“Long enough that when I entered the room, I thought…I thought ye had...” Jane set the cloth over the rail and crimped her lips shut.
Isobel was diverted. Since the first moment she had met Jane, her lady’s maid had been a regular chatterbox, but now she seemed reluctant to say more. So, Isobel waited.
“He wouldnae leave,” Jane said after a moment, and her voice was careful, as when she chose her words. “I came in to check on ye, and he was there. The Laird said he wasnae going anywhere. I imagine he would’ve lingered, had Lady Branwen not sent a messenger to fetch him.”
Isobel looked at the water.
“He came through that library door at a dead run, didn’t he?”
It was not quite a question. Jane glanced over at her, briefly and sidelong. “I cannae say for certain, because I wasnae there. But I have heard of his heroics. Hamish said Laird MacRaeh pushed his way through the door so he could get to ye.” She smoothed the cloth once more.
“And when he carried me out…”
“He held onto ye,” Jane said simply. “The Laird of Dunalasdair is a man with many faces, me Lady. I have seen him when he speaks to his counsel. I’ve even watched him when he trains with some of the other men. But last night, when I watched him carryye down the hall and head toward these chambers, I saw a man I didnae know existed.”
Isobel sat with that. The steam rose around her slowly. The fire crackled in the grate, and she looked at the water, thinking about all that had happened since she had met Alasdair MacRaeh.
She had thought, upon arriving at this castle, that she understood what kind of man he was. She had been wrong in ways she was only beginning to comprehend.
Outside the castle, it was dark, and the night pressed against the shutters. Somewhere on the other side, Alasdair was sitting with his grandmother, and he had said he would return. Isobel believed it with the simple certainty of breathing.
She was still sitting with that when the knock came at the door.
Her pulse immediately lifted toward the sound. She was already turning when Jane went to answer it, and the door swung open. Jane made a small, startled sound, barely a sound at all, and Isobel looked.
The man in the doorway was not Alasdair.
Malcolm stood in the corridor, dressed as neatly as he was at any council meeting. His blond hair was undisturbed and his blue eyes moved past Jane until they found Isobel in the bath. His cold stare settled there without pause or apology.
“Forgive the intrusion, me Lady.” His voice was warm and entirely measured, the same voice he used in council chambers when he wanted to sound like the most reasonable man in the room. “There’s been a development. I’m afraid I need a word with ye.”
Isobel did not move. She felt the cold of the water as well as the frigidness of his stare. She looked at Malcolm’s pleasant face, his blue eyes, and the way his hand rested against the door frame, relaxed and loose. She remembered sitting in the council chamber on her first day here, watching him speak, and knowing that something was wrong in the way he took up space in a room. He had struck her as someone who could not be tolerated then and his current behavior did not change that impression one jot.
She knew it now with considerably more precision.
“Alasdair is on his way back,” she said. Her voice came out steadily. She was quietly grateful for it.
“Of course.” His smile did not shift. “This willnae take long.”
Jane had not stepped back from the door. Her hand was still tightly on the frame, and her shoulder was between Isobel and Malcolm, placed there like an informal shield. Isobel looked at Jane’s shoulder, at Malcolm’s calm, unmoved face, and at the dark, empty corridor behind him. She thought about Alasdair, somewhere on the far side of this castle, running back toward a room where Malcolm was currently standing in the doorway.
Malcolm waited. He seemed to be very good at waiting. He had the patience of a man who had decided long ago how things were going to end and saw no reason to rush them.
“It willnae take long,” he said again.
The fire crackled behind Isobel. Jane’s hand was white on the door frame.
Isobel looked at Malcolm and did not move.
“Whatever you wish to say, speak now.” She swirled her fingertips through the cold water, gathering her courage while stalling. She hoped that Alasdair would arrive momentarily and usher this man out of the room. ” “I shall not leave this place.”
A malicious look, one she had not seen in his features before, crossed his face. It was there briefly, then gone.
Malcolm stepped fully into the room, brushing by Jane as though she were no more than a flowering bush, one he could easily sweep aside or tread upon.
“Ye will come with me, me Lady. And ye will listen to what I have to say. Ye owe me that courtesy.”
“I owe you nothing,” Isobel snapped.