Sue-Ellen Welfonder - [MacLean 01]

by Knight in My Bed

  This time, too, she caught a quick glimpse of the bed before Evelina could shove the screen into place. A simple oaken four-poster, uncurtained, but graced with exquisitely embroidered coverings and pillows.

  For a long, uncomfortable moment Isolde kept her gaze on the well-swept floor rather than watch the joy woman hovering so near the place where surely countless passions had been indulged and spent.

  Where, within a few short hours, Evelina would no doubt tryst with her secret amour.

  Isolde squirmed on the chair.

  Her palms grew clammier.

  And the unobtrusive popping sounds of the peat fire crackling in the hearth swelled to a great roar in her ears until she recognized the noise as the loud thudding of her own heart.

  She cleared her throat. “Your champion sounds brave and valiant, a man any maid would rejoice to have. Do you not wish to wed him?”

  No sooner had the words spilled from her tongue, than she realized the hurt they could inflict. “Pray forgive me, lady. I—”

  “We cannot marry,” Evelina began, taking a richly bordered mantle of heavy silk off a peg on the wall and draping it discreetly over her see-through camise. “Because, as you know, I am not a lady.”

  “But—”

  Evelina stopped Isolde’s protestation with a raised hand. “But I have quit my wicked trade?” Fastening the mantle’s girdle around her still-slender waist, she gave Isolde a half-amused smile.

  Isolde’s heart wrenched at the sadness hiding behind it.

  Coming forward, Evelina took one of Isolde’s hands between her own. “Think you it matters I’ve . . . reformed?”

  “I vow it should.”

  “But it does not.” Evelina released her hand. “Some stains ne’er wash out, my lady. The people of these isles have long memories.”

  Taking two earthen cups off a shelf, she poured them each a portion of her famed redcurrant wine. “I have a reputation for evil living.” She placed a cup in front of Isolde. “Many are they who would chase after me with sticks, their faces a-glow with zeal whilst they wish all the terrors of hellfire upon me.”

  Her voice was firm, her expression placid, but the telltale glitter of moisture swimming in her dark eyes made Isolde forget her own woes.

  And the reason she’d come.

  “Tell me on whom you’ve hung your heart, and I shall intervene.” Isolde clutched at Evelina’s arm when she made to move away, but her fingers grasped at air as the joy woman slipped past her to stand at the opened door, her back to the room.

  “Is he a MacInnes?” Isolde probed. “A MacLean?”

  Evelina turned around. “As I will not betray your trust, nor can I violate my lord’s. Not even to you.”

  “He can be naught but one or the other,” Isolde reasoned, undaunted by Evelina’s refusal to reveal the man’s name. “If he is of my blood, I shall speak to the elders on your behalf. If he is a MacLean,” she hesitated, then rushed on, “mayhap there, too, I can soon wield some small influence.”

  With a quiet sigh, Evelina gestured to the row of wooden pegs lining the far wall. For the first time, Isolde noticed a faded arisaid hanging there.

  MacInnes colors.

  Her heart began to thump, but then she recognized a MacLean plaid dangling from the next peg.

  And there were others.

  The implication blossomed on Isolde’s cheeks.

  “I see you understand.” Evelina took the seat across from Isolde and lifted her cup. “He could fare from any of these isles, my lady. Be glad I will not allow to befall you the havoc that would erupt should you attempt to champion someone like me.”

  “But—”

  “You are too kind, Isolde of Dunmuir.” Evelina took a sip of her redcurrant wine. “Would that all were as pure-hearted as you. But they are not, so it must suffice you to know your generosity is much appreciated.”

  Isolde curled her hands around her own cup and stared at the tabletop. “Of late I feel anything but generous, and certainly not pure-hearted.”

  “Your intentions are noble.”

  Isolde looked up. “And the means?”

  “The means?” Evelina smiled. A wide smile that lit her face and made her appear years younger. “Did you know, once when I yet lived in Glasgow and was the . . . er, guest of a great and noble lord, I heard the bards sing Donall the Bold’s praises?”

  A mischievous light danced in her eyes. “Aye, ’tis true. There wasn’t a storyteller worth his salt who couldn’t recite a rousing tale about Donall MacLean’s valorous deeds.”

  Isolde took a healthy swallow of her wine.

  Evelina leaned forward. “ ’Twas also claimed he is fired with enough romantic ardor to please ten women at once.”

  The wine cup near slipped from Isolde’s fingers. “I find him boorish and rude.”

  Sitting back, Evelina lifted an elegant brow and peered across the table at her. “Can you blame him?”

  Isolde glanced away.

  The joy woman’s raised brow and penetrating scrutiny reminded her too much of the looks he gave her. And her words sounded disconcertingly similar to those of the cailleach.

  Agitation began to bubble in Isolde’s belly. She studied the other woman’s face but couldn’t discern what she wanted to know. “Who holds your loyalty?” she finally blurted.

  “Why, you both do, of course,” Evelina said as if her answer made perfect sense.

  “Impossible.” Puzzlement joined the irritation churning inside her. “It was you who feigned a twisted ankle to trap him!”

  “A weak moment, my lady.” For a fleeting instant, a wistful look crossed Evelina’s face again. “And I pray God the head-veil I wore hid my face. One such as myself should e’er traverse the path between and ne’er take sides.”

  A sharp jolt of something inexplicable shot through Isolde, zeroing in on only half of what the joy woman had said. I pray God the head-veil I wore hid my face. “Donall the Bold would have recognized you?” she asked, ashamed for the question but unable to stay her tongue.

  To her astonishment, rather than appearing offended, Evelina reached across the table and squeezed Isolde’s hand, another beaming smile lighting her face. “Nay, he never darkened my door, though I will not deny there was a time I would have welcomed his attentions.”

  “Then why would you worry about him glimpsing your face?”

  Still smiling, Evelina shook her head. “I meant Gavin MacFie.”

  “Oh.” A floodtide of relief replaced the tight, burning sensation that had plagued Isolde a moment before.

  A wash of shame quickly followed.

  She’d forgotten all about Gavin MacFie.

  “I see,” she said to cover her embarrassment.

  “No, I do not think you do,” Evelina told her. “ ’Tis Sir Gavin’s widowed father with whom I was once quite, shall we say, friendly? Now, years later, I vow we are indeed true friends. The elder MacFie has grown too ill to plow the sea routes as he once did, but his son is most faithful in keeping me supplied with whate’er provisions I might need.” “Oh,” Isolde said again, wishing she could sink into the floor.

  “Gavin is a man of good repute.”

  Isolde set her jaw and tightened her grip on the wine cup.

  “A man well born and not given to frivolous leisure or vile deeds.” Her gaze locked on Isolde’s.

  “I cannot release him.”

  “You can speak with him,” Evelina said, unblinking. “Sometimes simply talking with someone can reveal much more than the words that are spoken.”

  “Such as?” The devil made Isolde ask.

  The merry sparkle returned to the other woman’s eyes. “Such as how our talk has revealed the reason of your visit.”

  “I came to seek advice because I find it difficult to proceed with the . . . ah . . . instructions you gave me,” Isolde lied and pushed her chair back. “No other reason.”

  Evelina brought her steepled fingers to her chin. “Indeed?”

  �
�Aye,” Isolde fibbed again and stood. “And now I must return to Dunmuir before I am missed.”

  The joy woman stood, too. “Then I will not ask you to linger,” she said, and accompanied Isolde to the door. “Perhaps the next time you visit, we can discuss what is truly troubling you?”

  Halfway out the door, Isolde froze. “What is truly troubling me?” she echoed before she recognized the trap.

  “Aye, my lady,” Evelina said with an air of angelic innocence. “Your attraction to Donall MacLean.”

  Donall the Bold’s ill humor had simmered for hours. The echoing tread of many pairs of feet tromping down a distant stairwell made it boil over. Especially when a small dog’s high-pitched yaps joined the muted thump, thump, thump of the trudging feet.

  So she deigned to pay him another visit.

  Here, in the devil’s own kitchen where her two favorite minions had dumped him.

  A great murky chamber, enclosed on three sides by rough-hewn stone walls, but fully open to the sea on the side they’d entered through. And save the jumbled mound of fallen masonry rubble at the extreme rear of the cavernous dungeon, wholly vulnerable to the whims of the running tides.

  The dank walls bore the floodmarks to prove it.

  A telltale dark stain high enough to freeze a lesser man’s blood.

  As were the grisly tools of torment scattered about and hung from the walls.

  A shudder rippled down Donall’s spine as he glanced around what he’d first believed to be a sea cave, his gaze taking in ever more implements of horror.

  Not a cave at all, his new quarters appeared to be the remains of the bottommost chamber of an ancient broch tower. The saints knew enough of them dotted Doon’s landscape. Remnants of a perilous past, the round stone towers provided Doon’s earliest dwellers with their last refuge against hostile raiders.

  A safe bolt-hole no longer, this broch, or what remained of it, would be underwater if the tide ran fast and furious enough.

  Death by drowning or through the nefarious deeds of a dullwit giant. Or, may the old gods preserve him, at the hands of a doddering headsman too frail to properly wield his ax.

  Donall clenched his jaw at the grim absurdity of being held captive in a place where his distant ancestors had run for shelter.

  The view out across the open sea fueled his vexation even more. A menacing line of jagged black rocks broke the surface some distance offshore, soundly emphasizing the futility of an escape by sea, should he manage to free himself of his shackles. Nor could his own men rescue him should they get word of his capture, for the reef’s sharp teeth would shred any boat’s hull within minutes.

  But what galled him most lay at a greater distance than the hazardous rocks.

  His blood running hot with fury at the sight, Donall stared out the open end of the chamber to the dark outline of MacKinnons’ Isle riding low on the horizon.

  Had he not been taken, and were the MacInneses not such stubborn fools, he might now be dropping anchor on that distant shore.

  Dropping anchor and delving into the truth behind his brother’s wife’s murder.

  The dog barked again, louder this time. Nearer.

  Much nearer.

  Donall’s nerves snapped to attention, the MacKinnons and their distant isle forgotten. He recognized the dog’s bark without question now. It belonged indeed to Isolde MacInnes’s wee champion. There could be no doubt her fine ladyship accompanied her gaggle of graybearded poltroons.

  His brow drew together in a heavy scowl as he strained to hear above the loud slapping of waves and the hollow whistle of the ceaseless salt wind.

  The sound of his tormentors’ approach came from a different direction than the harrowing sea ledge the would-be strumpet’s two henchmen had jostled him along shortly before dawn.

  Not that he cared a whit whence his visitors came. All that mattered was their prompt arrival. And soon, before he lost the strength to hurl blasphemies at them. Regrettably, he could do little else, fastened as he was to a rusted chain hanging from the ceiling.

  “God’s wounds!” he shouted when his feet near flew out from under him as another wave, icy cold and white with foam, swept over the seaweed-draped rock he stood upon.

  Had been stranded upon.

  Left to endure chills and roiling water swirling ’round his legs with the incoming tide; the rank smell of shallow, brackish pools, scum-caked and oozing mud, when at last it receded.

  Far from the drowning death he’d expected, the scourgers had inflicted on him a punishment more fitting to his crime.

  Or so they’d expounded.

  Amazingly, with his arms stretched taut above his head and his fettered wrists stinging as if Lucifer himself stood spewing fire on them, he must’ve slept away most of the day.

  Slept or passed out.

  Deep blue shadows now crept along the damp and glistening walls. Unless the fierce tingling in his numb fingers and aching arms impeded his judgment, the gloaming would soon be upon them.

  Another wave crashed into his legs and he struggled to recover his balance, his hobbled feet slip-sliding over the rock’s slippery surface.

  Sheer force of will helped him gain a foothold. He would not allow her to witness him floundering in the surf like an inept nithing unable to stand or swim. What he would do was badger her and her phalanx of ancients with mockery until they grew so weary of him they desired naught but to see his retreating back.

  Or at least withdrew themselves from his presence long enough for him to discover a means of escape.

  For the thousandth time, a fat drop of water plopped onto his forehead and rolled into one of his eyes, then down his cheek. With a curse, Donall shook his head to rid himself of the bothersome bead of bedevilment.

  And as before, he’d no sooner shaken off one droplet before the next plunked down to vex him anew.

  “Fine new quarters, eh, MacLean?” a man’s voice jeered from somewhere above and behind him.

  Rory.

  Donall jerked his head around. Fully intending to smite the pock-faced churl with a barrage of fierce invectives, the profanities drowned in his sharp intake of breath at the sight before him. At the possibilities revealed by the glare of Rory’s blazing rushlight. And at his own tardiness in realizing the full potential of his new quarters.

  Choking back the urge to shout his small victory, Donall met the dolt’s leer with a narrow-eyed stare.

  Oblivious to having unwittingly exposed aught of interest, Rory gave Donall a mocking bow. “Noble enough for your exalted tastes?” he jibed with a malicious grin.

  The muscles in Donall’s jaw worked and a nerve beneath his left eye began to jerk, so great did it tax him to keep his expression bland. “The accommodations suit me well,” he said, his tone wholly without a querulous note.

  The perplexed look that crossed Rory’s broad features afforded Donall ample recompense for his hard-won restraint. The lout hovered outside the narrow opening of what appeared to be a low-ceilinged tunnel set about halfway up the dungeon’s rear wall.

  An intra-mural gallery, or corridor, that would run between the broch’s double walls.

  All such ancient brochs and duns were possessed of them.

  Though Donall kept a carefully impervious stare on the other man, his mind whirled. Concealed by dark shadows before, the flaming torch in Rory’s hand illuminated not only the tunnel’s entrance but also the jutting rock projection on which he stood, a broad ledge that would have once supported timber floors and rafters.

  Also revealed were crudely carved stone steps leading from the ledge to the mound of rubble piled against the chamber’s back wall.

  A possible escape route.

  If e’er he won the chance to test it.

  And if the broch tower’s partial collapse hadn’t rendered the centuries-old intra-mural gallery useless.

  Hope swelled in Donall’s chest and his pulse quickened with excitement. Rory’s very appearance, and that of the aged buffoons traipsing out
of the narrow opening to join him on the ledge, lent the tunnel promise. If they’d traversed the corridor without peril, he could pass through with ease.

  Slowly, and much to his irritation, another kind of excitement built inside him. The sensation thrummed his nerve endings like a harp string as the graybearded worthies assembled themselves in a line along the ledge.

  Without exception, they glowered at him, their faces grimset, pure hatred oozing out their aged pores. But their number appeared less plenteous than before. The eldest, the bent-shouldered wretch with the thick mane of white hair who used a walking crook, was missing, as was the youngest. The angular-faced one with the booming voice who’d stood before the air slit in Donall’s old cell. Isolde had called him Lorne.

  Of the giant was no trace either.

  And the comely chieftain kept her distance, too, although the sharp yaps of her dog revealed her proximity.

  Donall’s blood pumped faster.

  He’d know she lingered near even without her pet’s noisy behavior. Why he’d know was something he would not admit even if the heaven’s entire host of winged angels fell to their knees and cajoled, begged, stormed, and pleaded.

  Soundly routing the wench from his mind, he centered his attention on Struan, the MacInnes’s ceann cath.

  The lady’s uncle.

  With his stony visage and cold glare, the barrel-chested war leader vanquished any threat of Donall growing soft the moment Lady Isolde stepped into view. A derisive laugh rose in his throat. The fair maid inspired many stirrings in him, but growing soft was not one of them.

  “Good sirs,” he called up to the graybeards, suddenly overcome with a fearsome urge to goad them.

  To goad anyone.

  “Do you wish to bathe your limbs in the restorative sea waters?” he mocked, reveling in the perturbed looks his taunts put on their lined faces. “Do join me, for the temperature is fine!”

  Struan’s lips curled. “Heed your tongue, MacLean, lest I order it bored through.”

  Nods of approval and rumbles of agreement rippled through the ranks of the ancients. One of them produced a short iron stake the width of a woman’s small finger, and held it high. “Aye,” he shouted, waving the rod over his grizzled head. “A tongue piercing will teach him the virtues of humility.”