Page 57 of The Hawk Laird
“Ho, bird,” she said into the quiet. Gawain lifted his head to look at her. “Ho, there. Jamie said to keep you awake. But then he fell asleep, which he needed to do,” she murmured. “Thosewere mighty bates you threw for us, Sir Gawain. I am impressed. How is your shoulder?”
She reached out with a fingertip and tickled his breast feathers as she had seen James do. The white and speckled gray feathers were divinely soft and warm underneath. Gawain chirred, and she felt the rapid vibration of his heart in his chest.
Not long ago, she had been surprised when, after a sequence of bates and another treatment of warm bread on his wing joint, Gawain had finally stepped onto Isobel’s offered fist. He behaved as if he had always done it, puffing his feathers and blinking at her calmly.
Recently, though, the bird had grown more restive, lifting his wings and flattening his feathers. The grip of his talons on her fist was stronger, and she sensed his increasing anxiety. Isobel plucked a bit of raw meat from the pouch James wore, laid it on her thumb, and watched the bird dip to eat it. All the while, she hoped he would not bate or try to foot her while she sat with him.
On impulse, she drew a breath and began to sing thekyrie.Although she lacked James’s gift for true notes, the sound was soft and serene as it echoed around the cave.
The bird cocked his head curiously. His eyelids came together like lightning flashes. He stilled.
Isobel smiled and looked over at James, who only shifted and tipped his head toward hers in his sleep. She rested her brow against his head, his hair a thick cushion, his breath gentle on her cheek.
“Oh, Jamie,” she whispered. “Look at our bonny gos. He has decided to trust both of us. And here you are asleep and did not even see it.”
Gawain roused his feathers, turning himself into a calm puffball, as if he was content. Isobel held the hawk, letting James sleep while she waited for dawn. As light began to streamthrough the cave entrance, she realized that she was a few steps away from freedom.
Beside her, James slept soundly, breaths long and full, body relaxed. He would not know if she rose, set the bird on a perch, and slipped out. She could be away to Wildshaw and Sir Ralph before he woke.
The morning light glowed like a pearl. If she was going to escape, she would have to do it now.
She eased her arm away from James. Gawain blinked and sat calmly despite the movement. The simple reliance in the bird’s gaze and posture stopped her.
She glanced at James, and recognized in his strong, beautiful face a vulnerability, a state of faith. He trusted her enough to sleep beside her. He trusted her with the care of his tempestuous, frustrating, fragile goshawk. And though he was a secretive man, he had begun to share his thoughts with her.
She remembered then what the lad Geordie had said—that James Lindsay needed someone to have faith in him again. She had begun to do that, and so had the goshawk. If she left now, it would be like a betrayal.
Dawn bloomed outside, and Isobel sat with the hawk and the man, and heeded her heart.
Chapter Sixteen
The early morningbreeze sifted through his hair as James stood by the cave opening. He murmured to the hawk perched on his fist, then glanced behind him where Isobel now slept on the bench, covered with her cloak. James had eased her there when she fell asleep, exhausted, after a meal of bread and ale. He turned back to gaze over the expanse of treetops under a pale cloudy sky.
In the forest below he saw a flash of movement. The hawk, seeing it too, fluttered his wings. “You’ll soon be flying,” James told him. “I promise.”
“He longs to be free,” Isobel said behind him. She walked toward him, rubbing her injured arm as if to soothe pain. The light gave her face a delicate clarity, and her hair flowed over her shoulders sheened like polished jet. He longed to touch that dark silkiness and wanted far more than that. But such impulses were dangerous. He must be cautious around Black Isobel. He had almost forgotten that. Last night he had succumbed, overwhelmed with the desire to touch her, and could have gone beyond simple kisses—but he was determined to avoid temptation again.
“Look there.” He pointed toward the woodland. “Two runners, coming along the path.”
“I do not see them,” she said, squinting.
“Watch.” His sharp vision often showed him details others did not see as quickly. He waited as two figures ran through thetrees, blond and dark heads bobbing as they went. They men cleared the forest and began to climb the slope.
“Quentin and Patrick?” she asked.
“Aye, back from Stobo. Alice must have told them we were up here.”
“What will you do now?”
“Send a message to Wildshaw—offering to barter one woman for another.” He could not look into her wide ice-blue eyes just then.
Isobel sighed. “Your Janet is a blessed lady, to be loved so well.”
“My Janet?” he asked, dumbfounded.
“I would give all for such a blessing.” She stepped forward. “Quentin! Patrick! Up here!”
Then he had no chance to ask what she meant or to explain about Janet. Quentin and Patrick came toward them and they entered the cave together, Isobel greeting them with a smile. Quentin winked at her, and Patrick went red in the cheeks.
