Devil Black

by Laura Strickland

  “Nay,” Dougal denied it, remembering her in his arms last night, clinging to him as if she would never let go.

  Meg said emotionlessly, “If they had her father with them and he persuaded her, convinced her she could save you from persecution, and possible death? She might so sacrifice herself.”

  Everyone stared at Dougal accusingly. He met Meg’s gaze and saw she knew. Meg knew that Isobel loved him. His wife had never spoken the words, but the truth was reflected from her eyes, it told in her touch. He knew he deserved no such devotion. He was a ruined man with a savage heart, capable of loyalty and nothing more. Poor lass. Would she truly sacrifice herself for such a worthless specimen as he?

  “We are wasting time sitting here blathering,” he said viciously. “Come on, show me this trail.”

  The falling rain, icy as it was, had nearly obliterated the sea of tracks when they reached it. Dougal’s own men milled about, restless for action, and the light already waned in the west. Dougal set men to search the immediate area again, but knew it to be an exercise in futility.

  “What to do?” Lachlan asked uneasily.

  “If MacNab wants war, he shall have it.” Dougal felt desperate at the thought of Isobel spending even one night in MacNab’s hands, yet demanding her back, as every impulse bade him, was not the best strategy. That would come, aye, but not yet.

  Lachlan offered, “Surely, if her father is with her, she will be protected from the worst of MacNab’s perversions?” Lachy, knowing what had befallen Aisla, knew the demons that haunted Dougal.

  Aye, there was that, the faintest glimmer of hope. And if it came to it, Isobel was no timid Aisla, to let herself be used cruelly. She would fight like a wildcat.

  Yet even a strong woman could only fight so hard.

  “Lachy, I want you to ride and fetch O’Rourke. He will prove valuable to us now—the only proof my marriage is valid. Should he be found and murdered, ’twill be easy for MacNab to wed Isobel to that damned whelp of his, and ’tis a thing to which Isobel’s father might well agree. Can I trust you in this?”

  Lachlan nodded. “I promise my best efforts. But, the rest of you?”

  “We are going cattle raiding,” Dougal said grimly. An ancient activity from the Highlands to the borders, cattle raiding represented far more than mere thievery. It was a goad, a dare, a taunt, and an act of one-upmanship no clansman could refuse to answer. It had, in the past, started many a feud or war, for cattle represented wealth.

  Lachlan departed into the gloom, and Dougal quickly organized his men. They were gathered in the forecourt, ready to leave, when Meg rushed out.

  “Are you mounting a rescue?” she demanded, pulling a shawl up over her hair.

  “Not yet.”

  Meg ignited like dry wood. “You cannot intend to leave her there—”

  “I do not!”

  Meg ignored him and completed her thought, “the way you left Aisla!”

  The forecourt went suddenly silent, all Dougal’s men shooting crosswise looks at him before gazing elsewhere.

  Dougal leaned down from his horse to speak directly into his sister’s face. The pain rising inside him made his voice harsh. “Do not ever make such a suggestion again. Do you trust me so little?”

  “I did trust you, once,” replied Meg, unintimidated, “and look what came of it.”

  “This will no’ end so.”

  “’Tis not just the ending that concerns me, but what happens to Isobel before then. I wish to come with you.”

  “No.”

  “Why—”

  “We will be riding hard.”

  “You think me incapable of keeping up?”

  “I do not wish to have to worry about you, Sister. Get you inside and do what you are best at.”

  Meg stiffened. “What is that?”

  “Employ that devious mind of yours, bend it to your dark arts. We may yet have need of them.”

  He led his troop away before she could protest further. The night, still vicious with wind and rain, at least held gloom enough to lend cover to the activities undertaken in the next hours. In his youth, Dougal might have enjoyed the odd spot of cattle-thieving. Now, distracted by worry and doubt, it became a nightmarish thing of stinging sleet, mud, and naked blades. MacNab, like any careful land manager, kept his cattle spread out. Dougal knew this first raid would go easiest; once Randal knew Dougal’s intentions, he would post a heavy guard. As it was, the fast-moving raiding party encountered only two MacNab clansmen, who were dealt with summarily.

  Fine and good, Dougal thought at the end of it, so long as he did not lose any of the stolen cattle, his men, or mounts to a bog, burn, or darkness on the way home. They were frozen through, all, before MacNab’s cattle were stowed safely in his own far pasture, and dawn stained the sky in the east.

  Dougal still felt sick with worry about Isobel. Nearly a whole night gone. How did she fare? He could scarcely bear to think of her frightened and alone, yet thinking of her being not alone was worse.

  He brought all his raiding party into the great hall to warm by the fire and drink a dram. There he found Lachlan returned with O’Rourke, which lifted his spirits slightly.

  The priest, quite obviously drunk, had claimed for himself a place before the fire and held a tankard in his hand. He raised it when he saw Dougal.

  “To the Devil!” he cried, and drank.

  Dougal looked at Lachlan, who rolled his eyes. Lachy appeared as wet and cold as the rest of them.

  “Good work,” said Dougal, crossing to Lachlan’s side. “Where did you find him?”

  “In the stinking, dank hidey-hole he calls home,” Lachlan replied distastefully, “and already with a skin full. He had earned himself a jug, earlier, by performing a christening.”

  O’Rourke got to his feet and stumbled over. “I thank you, Laird MacRae, for your kind offer of hospitality. ’Tis a vile, wet night to be abroad.”

  Dougal eyed Lachlan in question, and Lachlan explained, “I told him he had a bed here for the time, out of the weather.”

  “’Tis good of you,” O’Rourke decried and attempted to bow. “And I am sure the things said of you in the district are greatly exaggerated.”

  “Aye,” Dougal told him ironically, “and I may need you to return the favor by speaking up for me when the time comes. That marriage you performed for me—you recall?”

  For an instant it appeared O’Rourke did not. Then his bleary, pale blue eyes cleared. “The bonny lass with the red hair?”

  “My wife, Isobel, aye. She has been stolen away from me.”

  “An ab-abomination!”

  “It is. And I may need you to swear to the validity of our joining. Accept my hospitality, so, until this business is done.”

  O’Rourke thought about it with apparent difficulty. “But—I am needed in the district, to perform various services. What if a babe is born too soon? What if someone should die?”

  “Oh, aye,” Dougal murmured. He had determined someone would die, for this. But amidst his ale fumes, the priest truly looked troubled. “If you are needed, Master MacElwain, here, will escort you wherever you need to go. Will you not, Lachlan?”

  Lachy looked disgruntled. “Me? I am no priest-minder.”

  “More like a bodyguard,” Dougal said. “I need someone I can trust to keep him alive at all costs.”

  “Aye, well,” O’Rouke spoke before Lachlan could, “I am all in favor, me lads, of keeping alive.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “At least I am still alive,” Isobel told herself, in an effort to battle the panic that had overtaken her mind: alive, imprisoned, and far more terrified than she had ever been.

  Terror, she knew, made a poor companion, especially in her present circumstances. A weakening emotion, it might render her helpless when the moment to act arrived. She would do better to feel anger, indignation, determination—anything that might empower her.

  And yes, she felt all those things: anger at her father, that he ha
d allowed his friend MacNab to snatch her like a bundle of goods, that he did not intervene now to set her free; indignation that Randal MacNab should arrogantly decide he could get away with such a deed; determination to free herself, if no one else would help her.

  And longing for her husband... She could scarcely let herself think about Dougal, the pain was so bright. He would be furious over this, she knew—his wife in the hands of his enemies—but why? She feared he would feel anger that MacNab had got one over on him, not distress for her own sake.

  Her new prison, and she did not mistake it for anything else, was a well-appointed bedroom twice the size of her chamber at MacRae’s keep. It had a fine curtained bed, a chest for the clothing she did not possess, and an upholstered bench in front of the fireplace. She wondered if Aisla had inhabited this room before her and how much suffering it had seen. It had been Aisla’s former husband, Bertram MacNab, who escorted Isobel here: she had not liked the barely veiled eagerness in his eyes.

  Whatever he and his vile father planned for her, she knew to her toes it would be unpleasant. She meant to fight them to her last breath. If she could not escape any other way, she would jump from the window, and if she could find no other weapon she would set fire to the bed. But first she supposed she should attempt to employ reason.

  Marshaling her wits and determination, she marched to the door and tried to yank it open. To her surprise it was not locked; the man standing guard—a huge fellow armed with not one but two swords and wearing MacNab tartan—turned to look at her in a reproving manner.

  “I wish to see my father,” she told him. She had managed only a glimpse of her sire when Bertram MacNab dragged her in, kicking and struggling. He had been standing beside Randal in the doorway of a chamber off the great hall, and though she called to him he had not responded.

  “You are to stay here,” her guard pronounced. “My orders,” he grinned, “until young master comes.”

  Isobel liked neither the grin nor the implications. Her stomach clenched, and she struggled to look imperious. “I wish to see my father. I have that right! You can either take me to him or bring him here to speak with me—I do not care which.”

  “Get ye back inside and wait,” the man advised. “I take no orders from you.”

  Isobel looked him in the eye, stiffened her back and screamed. She had a good set of lungs when she chose to use them, and this was a shriek worthy of an eldritch delivering a curse. It bounced off the stone walls of the corridor and reverberated painfully.

  The guard flinched and drew one of his swords. “Stop that! Foolish wench!”

  Isobel sucked in a breath and screamed again, louder.

  People came running—first two more guards and an ancient servant, a woman who looked like she worked in the kitchen. Isobel wanted to see but one face, her father’s, so she screamed on.

  The guard with the sword raised his free hand to strike her. She ducked, wove between two of the other men, and ran for the stairs.

  “Catch her!” someone cried, and swore.

  Isobel did not hesitate. She reached the top of the stone stairs, knocked the serving woman aside, caught her foot in her skirt, and nearly tumbled all the way down.

  She caught herself with the help of the balustrade and charged down with at least five people following her.

  “What in hell is this commotion?” Randal MacNab stood once more in the doorway of the chamber off the hallway. Like a small battering ram, Isobel bashed her way past him, her eyes wild.

  The room, a chamber similar to the solar at MacRae’s, looked pleasant and comfortable. Two benches flanked the fire, and on one of them her father rested. Bertram MacNab she saw nowhere.

  “Father!” Isobel started forward, but Randal MacNab reached out and nabbed her shoulder, his grasp anything but kind.

  “What do you think you are about, miss?”

  “I want to speak to my father.” Isobel glared into MacNab’s eyes. “You cannot prevent me. I have a right, a daughter’s right to see him.”

  MacNab grinned unpleasantly. “Then see him.”

  He released her, and she stumbled to the bench before the fire. “Father,” she began.

  Gerald Maitland did not so much as glance at her. He sat canted to one side, his neckcloth loosened and his eyes half closed. Isobel’s heart, already beating triple time, sped further. Was he ill? Dead?

  “Father, speak to me. Answer me! You must get me away out of here—we both must leave! These men are not your friends, as you think. Take me home to Yorkshire if you will, punish me as you may. But let us be gone—”

  She paused, stricken by her father’s continued failure to respond. The empty cup sitting on the bench beside him gave her the answer: drunk. Her father, who never touched what he called the demon whisky and frequently lectured on its ills, had now taken so much he did not know where he was or who she was.

  He could not understand the danger she faced nor lift a finger to help her.

  All the breath rushed from Isobel’s body. She turned her head slowly and looked at Randal MacNab.

  Once more, he smiled that unpleasant smile, the one that left his eyes cold. “Stupid girl, you have been far too much indulged. That is the error my good friend, here, has committed. But as you can see, he has now entrusted you to my hands.”

  “He has not!”

  “Can he say differently? Bertram!” He bellowed the name, which was the last Isobel wanted to hear, and when his son came trotting in, the cold and sleet upon him as if he had just returned from checking his borders, Randal gestured at Isobel.

  “Our charge needs to learn obedience.”

  Isobel looked at Bertram. His eyes, unlike his father’s, did not look devoid of emotion. Emptiness would have been much better than what Isobel saw: eagerness, anticipation, cruelty. He seized her arm and twisted. “Come.”

  No fear Isobel had ever felt rivaled what assailed her as Bertram dragged her back up those stairs, past the old woman from the kitchen, past the guards and other servants, all staring. She struggled, kicked, and lashed out, injured herself on the stones, but did not break free. She did not care how badly she hurt herself. She suspected if she once more entered that bedchamber she would never again come out, but she would suffer—this man would assure it.

  At the top of the stairs, when one of her wild blows connected with his face, he shouted, “Stop it!” He then released his hold on her arm and seized her hair instead. Isobel howled as the excruciating pain brought immediate tears to her eyes.

  The door of the dreaded chamber still stood open. Bertram threw her inside like a bundle of sticks, and she landed hard on the stone floor and skidded. He followed her in and slammed the door behind him.

  For an instant, winded, Isobel lay where she had fallen. Her scalp roared with pain and her shoulder, which had absorbed most the impact of her landing, screamed at her.

  Bertram stood over her, legs spread, like wrath impersonated.

  “You are wanting discipline,” he pronounced, “and I can give it.” He fumbled with the front of his kilt. “On your knees.”

  “No.”

  “That is a word which will never cross your lips again! When I tell you to act, wench, you will obey.” He reached down and seized her hair again. Isobel gasped as he hauled her to her knees, but she had not yet lost her fight.

  “If you put any part of your vile body near me, I shall bite it,” she promised.

  He struck her across the face so hard it sent her sprawling backward. She fell onto her injured shoulder, hit her head, and saw stars.

  Bertram loomed over her, pointing a condemning finger. “Do not ever threaten me! You will obey, understand?”

  Isobel raised a shaking hand and wiped blood from the corner of her mouth.

  “You will accept me the next time I walk through that door,” he continued, “and you will prove willing. Else we will see how well you learn obedience, tied spread on that bed whilst each member of my warrior guard takes you, one after th
e other.”

  Somehow Isobel scrambled to her feet. “You would not!”

  He grinned cruelly. “Try me, lady. Try me, just as each of them will try you.”

  A wave of nausea surged through Isobel, so strong it nearly knocked her down again. For the first time she realized she stood where Aisla once had—poor soul!—and Aisla had not survived.

  Evil, she thought, as Bertram took himself out through the door and slammed it shut. This time she heard a bar being lowered across it. The man personified evil, walking. And Dougal—

  She quivered with longing at the thought of him. Would he tumble to where she was? Would he attempt to rescue her? Did he care enough? Oh, yes, though it might not be love but hate that brought him. Yet he would come; he would never allow MacNab to keep the woman he called his wife.

  The question remained: would Dougal come in time?

  Slowly she walked to the bed, a fourposter, the frame carved of dark wood which, when she inspected it closely, chilled the blood within her. For each of the four posts bore chafe marks as if rope had been threaded around them and had bitten deep.

  Isobel believed it then: Bertram would follow through on his threat, carry out his vile plan as he had done to Aisla in this very chamber. She had suffered here unspeakable hurt and humiliation. Had she died in this room? Had her last breath tainted the air?

  Isobel’s heart went out to her, poor lass, alone and frightened beyond the bounds of sanity. But her backbone stiffened. She had no intention of repeating Aisla’s fate. She would, first, die fighting.

  Yet what options did she have? She went to the door and tried it, even though she had heard the bar drop. It held fast against her. She needed either a weapon or a plan. How much time did she have before Bertram MacNab marched back in and reasserted his demand for obedience?

  She went to the window, pulled aside the drapery, and looked out. Early dark cloaked the countryside and obscured the ground below, but she could see enough to tell it would be a vicious descent. Fifty feet of sheer wall fell unbroken to the cold, rocky turf. Yet the wall itself, built of stones rough cut, had gaps between them for toes and fingers, and the ground below was just that—grass with a stone wall beyond, not a paved courtyard. The breath caught in her throat. Dangerous, oh, yes, but possible, if she had the courage. And she would take her chances any day in the wild countryside before testing the cruelty in Bertram MacNab’s eyes.