The Soldier's Rebel Lover

Chapter Nine

Four days later

They had ridden hard each day in their desperation to get as far away from Hermoso Romero as quickly as possible, stopping only for a few hours’ fitful sleep and to rest and water the horses. The road ahead, the steady gallop of the steeds who carried them, were their only focus. The landscape thereabouts afforded little in the way of cover. The roads were no more than rough dirt tracks in places, meandering through the rolling hills, the lower slopes of which were covered in a patchwork of vines. This was her land, her home territory, but to Isabella it felt disconcertingly alien, almost as if she was the stranger here, not Finlay. Which she was, she supposed, since she had forgone the right to call it home. She forced herself to sit upright in the saddle, concentrating on looking forward, not back. Quite literally.

Pamplona and then north was the obvious and quickest route to the coast and the ship that would take her across the ocean, but Finlay insisted that was too risky, since any pursuers would know that and follow suit. No, better to take a more circuitous route. It might be slower but it would significantly improve their chances of avoiding capture. Isabella did not question him. In truth she did not care where they went. When he opted to follow one of the old pilgrim routes that lead to Santiago de Compostela, she did as he bid her. She had never been to the city. She wished fervently that it truly was their destination. She did not want to think about the country where she was to make a new life. Fear froze her imagination whenever she tried.

She barely spoke as they travelled. She had not cried, not since Estebe—no, she would not think of that. She did not deserve the release of tears. She did not deserve Finlay’s sympathy, the comfort of his strong, reassuring embrace. Not that he offered it. The man who rode beside her was unquestionably a soldier. No trace in that steely expression of the sensual Highlander who had charmed her. This man had a duty to perform, and he was clearly set on executing it. Well, she, too, had a duty, to the memory of Estebe. He had died to protect her. She would not allow his sacrifice to have been in vain, so she could do nothing save put as much distance between herself and her family as possible, in order to protect them. There was nothing to be said, nothing to be done save do as Finlay bade her without question: eat what was put in front of her, lie down and close her eyes in whatever shack or shepherd’s hut he found each night, feign sleep until he roused her at dawn, continue on in the saddle each morning without complaint. An obedient and uncomplaining trooper, that was what he required, and so that was what she would be.

They were following the River Aragon today, and reached the outskirts of the little town of Sanguesa in the late afternoon. One of the many overnight refuges for weary pilgrims that dotted the Camino Way, the jumble of whitewashed houses was perched on the hillside looking, from a distance, like a set of steps leading up to the magnificent Romanesque church of Santa Maria la Real. Finlay reined his horse in, casting an anxious look at the sky, which looked as if it augured rain.

‘I’m sorry, lass, but we can’t risk staying in town,’ he said regretfully, ‘much as a proper meal and a comfy bed for the night would be a welcome treat.’

‘No matter,’ Isabella replied, casting an uninterested gaze at the town. ‘If we follow the river, we can take shelter in the next valley.’

* * *

She had become so accustomed to spending long periods lying wide awake, alternated with fevered nightmares of trying to escape endless dark tunnels, that it was a surprise when Isabella struggled to open her eyes. She was lying on the wooden shelf that served for a bed in a ramshackle shepherd’s hut. She could remember arriving here, remember Finlay lighting a fire, forcing herself to eat, forcing herself to lie down and close her eyes, waiting for the darkness and the guilt and remorse to envelop her. Instead, it had been as if all the bones had been removed from her body. She had slept dreamlessly. And now she felt—different.

She was warm, surprisingly comfortable. The blanket covering her smelled faintly of horse. She turned onto her side. The door of the shelter was ajar, giving her a glimpse of the grey, predawn sky and Finlay a few yards distant, sitting by the horses, on guard as he had been every night. Did he ever sleep? For the first time, she wondered what it was he was watching out for, who it was he expected.

The dull stupor that had enveloped her since leaving Hermoso Romero had gone, and so, too, had the heavy pall of grief and regret, leaving her mind clear. Isabella counted the days since their flight, and was surprised to discover that this must be the fifth. Almost a week since Estebe died, since she left her home and her family, who were more dear to her than she had realised. But they would be better off without her. Consuela could have her sister come to live with her. Xavier would most likely mourn the loss of his winery manager more than his sister.

Isabella gave herself a shake. ‘Be honest,’ she told herself. ‘Xavier will be so shocked at what he reads in that letter you left, he will be thankful you did not wait to say goodbye. “Finally,” he will say to himself, “now I understand why my sister was such an unnatural woman. Gabriel has had a lucky escape.”’ Which was very true, though she doubted very much that Xavier would go so far as to inform his friend of the exact nature of his good fortune.

Isabella sat up abruptly. She had been quite distraught when she had written the letter admitting to being El Fantasma, intent only on sparing her family by accepting sole responsibility. But what, exactly, had she imagined Xavier would do with such a confession? Show it to the government officials when they came calling, as they inevitably would? Why should they believe him? What credence would such a confession truly have, when Xavier was a much more likely candidate to be El Fantasma than his demure little sister?

The letter had made no mention of the printing press. The pamphlets she and Finlay had shredded, El Fantasma’s last words, had been forced down the well, the pulpy mess anointed with ink and scattered with metal lettering. As she had pulled the wine rack over the concealed door for the last time, Isabella had wondered if any curious soul would ever discover it. Her nephew, perhaps? A few weeks ago, she would have smiled at the idea of passing on El Fantasma’s legacy to an as-yet unborn niece. Now the notion filled her with horror.

The Madrileños would demand proof from Xavier, and when he had none to give them—what would they do to him? Remembering Estebe’s determination not to fall into the men’s clutches, Isabella shuddered. Consuela might tell them about the printing press, but would that not rather condemn rather than acquit him? Isabella clutched at her head. She had been so proud of the fact that no one would ever believe El Fantasma was a woman. Now—Madre di Dios, what a fool she was! No one would believe her confession. Pride truly did come before a fall.

* * *

‘Finlay!’

The panic in Isabella’s voice was unmistakable. He ran to the bothy just as she jumped out of the makeshift bed and grabbed him by the arm. ‘What is it?’

‘I have to go back. Xavier—they’ll never believe him. I have to go back.’

She was dressed only in her underwear. Her hair was tumbling down her back, free from the long plait she usually wore. Her face, which had been so pale and set for days, was now flushed, her eyes bright. Thank the stars she was back to something like herself. He caught her hands between his. ‘Wheesht, now, you know that’s not possible.’

‘I have to,’ she said urgently. ‘They will come for him, and even with the letter— Finlay, they won’t believe him. They’ll take him away. I can’t let them take him away. I can’t let them— We have to go back, Finlay.’

‘We can’t. There’s no going back. I’m sorry.’

‘But...’

‘No, Isabella. Listen to me now,’ he said, before she could speak again. ‘You’re in the right of it. That confession of yours won’t protect your brother. It’s an unlikely story, I’d be the first to admit, that the great El Fantasma is a mere woman. Indeed, I’d have had a great difficulty believing it myself, had I not become acquainted with you in that ditch beside an arms cache during the war.’

He had meant her to smile. Instead, she frowned deeply. ‘No one will believe it. If only I had been Xavier’s brother, and not his sister, things would have been so very different.’

‘Aye, well, I’m not denying that would have made things a mite easier,’ Finlay said, unable to suppress his smile, ‘but a lot less interesting. I wouldn’t have missed meeting you again for the world.’

‘I have been a great deal of trouble to you. You told me not to go to Estebe, and...’

‘Isabella, you did only what I’d have done myself, in your shoes.’

‘You’re not angry with me?’

‘If I’m angry at anyone it’s with myself for faffing about, for not getting you out of there sooner.’

‘I made it very difficult for you. I was so stubborn, and I didn’t listen, and I thought I knew best, and—Finlay, what will he do? Xavier, I mean. When they come for him, how will he save himself if they do not believe him?’

He had stupidly hoped she would not ask him this question. No doubt about it, the shock had worn off, and her mind was as sharp as ever. He could lie to her, but she’d work it out for herself soon enough, and besides, he would not lie to her. ‘Sit down,’ Finlay said, steering her onto the bench and taking a seat beside her.

She did as he bid her, but without the docile obedience of the past few days. ‘What is it? What do you know?’

‘I don’t know anything for sure.’

‘You think they will discount my confession, don’t you?’

‘I do, I’m afraid.’

‘So they will arrest Xavier? Finlay, I can’t allow that.’

‘Haud your wheesht a minute. The authorities have been meticulous and thorough in their pursuit of El Fantasma, Isabella, we know that. They might struggle to believe that a wee lassie could be El Fantasma, but they couldn’t dismiss it out of hand. They’d be obliged to check it out—to eliminate the possibility. They are not the type to leave any stone unturned.’

‘So they will be looking for me.’ Isabella paled. ‘And Xavier will— Do you think he will— What do you think he will do?’

‘You know your brother better than I do, Isabella. What do you think?’

‘I don’t know!’

‘Think about it,’ Finlay said with a heavy heart. ‘What is most important to him?’

‘His son, his wife.’

‘No, there is something even more important than that.’

Now she was nodding to herself, clearly beginning to follow his meaning. ‘My brother has been raised to believe that he is the custodian of Hermoso Romero. It is his—I don’t know what to call it—duty? His heritage? His destiny? If he was shamed, if they took him, accused him of being El Fantasma, he would lose everything.’ Another little nod. ‘So what you think is—what you think is that he would do anything to avoid that?’

Though she had paled, she looked him straight in the eye. ‘Aye,’ Finlay said. ‘I do.’

‘Sí. And the only way to avoid it, is to— You do not think he will try to stop them coming after me, do you?’

‘I’m right sorry, but I don’t see how he can. Even he has not that power, and frankly, it is not in his best interests.’

‘I see.’ Isabella clasped her hands together tightly. ‘So that is why you have been so eager to put so many miles between us and Hermoso Romero. That is why you have been standing guard every night while I slept.’

‘Aye,’ he said, heart sore at watching it dawn on her just how alone she was.

‘If they capture me, Xavier will be safe.’

‘I’ve no intentions of letting anyone capture you, or me for that matter.’

Another faint smile greeted this remark. ‘But if they do not, then suspicion will fall on my brother.’

Romero would be in the clear. The plan Jack had hatched would leave neither the British nor the Spanish in any doubt that El Fantasma had been silenced, but Finlay couldn’t bring himself to explain this to Isabella just yet. She was only just recovering from one huge shock, only just starting to reassess her future. Time enough to explain just exactly what that future would entail another day. ‘Your brother is a powerful man and not without influence. I wouldn’t bet against him finding a way of convincing the authorities of his innocence.’

Her lips tightened. ‘If that is true, then had there been a way to save me, he could have found it. The fact that you did not even consider giving him the opportunity to do so...’

Finlay managed a wry smile. ‘Actually, I did, but I concluded the result would be your spending the rest of your life locked away in a nunnery.’

She stared at him in astonishment. ‘You are probably right. I think you know my brother better than I. It would have been the perfect solution for you, too, I think. I could not betray the Duke of Wellington from a nunnery. You would not have been burdened with me. You could have gone back to England, having done your duty. Why did you not...?’

‘Would you have liked to spend the rest of your life in a nunnery?’

‘No, but—I do not like being a burden to you.’

‘You’re not.’ He took her hand again, stroking the back of it with his thumb. ‘You’re not a burden.’

‘But I am. My actions have put your life in danger as well as mine. I have been so blindly selfish. I am so very, very sorry.’

‘Don’t be daft. I was sent to protect you.’ He carried on stroking her hand. Her fingers curled into his. ‘And I won’t be leaving your side until you’re safely on that boat to America.’

‘Because you promised your friend Jack?’

It was what he ought to say. It was the truth, but looking at her now, at those big golden eyes shadowed with lack of sleep, and the determined set of her shoulders, and thinking of the fearless way she had confronted the most unpalatable of facts, Finlay knew it was only a very small part of the truth. He could not tell her the whole of it, but he could not resist telling her a wee bit. ‘Because you’re a brave and honourable woman, the finest one I’ve ever met, and you deserve a future,’ he said.

‘I’m not feeling very brave right now.’

Her smile was shaky, but it was a smile. ‘It’s precisely because you’re feart, and yet you are still ready to face the truth, that makes you brave,’ Finlay said.

She touched his cheek, the pad of her thumb soft against the roughness of his stubble. ‘Almost, I believe you, but I think you are just trying to make me feel better.’

‘And is my ploy working?’

‘Yes.’ She brushed his hair back from his brow. She leaned into him, and brushed her lips to his forehead. ‘It is working, but I think I have an even more effective ploy,’ she said, twining her arms around his neck and pressing her lips to his.

She’d caught him unawares. She tasted so sweet, he could not resist her. His arms slid around her back, pulling her tight up against him. Her tongue touched his, and his shaft sprang immediately to life. He ran his fingers through the long, silken weight of her hair, spanned the slim indent of her waist, slid them up to cup the swell of her breasts, covered only by her chemise. Her nipples were hard buds beneath the soft linen. She moaned, a soft, guttural sound that sent his blood racing.

Their kisses deepened, grew wilder. She lay back on the wooden bench. Tugging his shirt free from the waistband of his breeches, she stroked her fingers up his spine. He shuddered with delight. He kissed her throat. He kissed the mounds of her breasts above her chemise. He took one of her nipples between his lips and sucked. The fabric of her undergarments became damp from his mouth, making the dark pink nub beneath clearly visible. He turned his attention to her other nipple. She moaned again, digging her nails into his back, arching up under him, brushing her belly against the hard, throbbing rod in his breeches.

He had never wanted any woman so much. He ached to slide into her tantalisingly slowly, inch by inch by inch, relishing every single moment of it, until he was as high inside her as he could be, and then he’d tilt her delightful behind up and push deeper. His shaft pulsed in anticipation. As if she could read his mind, Isabella’s hands roved down his body, cupping his buttocks, pulling him tighter against her.

‘Finlay,’ she said, in that hoarse, breathy voice that set his blood on fire. ‘Finlay.’

He kissed her again, hard on the lips, and she met his passion with a fire of her own. If he could only have her this once... If they could make love just this once... He’d give almost anything for that.

Almost, but not quite. He tore himself away, too appalled at his lack of control to care how it must look, jumping down from the bench and tucking his shirt back into his breeches, swearing furiously in Gaelic.

Isabella sat up, pushing her hair back from her face. Her eyes were huge, desire giving way to confusion. Confusion! She should take a look inside his head! ‘You are under my protection,’ Finlay said raggedly. ‘A fine way I have of discharging my duty, taking advantage of you like that.’

‘I rather think that it was I who took advantage of you. I thought it might make us both feel a little better.’

‘I’ve absolutely no doubt that it would, temporarily,’ he said, running his hands through his hair. ‘Isabella, I know that I have been—before— I know that I have been very much— Ach, for heaven’s sake, you know perfectly well that I find it almost impossible to keep my hands off you. But the fact is we are fleeing for our very lives with half of Spain looking for us, so it’s no surprise if neither of us is thinking quite straight. But that is precisely what we need to do. Keep our heads and focus on the task in hand.’

‘So what do you propose we do?’ Isabella asked.

‘I don’t know about you,’ Finlay said, with as much gravitas as he could muster, ‘but I’m going to sort the horses out.’

* * *

‘Well, that certainly put me in my place,’ Isabella muttered to herself as she stared at his retreating back in disbelief. ‘Spurned for a horse!’ Her body was still throbbing with unsated desire as she padded over to the doorway of the hut. Dawn was just breaking. In the growing light she could see that Finlay was not tending the horses, but standing on the banks of the stream that ran through the valley, less than ten yards away. Which I suppose is some sort of consolation, she thought, managing a self-deprecating smile.

She watched as he pulled his shirt over his head. He was close enough for her to see the ripple of his muscles as he stretched. Her breath caught in her throat. His skin was paler than she had imagined. His waist tapered down to the band of his leather breeches, which hung low on his hips. A silvery line of darker, puckered skin ran the full length from his left shoulder down close to the line of his spine. It must have been a horrific wound to leave such a scar. He rarely talked of the army, yet he had been a soldier his entire adult life. It’s not the same, he’d told her, when she had compared her time as a soldier to his. She had been annoyed, she recalled. Looking at that scar, remembering how she had fallen apart when Estebe had shot himself, she was forced to acknowledge that she had been presumptuous. In fact, she knew very little about Finlay. Always, he turned their conversations away from himself. This man she was watching, this man who shared her biggest secret, whose body she ached for, was in many ways still a stranger. He joked about being called the Jock Upstart, but he was no mere soldier. A major, and promoted rather than commissioned. A hardened campaigner. A man accustomed to command. It was a wonder that he had tolerated her equivocation as long as he had. Not that he had any right to order her about, but...

Isabella sighed. Actually, under the circumstances, he had every right, and yet he had refrained from doing so. He was an honourable man. A very honourable man. An extremely honourable man. She had offered herself to him, and he had refused, not for lack of desire, but because she was under his protection. Even if she could persuade him that gratitude had played no role in her kissing him, he would still have torn himself free of her. She couldn’t help wishing he was not quite so honourable. But then he would not be Finlay.

He had picked up the leather bag that contained his shaving things, and was heading a few yards upstream now, towards the small cascade that fed the stream. The water would be ice-cold. Isabella looked on, mesmerised, as Finlay undid the buttons of his leather breeches. She should not be watching. She should look away. This was an invasion of privacy. Her mouth went dry as he slid the last item of clothing to the ground. His legs were long and well muscled. There was a tan line that stopped just above the knee. His buttocks were unexpectedly shapely. She really should not be looking. He stepped out of his breeches, kicking them to one side, and she had a brief glimpse of him from the front. Colour rushed to her cheeks as she saw the jutting length of his arousal. Her knowledge of male anatomy came only from art. In the flesh—Isabella put a hand to her fluttering heart as Finlay splashed into the stream and stood under the waterfall—in the flesh, this man at least was quite blood-heatingly delicious.

Not a feast, but a banquet. She recalled Finlay’s words in the printing-press room. He had his back to her now, stretching his arms high over his head, letting the freezing water fall in rivulets over his body. He seemed to be relishing the cold, embracing it. It occurred to her, with a shock, that the icy cascade was an antidote to his passion, and she looked with fresh eyes at the waterfall, thinking that she, too, could cool her throbbing body there. What would Finlay say if she joined him? She smiled, allowing herself to picture the scene, but she could not imagine having the nerve to carry it off, and even if she did, Finlay would most likely reject her.

He would be right to do so. Their perilous situation was clouding her judgement, making her foolish and rash, and she was neither. Her smile faded. As he began to lather himself, Isabella turned slowly and returned to the shack. The time had come to take back responsibility for her own life, for better or for worse. She had a lot to think about. Simple things, such as her entire future! Not to mention the small matter of getting out of Spain in one piece. No, Finlay was right. They needed to focus. She could not afford to be distracted by a pair of sea-blue eyes, a mane of auburn hair and a body that Michelangelo himself could have sculpted.

* * *

Isabella, her skin glowing from the shower she had taken under the waterfall after he had returned from his own ablutions, her hair restrained in a long wet braid, had a decidedly mulish look on her face. Trouble, Finlay thought, though he couldn’t help but smile at this further evidence of the return of the feisty partisan he admired so much. Desired so much. No, he wouldn’t think of that.

The sparkle had returned to her eyes. ‘We need to talk,’ she said.

‘We do.’ Finlay handed her a cup of coffee, pleased to note the pleasure with which she took it, the admiring glance she gave the small portable trivet he always carried with him to heat the pot on. ‘I always travel prepared for anything,’ he said by way of explanation, ‘although I can think of no item of field equipment that could have prepared me for you.’ He was rewarded with a smile. ‘Here, take this, you must be hungry.’

‘Thank you. I am ravenous.’ She took the toasted bread and cheese, sitting cross-legged on the hard-packed mud floor, looking quite at home.

‘You’ll have found bothies like these useful places during the war, no doubt,’ Finlay said.

‘Bothies?’

‘A hut. A bothy is what we’d call it in the Highlands,’ Finlay explained. ‘A place for the cattle drovers to rest overnight on their way to market.’

‘This land is too mountainous for cattle, but, yes, to answer your question, during the war, such places were often used for storing arms. And hiding partisans, just as this one is doing now.’ Isabella finished her breakfast, and set her cup down, obviously bracing herself. ‘You were right,’ she said.

‘In what way?’

‘I was never a soldier as you were. I carried a gun, I witnessed some fighting, but I did not fight in the way you did. Estebe was not the first dead man I have seen, but it was the first time I had ever witnessed the barbarity of what a gun can do used in that way.’

‘I regret that you did.’

‘It is something I will never forget. Never.’ She gazed into the fire, blinking rapidly. ‘I know I was not wholly responsible for Estebe’s death, but I must take some of the blame.’

‘Isabella, Estebe was a grown man and he was a hardened soldier. He knew the risks and accepted them.’

‘Yes, that is true, but I was his commanding officer, Finlay. He died for the cause, but it was under my watch.’

He could not argue with that, and it would be insulting to do so. At a loss, he poured her the last of the coffee.

She nodded her thanks and cupped her hands around the tin mug, staring into the fire. ‘How do you reconcile that, Finlay? You must have sacrificed many of your men for the cause, the greater good. How do you do it?’

Her question caught him unawares. ‘You do it by not thinking about it and simply obey the orders you are given. It is for others to weigh the moral balance,’ Finlay said. It was the stock answer. The army answer. It was a steaming mound of horse manure, and Isabella knew it.

She drained her coffee again, and narrowed her eyes at him. ‘You told me that if you had not been so insubordinate you would have been promoted beyond major by now. There are some orders you do not obey. You choose, on occasion, your own path. You follow your own instincts.’

He smiled wryly. ‘I’ve always had a penchant for intelligent women, but until I met you, I never thought there could be such a thing as a lass who was too clever.’

‘Don’t mock me.’

‘Isabella, I wouldn’t dare, I was simply— You’ve a habit of asking difficult questions, do you know that?’

She raised her empty cup in salute. ‘I am not the only one.’

‘Aye, well, there you go.’ Finlay picked up his knife and began to cut the piece of uneaten bread before him into smaller and smaller cubes. ‘You’re right. Of course I make choices. While there’s always someone up the ranks to blame if things go awry, that’s not my way, any more than it’s my way to ask my men to do something I would not.’

‘Such as cross enemy lines to reconnoitre a French arms dump?’

‘Ach, that was more a case of my being bored and needing to see a wee bit of action. I’m wondering, though, if you were not in the habit of actually fighting, what you were doing there that night?’

‘Ach,’ Isabella replied in a fair attempt at his own accent, ‘that was a case of my being bored and needing to see a wee bit of action, too. I did not fight,’ she continued, reverting to her own voice, ‘but I did try to ensure that El Fantasma’s reputation for infallibility was preserved, since it was good for morale. It was my father, as usual, who heard the rumours of French activity. He thought that I had others investigate them, but towards the end of the war, more often than not I did that myself.’ Isabella gazed into the fire. ‘I think—I thought that Papa would be proud of me, of El Fantasma, but Consuela, all the things she said... I don’t know, Finlay. I am not so certain now. For Papa, his family came before everything, while I—I think, I think I have been putting myself first.’ She sniffed. ‘I am sorry. More self-pity. Excuse me.’

She got to her feet, but before she could move towards the door of the hut, Finlay caught her. ‘How can you be so daft?’ he said, pulling her into his arms, tilting her face up to force her to look at him. ‘You’ve not been wielding a gun, but you’ve been fighting for your country all the same. You’ve put everyone but yourself first, Isabella. Selfish—that’s the very last thing I’d call you.’

‘Daft, that is what you called me. You mean stupid.’

‘No. It can mean stupid right enough, but these auld Scots words, they’ve a wheen of other meanings.’

He was pleased to see that her tears had dried, her lips forming a shaky smile. ‘Such as?’

‘Such as brave, and bold. Such as beautiful and bright. Such as surprising.’

‘Because I admit I was wrong?’

‘Because you question yourself.’ Reluctantly, he let her go. She was too distracting, and what was more she deserved an honest answer to her original question—or as honest as he could muster. He sat down on the mud-packed floor once more. ‘You asked me how I choose between duty and human life, and I don’t really know how to answer that. I’ve fought on battlefields where people make their homes. I’ve staged sieges in towns where women and children and old men and old women are living. I’d like to think that it’s been worthwhile. Whenever my men have crossed the line in the aftermath of a battle—and there have been times—I’ve made sure they faced the consequences.’ The memories of some of those times made him wince. Finlay rubbed his eyes. ‘I’ve gone against some orders where my conscience has pricked me, but I’ve acted on others where I’ve been faced with the consequences only afterwards.’ More images, worse ones, flickered through his mind. He shook his head in an effort to disperse them. ‘I’m a soldier. I am trained to obey orders. I’m not supposed to question them. I’m supposed to trust that my superiors will act honourably, in the name of our country, but war...it isn’t like that, not all the time. Sometimes the lines are blurred and I—I have not always questioned as perhaps I ought.’

He had not noticed her sitting down beside him until she took his hand in hers. ‘But you did question the orders you were given when you came here,’ she said gently. ‘When I told you who I was, you could have acted then, but instead of taking me by force you waited, tried to persuade me to leave voluntarily.’

‘Not very successfully.’ Her fingers were long and slender, so small compared to his.

‘On the contrary,’ Isabella said. ‘You have saved my life.’

Gazing at her liquid amber eyes, holding her delicate hand between his, Finlay had the strangest feeling. Heartache? ‘Not yet, I haven’t. We’re not out of the woods yet,’ he said, as much to himself as Isabella.

‘What is more, you are committing treason to protect me,’ she said. ‘Your orders from the great duke were to silence me.’

‘Aye, well, that was one of those orders I’d never find it in my conscience to obey, but it’s not treason, Isabella, not really. As far as the duke is concerned, El Fantasma will be silenced, just not in the way he’s expecting.’

‘But surely lying to the Duke of Wellington is as good as committing treason? Finlay Urquhart, I do believe you are a hero. Foolish, reckless, but a hero nonetheless.’

‘Stop it, or you’ll have me blushing like a wee lassie.’

Isabella’s mouth curved into a smile. She closed the gap between them, reaching up to touch his cheek. ‘You’re no lassie. You’re a man, a beautiful man.’

‘Well, there, you see, you’re wrong. Nobody could describe me as beautiful.’

‘Oh, but you are.’ She ran her fingers through his hair. ‘The first time ever I met you, I thought, there is a man who will attract a second and a third glance.’

Her smile did terrible, wonderful things to him. It stirred his blood, that smile. It made him want to devour her. For she was a feast. A banquet.

Her mouth was only a few inches from his. Her fingers were feathering the skin at the nape of his neck. ‘You can’t call a rough, burly Highlander beautiful,’ Finlay said in a vain attempt to change the subject.

‘I just did,’ Isabella said with a mischievous smile. ‘And I’m not referring to your appearance. You are a beautiful man, Finlay Urquhart, because you have saved my life. You have risked your life—are risking your life for me. I am completely in your debt, as are my family, though they do not know it. You will always have a special place in my heart because of that, regardless of what the future holds.’

‘Then, that is all the reward I need,’ Finlay said, surprising himself by the depth of emotion in his voice. Forcing himself to get to his feet, he stamped out the fire and began to pack up. ‘As to the future, that can keep for later. We’ve a few more miles to put between us and Hermoso Romero first.’