Devil Black

by Laura Strickland

  “Is it?” Lachlan raised a brow, along with his cup of whisky. The hour being late, the two men shared spirits and a fire in an attempt to defrost their toes.

  “Aye. In the kitchens, the maids whisper of little else. They all fancy you, it seems.”

  Lachlan smiled briefly. “The maids will have to languish in vain. I waited fifteen years to get into your sister’s bed. If you think I mean to stray from her now, you are very much mistaken.”

  “Oh, aye?” Dougal’s attention, very nearly snagged from his own grief, focused on his friend. “So, ’tis love, is it?”

  “I thought you did not believe in love—or so you swear, over and over again. Call it enchantment, and have done.”

  “I am pleased for you.” Dougal added in mock disgust, “But you may wish to keep a muzzle on your cries of joy—the two of you can be heard all over the keep.”

  “What can I say? Your sister is a magnificent lover.”

  “Stop, else you will turn my stomach and ruin my sleep.”

  “You have not been sleeping anyway, from the look of you.” Lachlan eyed him wisely. “You’re spent.”

  “Aye.” Dougal could not tell when he had felt so tired, weary to the bones. His worry for Isobel haunted him. She had sent away the physician, declined to leave her chamber, begged off seeing him. He felt as if he had lost her, though he could not express that even to Lachlan.

  “My wife should be recovered by now.”

  “Meg says the loss of a child takes women in strange and various ways,” Lachlan offered diffidently. “It follows no map, no set time.”

  “Aye, so. But why must she shut me out?” Broodingly, Dougal stared at the fire. “’Tis almost as if she dreads seeing me.”

  Lachlan shrugged. “Go to her while she sleeps, be there when she awakens.”

  “With my sister guarding her like a mastiff?”

  Lachlan slanted a look at him. “I happen to know that in approximately one hour your sister will be well occupied elsewhere. She gives Isobel a sleeping draught—which, I understand, rarely works but does serve to calm her fears—and then retires to her own chamber to wait for me.”

  “Aye?” Isobel should have no fears needing calming, Dougal thought, not under his roof and his protection. Yet he had failed to protect her, had he not?

  “Aye,” said Lachlan decisively, and put aside his cup.

  Some time later, Dougal climbed the stairs to his wife’s chamber, where he had not slept in many nights. The keep was very nearly silent, as if even the night held its breath. Outside, for once, the wind had stilled, and his warriors quietly stood their watch.

  Reluctant to frighten Isobel, he eased the door open and slipped in. The room, lit only by a low fire, also lay in stillness. He heard Isobel sigh and shift in the bed even as he closed the door softly behind him.

  What dreams possessed her rest, if rest she found? And why would she not turn to him for comfort?

  Softly he moved across the room and called her name. “Isobel, ’tis I. Are you awake?”

  She murmured something, and the bedclothes rustled. Disrobing as he went, he approached the bed, slipped in, and took her into his arms.

  Instant warmth swamped him, and comfort such as he had not known in days. By the devil’s horns, he had missed this—had not realized how much. Still not certain if she slept, he cradled her carefully, as one might a treasured child.

  For a moment she stiffened, then eased against him, accepting what he offered. She wore only a thin night rail, and he could feel all of her, fragile and thin—she had wasted to almost nothing. He cared not for the changes—she was Isobel, with the same scent and spirit, all he desired.

  “Sleep.” He put his lips against her cheek, and her hair. “Let me hold you.”

  She murmured desperately, and he wondered what moved in her mind. He could virtually feel the shadows that enfolded her, yet she did not push him away. A miracle!

  She lifted one hand and touched his face. “I cannot sleep,” she confessed. “Not since... I have but snatches of rest before I come awake again, and no peace.”

  “Perhaps I may bring you a measure of peace, Wife. Sleep.”

  To his surprise and relief, she cuddled in still closer against him but did not relax completely.

  “I have something to tell you,” she began, sounding tormented. “But I do not know how.”

  “Hush,” he bade, with tenderness foreign to him, and stroked her hair. He knew only that he needed to be here with her, under any circumstances.

  She ignored his directive. “I have been remembering things—they return to me whether I want them or not. It has all trickled back in bits and pieces. I now remember escaping from MacNab’s keep. And I recall where, and how, I was held.”

  “Do not dwell upon it, Isobel. It is over now.”

  That made her stir in his arms, seeking to gaze into his face. “It will never be over, so long as you love her.”

  “Her?”

  “Aisla.”

  Dougal felt himself tense at the sound of the name, as does a man receiving a grievous wound. “What has she to do with it?”

  “I know what befell her, in MacNab’s hands.” Isobel barely breathed the words. “I was held, you see, in the same room as she. And Bertram MacNab threatened to do to me what he had done to her.”

  Dougal’s throat closed abruptly. Part of him wished to hear what more Isobel had to say, wanted to gather every detail; most of him did not want to know. He managed to say, “Whatever befell her happened long ago.”

  “But,” Isobel reasserted, “you love her still.”

  Dougal considered the words, as best he could. The tangle of emotions he felt for Aisla certainly could not be expressed in a single word, and he was no longer sure love was uppermost in the mix of guilt, anger, regret, and shame.

  “She relied on me,” he said with difficulty. “I failed her.”

  “How?” Isobel moved restlessly in the bed, escaping his arms.

  “I did not give her the one thing she so desperately needed,” Dougal admitted wretchedly.

  “As I have failed to give you a child?”

  “It is no’ the same, no’ at all!” Dougal sat up so quickly he knocked her back onto the pillow. “You could not help what befell you. I failed! Sometimes of a night I lie thinking how it must have been for her, waiting and waiting for me to come, believing I would—for I had pledged myself to her. That is the thing you do no’ understand.”

  “I do,” Isobel whispered. “We all make promises.”

  “And now you say you saw the very room where she endured her nightmare? Tell me!”

  “Perhaps it is best if I do not. Nothing can now be gained—”

  “Nothing but that I may flagellate myself as I deserve. Tell me, Wife—what tortures befell the woman I had vowed to protect?”

  He heard Isobel draw a breath, like a woman backing away from a cliff edge. She glimpsed, now, the hell in which he lived day after day, night after night.

  At last she said, “Upon consideration, I think such things should not be spoken, even here. Bertram MacNab is a depraved monster who needs to be destroyed, for the good of the world. For all I have suffered, I am yet glad I was able to keep my sister from his hands. And I am grateful, Husband, you snatched me on the road that night.”

  Still upright in the bed, gazing down at her, Dougal said bitterly, “Would you rather be tied to a man who cannot keep his promises? Who does not deserve love?”

  “Far rather.” To his surprise, she reached for him, pulled him into her arms to lie against her. “You know, Husband, there is such a thing as forgiveness—even forgiveness of self.”

  “I will never forgive myself,” Dougal said, and knew the words for truth. “And I know better, now, than to make pledges I cannot keep. I could not even hold you safe in your own garden. There is naught I would like more than to vow MacNab’s destruction for your sake—and hers. But I know better, now. I know myself, and him. MacNab does no’
play fair.”

  “No.”

  Dougal laughed harshly. “Aye, well, during the intervening years I, too, have learned the value of cheating. I can now lie, steal, and deceive wi’ the best of them. For honor gets a man nowhere, and the devil laughs at good intentions.”

  “Is that what you have striven to do these many years—make yourself more despicable than MacNab? Is that why they call you Devil Black MacRae?”

  “I ha’ learned to fight on my enemy’s terms, and MacNab knows naught of mercy—why should he?” He thought hard on it and added, “The difference between us is, MacNab hides his black heart behind a smiling and compliant face. I, being an honest man, flaunt mine.”

  At least, he thought, even in the face of cowardice he could claim honesty. And that honesty kept him silent about what he felt for Isobel now—possessiveness, caring, and a surprising amount of tenderness—because the word she wanted from him he could not, in conscience, give.

  “Why can you not forgive yourself?” Isobel asked. “You have forgiven me. Would you forgive Lachlan, if he failed you in some way?”

  “Ah, Lachlan!” Dougal laughed more naturally. “He is another thing altogether. By the way, did you know you were right? He is sleeping in my sister’s bed.”

  “Yes, and she is quite content with it. I think she will take from him what she needs, and give what she can.” Isobel hesitated. “Not an ideal situation, perhaps, but one that serves them both.”

  Dougal grimaced in the darkness. “Meg, you are thinking, is as damaged as I. And are you, too, willing to accept broken and unsatisfactory offerings?”

  “Broken, maybe,” she whispered, “but never, never unsatisfactory.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “It is unsatisfactory!” Dougal declared viciously. “I will not rest until I have brought that bastard to his knees. I do not care what it takes.”

  Meg looked at her brother impatiently and then, once more, at the letter in her hands. It had arrived by courier from a woman she knew in Stirling, named Elizabeth Carstairs, whose husband held a place close to the King. Elizabeth had written not out of any sense of finer feeling but from spite, to inform Meg the King had Dougal MacRae in his sights.

  “Do you not hear what I say?” she asked. “MacNab has once more complained to the King about you, and it seems this time the King means to act. He is due to arrive in Stirling within the fortnight and means to summon you thence.”

  Dougal remained unmoved by the news. “MacNab needs settling,” he reiterated. “I will declare as much to the King or anyone else.”

  A week had passed since the night Isobel took him back into her bed, which seemed to prove a turning point of sorts. Isobel’s health at last improved; Meg told him she now took her meals without protest and last night—miracle of miracles—his wife had allowed him to make love to her. It had been gentle, careful, nothing like their old couplings, yet it had shaken him to the core. His foolish heart had begun to hope they might build a future together after all, and now came this accursed missive, once more promising MacNab the upper hand. It enraged him.

  Still perusing the letter, Meg went on, “MacNab tells the King you steal his cattle, torch his outbuildings and withhold from him his son’s betrothed.”

  “She is my wife! Did not the King, himself, command me to marry?”

  Meg grimaced. “What shall you do?”

  Dougal considered it, scowling. “I shall tell the King, and fairly, there is no proof I have stolen MacNab’s cattle—”

  “They roam your hills.”

  “Strayed there. Is it my fault MacNab proves a careless landsman? Nor can he prove who burnt down his outbuildings and slaughtered the guards he posted. It might have been anyone. I assure you, Sister, we have been careful with our back trail.”

  Meg did not look content.

  “As for Isobel’s abduction... I would like the King to learn what goes on in MacNab’s keep. Perhaps ’tis time justice was sued.”

  “You will not ask Isobel to go to Stirling! I doubt she would stand it.”

  “Surely I can speak on my wife’s behalf.”

  “And if her father also appears before the King and tells a different story?”

  That, Dougal had to admit, would not be to his advantage. Yet he would die before he allowed Isobel to be harmed again. “We must determine whether Maitland has returned to Yorkshire.”

  The door to the great hall where they stood flew open, and one of Dougal’s guards thrust his head inside. “Riders, Laird. Two of them—escorted by our own outriders.”

  Dougal’s heart clenched. What now? “Can you tell who they are?”

  “Laird, ’tis snowing too hard to tell.”

  Dougal followed the man to the forecourt just in time to see that, indeed, two riders—well-wrapped against the cold—approached along with a band of his own men, through snow blowing almost horizontally. One of his warriors broke away and came forward at a trot.

  “Laird MacRae, the lady there says she is sister to your lady wife—one Catherine Hewett by name—and she requests shelter.”

  Dougal blinked in astonishment. “By all means, Rab, show them in.”

  ****

  Isobel sat combing out her hair beside the fire when the message came. She still felt weak most days and unwilling to venture out of her chamber, but when a breathless Meg delivered the news, she abandoned her comb and ran, quite fleetly indeed.

  “Catherine? Here?” she asked Meg in disbelief. “Are you certain?”

  “Aye, so she says. And she looks enough like you to be your twin.”

  Thus prepared, Isobel burst into the hall to find an impossible sight: Catherine, as out of place as a delicate flower in a byre, looking tired and worn, and beside her the tall figure of Thomas, with whom she had eloped nearly two months ago.

  Catherine turned toward her, and Isobel saw she was no longer so slim as before. Her pregnancy now showed clearly, and lines of strain marked her pretty face.

  They flew into one another’s arms. At the feel of her sister against her heart, Isobel’s tears rose in a storm. She clutched Catherine tightly and said in a choked voice, “Oh, God, I thought I would never see you again! But, how come you here? How did you find me?”

  “The worst of ways!” Catherine released Isobel and looked into her face. “We have had a terrible time of it, Thomas and I, since we left home—naught but struggle, hard travel, and disappointment. In desperation, I thought to come to you at MacNab’s—”

  Isobel gasped. “You never went there?”

  “No.” Catherine shook her head, looked helplessly at her husband who stood silent, and then, in wonder, at Dougal. “These men stopped us on the road—they seemed to recognize me. They questioned us and said you lived here. I did not know what to think, but they proved insistent, so we came with them.”

  “Thank heaven,” Isobel breathed. She turned to the guards, with Rab at their head. “I am grateful to you all.”

  “We are after stopping everyone, Lady,” Rab told her, “since your father’s arrival.”

  Catherine looked confused. “Father? But he is not here—he is at home. We went there first. He flew into a rage at the sight of us, and sent us off again.” Her face crumpled. “And we have nowhere in the world to go.”

  Isobel looked a question at Dougal, beseeching. “This man, Dougal MacRae, is my husband. He will stand you shelter, Sister.”

  And Dougal replied without hesitation, “To be sure. Consider this your home for so long as you need.”

  Some time later the four of them—Meg and Lachlan having tactfully excused themselves—sat by the fire in the solar, the two sisters with linked hands, words flying between them. Dougal had said little beyond telling Rab and his men they had done well, and so far Thomas had barely spoken. But he held his hands out to the warmth of the fire like a man frozen to the bone, and his face appeared so drawn and grim, he barely looked like the handsome lad with whom Catherine had fallen in love.

  �
�Explain how you came here,” Catherine begged her sister, with a doubtful look at Dougal. “When we parted, the plan was for you to take my place in wedding with Bertram MacNab.”

  “Yes, well,” Isobel cast her eyes down, “that plan changed. MacNab, as it proved, is not the man Father thought him. Rather, he is a villain and a brute, virtually at war with my husband. Dougal...intercepted me on the road to MacNab’s keep and most fortuitously redirected me here.”

  Catherine cast a doubtful look at Dougal, who sat watchful, his grey eyes hooded. “Intercepted?”

  “You need not put too fine a point on it, Wife,” Dougal said. “Lady Catherine, I abducted her on the road—took her by force.”

  Thomas came to his feet. “That is an abomination! A crime!”

  Dougal barely stirred in response. “To be sure, it is. But this is not Yorkshire. Do not be a fool, man. Sit down.”

  Thomas’s fair skin flushed. For a moment it appeared he might quarrel further. Then the fight went out of him. “The world,” he stated, “is a mad place. I cannot account for it.”

  “Well said.” Dougal reached to pour more whisky into Thomas’s cup. “Never mind. This will warm you.”

  Isobel, watching the emotions travel across her sister’s face, asked, “What of you? You were set for Bristol, and Thomas’s new employment. How come you here?”

  “The place I was promised fell through,” Thomas admitted gloomily. “When he heard our tale, my father’s cousin, who originally offered the situation, decided he would not risk offending your father by taking me on, since my own father yet hoped to win back his old place as Bailiff. And other places proved deuced hard to find.”

  “We have been roaming and traveling,” Catherine confessed, “sometimes sleeping rough, once in a ditch. When we were robbed of what little money we had, we knew we must turn for home and face Father’s anger. I never dreamed he should turn us away after coming so far through that vile weather.”

  Isobel looked at Thomas. “Could you not apply to your father?”

  “I could, but your father has dismissed him for my role in stealing Catherine away. Father has not yet managed to win back his place on your father’s estate, and will not if he is found helping me.”