Authors: Stephanie Sterling
“What?” Isla shrieked.
“I’m going to see yer brother. I’m going to tell him -”
“Ye canna!” Isla cried, suddenly throwing herself forward against his chest. She clung to him desperately. “Please, oh - please, dinna send me away, Roan?” she croaked, staring up at him with glassy, teary eyes.
“I ken that yer worried about what yer family will think,” Roan said difficultly, trying to steel himself against the luscious feel of her body pressed up against his own. “But I’ll make sure they ken twas all my fault - that ye are completely innocent. They’ll be ready enough to blame a MacRae warrior, I’m sure.”
He couldn’t understand why Isla was shaking her head, why she was clinging to
him
, why there were tears coating her cheeks. After everything that she’d said to him, surely this was what she wanted?
“Isla,” he said, trying to pry her off him, but she merely hung on to his body tighter.
“Please?” she sobbed. “Please, just - just forget that I said anything?” she begged. “I just wanted to hurt ye. I was just lashing out. What ye -
we
did just then was -”
Roan would never know how Isla had intended to finish that sentence, because there was loud knock on the chamber door. Isla, in her near-to-naked state, squealed and ducked behind her husband as he called for whomever it was to enter.
“Laird MacRae wants to see ye immediately, Roan.” The man delivering the message was the MacRae’s war captain. His eyes flickered disapproving towards his tanist’s wife. “He’s ready to see the Camerons now, and wants ye with him.”
Roan nodded his head gravely. He heard Isla whimper his name again, but he couldn’t afford to pay her any heed. He knew what needed to be done now. It was just a case of doing it.
..ooOOoo..
Isla watched her husband go with a newly broken heart. It had just been starting to mend. She’d very slowly been beginning to heal, and then, like a scab being ripped off a wound, she was in a worse place than where she’d started! And this time, it was all her fault!
“Oh God!” she whimpered, turning back towards the mattress and crawling upon it like a wounded animal. She breathed in the scent their bodies that lingered on the bedcoverings and began to cry in earnest. What had she done? What had she done!
It had been so wonderful, so heavenly. Isla had finally found a sense of peace, and then as the blissful clouds lifted there had been a second, just a moment, of bitter resentment - and it had come spilling out of her mouth.
Isla agonized for hours as she waited for her husband to return. It was well past supper before she heard the door creek open.
“How did things go with Laird MacRae?” Isla jumped up out of the chair where she sat spinning and ran toward her husband the second he stepped through the door.
“Fine,” Roan answered with a shrug. “It was a couple hours of people introducing themselves. Graem has nae made his offer yet.”
“A couple of hours?” Isla repeated. She didn’t know the exact time, but she felt certain that Roan had been gone a lot longer than that. “What else did ye do?”
Roan sighed. “I spoke to Ian.”
“NAE!” Isla said. “I told ye! I dinna -”
“Isla, we’ll discuss it in the morning,” Roan groaned, raking a hand through his hair.
“Nae,” Isla insisted, shaking her head fervently. “Nae, we need to discuss it now -”
“Isla,” Roan growled in warning. “We should go to bed,” he pleaded.
“But I need to ken what ye said,” she begged.
If he’d told Ian everything that had gone on between them, then frankly Isla was surprised Roan was still in one piece, but was her brother about to storm into the room and drag her back to Castle Cameron kicking and screaming? Because she
wasn’t
going to go quietly. She might have made this mess, but she was going to
un
make it too.
“Isla,
please
just rest,” Roan begged wearily. He really didn’t want to go into what had happened between himself and Ian Cameron - and was prepared to use almost any excuse to avoid doing so.
Roan had kept details to a minimum, but his brother-in-law wasn’t stupid. Ian would be back to ask more questions once he’d had time to process the tanist’s strange request. What kind of husband asked for his wife to be taken?
He’d told Ian that irreparable differences had emerged between himself and Isla since they had been married. Ian’s repeated
‘are you quite
sure
Isla feels the same way?’
had taken Roan rather by surprise, but he had insisted, and Ian had, of course, agreed to take his sister home with him when he left Erchlochy Castle.
Fortunately, an interruption helped him avoid the subject, in the form of Liane.
“I’ve come to see if ye wanted supper, sir,” she announced. “And would ye care for a bath, mistress?” she asked Isla.
Isla seemed to hesitate. He could practically see her thoughts turning over in her head. He shifted uncomfortably, not having a clue what she might be up to now. It was breaking his heart to think of letting her go… but perhaps that was the whole problem? He’d been weak. He’d let someone in. He’d let someone matter.
“Aye, thank ye, Liane. I think I would like a bath,” Isla said slowly.
Liane nodded cheerfully, while Roan inwardly groaned. He didn’t really trust himself to remain in the same room while she bathed. He felt his body quicken at just the thought of seeing her naked, glistening figure half submerged in the large tub.
“I think I’ll -” he began quickly, already heading for the door.
“Oh, will ye nae stay and help me?” Isla said softly. Roan choked, while Liane made quite a show of pretending not to hear. Roan would have loved to know what his wife was playing at, but couldn’t very well say anything in front of the maid. He sat down in one of the fireside chairs and waited to find out.
..ooOOoo..
Isla wasn’t entirely sure what she was doing either. However, keeping Roan close seemed like a good place to begin her fight to keep him. Isla really didn’t see how Roan expected her to go on without him - she also couldn’t
believe
that he’d gone to her brother.
A part of her feared that Roan’s meeting with Ian meant that he was taking the first real opportunity to shed the wife that he’d never really wanted in the first place, but she wasn’t certain. Surely no man could feign the hurt that she had seen etched across his face earlier that evening.
He seemed to genuinely care for her. He seemed to really believe that what he was doing was for her own good.
Well
, Isla thought to herself,
I will just have to prove him wrong!
She waited anxiously for the bath to be filled with hot water from the kitchens. It seemed to take forever, but was eventually done. Liane excused herself when she was told that they could mange without her. The maid was quite obviously trying to suppress a smile, which made Isla’s cheeks burn furiously. She
wished
that she and Roan were happy and in love and about to get up to what Liane clearly supposed they were.
Of course, that was a part of Isla’s sketchy plan. She was beginning to understand the power that her body had over her husband. She could drive him to distraction with it. His carnal lust was so great that he’d lose control of himself
completely
. If she could make
that
part of their relationship perfect maybe he’d want to keep her.
Isla walked to the tub that Liane had filled and began to pin up her hair. Roan watched, transfixed, as her nimble fingers wove her hair into a braid which she wound around her head and fixed with pins.
She had changed into a nightgown earlier. Now she let it fall to the ground around her feet in a puddle of pale fabric, leaving her body completely naked and exposed. She cast a coy glance over her shoulder at Roan. He seemed to be intent not to catch her gaze in return; instead he was stared doggedly at the fire. His jaw looked set and there was a muscle twitching in his cheek.
“Roan?” Isla whispered hesitantly. She didn’t want to make him even angrier, even
more
determined to send her back to Castle Cameron, than he already was.
Isla dipped one toe into the water. She gave a little shiver of delight and then sank her whole foot into the tub, closely followed by her other leg. She sank down until she was half submerged in the bath.
“Do ye need something?” Roan rasped.
“Could ye help me wash my back?” Isla asked quickly, holding her breath as she waiting for her husband’s answer. He sighed her name, but she could hear him reaching for the soap.
“This is such a bad idea,” he murmured weakly.
“Why?” she breathed, leaning forward and offering him her back. She gave a little gasp of delight when Roan’s soapy hands touched her skin.
“Ye ken why,” he whispered, massaging her shoulders, making Isla whimper in pleasure and arch into his hands. “Because I’ll end up wanting ye so badly that I will nae even be able to think straight, and I ken I canna have ye,” he confessed raggedly.
“Why canna ye have me, Roan?” Isla asked softly. She twisted in the bathtub so that she could look her husband in the eye. He swallowed thickly.
“Isla, ye said -”
“And ye said I was Cameron whore!” Isla exclaimed. Roan winced as through she’d just struck him. “And did ye really mean that?”
“Nae!” he barked. “Of course I dinna!” he swore forcefully.
“Well then -”
“Isla,” Roan groaned, cupping her face in his wet, soapy hands. “Please dinna test me,” he begged. “Or I will nae be strong enough to let ye go.”
“I dinna want to go!”
“Tis for the best.”
“For
who
?” Isla demanded. “Who is it best for?” she choked. “I want to stay here! I want to be yer wife. I want to have yer children,” she confessed breathless.
Oh Lord, she sounded so sincere, and every word hacked away at Roan’s fragile resolve. He wanted her to stay. He wanted her as his wife for the rest of his life, but those were all selfish desires that he feared had slipped forever beyond his grasp.
Roan used his thumb to wipe away a bubble of soap that was on Isla’s cheek as he shook his head. “Isla, ye dinna ken what yer saying, lass, yer still so young,” he said gently. She drew a sharp, hurt gasp, but he continued regardless. “Ye can go home. Ye can be surrounded by a whole clan of people who love ye again.”
“But - but my home is here with ye,” Isla said passionately, throwing her arms around Roan’s neck, not caring that she soaked his shirt and sent water spilling out over the edges of the bath.
“Ye hate it here,” Roan breathed difficulty.
Isla pulled back, “But I’d hate it anywhere without ye. Ye canna send me away!”
Roan’s body sagged. He couldn’t keep fighting this; he couldn’t keep pushing Isla away, not when she seemed so desperate to stay with him. His arms locked around her body, crushing her against his chest.
“Do ye mean that?” he asked urgently. “Do ye
really
mean that ye’ll stay here with me?”
“Aye!” Isla gasped. “Of course I do!”
“But - after what I did to ye?” Roan breathed difficulty.
“Ye will nae do it again.”
“Never,” Roan swore. “Never,” he repeated, pressing his lips to her forehead, and breathing the promise over and over again against her skin. He loved her. He loved her to distraction. He felt properly alive for the first time since that awful, fateful night.