Without breaking his pace, Ian signaled to someone. Sileas barely had time to glance over her shoulder, but it was easy to spot the four tall men in Highland dress surrounded by a bevy of court ladies.
A surge of guilt went through her as she realized that Connor, Duncan, and Alex had come all the way to Stirling because of her, when they were needed at home. Although the three of them clearly saw her and Ian, they made no move to follow. Niall alone ran after them.
“Praise God, ye are all right—” Niall stopped in his tracks when Ian spun around.
Ian was in a fury as she’d never seen him.
“It was a close thing.” Ian spoke between clenched teeth, and the vein in his neck was pulsing. “The Douglas had his hands on her.”
Niall turned wide eyes on her. “I should have gone with ye.”
“What ye should have done,” Ian bit out, “is never brought her to Stirling.”
Even Niall had the sense not to follow them after that. Once they were outside, Ian headed toward an arched gate next to the chapel. On the other side of the arch, he continued down a set of steep steps built into the hillside. She nearly tumbled as she followed him down to an enormous grassy expanse that was enclosed by the castle’s outer curtain wall.
Without glancing back at her, Ian proceeded to stomp across the field. She held her skirts up with her free hand and half-ran to keep up until they reached the wall. She thought surely he must stop now, but he pulled her behind him up the steps built into the side of the wall.
When he finally came to a halt at the top and turned to face her, she was gasping for breath.
“What in God’s name did ye think ye were doing?” he shouted. “Do ye know who the Douglas is?”
She saw no guards patrolling this part of the wall, which was built directly over the sheer cliff. Apparently, Ian had brought her all the way here so he could yell at her without being heard or interrupted.
“The man could have used ye and left ye murdered on the street,” Ian shouted, as he paced back and forth along the six-foot width of the wall walk, “and no one would have said a word about it.”
He halted and looked out at the horizon. “God in Heaven, Sil, what if I wasn’t able to guess where you’d gone?” He paused, clenching his jaw. “What if I hadn’t come in time?”
Keeping his gaze fixed in front of him, he climbed up onto the ledge of the wall and sat with his legs hanging over the side.
She went to stand next to him and watched his profile.
“So why did ye come for me?” she asked.
He turned blue eyes on her that were so intense the air seemed to vibrate between them. “Because ye are my wife, whether ye like it or no.”
Her mouth went dry. Despite herself, her voice shook when she spoke. “I see. So ye have come because of your pride.”
“Is that what ye think?” he said, sounding outraged.
“Aye.” She licked her lips. “And because ye need me to justify taking Knock Castle.”
“I won’t say my pride didn’t take a beating, because it did. And I won’t say that we don’t need to take Knock Castle, because we do,” he said in a hard voice. “But that is not why I came for ye.”
She lifted her gaze from her muddy slippers to meet his angry eyes. “Then why did ye come?”
“I came because it is my responsibility to protect ye,” he said. “I cannot—
Sileas understood Ian’s need to make amends. Still, she hoped she was more than a duty, more than a wrong he needed to make right. She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly.
It was hard to ask what a woman wanted a man to tell her freely.
“Do ye care for me a little?”
“Of course I care for ye, damn it,” he said, waving his arm out to the side. “I always cared for ye, since ye were a wee thing, and ye know it.”
“And I want ye.” His eyes went dark, and he gave her a look that burned right through her. “I want ye so much that sometimes I can’t breathe when I look at ye.”
He turned away again and stared off at the distant mountains. After a while, he said, “When ye left me, Sil… well, nothing mattered but getting ye back.”
Surely this was a good sign? A cause for hope? Even if Ian never came to love her as she wanted him to, he seemed to genuinely want her to be his wife now; there was no dirk at his back. He felt affection for her, desired her.
“Saints above, ye scared me half to death running off like that,” he said, his anger flashing again. “I didn’t know where ye were, or if ye were safe.”
“Niall took good care of me,” she said, feeling calmer now.
“Niall will be a man to be reckoned with one day, but he’s young,” he said, shaking his head. “He doesn’t understand the danger of men like Archibald Douglas.”
He stared into the distance for a long time before he spoke again.
