Chapter 3

"All right," Isobel said, sounding more confident than she felt. "I'll marry ye, but I have some conditions before we wed."

Alex's eyes were almost amused as he gazed down at her, and she looked away, infuriated that he appeared to see this marriage as a game.

"Och, aye?" he responded. "Let's hear them, then. I may have some of me own, but ladies first."

Isobel raised her chin, reminding herself that she spoke not only for herself but for her people. If she was saddled with this man as a laird, she would ensure that he worked for them, not against them.

"Ye'll move to me castle," she stated firmly, watching as his eyes flicked sideways, as though to look behind him at the stone walls just visible on the horizon. "Me clan needs a laird that resides on our lands—they have been without counsel and leadership for too long."

She sniffed and squared her shoulders, trying to look as imposing as possible. It was difficult when she was looking up at him, squinting into the sun. She wished she was tall, like Nora.

"Nay." He said the word so quickly that it startled her. He had barely given the condition any thought at all.

"What do ye mean ‘nay'?"

"I mean"—he turned to look at the castle as he spoke—"that Clan Rothach needs a laird close by, just as much as Clan Clyde. I cannae live here, it's too far to the east, and ye dinnae ken what me people have been through these last months." He turned back to her. "It's a fine castle, but it willnae be our home."

She ground her teeth, her hands clenching into fists. "Very well then, if ye willnae agree to those terms, do ye have an alternative? Or shall we live in the forests at our borders, and counsel our people from the treetops?"

His lips twitched as he shifted his massive bulk down the hill. As he did so, his body blocked the sun, and she no longer had to squint to look at him—almost as though he had moved for that very purpose.

"There is a place," he said quietly, his expression more wistful than she had seen it yet. "It was me maither's castle, but it was never her home. When she married me faither, her parents lived there for a time, but since their deaths, it has been empty." He frowned, staring off into the distant hills. "It has been taken by the land," he confessed, "but it is on the border between our clans."

"Ye want us to live in a ruin?" she asked scathingly.

His eyes were piercing as he looked back at her. "I want us to live in the best place for our people. I've been at sea me whole life, I dinnae need four walls to make a home. I go where I'm needed, and that castle would do its duty."

Isobel begrudgingly considered it. Despite her desire to remain in Clan Clyde, she knew that he was right. To force him to live in her lands would merely transfer the challenges Clan Clyde had faced from one to the other.

"It's an hour's ride to Clan Clyde and Clan Rothach," Alex continued, clearly noting that she could be persuaded. "We can rebuild. The keep is still intact, as is much of the central structure. I willnae leave ye to sleep beneath the stars, even if ye might enjoy it."

She scoffed, irritated that he seemed to have guessed so much about her in such a short time in her company. Despite her reluctance to bend to his will, she could see no reason to disagree.

"Very well. Yer maither's castle it will be."

As she said the words, she prayed that she would be able to escape the proposed marriage before she had to settle there. It sounded like a miserable place.

"And what is the name of our new home?" she asked.

The question seemed to confuse him, and he frowned down at her, looking bewildered. "Rothach Castle. What else?"

"Rothclyde Castle? That will do very well, then," she said, feeling great joy at being able to rile him up.

Surely, he would protest her insistence on renaming his mother's castle. No laird would agree to remove his clan's title from his seat.

To her dismay, however, a smile spread across his face. Isobel found herself mesmerized by it for a moment. His eyes were kinder, dancing with light, his teeth flashing in the sunshine. She wondered what opportunity this man might have had for mirth before.

"Very well, lass. Rothclyde Castle it is. I can hardly be wedded to a name when I didnae carry it for the first twenty years of me life." He seemed to enjoy the notion greatly. "Any other conditions?" he asked.

Isobel rallied from her surprise swiftly, going over the past weeks and months she had spent as an intermediary between her people and Clan MacRoss. Every decision she had made had been challenged and picked apart, her choice and agency stripped from her at every turn.

She was tired of men dictating what she could and could not do. She may have been forced to take a husband, but she would not let a man command her fate ever again.

"Under nay circumstances will ye tell me what to do," she declared, her anger seeping into her tone, unbidden.

Alex raised one sardonic eyebrow. "Nae even if ye like it?"

"Ye can have nay fear of that," she retorted, injecting as much venom into her voice as she could muster.

"So ye say, lass. So ye say," he replied dismissively. "Anythin' else? The list is gettin' longer than our shadows, and I'll need to get back to me people before the sun sets."

She scowled at him. "If ye ever touch me again, without me permission, I will chop off yer hand," she concluded, her fingers automatically moving to the dirk concealed beneath the many layers of her skirts.

Alex looked down at her arm to follow the movement of her hand. She dearly desired to slap the smug expression off his face. He crossed his huge arms over his chest and then scratched his stubbled jaw.

"Very well, but I have one condition meself," he stated.

"Och, aye? And what is that?" she asked, a note of apprehension creeping into her voice.

"Ye must give me an heir."

Isobel felt her stomach turn over. The very idea of bearing a child had rarely occupied her thoughts.

The notion brought into stark relief the reality of her situation—she was going to have a husband. A husband who would demand a bairn to continue his family name.

"Given yer third condition," Alex mused, "I'll only lay a finger on that bonnie skin if ye ask me first. In fact, perhaps I'll wait for ye to beg me before I'll break that particular rule."

His eyes held a dark promise that spoke to something deep within her. She suppressed a shudder.

"If ye dinnae give me a bairn," he continued, "the deal is off, and ye and yer clan will have to fight me for the offense of nae giving me the prize I'm owed."

Isobel balked at the very idea of agreeing to such a condition, so cold and calculating were his terms. But this was a man who had lived a violent life at sea, he would have no qualms in laying waste to her people in order to claim their lands and resources if she defied him.

She looked back at the tournament tents behind her, where she saw Emma standing at a distance, watching them intently.

Emma had experienced her own trials with marriage—she had made hard choices in order to protect her sisters. Isobel was one of the main reasons they had all been forced to abandon their home and fall to the mercy of Clan MacRoss in the first place. It had worked out for the best in the end, but her reckless and hasty choices could just as easily have ended in disaster.

She looked back at Alex, who was watching her, waiting for her reply. The consequences of her impulsive nature stood before her clear as day. She had invited danger into her life and the lives of her people. She desperately wished to undo it, but she could not see any other way.

"Very well," she conceded finally, swallowing past the bile that rose in her throat. "I agree to yer terms."

He nodded. She had expected him to crow with triumph at managing to secure her agreement, but his face was stoic and grave.

"I have one final condition," he added, finally.

"And ye said me list was long," she muttered.

"We will relocate the pirates to the lands owned by yer clan. Rothach havenae accepted them. They are suspicious of their pasts, and me crew dinnae feel they can fully settle there. In Clan Clyde, they arenae so associated with me—they could have a better chance of making a life."

"That cannae surprise ye," Isobel stated derisively. "How can ye blame the folk of Rothach for presuming the dark truth of their nature?"

She felt ice course through her veins as Alex's expression turned to stone. For the first time, she saw the beast lurking in the darkness there, and she was afraid. Not just for herself but for anyone who had ever crossed him. Her hope that she would be able to go back on her word was dwindling by the second.

"Och, aye?" His voice was carefully level. "And just what do ye mean by that?"

She collected herself quickly. "I… I meant nay offense. Ye cannae have imagined comin' here, following a life of pillagin' at sea, that ye'd be welcomed with open arms?"

His expression hadn't softened a fraction. If anything, he looked more furious than before.

"Do ye ken what I did when I first arrived on these shores, Isobel Knox?"

She felt something warm spread through the deepest part of her as he said her name.

"I stopped a war," he continued. "I ensured that me people were protected from the feuds and battles that me faither had chosen to bring upon our lands." He scoffed, looking out at the rolling hills beyond. "And were me people grateful? Nay. They still see me as nothin' but a ‘Pirate Laird'." He spat out the words in disgust.

"I could commit me soul to the earth, lay me body at their feet, and it would never be enough for them to forget who I was." His voice became so low that she had to strain to hear him. "A man I was never meant to be."

Isobel watched his eyes become lost in the past. She realized then how much she had assumed about his life, and how, in truth, she knew as little about him as he knew about her.

She felt guilty at the assumptions she had made, a part of her wishing to soothe him, although she did not understand where the compulsion came from.

"Ye dinnae ken that," she said softly as he looked back at her. "Ye havenae been here long. Our people dinnae like what they dinnae understand. Give them time. There will come a day where they forget who ye were. They cannae fear ye forever just because of yer past, surely!"

His expression darkened. "Aye… among other things."

Isobel felt herself recoil at the sinister nature of those words, but she could hear the hubbub of many voices from the tournament behind her and knew that they had dwelled here alone for too long. She had made her decision, now it was time to face the consequences.

"I will allow ye to relocate the pirates to our lands," she conceded. "Ye are right, they may have a warmer welcome amongst me people—as long as ye can guarantee their safety."

She could not quite keep the grimace from her face, and Alex didn't miss it.

"Ye permit them entry, but ye would rather the name of any pirate didnae mix with honorable folk. Isnae that right, lass?"

The thinly veiled anger behind his words thrummed in the air between them.

Isobel jutted her chin, ignoring his ire and barreling onward. "Do ye fear retaliation? Will Rothach rise up against ye? If that is the case, I need to ken it now. I dinnae want Clan Clyde caught in yer internal quarrels."

Alex shook his head. "Dinnae worry. I willnae let anyone hurt yer people or injure ye. Ye have me word on that."

Almost on instinct, his hand went to his sword. She watched it in fascination, imagining what it would be like to be this man's enemy.

And what would it be like if I were his ally?

"I can take care of meself," she said forcefully, shaking the thought from her head.

"Aye. I believe that ye can, lass," he replied sagely. "But just because ye can, doesnae mean ye should."

And with that, he turned away from her, looking back at the crowds that were starting to gather, craning their necks to try and see what they might be discussing.

He walked back toward his man-at-arms, leaving Isobel standing on a hill she could no longer call her home, watching a stranger walk away with her freedom.

As he was about to round a corner, he stopped, looking back at her with a smirk on his handsome face. "I trust ye to follow through with our arrangement, of course. But just to be sure, we're getting married one week from today."