His brow furrowed, and she knew he was not yet finished with their conversation. “Is this why yer brother challenged Brodie over yer honor?”
She looked away. A row of red banners rippled in the wind like forked tongues. “Thank you for bringing me to the castle—”
“I’d like to speak with Lord Easton,” Sutherland said.
“You may find him bantering among the men preparing to joust, though he will not be participating himself. It never was his sport.” She inclined her head, cutting off the conversation before Sutherland could pry any more. “Good day to you, Sutherland.”
He offered no further protest. Isolde and Matilda climbed the stone staircase to their private chambers. Only then did Isolde allow her legs to collapse. She flopped onto her mattress and put a hand over her racing heart.
“Are you well, my lady?” Matilda asked.
Isolde stared up at the green linen trappings hanging over the bed. “After the fight tomorrow, we need to be prepared to leave.”
“I’ll have everything at the ready,” her maid assured her.
But the tension did not drain from Isolde’s shoulders. Not when Sutherland had injected himself so completely into her mind, not when so much was riding on the fight tomorrow. And certainly not when fear nipped at the back of her mind, plaguing her with terrifying doubt.
After Cormac had defeated Brodie, he’d sent Duncan and Lachlan to keep an eye on the brothers while Alan went to glean gossip from the ranks. Following an unsuccessful attempt to locate the Earl of Easton, Cormac had taken the time to bathe in the chilly loch. Even as he made his way to the Rose Citadel that night for the feast with Alan and Pip, his hair was still slightly damp, but his body was invigorated with the chill of the water, and all the remnants of travel swept away.
Additionally, he was more confident in where he stood with Lady Isolde’s favor. Or at least, more so than he had been previously. Alan had once more proven his worth in obtaining invitiations for them into the castle that evening, a feast meant only for the castle guests and special attendees by invite-only. Cormac navigated through the crowd of tournament attendees and scanned the head table, seeking out Lord Easton. Cormac’s inability to locate the man left him vexed. Who would betroth their sister to such a man as Brodie Ross from the first? And why was Lord Easton now issuing a challenge over Lady Isolde’s honor? And why was he so damnably hard to locate?
Cormac meant to unearth the answers to his questions that eve, for he knew somehow in doing so, he would identify the key to Lady Isolde’s heart. Or mayhap such a thought was simply him hoping.
His gaze fell upon Lady Isolde, and Pip scampered off in her direction.
Alan gazed after his pet. “You keep him tonight. He’ll get finer eating in the hall than outside with the servants.” He winked. “Besides, he’s your dog.”
Cormac opened his mouth to reply, but then Lady Isolde’s gaze went from Pip up to search the sea of people. For him. She was looking for him.
Cormac nodded. “Remember what we discussed.”
Alan was to seek out any information he could find on Brodie Ross. Or any of the Ross brothers. The jousters had provided no information of use, and Duncan and Lachlan had not found any serviceable information either.
Alan straightened, like a soldier who’d been issued orders. “Aye, I’ll uncover what I can.”
Cormac nodded at the man and wound through the Great Hall to where Lady Isolde sat at the high table.
“May I sit with ye?” he asked. In truth, he would have just sat down, but Alan had informed him it was preferable to give a lady a choice in the matter. “Please.”
“Aye, ye may.” Lady Isolde smiled up at him, a beautiful glowing expression that lit the darkest regions of his soul. God’s teeth, the lass was so bonny.
Pip had already taken a place under the table at her feet, his eager brown gaze lifted in expectation of any food that might fall to him.
Cormac sank onto the bench beside her. Immediately a serving wench approached with a tankard of ale for him.
He glanced about, finding naught but an old woman with feathery white hair at Isolde’s other side. “Where is Lord Easton this night?”
Her smile faltered. “Most likely taking his meal in his private chamber. He is not one for feasts.”
Steaming plates of food were set before them, great platters of venison and fowl along with more bread than Cormac had ever seen before in his life. He could only imagine delivering such a bounty of food to his own people.
Most of the men around him had belts that strained at the girth of their waists. An indication they feasted so luxuriously with regularity. That past winter, over a dozen of the Sutherland clan had perished from starvation. It was a terrible death, with one’s stomach so empty and their bodies wasted away to the skeleton.
Cormac had been there to help bury them, those slender bodies that weighed too little. He knew all of their stories and had carved every one of their names into his heart, a burden he would never cease to carry.
And here the nobility supped, belching through greasy mouths, reaching for more though their need for food had been sated.
They did not know true hunger.
“Are you well?” Lady Isolde asked.
Cormac blinked. “Aye.”
“Whatever were you thinking about?” She queried.
He shook his head, not willing to speak of his people’s plight. And how terribly he’d failed them.
For he had failed them. In the most awful of ways.
“I tried to locate Lord Easton earlier.” He took a fat cut of pheasant with juicy white meat and golden-crisped skin, the best piece he could find, and set it on the plate in front of Lady Isolde.
She allowed him to do so and thanked him. “Did you find my brother, then?”
Cormac cut another piece from the pheasant, his knife piercing the browned, roasted skin, then slicing easily through the tender meat beneath. It was a far more generous portion than he allowed himself back home.
“I couldna find yer brother,” Cormac confessed. “I searched through the waiting knights as well as the stands and tents. All to no avail.”
She gave a little hum of acknowledgment and took a dainty bite of meat.
“Why did he promise ye to Brodie Ross?” Cormac asked.
Her brows flinched together, and he knew the question put her off.
“I hear the melee on Friday will be one of the grandest in England,” she said in a casual tone.
He didn’t question the change in topic any more than he did the light conversation she kept up through the meal. She commented on the food and several of the jousters she’d heard who had been successful that day. Everything she said steered away from any personal details of herself or her brother. Such omissions were indeed noticed.
Still, he enjoyed the manner in which she spoke, how she noted things others might not and injected a bit of humor into details. And through it all, she’d slipped bites of meat down to Pip, who eagerly caught them in his sharp little teeth before they could land in the rushes.
At last, the plates were cleared, and the tables at the other end of the Great Hall were set aside to make room for dancing.
Lady Isolde’s gaze was fixed fully on him, wide blue eyes lashed with sable, her lips lifting slightly at the corners in a ghost of a smile that made him want to press his mouth to hers.