But Rory balked. Shaking himself free of Niels’s grasp, he sagged against the doorjamb. “T-the cailleach was in the kitchens,” he wheezed, his pockmarked face still flushed. “The flagon on your tray is for that w-wretched d-dog . . . a tincture against f-fleas.”
“A flea tincture?” Isolde stared at him, her face blank. “Bodo has ne’er . . . oh, yes,” she corrected, comprehension dawning. “They’ve been plaguing him of late.”
Rory drew a breath. “She said w-whene’er you have ne—”
Isolde closed and bolted the door in his face. Quickly, before his loose tongue could reveal more than he already had. Even now, she could feel the MacLean’s knowing smirk boring into her back. She turned to face him and knew her instincts hadn’t deceived her.
Leaning arrogantly against her bedpost, he’d crossed his ankles and another of his supercilious smiles tugged at the corners of his mouth.
“So this eve it is to be called a flea tincture,” he drawled, his amusement leaving no doubt his observation was a statement and not a question. “A most creative ruse.”
His gaze lighted on the flagon. “My curiosity is piqued. Who shall imbibe the reeking brew tonight? You, or your dog?”
Isolde stiffened, but she kept her dignity. She refused to acknowledge his barbs. Nor would she permit him to see he’d guessed the truth about the flask’s contents. Admiration for Devorgilla’s swift thinking almost brought a slight smile to her lips, but she vanquished the impulse and took her seat at the table with quiet grace.
At least what she hoped passed for quiet grace.
She met Donall the Bold’s unwavering scrutiny with a penetrating look of her own. Holding his gaze, she placed her hand upon the little flask and slid it to the extreme edge of the table.
“My curiosity is aroused, too, my lord.”
“Only your curiosity?” Pure devilry crackled in his tone. “Such a pity.”
Ignoring his deliberate ribaldry, she tilted her head to the side. “How long will you continue to agitate my cousin and Rory?” She took a sip of ale. “You cannot fight your way out of here.”
To her surprise, his lips twitched as if he struggled to suppress a smile . . . or a gloat. But he kept his silence and simply peered across the table at her.
“It is quite pointless, I assure you.” She smoothed her napkin over her lap. “May the good Lord grant you the wisdom to recognize that.”
A strange glint sparked in his brown eyes, its appearance sending a trace of ill ease to join the hunger stirring in her belly. He was hiding something from her. It was writ all over his bonnie face.
“I have recognized more than you would care to know,” he said.
Isolde wet her lips. “Aught I can persuade you to share?”
She meant whate’er vital secret he was keeping from her. The way his eyes darkened, he harbored notions of a much bolder nature. Proving her suspicions, he reached across the table and closed his hand over hers.
The memory of the last time he’d done so flared in her mind and she tried to jerk away, but he’d encircled her hand firmly within his own, his long fingers, dry, warm, and surprisingly . . . soothing.
Save the unsettling tingles rippling up her arm.
Just like the other time.
“There is much I could share with you,” he said, and began making slow circles over the top of her hand with the pad of his thumb.
Isolde drew a quick breath.
This was worse than the last time.
“Aye, a wealth of . . . sharing.” He slipped his roving thumb beneath her hand and used it to massage the hollow of her palm. “And I vow you would be most receptive.”
Her heart thundered out of control. A veritable floodtide of sensation spilled down the length of her, cascading from the tops of her ears clear to the tips of her toes.
He must’ve felt it, too, for his eyelids lowered and the look he leveled at her warmed her from the inside out and in ways she scarce comprehended.
She recognized the look, though. The man she’d dreamed of on the night of Beltaine had worn the same expression. A great shudder shook her at the implication.
The MacLean’s cold smile returned. “I see you tremble in anticipation. A pity, for I cannot be amenable to your persuasions.” He released her hand. “Tempted though I am.”
His arrogance doused the fires he’d stoked in her more thoroughly than if he’d upturned a barrel of frigid seawater over her head.
“Have a care with your bold words and daring, Sir Donall.” Anger overlaid her voice with a shrewish tone. “I am yet desirous of sparing your life, but I have not forgotten who you are, nor why you are here.”
He opened his mouth as if to protest, but closed it as quickly and simply arched a brow.
His air of lordliness pushed her past restraint. “If you remain so obstinate, sirrah, I may see no course but to heed my elders’ council. Already they are discussing the merits of walling you alive in the broch’s intra-mural gall—”
“Fairest maid,” his deep voice intruded, “your aging council is neither cunning nor sagacious if they believe to confine me within those crumbling walls.”
Grasping the edge of the table with both hands, he leaned forward. “Think they I am unaware of the numerous passages running between the double walls of every such broch to grace these fair isles?”
He sat back, a smug look on his handsome face. “I would be gone before your ancient worthies had time to mason me in.”
Isolde gave him a gloating look of her own. “You do my elders an injustice. Not even a knight of your exalted skill could bare-handedly dig through the thick walls of our broch’s gallery.”
When her words put nary a dent in his annoying air of superiority, Isolde ran the tip of her middle finger slowly around the lip of her tankard. “I said intra-mural gallery, not galleries. Dunmuir’s broch only has but a single passage. A short, thick-walled one that ends at a heavily guarded door to our great hall. All other galleries caved in on themselves centuries ago and are no longer passable.”
Lifting the pewter tankard, she helped herself to a fortifying swallow of ale. “Escape that way is impossible.”
At last his insolent demeanor took a hard blow. Something indefinable flared in his eyes. Anger, shock, or fury, it leaped at her with such force she almost felt the impact.
But whatever emotion her pronouncement had evoked, he squelched it with amazing ease. His lips curved in a wry smile. “I shall not bandy words with you,” he said, his voice as bland as if he sat in his own hall discussing the weather.
He swept her chamber with another of his coldly assessing glances, then fixed his dark gaze on her. “You shun adornments and coin. A locked chest in my bedchamber at Baldoon contains a treasure I suspect will hold more appeal for your pious soul.”
Isolde folded her arms and waited.
He hesitated but for a moment. “Lint scraped from the robe of St. Columba.”
More amused than anything, and certainly not impressed, Isolde gaped at him. An awkward silence descended. One he obviously misunderstood, for his cynical smile widened. He leaned forward again, a hawk spreading its powerful wings to swoop in for the kill.
Lowering his voice to a near whisper, he said, “The knob on the hilt of my father’s sword contains the dried blood of Christ himself.”
Isolde laughed.
She couldn’t help herself. It started deep in the pit of her belly and bubbled upward until she could do naught to contain it, and had no course but to set it free.
Donall the Bold flushed a deep red.
Heedless of his ire, Isolde let her merriment follow its natural course. The saints knew she’d had little reason to laugh of late and doing so felt good.
Even in his fuming company.
“My good Sir Donall, I told you once your freedom cannot be bought. Splendor and riches do not impress me, and neither do boasts of holy relics.” She paused to dab at the corners of her eyes with her napkin. “Not even if I believed
them to be real, which I do not.”
Rather than answer her, he continued to frown.
Her laughter finally subdued, she met his glower full-on. “I shall visit the chapel this night and kneel for a dozen extra Ave Marias if my next words offend the saints and angels, but I vow, sir, were you truly in possession of such marvels, the late Edward Longshanks of England would have sent his armies decades ago to seize them.”
To her astonishment, his anger appeared to ebb away. Even the hard glint in his eyes began to soften. His expression took on a wholly different quality. “Might I convince you a horde of roaming monks once sought to purloin Baldoon’s collection of prized reliquaries?”
“Nay, you cannot,” Isolde countered, stiffening her back against the transformation wrought by his rare attempt at sincere-sounding humor. “I will not be prevailed upon to believe thieving holy men ply these waters nor will I fall for any other such tall tales you might attempt to regale me with.”
Mother Mary, but he held a mighty weapon against her!
The trace of true amusement in his deep-timbered voice and the way his brown eyes had darkened with an inner, glowing warmth imperiled her greatly, for should he continue to assail her with such disarming honest charm, she’d soon be adrift in a chaotic sea of conflicting desires.
“And if they are engaging tales?” he asked softly.
Isolde drew a breath and strove to ignore the oddly soothing quality his voice took on when he spoke in such low, gentle tones.
“You can recite the entirety of your amassed wealth and concoct enough spurious sagas to claim yourself a master of the bardic arts, and you shall still not sway me in your favor,” she said, sounding far more peevish than she’d intended.
Just please stop looking at me as you are now and cease speaking in such a lulling manner or I shall soon break faith with all I hold dear.
“Indeed?” he drawled, his mouth curving in a knee-melting smile.
Isolde’s eyes flew wide and for one frightful moment, she thought she’d spoken her last thoughts aloud.
“Indeed, aye,” she mimicked, hoping her raised voice disguised the thumping of her heart. “And unless you become more cooperative, I shall face even greater difficulties when trying to keep my council from visiting untold torments upon you.”
“Naught they can inflict on me can be a greater torment than being bound to your bed each night.” His gaze lowered to her half-undone bodice. “Most especially if you are finally intent on being forthright about your reasons for having me brought to you.”
Embarrassment and something else, something much more disturbing, ripped through Isolde. Acutely aware of his lingering perusal, she tore off a piece of crusty brown bread, stuffed it into her mouth, and began to chew.
Furiously.
Until the bread’s unusual pungency reached her taste-buds. Fighting the urge to gag, she snatched up her tankard and washed down the bread with a generous gulp of ale.
“Not so fond of this eve’s victuals?” He eyed her with mock astonishment.
“The viands are fine.” She helped herself to a nicely crisped frog leg, but the closer she brought the fare to her lips, the more difficult it became not to wrinkle her nose.
One bite confirmed her suspicions.
Old Devorgilla had not only slipped a flagon of the antiattraction potion onto the dinner tray, she’d also used her foray into Dunmuir’s kitchens to liberally douse the food with the sharp-smelling brew.
Now she knew why Bodo slept so peacefully. Blessed with a more sensitive nose than she, he’d undoubtedly been aware of the despoiled food the moment Rory plunked down the platter.
Her face a careful mask of innocence, she placed the offending delicacy on the thick-slabbed trencher without a further bite.
A devilish gleam danced in Donall the Bold’s dark brown eyes. “You ate most heartily yestereve. Has your lusty appetite abandoned you?”
“Cook seems to have used a heavy hand with the spices,” she improvised, glancing away.
Anywhere but at him.
Sincere or forged, she’d had enough of his glinting eyes and slow smiles.
“With my appetite is naught amiss.” She smoothed her palms over the napkin on her lap. “Pray indulge your own.”
“Mayhap I shall.”
The way he’d said the words made her glance sharply at him. He’d schooled his features to appear as guileless as she hoped her own did, but a nearly imperceptible twitch at one corner of his mouth revealed his pleasure in shooting his double-edged innuendos at her.
“It has been overlong since I have . . . indulged.” He began piling frog legs onto his side of the trencher. “Utter satiety might prove most restorative.”
She gave him a fuming look, but then recalled the anti-attraction potion. All her carefully drawn plans would be at grave hazard should he imbibe the tincture-steeped comestibles.
“Hold.” She grabbed his wrist just before he bit into one of the frog legs. “Those are fouled. I would not see you ill.”
Saints, but the wench could lie!
“Fouled?” Donall shook himself free of her grasp. Holding the frog leg between two fingers, he pretended to examine it. Though oddly seasoned with a strong-smelling spice he recognized but couldn’t quite place, the tidbit appeared well larded and nicely crisped.
“Most gracious lady,” he said, “I do not believe you.”
“ ’Tis true, the frogs hail from an old well and the water is oft tainted.”
“Truth tell?”
“Oh, aye.” She nodded.
Nodded a mite too vigorously.
He had her now. “Your cook knows this?”
“All know.” She fell for his trap. “The sacred well has been stagnant for years.”
Donall held back a victorious smile. “Then pray explain why the good man who oversees your kitchens would send his lady chieftain a blighted supper?”
She opened her mouth, but snapped it shut again as quickly.
The tops of her ears turned scarlet.
She’d lied.
Again.
Donall’s empty stomach growled. “Lady, I have not eaten in days.” He eyed the morsel in his hand. Its heavily spiced aroma promised anything but a palate-pleasing taste, but it was plump and roasted to a fine golden brown.
His mouth watered. He needed sustenance if he was to escape. Looking pointedly at his comely captor, he bit into the frog leg. “Most fair eating,” he commented the moment he’d forced the spice-laden piece of meat down his throat.
The wench gasped and tried to snatch the food from his fingers. “You cannot eat that.”
“Ah, but I already have, sweeting,” he said, holding the foul-tasting tidbit above his head when she made another swipe for his wrist.
“I am not your ‘sweeting.’ ” Irritation snapped in her amber-colored eyes.
“Nay, you are not,” Donall agreed. He drew his brows together in feigned confusion. “But if the notion so distresses you, why should you care what I ingest?”
A huff of exasperation answered him.
Burying his own pique—for the moment—he scanned the array of victuals, using the distraction to steel himself against the thousandfold more magnificent bounty she presented.
“ ’Tis I who has reason to be grieved,” he said. “Sore reason.”
“That, sirrah, is a matter of opinion,” she said at last, then pressed her lips together in a way that made them appear lush and soft-looking.
Kissable.
Donall focused on the lone freckle on her cheek rather than the temptation of her mouth. “Would you but listen to reason, I vouchsafe you would share my views.”
“I will not be wheedled into releasing you.” She returned his stare. “Not by your ludicrous ransom offers, silly tales, nor by your boorish airs.”
Donall placed his free hand against his chest. “Fair lady, you pain me greatly.”
“You will suffer worse sorrow if you persist in eating that frog leg,” s
he said, the tumult thrumming inside her visible in the pulse throbbing wildly at the base of her throat.
To rile her, he took another bite. “I am famished,” he said the moment he’d gulped down the odious scrap. He let his gaze drop briefly to her breasts. “Starving for nourishment, for—”
“I shall have other victuals brought up,” she quipped, agitation staining her cheeks.
“Too late,” he taunted, emboldened by the way she squirmed upon her chair. “I regret naught else will satisfy after what you have so generously offered me.”
She clutched at her gaping bodice in a vain attempt to shield her exposed flesh and her trembling fingers confirmed what he already knew: she meant to seduce him yet did not possess the daring to try.
And she understood each and every bawdy intimation he shot at her. Did she not, were she wholly innocent, she would not appear so panic-stricken each time he indulged himself by egging her thus.
Without question a maid, she also seemed well versed in the subtleties of carnal passion.
A potent combination.
The innocent and the siren rolled into one wondrous package. Something deep inside Donall broke loose. An odd tugging and swelling that caught him unaware with its intensity. “You have yet to take what I’ve offered,” the temptress in her said, proving his assessment as soundly as the whiteknuckled fingers still holding tight to the top of her gown.
Donall tightened, too.
His gut, his throat, and another part of him that was growing increasingly difficult to control.
He watched her closely, his every nerve taut. Her fingers dug deeper into the black linen of her bodice. The tip of her tongue darted out to moisten her lips and Donall’s loins contracted in immediate response.
Merciful martyrs, she’d likely disrobe and do his bidding at the slightest indication he’d have her, yet her very willingness to do so seemed to terrify her.
Alarm of his own furrowed Donall’s brow. Until this moment he had been able to deny his attraction to her. “Exactly what are you offering?” he challenged, daring her with words and the fierceness of his stare to admit what he already knew.
She lowered her hand from her bodice. “I believe you know.”
Sue-Ellen Welfonder - [MacLean 01] Page 12