Devil Black

by Laura Strickland

  Distracted momentarily from her own troubles, Isobel asked, “Why not? You admitted he is a fine-looking man.”

  “A pretty boy!” Meg’s lip curled in derision. “Oh, I am not saying he lacks a fine body—long limbs and a good set of shoulders. But I am through with men.”

  “Forever?” Isobel asked incredulously.

  “Aye, well, I will allow I have been tempted to use him for the one purpose…but then how would I get him out of my bed again? I doubt a good kick to the rump would be enough to remove him.”

  “Perhaps you could make a deal before hand,” Isobel suggested, barely noticing now the food she ate. “Take him to your bed once, on the condition he leaves you alone, after.”

  Meg smiled slowly. “I like the way you think. The trouble is, as I say, I have known Lachlan most of my life, and I know he would agree to the bargain only to follow me like a hound pup, after.” She sighed. “I doubt ’tis worth it; I would be better going without.”

  Isobel, tearing her crust into chunks, did not comment.

  More briskly, Meg said, “Why do you not get out of this room and take the air? The kitchen garden is sheltered and pleasant enough. I would go mad, shut up in here so long.”

  “What is the weather, outside?”

  “Snowing, though the wind keeps it from lighting on the ground.”

  “I fear my husband’s health will suffer, and him out in this cold.”

  “He is healthy as a horse.” Meg tipped her head, her quick, clever eyes looking deep into Isobel’s. “You really do love him, by God! Incredible as it seems.”

  Isobel flushed. “Much good may it do me. He cares so little for me, he has not come near me in three days.”

  “That is one way to look at it. Another is that he cares so much he rides in the snow and the wind, to keep you safe.”

  “No, even that can be laid down to his desire to spite MacNab. He still loves Aisla. You cannot deny it.”

  Meg remained silent.

  “How am I to fight that?” Isobel appealed. “She is ever perfect, in his mind.”

  “In all our minds,” Meg said softly. “My dearest friend. I will never forget her, nor will I ever forgive my brother for failing to rescue her from that fiend who held her and tortured her. So how can I fault your father, Isobel, for wishing to rescue you, now, from what he believes to be a similar situation?”

  “Yet I have told my father and MacNab I am not in need of rescue, that I wish to remain here. No one listens to me.”

  Anger flashed in Meg’s dark eyes. “A woman will say anything, under duress. Aisla made a similar claim, even with the welts Bertram had inflicted bright upon her flesh, for fear of what he would do to her, did she speak the truth.”

  “Your brother has not treated me that way.”

  “No, but how can your father be certain?”

  Isobel hesitated. “What did Bertram MacNab do to Aisla? And how do you know—?”

  Meg looked away, toward the window. “A servant smuggled out a letter Aisla had written to me. I could scarcely believe how it read! I wept over those pages for hours, and then I took the burden to my brother, sure he would act immediately to save her, the woman he loved. Because I knew how he loved her—how he claimed to love her.

  “He read that letter with a face like stone. He said if he took our warriors to attack MacNab’s stronghold and lost, ’twould be the end of us here in Scotland. MacNab would appeal to the King and sue for our lands. He had done it before to other, weaker neighbors. And we were not so strong then as we are now. My father was not long in his grave and Dougal yet finding his way. He has built our strength since then. I am sure he vowed never to be caught so again.

  “Yet it was Aisla! Her grief and suffering cried out from those pages. One of her tears was worth risking all we owned. How could he leave her there to die?”

  “I cannot imagine he made the choice lightly,” Isobel pointed out. “He still holds MacNab responsible—”

  “Curse Bertram MacNab and his bastard of a father! I wish them naught but ill, and I will never forgive them. But neither can I forgive my brother. He might have ridden out to defeat, aye, but he should have made the attempt. Can you imagine her there, alone, and no one coming for her? No one at all?”

  “Dougal has spent the intervening years—?”

  “Aye, strengthening his holdings, his clan, and antagonizing MacNab any way he might. Though you will never hear him admit it, he garnered most of our current wealth through risk and thievery. It is a fine and dangerous line to walk. As you have learned, now the King’s eye rests upon him.”

  “You say you despise him for his cowardice.”

  “So I do.”

  “Yet you admit he has not stopped fighting, and opposes MacNab yet.” Isobel felt uncomfortably aware of her own status as one among her husband’s weapons.

  “Too late. ’Tis too late for Aisla, is it not? She lies in the ground, even her wounds turned to dust. But the wounds inflicted on the rest of us are still raw.”

  Meg lowered her voice. “They say round here my brother is a devil and I am a witch. I will tell you, I have studied the black arts. A woman has few enough weapons to her hand, and I do not like feeling helpless. My husband betrayed me, and he paid the price. MacNab, too, shall pay, but ’twill take strong magic, indeed, to bring him down.”

  Isobel, not sure how to reply, fought a shiver. At that moment, with her dark eyes gleaming and her black hair flowing round her, Meg looked every inch the weaver of spells.

  “Would it not be better,” she suggested tentatively, “to use your...talents and work together with your brother against MacNab?”

  Meg sprang up from the bed, suddenly restless. “For that, I would need to forgive him.”

  “Would you?”

  “And that is something I can never do. So long as my friend remains in my heart, my heart will remain turned against him.”

  Isobel thought of Catherine, for whom she had been willing to sacrifice so much, and understood. She wondered where her sister was right now. Was she wife to her Thomas, settled in happiness and security? Her heart ached over the long years stretching ahead before she might hope to see her sister again. Yet she had that hope, however faint, that Meg had not.

  “I am sorry,” she whispered. “But I wish you would consider forgiving your brother. It is no way to live, in bitterness and grief.”

  Meg made no answer other than to stiffen her spine and take herself from the room, leaving a deep chill in her wake.

  Later that night, when the keep lay eerily quiet, Isobel got up and crept from her chamber, down the stairs to the great hall. Cold scuttled across the stone floors, and the silence seemed a living entity that accompanied her.

  Even the wind had died.

  The great hall lay steeped in gloom. The fire burned low and the shadows were so thick at first she saw no inhabitants. Yet there were two; with a leap of the heart she saw her husband sitting with one booted foot propped on the hob, and Lachlan beside him, both unmoving.

  The silence seemed to ripple as she stole in on careful feet. Quiet as she was, Dougal heard her and turned his head, his narrowed eyes gleaming at her.

  What did he see when he looked at her? A wraith with wild, tumbled hair? A woman driven to desperation? His expression, hard and set, did not change nor did he move but sat like a master hunter luring prey.

  Isobel would not let herself hesitate over what he might think. Never had she felt this kind of hunger, this consuming need.

  And by heaven, he made a beautiful devil with his long limbs poised and graceful, the black hair streaming over his shoulders, the shirt beneath his vest torn open, revealing flesh turned to amber by the firelight. She now knew every inch of that flesh—the feel and taste of it—and seeing him so made her mouth go dry.

  And Lachlan—with relief she saw that Lachlan slept, his head canted to one side, his chest rising and falling slowly.

  “Husband!” She did not intend the word, spo
ken softly, to make a claim upon him, yet it did. She reached out and caught his hand where it rested on his knee, drew it to her breast. “Husband, please—will you not come with me?”

  He rose without a word, his long fingers twining with hers. They climbed the stairs like shadows and entered her chamber, where Isobel shut the door and leaned against it, heart pounding and breath quick.

  “Isobel…” he began then.

  “No.” She shook her head. “Please. I need you with me.”

  His face inscrutable, he stood insubstantial as a shadow. He wetted his lips before he said, “I cannot give you what you want.”

  “You can.” She untied the laces at the front of her sleeping rail and let the garment drop to form a pool around her feet.

  What cared she now for modesty? What was politeness, to a starving woman?

  His gaze caressed her, lingered long on her breasts before it dropped lower. Yet he shook his head. “I cannot. My heart is mangled, a dark and useless thing. It comes to me, you deserve far better.”

  Slowly, Isobel approached him. “I do not care, tonight, for what I deserve. In the morning, I may again. But not now.”

  He drew an unsteady breath that expanded his chest. “You reproach me, Wife, for using you as a weapon in my private war. These past days, riding my borders, being brutally honest with myself, it comes to me you are right. I have, aye, taken my pleasure in your bed, but my motives had little enough to do with you.”

  Isobel stepped closer. He need only reach out, now, to touch her naked flesh.

  She whispered, “If you have, indeed, taken your pleasure in my bed, then I beg you please, do so again this night.”

  He closed his eyes and groaned. “Isobel, I am trying to deal fairly with you—”

  “I know, and I am grateful. Yet, is life fair? If you cannot give me your heart, mangled as you say it is, can you not at least give me that for which my body aches?” One step more and she stood virtually within his arms.

  He opened his eyes and she fell into them, consumed by grey mist, the contact so strong she barely noticed after all when his hand cupped her breast.

  “Come to me,” she begged, “and we shall worry about the world come the morrow.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “The world is a mad place,” Lachlan said judiciously, and tipped a mug of ale to his lips: liquid breakfast. Dim light crept round the stones of the keep, and a chill pervaded the air. After enjoying the warmth of Isobel’s bed last night, Dougal felt the cold intensely, like a blight of frost in his bones. And aye, her bed had been warm, her kisses sweet, and her passion strong enough to heat him through, repeatedly.

  The memory of his wife’s soft flesh clinging to him distracted him so completely he barely heard Lachlan blather on.

  “I mean, to make sense of aught that happens—well, it cannot be done. Women, for instance. Has ever a man made true sense of a woman? I speak in particular of your sister. Shall I tell you, Dougal, what passed between us last night?”

  “Please spare me!” Dougal drank from his own mug. The ale tasted sour on his tongue, but then anything would, following the honey he had so recently tasted.

  “I met her—by chance, so I thought—in the solar before she went up to bed. We exchanged a few kisses, as I told you we have been doing. This time, she did not seem inclined to stop. I thought—well, I need not say what I thought. Indeed, I doubt my mind kept working at all. I begged her to put a spell on me—life is short and uncertain, I told her—and she… I can barely stand to speak of it!”

  “Pray, do not.” Savage emotion rose in Dougal’s breast. He must spend this cold, wretched day riding his borders when he wanted, himself, only to return to Isobel’s chamber.

  She would be lying abed still, no doubt warm and willing. Just the thought of her gave him a rod of iron beneath his kilt, despite the fact that she had drained him dry mere hours ago—thrice.

  “And then,” Lachlan continued to confide, oblivious or indifferent to Dougal’s mood, “while still my flesh tingled from the caress of her lips and mouth, on at least a particular part of my flesh, she arose, looked me in the eyes, and told me not to suppose ’twould ever happen again. Said she cared not a whit for me, and would I cease following her like a hound pup deserving a kick.”

  “Then stop following her,” Dougal advised, thinking about Isobel’s mouth and tongue, with which she did such remarkable things—and aching with need.

  What would she say if he came to her later, when this day was done? Would she deem it an unjust use of her? Would she once more claim him, as she had last night? He thought he might be able to survive whatever the day ahead brought him, if he might promise himself Isobel at the end of it.

  And aye, Lachlan might be right in that the world was a mad place. His feelings for his wife—which, he told himself, consisted mostly of lust—might be mad as well, but, by the devil’s horns, she was a lovely thing with that wild, red hair and those eyes that sparkled with humor, desire, or intelligence. She might not be soft and gentle like Aisla, fragile as porcelain. But then, there could never be another Aisla in this world.

  Or, perhaps, another Isobel...

  That thought startled him so much he barely noticed when Lachlan asked him, “So, man, do you think I should?”

  “Eh?” Dougal responded vaguely.

  “Ask her.”

  “Isobel?”

  “Nay, you gormless fool, have you not been listening? I speak of your sister, still. I thought of bearding her tonight, asking where I stand with her.”

  “You stand nowhere.” Dougal looked Lachy in the eye. “No man stands anywhere, with Meg. Have you no’ learned that yet? If she pleasured you last evening, it is because she sought to pleasure herself.”

  “Aye, well.” Lachy did not look so crushed as Dougal felt he should. “I am willing to let her take her pleasure wi’ me again.”

  Dougal experienced a flash of annoyance with his friend, and then wondered whether he, himself, did not represent his sister, Meg, in his own relationship, and Isobel represent Lachlan... Yet he did not think less of Isobel for her willingness to accept him into her bed. The words he might have spoken to Lachlan died on his lips and he said, instead, “Talk to her, Lachy. Speak honestly and earnestly. Deal with her as you mean to go on.”

  Lachlan looked surprised, but Dougal gave him no chance to comment. “Now, come. We have borders to ride, and MacNab clansmen to put to the chase.”

  The day proved as lengthy and wretched as ever Dougal anticipated. A keen wind blew from the northwest, sweeping over hill and moor like a drawn sword, cutting him to the bone. The sun barely struggled over the horizon, lending no warmth. Shortly after midday, he and his band encountered a group of MacNab warriors on his western boundary and gave hard pursuit. They seemed to disappear of a sudden, just as an icy rain began to fall, and Dougal turned his party for home, with a sense of having accomplished nothing.

  He reached his own land to see a single rider approaching from the direction of the keep, coming hard. When she drew near enough, he saw she was Meg, stretched out along the back of her pony with her hair flying like a black banner, and urging her mount desperately.

  He and Lachlan rode to meet her, the rest of the band trailing them more slowly.

  Meg’s hair glittered with icy rain, and her face looked white and drawn. Her eyes met Dougal’s without prevarication.

  “I came at once to tell you—she is gone. Taken! She must have been walking in the kitchen garden. Days ago, I suggested she take the air there, where ’tis sheltered, and she has been doing so from time to time. If you want, you can blame me. But who thought she would be in any danger, with the guard all about? Rab has found a trail leading out from the woods behind the keep, and has gone in pursuit—”

  “Who?” Dougal asked, even though his plummeting heart proved he already knew. “Who is taken?”

  “Isobel! Rab found the guard assigned to patrol the rear wall dead, with an arrow through his ba
ck, and there can be no question whoever killed him seized Isobel.”

  “Nay!” Dougal protested fruitlessly. “It cannot be! She should have been safe anywhere inside our walls. Have we not been out all this while defending the borders?” Aye, just to keep her safe.

  Meg glared at him impatiently. “Do you really want to argue about it now? Be grateful she is well and warmly dressed in the cloak and fur boots she had when she arrived. Rab and three others have gone after her, as I say, but whoever took her was mounted—”

  Dougal’s blood, inside him, turned as icy as the rain. “MacNab—I will kill him!”

  “You will need to catch him first. Come!”

  Meg turned her mount and started away, quick enough to outrun the wind. Dougal urged his own mount to follow. He had no need to hear more. Heart nearly bursting, he passed and then outdistanced Meg, Lachlan and the rest of the group. He reined up in the forecourt of the keep just as a number of his warriors appeared, Rab among them.

  “MacNab has your lady wife,” Rab greeted him. “We followed the tracks that curved round into the woods and then joined up wi’ the long trail that leads across the moor, westward. No sight of them, ahead, but that way leads to MacNab’s keep and no mistake. We ha’ one man dead.”

  Lachlan, arriving in time to hear, said, “That skirmish in which we were caught, on the far border—that was just a distraction. This was planned.”

  “Of course ’twas planned.” Viciously, Dougal rounded on him. “But how could they know she would be outside?”

  “They must ha’ been watching,” Rab said, “from some point high in the hills, waiting for a chance to strike.” He hesitated. “And she did go out ever’ so often. We thought you knew.”

  “I did not!” Dougal felt sick. Isobel, snatched against her will, frightened and alone…the last place he could bear her to be.

  He glared at his men. “I cannot believe no one saw anything, heard anything.”

  “Only Ian,” Rab said laconically, “and he is dead.”

  “Is it possible they could have coaxed her away?” Meg suggested.