Page 144 of A Rogue in Firelight

“If things can be resolved quickly, you lads may be able to enjoy part of the festivities around the royal visit,” Ronan said. “I want to introduce you to the friends who helped me. Lady Strathniven is one of them. And Miss Graham—you might remember her.”

“The angel who visited us in the dungeons? Bonny lass,” MacInnes said.

“She is Lady Darrach now.” Ronan grinned.

“What!” They stood, clapped shoulders, laughed and congratulated him, asking what had happened.

“I will explain later, I promise,” he said. “That reminds me, another friend will be very happy to hear of your release, when it comes. Especially you, Linhope.”

Linhope looked puzzled, but a smile quirked his lips. “Who might that be?”

“Mairi Brodie.”

“Darrach,” Linhope said, shoving a hand through his long blond hair, “when you send fresh clothing and gear here for us, remember that the royal Stewart sett is my right and honor as Viscount Linhope. And send a good deal of soap.”

*

Never had Ruari seen a lovelier sight than Lady Isabella standing on the castle parapet in the moonlight. Its light cast a burnishing glow over her and turned the sandstone walls to silver. She sighed. He sighed too, from his post at the wall.

He was her loyal guard and seneschal now, and must protect her. Keep her safe. Love her from a distance. It would have to be enough.

Far off, under the moonlight, he saw the glint of steel among the shadowy trees, and heard the soft thunder of many hoofbeats.

“Lady,” he said. “Go inside. Do as I say. They must not see you here.” He guided her to the narrow door in a corner tower. “Hurry!”

He turned back, picked up his bow and quiver of arrows. He did not know if he would see the dawn. But if Isabella was safe—

Ellison set down the pen, seated in her candlelit bedroom. Outside, the purple bloom of summer darkness gathered. She had hoped Ronan would come to the house that evening and she had waited, but he never came.

But she could go to him. He was her husband—and staying in her own house just a block away. Like her father, he might have duties keeping him away this evening, since the procession of the clans was set for the next day. But she could wait for him. She had a key.

Smiling at the thought, she rose, grabbed her jacket and bonnet, and readied herself. Finding courage for the larger things—escaping the ancient tower, standing up to Papa and Corbie—she was finding it in other ways too. She was stronger now, and grateful to Ronan for helping her discover that. Changes might come on their own, wrought by time and necessity, but in mere weeks, she had reclaimed her bolder self, the girl she had been years earlier.

But she was different now, wiser, more sure of herself. She still felt easily worried and anxious, but she was finding ways to push past fear, not shrink away and concede. She knew that she could stand in the face of the storm and know she was loved, and knew how to love in turn.

She wanted to see him desperately and could not wait longer. He was just one street away, and she was his wife now.

Moments later, she slipped out of the quiet house into the darkened street. Gas lamps, newly set throughout the city, twinkled like stars overhead as she hurried along George Street and turned up the slope of North Castle. A lamppost glowed at the corner, gas lines having been laid in the city a couple of years earlier, to light her way.

She hurried over cobblestones through shadows and pools of gaslight. Ahead, she heard a carriage rolling away, saw its shadow pass out of sight.

The curved front window of her own house, she saw, was dim, with just a little light inside. She slowed, wondering if he was home—wondering for a moment if she should turn back to George Street after all, and wait. No, she told herself. This was what she wanted.

Ronan sat inthe single chair in the parlor of the empty house, swirling the glass in his hand, watching the amber liquid flash and swirl. He looked up at Hugh Cameron.

“I do not have much food in the house, if you are hungry. All I can offer is an excellent dram of Glenbrae whisky. King’s favorite, by the way.” He sipped again.

Hugh huffed, leaning a hip against a sturdy table, for there was no other seat. “I suspect you have had a good bit of that fine Glenbrae by now.”

“Not enough to erase discovering that my bride is discarding me. But drink is not my wont and I have a headache now. Perhaps I shall finish drowning my sorrows tomorrow.” Ronan set the glass on the floor. “I need a maid,” he said, glancing around.

“You need more than a maid,” Hugh drawled.

His jacket lay on the floor beside his valise and a pile of tartan, his kilt for the next day, topped by a bonnet fixed with the two feathers of a chieftain. He would wear that gear tomorrow as part of Sir Evan’s retinue in the procession. “I need a maid and furniture for a maid to dust. And food, and a cook to cook the food.”

“Settling in, are we?”

“And I need the wife who has thrown me over because she took advice from a fellow half my worth. Half my size, at least,” he groused.