a desire to meld with him completely. The emotions and sensation had raised her so high that she cried out in ecstasy as she looked into the beautiful blue eyes of her love. He too had cried out his joy, and then he held her close. Hugging her so tightly that she felt he would never let her go.
Gently he kissed her lips and rubbed his thumb along her chin. There was a slight bruise on her cheek and she could see his eyes narrow as he took it in.
“I hate to do this lassie, but we must be ready.”
Isobel had nodded and moved away from him. She could not help but watch as he dressed. Pulling on his breeches and then his shirt over such a magnificent chest. How long had she wanted to rub her hands across it? Now she had, now she had experienced his love, and she had not been disappointed.
She was re-lacing her bodice when she first heard the set of footsteps thundering along the corridor outside. Gunn tensed beside her, making ready for whatever action he would have to take. He was completely dressed and silently extracted his sword from its sheath in readiness. Now that she was dressed, she stood and looked at him. He was so tall, muscular and strong. He was also brave, loving, and true. Feeling strongly that she was about to die, Isobel felt an odd sense of calm and contentment. How scared she had been, here all alone, wondering when Tormod would defile her. Then Gunn, her beloved Gunn, had come to rescue her. Although they had not made it out of the castle, he had rescued her from something worse than death. He had saved her from only knowing the touch of Tormod Sinclair. She could go to her grave in peace knowing that, at the very last, she had been Gunn’s, and only Gunn’s. What happened next was in the hands of God.
