Chapter 5

Isobel sat on her bed with her head in her hands. The sounds of the storm raged around her, the rain battering against the windowpane.

She looked up at her bedroom, taking in the familiar drapes and inhaling the smell of the lavender in the vase above the mantelpiece.

Nora had brought her a bouquet of wild lavender one evening, years ago, when Geoffrey had banished her from his sight. The smell had become such a comfort to her that she still gathered it every morning.

A gentle knock sounded at the door, and she fiercely wiped the tears that had begun to roll down her cheeks.

"Isobel? May I come in?" It was Emma.

"Come in," Isobel called with some resignation, for she was not looking forward to this conversation.

Emma entered quietly, before closing the door behind her. There was a brief pause and then the gentle creak of the floorboards as she approached. Isobel waited for her to say something, but the silence stretched until she had no choice but to rise from her bed and turn to face her sister.

"Ye dinnae have to go through with this, Isobel." Emma's voice was tight with fear and worry. "Hunter will visit Laird Rothach, and they will negotiate a peace deal. There is nothin' that can force ye to marry him. He's a brute—I willnae see ye wed one such as him."

She launched herself across the room, taking Isobel into her arms and hugging her tightly.

Isobel could only cling to her sister briefly, before finally pushing her away, feeling determination settling in her gut.

"It's all right, Emma."

"It isnae all right. Ye cannae marry that man."

"And why nae?" Isobel challenged. "I said just the same when ye chose to marry Hunter, and ye are happier than I have ever seen ye."

Emma shook her head. "That's nae the same, Izzy. Ye ken it isnae. Alex Bain is entirely different from Hunter. He is cruel, he has done despicable things. Ye dinnae ken of the life that pirates lead on the ocean. He isnae safe."

"We didnae believe we were safe in Clan MacRoss. We thought that Hunter would kill us all for asking for his aid, but instead, he took us under his wing, and we have been under his protection ever since." Isobel sighed heavily, walking to the bed, and sitting down as her sister joined her. She chuckled remorsefully. "Are ye nae going to tell me ye kenned this would happen?"

"What?" Emma asked, frowning at her.

"I ken what I am, Em. I have been hasty all me life. I make decisions too quickly, make choices without thinkin' things through. It is how we got into such a mess with Geoffrey?—"

"Nay. Ye were protecting me. Ye saved us all."

"I might nae have saved us, though. If Hunter had been who we believed him to be, I could have been the cause of far more pain for all of us. Perhaps this is me punishment for those decisions."

"Isobel, dinnae talk like that. Ye deserve love and happiness just as much as any of us do, and we love ye for yer hot-headedness. Without it, we wouldnae be where we are today."

Isobel pulled her hair free from the knot she had tied it in earlier that night and began to plait it. It was just long enough to touch her shoulders now, and she missed the days when it reached her waist.

Without a word, with a sweetness she had long expected of her sister, Emma turned her so that she was facing away, plaiting the strands herself, the warmth and surety of it providing great comfort.

"I fear for ye," Emma murmured. "Nay one kens anythin' about Alex Bain. There is nothin' that he has done that would warrant anyone trustin' him."

Isobel thought back to Alex's expression on the hillside as she had agreed to his terms—the quiet confession when he had admitted he had become a man he was never meant to be. She wished she understood what he had meant.

"I ken he cannae have lived a good life," she conceded. "But I chose to play this game, I should assume the consequences."

She glanced at the dark windowpane, looking out into the gathering dark. The sun had set not long ago, and some spears of silver still shone on the horizon, where the clouds had not yet smothered the sky.

Emma sighed. "What do Angus and the council say?"

Isobel scoffed. "They were so desperate for me to marry that they didnae think of the possibility that they might fear the groom."

The council had been up in arms about the match, determined to find a way to end the agreement between them. Isobel had sat mutely at the head of the table, watching the men scream across the table at one another.

Yet, as she watched the council deliberate, she realized she had two paths to take. One would lead to war, the other would lead to the end of her freedom. She would have to marry one day—perhaps this was fate giving her a sign.

"They were furious," she said as she felt each knot being tied in her hair. "They believe I've put the clan in danger. I was quick to remind them that they were the ones who agreed to the terms of the tournament. They'd have been quite happy to have me marry a seventy-year-old laird of a neighboring clan if it suited their needs."

She heard the bitterness in her own voice as she continued. "I am tired of having to abide by their rules, Emma. At least if this is a mistake, it will have been mine to make."

Emma, who had tied her hair in a neat knot, turned her roughly around. "And if ye are miserable? Ye'll have to live with him for the rest of yer life, Isobel. Think of that!"

Isobel stared at her sister's wide-eyed gaze and then laughed. Emma's lips pulled back into an angry retort, but Isobel took her hands gently in her own and smiled.

"Emma, he will have to live with me. Can ye think of a worse fate than that?" Isobel sighed. "The greatest danger from marryin' Alex Bain will be preventin' me pirate brats from corrupting yer bairns."

Emma's expression didn't change, her worry never leaving her face. "I am afraid for ye, Izzy."

Isobel shook her head. "This is me burden, Emma. Ye have taken on enough for us throughout our lives. Ye need to focus on yer son and yer man. I shall focus on me Pirate Laird."

Emma was still frowning, but Isobel knew just how to placate her, and offered to read aloud to her for a short while until she returned to Hunter.

As the fire burned low in the hearth, Isobel sat against the headboard of the bed, reading softly to her sister. Emma's beautiful head rested in her lap, while the rain lashed at the window, and Isobel's mind swirled with thoughts of a storm out at sea.

* * *

The next few days flew by in a blur. Isobel received a summons the following morning from Alex, requesting that she make her way to Rothclyde Castle as soon as she was able to travel.

She was furious at being ordered to do anything by her would-be groom. However, she knew she needed to learn what horrors awaited her in their new castle ruin.

That was how she had found herself, and several of her maids, making the journey to the castle without so much as an objection at her soon-to-be husband's urgent demands leaving her lips.

The castle itself was in a sorry state. Isobel tried hard to tamp down the despair she felt as she looked at the keep. Although it was bustling with people, many of them making repairs and amendments, the castle behind it looked soulless and dark.

"M'Lady?"

Isobel turned to see an unfamiliar servant standing before her. She assumed it was someone from Alex's staff and attempted a smile as her heart pounded uncomfortably in her chest.

"May I show ye to yer rooms, M'Lady?" the girl asked, her eyes flitting up to the crumbling walls above them before settling back on Isobel.

"I thank ye, aye," Isobel replied, dreading the state her rooms must be in, considering the rundown nature of the rest of the castle.

She followed the servant girl to the east wing. The way was gloomy and damp, with mold covering the walls and puddles of dirty water all over the floor. But for a building that had been abandoned to the elements for decades, the east wing was remarkably intact.

She made her way through the labyrinth of corridors, smelling fires being lit, the wholesome aroma of woodsmoke filling the halls, making them feel a little more homely.

"Rothach Castle hasnae been inhabited for some years, M'Lady, as I'm sure ye ken. The keep and the kitchens will be repaired first, to ensure ye are comfortable in yer new life here."

"Rothclyde Castle," Isobel corrected testily.

The girl glanced back, a little startled. "Och, of course, M'Lady. Forgive me."

Isobel shook her head. It didn't seem as though the name she had chosen had been communicated to anyone except for the new Laird.

After showing her the rooms, the girl departed, leaving Isobel with the familiar members of her staff, who tried hard to limit their expressions to blank disinterest as they moved around the dilapidated space. They were not entirely successful.

As the maids unpacked everything they could, Isobel wandered around the room, examining everything in her path.

She discovered that there was a small door in one of the walls. When she opened it, she felt a tug in her gut as she realized it was a connecting passageway to the Laird's bedchamber. After staring into the darkness between their bedrooms for several seconds, she shut the door with a snap.

This will really be me life.

"Fetch me one of the guards from the keep," she demanded.

It was time for her to blow off some steam.

Only half an hour later, she was standing in a small courtyard, surrounded by curious onlookers as she fired arrow after arrow into the targets that had been set up on her orders.

Some of the guards, who she knew from Clan Clyde, had come forward, and they were taking part in a competition of sorts. She had managed to beat every single one of them, and she could feel the fire slowly returning to her veins.

As she stood, setting up her bow for the final round, she heard the clopping of horses' hooves coming through the main gates and turned, feeling a grin spread across her face as she recognized her sister's carriage.

When Emma alighted, it became clear it was not just her who had come to visit. Their oldest sister, Nora, carefully stepped out too, her belly heavily swollen with her second child. Following her was the youngest of them all, their beautiful sister Lydia.

They looked around with interest. Nora and Emma had placid, blank expressions as they took in the ruinous state of Isobel's new home. However, Lydia was not quite so adept at schooling her features.

Isobel came forward to give her a hug and squeezed her a little harder than she meant to.

"It's all right," she said hurriedly as Lydia pulled away, her eyes seeming to take in every broken brick in the keep before coming back to settle on Isobel.

"It is falling apart!" Lydia hissed, her face anxious and pale. "Och, Izzy, this isnae a place ye should be living in."

Nora and Emma exchanged a glance behind her, and both of them moved forward to embrace Isobel.

"It will improve as it is repaired," Isobel said reassuringly, although she knew it would take many weeks before it was habitable. "Me rooms are intact, and there's an enormous fireplace. I will be warm all year round." She grinned, trying her best to put on a brave face.

"Are ye all right?" Lydia asked, her eyes brimming with tears. "I couldnae believe it when Emma told me what he made ye do."

Isobel contemplated her younger sister and was surprised by her own reaction to her words.

A matter of days ago, she had felt the same—that Alex had forced her hand. Yet, now she didn't see it quite in the same way.

Her desire to renege on the deal, and to escape the agreement with which they were both bound, had waned. She had never met a laird that she wished to marry, and Alex was no exception. He would be as good as any man, and she would likely be just as miserable with him as she would have been with all the others.

"Where is yer groom?" Nora asked as she glanced around the castle, her tall frame allowing her a greater vantage point than Isobel's.

"He has not arrived yet," Isobel replied. "We came early to oversee some of the repairs. Much has to be done to fortify the defenses."

Lydia and Emma immediately looked at her in alarm.

"Is there a danger to ye? Are his people rising against him?" Emma asked, her voice more grave than Isobel had ever heard it. "Hunter and Leo will arrive soon. I will have them speak to him."

"Nay. Of course nae," Isobel replied hastily, still unsure of the truth to her own words. "Any castle needs defenses. His faither was at war with a neighboring clan, and Alex has resolved it peaceably. They are merely precautionary measures."

"I fear he is a dangerous man," Lydia said, her voice small and afraid.

Her expression was so sorrowful that Nora put a hand on her shoulder in concern. "Lydia? What is it?"

Lydia shook her head, the movement spilling the tears that she had held at bay for so long. "I have heard terrible things."

Isobel felt a jolt in her core at the fear in her sister's voice.

"There are people who say—I have heard the servants talkin'—that when he returned to Rothach, he murdered his own faither to secure the lairdship. I dinnae trust him. Who kens what sort of man he really is, and now ye will have to marry him."

Lydia started to sob, her hands coming up to cover her face as Nora comforted her.

Isobel looked at Emma for reassurance but found none.

"We all are worried for ye," Emma said. "This isnae what I had hoped for when I imagined ye marrying."

"Nor I," Nora added. "I ken that Leo has his faults, but he respects and loves me. I dinnae ken if a man like Alex Bain is capable of such feelings. All he wants is power."

Isobel could feel the fear rising in her breast at the potential truth in her sister's words, but her mind would not stop returning to the image of Alex on the hillside.

She had seen warmth and kindness in his gaze, no matter how he tried to hide it, and she had to believe that anyone could be more than what others believed them to be.

Something stirred within her as she thought of Alex's sharp features and his chiseled jaw. His eyes were a beautiful green, they reminded her of the moss that covered the base of the trees in her favorite glen on Clyde lands. She had to admit, she would not grow tired of looking at him.

"I ken ye are worried for me, and I love ye all the more for it. But nay man is going to beat Isobel Knox. If he tries anythin', I will stab him in his sleep," she stated casually. "At least he's easy on the eye."

She groaned aloud as she saw every one of her sisters, including Lydia, start to smile with shared glee.

"Och, is he now?" Nora looked at Emma conspiratorially. "Perhaps we have found the reason why our Izzy doesnae wish to back down from this marriage."

"Aye, I believe we may have," Emma agreed, laughing.

"I didnae realize ye felt that way, Izzy, or else I never would've insisted that ye stop the weddin'," Nora said.

Isobel couldn't help but laugh.

It was nice to jest with her sisters, yet she couldn't help pondering Lydia's words—could Alex simply be marrying her to win more lands and power?

What if this is all a trap?