Sue-Ellen Welfonder - [MacLean 01]

by Knight in My Bed

  “And it is the taste of my well-wielded blade’s steel you shall suffer if you do not release me at once.” Donall’s anger heated his blood to such a degree he no longer felt the cell’s damp chill.

  “Your blade is secured far outwith your reach,” Struan countered. “Indeed, your days of swinging swords are past, MacLean. Even your supposed prowess with another sort of, shall we say, thrusting weapon will serve you no more.”

  Bracing his hands on his hips, he gave Donall a wholly unpleasant smile. “I daresay you shall regret being denied the use of that sword once you glimpse the fair countenance of our chieftain, the lady Isolde. But alas, sampling such a tender fruit as she is a pleasure beyond your reach.”

  “I would sooner plunge my staff into a she-goat,” Donall seethed, his shackles cutting into his wrists and ankles as he sought to lunge at the graybeard. “May my shaft wither and fall off afore I—”

  “Be assured I find the notion equally displeasing.”

  Donall froze. Smooth and rich as thick cream yet irresistibly spiced with the bite of pepper, the woman’s voice poured over, around, and into him.

  Under any other circumstances, the pleasing tones would have banished the sting of his anger with ease, mayhap even ignited fires of an entirely different sort of heat, but he was in no mood to be swayed by the sweet lilt of a few saucily spoken words.

  Especially when the melodious voice most assuredly belonged to Isolde MacInnes.

  A woman he had no intention of being attracted to. “Distasteful as your presence is to me, you are under my roof and I am determined to have done with you accordingly,” she spoke again, her words confirming her identity.

  Donall shifted on his pallet of straw and wished more covered his manhood than a thin piece of cloth. If the lady Isolde’s appearance proved halfway as provocative as the honeyed timbre of her voice and the avowals of her uncle, he would have preferred a more substantial modicum of dignity.

  Cell-bound and fettered or nay, red blood yet coursed through his veins.

  Nor had the blackguards put out his eyes.

  Pressing his lips together, he pushed aside all thought of fetching lasses. It’d been longer than he cared to admit since he’d last taken his ease with a wench, but he did not want to be bestirred by Isolde MacInnes.

  Not even a wee bit.

  What he wanted was a way out of this cell.

  With luck, he’d find her so unappealing, any unwanted surges of admiration would fly away at first glance. Holding his breath lest it not be so, he turned his head toward the door whence her voice had come.

  She stood just inside the open doorway, holding a rush light, her aged kinsmen clustered around her. And much to his ire, he recognized her worth immediately.

  Her uncle hadn’t lied: she was indeed a beauty.

  A powerful jolt of frank appreciation shot through him, boldly declaring his hot-blooded nature’s refusal to cooperate with his avowals to resist her charms.

  “Lady Isolde.” He curtly inclined his head. Blessedly, his voice remained free of any indication he found her alluring. “I refuse to be a part of such foolery as your men intend to perform on me and demand you release me at once.”

  She stepped farther into the cell, her rush light held aloft. Its flame illuminated the finely formed contours of her face, emphasizing the smooth perfection of her skin and casting a bright sheen upon her plaited hair.

  Hair the color of a thousand setting suns, its deep bronze tones shot through with lighter strands that shone like molten gold. Unbound, it would surely swirl around her gently curved hips and bewitch the good sense out of any man fool enough to try to resist his attraction to her.

  She came closer and Donall caught her scent. A light, clean fragrance, fresh and feminine, with a trace of wild-flowers and summer days, yet laced with a breath of some warm and tantalizing spice that promised darker pleasures beneath her aura of grace and innocence.

  The sort of pleasures he’d love to awaken in her.

  Were she any other woman.

  “I told you she was a prize. What a pity you can no longer indulge in such sweet pursuits.” Struan laid his arm around his niece’s shoulders and drew her closer to where Donall sat pressed against the cell wall. With his foot, he lifted the rag covering Donall’s male parts and kicked it aside. “You appear fit and hale . . . I imagine it pains you to know your few remaining days will be abstemious ones?”

  The white-haired ancient hovering to Donall’s left chortled, a thin-sounding, old man’s laugh. Isolde MacInnes gasped and turned away, her cheeks blooming near as red as her hair. “By God’s teeth, you base-minded miscreants, have none of you any shame?” Donall met the graybeards’ smirks with a fierce glare. “If your chieftain is a maid, what madness possesses—”

  “I am a maid, sirrah, and it is you who bears the weight of shame. You, and every other MacLean male ever born.” She stood with her back to him, her stance rigid and proud, her shoulders squared.

  A goddess carved of stone.

  She turned back, and the light from her torch shone full on her face. Her eyes, beautiful and exceptionally large, appeared dull. The sparkle that should have lit eyes of such a rich amber color was extinguished, snuffed out by a pall of sadness. Marred as thoroughly as her expression of accusation and disdain turned down the corners of her lips, thus spoiling the sweet allure of a mouth that fair begged to be kissed.

  Not that he was the man to do the kissing. Delectable lips or nay.

  Donall turned on the pallet, a vain attempt to shield his male parts from her view, but even more, a fruitless endeavor to free himself from the witchery she’d cast over him. Straw jabbed the backs of his bare legs and a gust of briny air swept into the cell, bringing with it the sharp tang of the nearby sea and stirring up the stale smell of the cell itself.

  Dank and sour, full of shadows, darkness, and unnamed scurrying creatures, the pathetic confines and the cold iron of his fetters flooded him with renewed vigor and scorn.

  Scorn, not for the lady, but for her aged advisers and their misplaced plans to wreak revenge on him for a deed he had naught to do with.

  A nefarious act he prayed had not been born of Iain’s lightning-quick mood swings.

  Digging his nails into his palms, he banished the troublesome nigglings of doubt that threatened to eat away his very soul.

  Iain could not be the murderer. He simply would not allow it to be so.

  The MacLeans, including his brother, condemned the foul deed, were stricken by it, and burned to avenge the gentle-hearted Lileas’s death.

  They would, too, if the MacInnesses would but listen to reason and release him.

  And mayhap he’d lost all reason, too, for he half believed that whilst the graybeards turned a deaf ear upon his avowals of innocence, the lady Isolde might prove more open-minded. A wild-brained notion, to be sure, but he had naught to lose and everything to gain.

  Only by securing his freedom could he locate the true blackguards and circumvent further chaos should Iain be left too long to his own devices.

  Turning back to the MacInnes chieftain, he cleared his throat. “My brother had naught to do with his wife’s death,” he said, fighting hard to ignore his undignified state and hoping his words held more assurance than he felt.

  Just broaching the matter caused his chest to constrict with pain. He could see the mild-mannered Lileas still, her red-gold hair tangled with seaweed, her slim body cold and unbreathing.

  “Iain loved his wife. Ne’er would he have laid a hand on her,” he vowed, focusing on the many times he’d seen Iain rain affection on his quiet wife rather than the rare occasions he’d ranted at her when beset by one of his black moods. “I’d swear his innocence on the holiest relics of the land.”

  Unbidden, Iain’s haunted eyes loomed vividly in Donall’s mind. His gut twisted at the memory of how inept he’d been in his attempts to ease his brother’s sorrow. “He mourns her truly,” he said, this time with more conviction.
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  “You lie.” The two words fell upon his naked skin, cold as two chips of ice.

  Isolde shivered. As so often since learning of her younger sister’s death, waves of cold washed over her even as her heart burned with the need to avenge Lileas’s murder. “You lie,” she repeated, her gaze fixed on the opposite wall rather than upon the naked man sprawled at her feet. “No one else could have done the deed.”

  Slipping out of the reassuring circle of her uncle’s arm, she thrust her rush light into his hands, then began pacing the bracken-strewn floor. She’d looked at the MacLean longer than she could bear. His unclothed state unsettled her, and knowing she’d soon be even closer to him, and to that part of him, made her heart pound with trepidation.

  But get close to him she would. For Lileas.

  For her people.

  And for herself, a tiny voice in the recesses of her mind reminded her. But those other reasons seemed sorely insignificant now.

  Still, she’d be strong. Brave. She’d follow her secret plan, even if it meant relinquishing her virginity to a man she reviled. Her sister’s murder must be avenged and she had to ensure the survival of her clan.

  Her council wanted the MacLean laird to die. They boasted his death would prove the ultimate revenge against the MacLeans. But such a plan, justifiable though it was, would destroy the MacInnesses. Vengeance would come swift and without quarter. She might as well unbar the gates and let the MacLeans storm within. Only a fool would think himself capable of staving off an attack by a clan so powerful.

  Yet almost all within her household seemed bent on being fools.

  She had no choice but to implement her own secret plan. A strategy to assure the MacLeans posed no future threat. For such a gain, the loss of her maidenhead was a small price to pay.

  Especially if her couplings with the MacLean left her blessed with a child as she hoped.

  “So if you believe me a liar, Isolde of Dunmuir, are you as bloodthirsty as your kinsmen?” Donall MacLean challenged her. His deep voice held a tinge of amusement and cut straight through her musings. “Are you, too, determined to torture me?”

  What I am wont to do to you, Donall the Bold, shall be a torture unto myself. The words echoed so loudly in her ears, she half feared she’d blurted them for all to hear.

  “Not as vocal as your wild-eyed band of elders, fair lady?” he taunted. “Have you no desire to recite the myriad cruelties you mean to inflict upon my flesh?”

  Wincing, for his accusations came closer to the truth than he could possibly know, Isolde joined Lorne, the youngest of her clan elders, in front of the cell’s narrow window.

  She did not trust herself to meet her prisoner’s dark and furious eyes. Keeping her back to him, she clasped her hands before her and took a deep, cleansing breath of salt-laden air. The muffled whoosh of waves washing over the pebbled beach just beyond the dungeon wall made her heart wrench.

  How often had she and Lileas skipped along the shore’s narrow reaches in the carefree days of their childhood?

  And how often had her dear da scolded them for venturing onto a beach he deemed dangerous because of the quick-changing currents of its harmless-looking waters?

  Now both Lileas and her father were gone.

  Isolde blinked hard.

  A speck, something, must’ve gotten into her eye.

  She unclasped her hands and smoothed her palms against the woolen folds of her belted arisaid. The plaid’s soft and nubby texture comforted her with its familiarity and provided a tenuous but reassuring link to normality during a situation that seemed to have skittered completely out of her control.

  Not yet ready to turn around, she stared out the window slit. Too narrow to reveal more than a slim swath of brilliant blue sky, the view was enough to make her hands clench at her sides.

  How could the sun shine when such darkness had settled over her heart?

  She blinked again, no longer able to blame the stinging heat at the backs of her eyes on a mere speck of dust. But rather than give heed to tears, she squared her shoulders and braced herself to face her enemy.

  The man she held responsible for her sister’s murder.

  Vengeance must be had but neither was all lost. She had much to be grateful for, and she wasn’t alone.

  She had the support and devotion of her clan. Her people now, for upon her da’s passing, and following his wishes, she’d accepted her place as chieftain. And as such, she had to do what was best for the good of them all.

  Especially in times of trouble, and including the daunting task of saving them from their own stubborn and foolish selves.

  “One of our own, a fine young woman we trusted your brother to treat with respect, has been killed upon the Lady Rock,” Lorne’s commanding voice sounded beside her, his austere words calling her back from her silent reverie. “Murdered by her MacLean husband in the same manner as her ancestress so many years past. You, Donall the Bold, as MacLean laird, will do penance by—”

  “Lorne, please.” Isolde swung around and touched the elder’s arm, unable to bear hearing the gory details of her kinsmen’s intent spoken aloud yet again. “The MacLean is aware of what he faces.”

  Returning to her uncle Struan’s side, she hoped naught about her bearing or expression revealed the turmoil swirling inside her.

  Her voice as level as she could manage, she said, “I am weary and shall retire early. I trust verily no one will disturb me before cockcrow.”

  Bracing herself to play a role she already doubted she could master, she cast a disdainful glance at the MacLean. “Niels and Rory have insisted on guarding my door so long as he remains within our walls. Rather than injure their feelings, I agreed, so do not be alarmed if you see them there. They’ve sworn to let none save the Blessed Mother herself cross my threshold.” With that, she kissed her uncle’s cheek, gave the MacLean a curt nod, then sailed from the chamber as quickly as her pride would allow.

  A safe distance from the cell, she paused before a dark alcove set deep in the passage’s wall. “See that he is properly bathed and brought to my chamber this eve,” she whispered to the man concealed by shadows. “Late . . . not before the hour of compline. And, pray God, let none catch you.”

  The man opened his mouth to reply, but Isolde hitched up her skirts and hurried down the dank corridor before the words could pass his lips.

  If her well-meaning cousin Niels tried once more to sway her purpose, she might well abandon her ambitious plan for securing peace with the MacLeans.

  Indeed, after seeing their laird in the flesh, completely in the flesh, she harbored serious concerns about the wisdom of pursuing her goal.

  Donall stared after her long after she’d gone, a multitude of conflicting emotions eating him alive. Saints, but she took his breath away, riling him with her blunt refusal to listen to reason, yet even as fury made his blood boil, he had to admire her courage and spirit.

  She had to know what her clan elders meant to do with him. Her willingness to allow such barbarous acts beneath her roof spoke of her sheer will to see her sister’s death avenged.

  Whether he shouldered responsibility or nay, and he most assuredly did not, such strength of character as she displayed was something any Highlander or Islesman had to admire.

  “An uncommon beauty, is she not?” Lorne MacInnes drew Donall’s attention with a swift kick to his ribs.

  Biting back a groan, Donall shot a dark look at the smirking graybeard. The tattered cloth that had covered his male parts dangled from the bastard’s fingers.

  “A sweetmeat the likes of you will never sample again,” Lorne drawled, twirling the rag before letting it drop onto Donall’s groin. “If good fortune is with you, mayhap our fair chieftain will grace your dreams,” he added, then strode from the cell, the other MacInnes ancients trailing after him.

  “Surely you cannot deny her appeal?” yet another male voice came from the darkness, robbing him of the welcome quiet that had settled over his cell since the gray
beards’ collective departure. “I doubt there is a finer lass in all of the Isles.”

  Donall clenched his jaw and said naught. He wouldn’t give the insolent lout the gratification of an answer. Especially when none was necessary.

  Isolde MacInnes was a prize grand enough to bring a king to his knees.

  Most men would be afire with need at the mere thought of bedding a maid so fine.

  Not that such thoughts had entered his mind. Nor was he most men.

  Though regional unrest and his duties as laird left him little time or inclination for wenching in recent years, none could claim he lived a monk’s life.

  But ne’er had he sampled the favors of a female as alluring as the MacInnes chieftain, and a merry pox on the whoreson who’d brought such unwanted notions to his mind!

  His brows drawn together in ire, he sought the source of his irritation, ready to unleash the full wrath of his fury on the cur, only to have the words lodge in his throat when he spied the wretch in the shadows of the still-open cell door.

  A veritable giant of a man, the overgrown ox with his outrageously red hair had the audacity to look amused by Donall’s surprise. “Not all MacInnes men are old and bent,” the giant said, holding out his well-muscled arms and flexing his fingers. “ ’Twould be wise of you to remember it.”

  “And who are you?” Donall shot back, wishing fervently he could rid himself of his shackles. “Are you come from the lady to begin my torture?”

  The man peered hard at him. After a long moment, he said, “ ’Tis Niels MacInnes I am, and, aye, the lady Isolde sent me, but her reasons for a-wanting you have naught to do with breaking your bones, though I will not deny I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on you.”

  “So why are you here?”

  “I asked if you find our chieftain appealing. You didn’t answer.” Niels MacInnes folded his arms and pinned Donall with a piercing stare. “Do you?”