Page 59 of The Hawk Laird
“There,” James saidlater, pointing westward, “is the Craig.”
He glanced at Isobel, standing beside him on a hilltop overlooking the forest. They had walked a good distance in relative silence. Now, standing together, the wind whipped at their cloaks and hair. He knew the climb lay ahead, and he must make sure the woman and the hawk both got up there with him. As two grouse flew overhead, the bird on his fist suddenly pitched off the glove in a wild bate.
James sighed and extended his arm to give him room for his fit. “We may have to begin again with this laddie,” he muttered as the bird fussed.
“We will go up there?” Isobel asked, looking toward the enormous crag rising high above the western side of the nearby stretch of forest.
“Aird Craig—the high crag. Aye,” he said. The rugged flat-topped crag jutted out of the side of a mountain, swathed ina thick cover of trees, as if a rumpled green tapestry had been tossed over it. One towering side of gray rock was split by a foaming white waterfall whose long white watery tail tumbled into a wide burn skimming past the base of the crag.
Isobel stared upward. “Do you live up there?”
“Aye, near the top.” Seeing that Gawain had calmed, James lifted the bird back to the fist. “There are caves all through the interior like a honeycomb. At the summit there is an ancient ruin. A fine place to live apart from others,” he added.
“So the Hawk Laird has an eyrie.”
He shrugged. “So to speak. The Craig is a difficult climb. The most obvious access goes up the mountain behind it. Still steep and dangerous.”
“Do we have to go that way?”
“There is an easier way, a secret way up. Once we found it, we used the crag as a refuge.”
She frowned. “But we must climb up?”
“We lack wings to fly,” he drawled. “I hope your foot is well enough for the walk. Come ahead.” Taking her elbow, he urged her ahead to walk along the ridge of a hill. Passing behind a screen of birches and gorse, James could hear the faint, dull, familiar roar of the waterfall that spilled down the crag.
“We have been climbing and walking for days,” Isobel grumbled. “Through forests, up hills, down cliffs. And now you want me to climb that monstrous crag.”
“It is not so bad as it looks.”
“I do not want to climb a mountain.” She stopped. “I do not have to go up there with you.”
He halted. “Nay?”
“Nay.” She fisted her hand on her hip, her right arm tucked against her. “I can go back to Alice’s house. I could walk to Wildshaw alone, if I want.”
“Do you want to do that?” he murmured.
She tipped her head. “Would you stop me?”
He felt tension thrum between them. She had set a dare before him, and he did not know quite what she wanted with it. “Do you think I would force you to stay?”
“You might.” She gazed out over the forest. The wind lifted the glorious dark length of her hair, released it. “But I do not care to be a hostage, James Lindsay. If I walked away, what would you do?”
Silence hung between them. His heart thumped. Without the lady as a hostage, he had no chance of regaining Janet, and less chance of exacting revenge on Leslie.
But if he kept Isobel captive, he would lose the trust she had begun to show him. He would lose what respect he had left for himself. And he would lose her entirely.
The thought struck him like a blow. He understood her desire for freedom. He had been a comrade of the greatest rebel leader in Scotland; he had spent time in a dungeon; he had lost his inheritance and legal freedom through unfair means. He understood better than most the desire for liberty.
Despite all, he had taken Isobel hostage in his passion to revenge the wrongs done to him and to his. Nor could he ignore the irony of the jessed hawk on his fist. He had forced a wild thing into captivity and denied Isobel her freedom too. Her resistance was hardly surprising.
The wind stirred his hair and his cloak, and ruffled the bird’s feathers, strong enough to blow a little sense into his wounded, blinded heart.
“Aye,” he agreed. “You deserve your freedom.”
“You cannot keep me.”
“I cannot,” he said tautly.
