Chapter Five

The Past ~ 1460

Dunstaffnage Castle, Scotland

The sounds of warfare filled Dunstaffnage Castle and sent vibrations through the stone wall Isabel Stewart sat pressed against, clutching two of her three children. "Ross, come here," she insisted for at least the sixth time.

Her eldest and most stubborn child turned away from the barred bedchamber door and toward her. He had a thick stick clutched in his small hands, and he shook his head so violently that his dark, shoulder-length hair swished across his rosy cheeks to obscure his face until it settled once more to kiss his plaid-covered shoulders. "I'm protecting us, Mama," he said, his words those of a man but his voice the soft, high pitch of a mere lad.

Her heart squeezed at the determination that furrowed his smooth brow and glinted in his hazel eyes. She didn't have the heart to tell him that he was no match for the ferocious warriors who were attacking their castle, so she just nodded and said, "Aye, lad, that ye are, but I'm scairt, and yer brother is scairt—"

"Am nae!" Graeme objected, sitting up from where he'd burrowed himself into her left side. His jaw jutted out, but fear danced in his eyes, and he did not release his hold on her forearm. She sighed inwardly but did not dispute him, knowing well it was important for both her boys to feel brave.

"I scairt, Mama," her daughter and youngest child, Margaret, said around the thumb she had stuck in her mouth. She wiggled up into a sitting position at Isabel's right side with one of her chubby little legs still flung over her lap, and she stared at her mother with wide blue eyes. "Loud, Mama," she said, pressing the short, delicate fingers of one hand over her ear while commencing sucking on her thumb.

"Aye," Isabel agreed as shouting from the courtyard erupted, and her heart plunged. Had the MacDonald's men breached the inner courtyard? "Mama needs to get up," she said hurriedly to Graeme as she stood, pushing him gently off and hoisting Margaret to her hip. But her hem caught under her foot and she staggered forward, almost dropping Margaret, who began to wail.

"Give Mags to me, Mama," Ross offered, dropping his makeshift weapon and holding his arms up for his sister.

With her pulse racing in her throat, Isabel shoved her daughter at her son, barely releasing her hold on the child before rushing to the window that overlooked the courtyard. What she could make out below in the darkness parted her lips, took her breath, and made her clutch at the window ledge to keep herself upright as her knees went weak. Torches burned everywhere in the courtyard below, illuminating hundreds of men locked in battle. Enough light still shimmered in the waning rays of twilight combined with the fires of the torches that she could discern several things at once.

Her clan had the fewest men standing if the plaids she saw and the bare-chested men she made out told the correct story. It wasn't just the MacDonalds invading her home. There were men scattered everywhere, fighting alongside the MacDonald clan in nothing but braies and warpaint. These men were either hired warriors or they'd purposely not worn their plaids to keep their identities hidden. Cowards, she thought. The last and most important thing she noticed was that there was a line of men holding a long log, ramming the castle door.

On a sob, she pressed her hands to the cold stained glass as her scalp prickled a dire warning. "Ross," she hissed, turning, but before she could command him to hide, a banging came at the door.