Chapter Five
“Welcome, Lady Catherine, to my abode.”
Isobel blinked up at the stones of the structure as the black horse thundered through the gate.
Night had now truly fallen; she had seen very little of the countryside during the ride hence and had been almost wholly distracted by the presence of the man pressed to her back, but here torches flared and fear stuttered over her senses.
She could not guess where she might be, but the place breathed age.
A keep of some sort, not large, though it gave that impression.
The black horse’s hooves clattered on stone, making echoes off the face of the building proper.
Tiny windows stared down at Isobel, and her heart struggled within her breast. She did not know for what she had hoped during the long, captive ride, but not this.
The grim place offered little hope of escape.
And, of course, escape possessed her mind—escape and gratitude that, at least, Catherine was not here in her place. By now Catherine should be far away from home, perhaps even wed with her Thomas and out of this nightmare.
A lone retainer ran out when the horse entered the courtyard. He wore a rough kilt and leather jerkin, and he hurried to shut the gate against the darkness before catching the black horse’s bridle.
“Well, now,” he growled, peering up at Isobel from beneath a wrinkled brow.
“Give him a good rubdown, will you?” her captor returned. “He’s run hard and carried double.”
“Never bothered him afore,” the man said.
Afore? How often did this monster who had hold of her seize women? Ah, Isobel had heard of such men, in tales told of Scotland’s depravities, yet had never quite believed. Neither, apparently, had her father, or surely he would have sent a stouter escort.
Her captor’s hand, which for miles had splayed across her left breast, at last shifted. She felt the play of muscles in his body as he swung her across the saddle effortlessly and dismounted with her still in his grasp.
Isobel’s feet hit the courtyard and refused to hold her; the long, rough ride had robbed her legs of strength. Her captor grunted. Without a word, he swung her up and over his shoulder. Before she had the breath to protest, he carried her through the door of the keep.
The place smelled of wood smoke and clammy stone, and something that might be wet dog. Isobel could see little enough besides the floor passing beneath her, until they entered a chamber and her captor kicked the door shut behind them, then set her down quite carefully.
They looked at one another.
The light here came from a fire that burned steadily on the hearth and from a few tapers set about the room. A rough place it seemed, but Isobel, holding hard to her wits, had no eyes for it.
“Who are you?” she demanded, reaching for her courage. “What is the meaning of this? You cannot just snatch women from the road—”
“Can I not?” he returned swiftly, his voice pricked with humor. “Imagine that!”
I am in trouble, Isobel thought clearly, far more trouble than I have ever seen.
He must be a bandit, one of the rapscallions for which Scotland was famed.
He looked like a devil, one who happened to possess a lean, clever face and a long, lean body to match.
Isobel weighed him as she might any adversary, looking for strengths and possible weaknesses.
The process, made difficult by terror, won her a disparate number of facts: terrifying aspect, clothing as rough as that of the retainer outside, black hair tumbling down his back like the mane of his horse, and an air that virtually oozed confidence.
He oozed something more, as well: a blatant maleness that, even in these circumstances, made Isobel’s senses stammer.
She could not let herself think about that now. She needed all her energy to fathom the level of intelligence behind those eyes, narrowed between lashes black as ink, and to guess his intentions.
He did not look stupid, which would have benefited her much, since she had confidence in her own wit. And he looked as dangerous as an adder.
“Who are you?” she asked again, wishing she sounded less shaken. “Why am I here?”
He took his time completing his examination of her before deigning to reply.
His hard gaze, invasive as a touch, seemed to strip the clothing from her, lingered long on her hair, which had come unbound during the ride, and even longer on her bosom.
Reading that look, Isobel very much feared she knew his intentions, and the breath caught hard in her throat.
Thank heaven she was no virgin, if he meant to rape her.
But he gave her a graceful bow before saying, “My lady, you are here because the King has decreed I find a bride.”
That stole every coherent thought from Isobel’s mind. The King? A bride? And, in Scotland, were men in the habit of snatching those from the road?
“I…” She struggled to speak. “I am the intended bride of another. Sir Bertram MacNab.”
Her captor inclined his head. “I know the man, villain that he is. You would do better with me.”
“That is scarcely the point. My father has entered into an agreement with Lord Randal as to a marriage between our families. You cannot just seize another man’s betrothed wife.”
“Aye, you keep saying that. Yet you are here, are you not, Lady Catherine?”
“You mean to hold me for ransom, is that it?” Isobel asked, calming a bit. Ransom was reasonable, at least in this environment, and Lord Randal would pay. She could be out of here inside a day.
His gaze played over her again, slowly, and something that might be a smile quirked one corner of his mouth. “And, what of the King’s decree? If I am a good and obedient subject, I must wed you myself.” Wed, and bed, his tone implied—possibly not in that order.
“I doubt very much you are a ‘good and obedient’ subject,” Isobel remarked.
“You have barely made my acquaintance, yet you judge me so harshly?”
“I have not made your acquaintance at all. You abduct me from my carriage at sword point on a dark road and send my maid and attendants to their possible deaths. At least tell me your name.”
He smiled, a real smile this time, and it was not pretty. “They call me Devil,” he told her. “Devil Black.”
Isobel shivered. Standing there in the leaping firelight and with the wind gusting outside, her superstitious Celtic side surged to the fore, leaving the practical Yorkshire half of her nature in the lurch.
“I requested your true name,” she said. “Or are you too much the coward to give it to me?”
He frowned, and at that moment the chamber door flew open and a woman rushed in, a raw, avid look on her face.
“I do no’ believe it, Dougal!” Her eyes raked Isobel where she stood. “Have you gone mad entirely?”
Dougal, Isobel thought, Dougal the Devil. Oh, how it suited! Yet hope leaped in Isobel’s heart. Here was a woman, surely a merciful, gentling influence…the man’s lover, perhaps? But no, the resemblance between them was uncanny, and she looked as wild as he.
Black hair, worn loose, spun in a glossy curtain down her back, and she carried the energy of a western gale. Her face—undeniably beautiful—held an element of cruelty, as well, and when her eyes met Isobel’s, the hope in Isobel’s heart abruptly died.
“Who is she, and how did you come by her?”
“Calm yourself, Meg. This has naught to do with you.”
“You can say that?” The woman’s eyes flashed what looked like hatred. “Do no’ tell me this is MacNab’s bride?”
“He snatched me from the road,” Isobel said quickly. “He endangered my attendants. It is a violation of every rule of decency.”
The woman—Meg—laughed. The sound carried real humor and a hint of mockery. “If you expect decency from him, miss, you are sorely mistaken.”
“And yourself, mistress?” Isobel returned swiftly. “Have you no proper feeling either? Is this Scotland, or wild America?”
The woman smiled, and her resemblance to Isobel’s captor became rampant. “You might be safer in America just now,” she pronounced, and turned on the man.
“’Tis a mad stunt, Dougal. Do you want MacNab and his army at the door?”
Dougal walked to a side table, where he poured himself a drink of amber liquor—whisky, perhaps.
“I welcome a visit from our erstwhile neighbor at any time; I and my men will meet him with drawn swords. But MacNab will have no way of knowing who has snatched his fine son’s bride till he finds and interviews her servants, and no proof I have her even then.”
Scathingly, Meg said, “The man may be stupid, but not an utter fool.”
Dougal drank deeply. “They saw little—not enough to identify me. ’Twas dark and, suspect what he may, he will not dare accuse.”
Isobel’s blood chilled in her veins. No one had seen this man’s face, nor that of his now vanished accomplice—no one, save herself. But she had seen both him and his presumed sister. He seemed a ruthless man; would he prevent her from telling? Was she fated to die here, in this unknown place?
“You think not?” Meg demanded, with another look at Isobel. “You think the abduction of a virgin bride insufficient to rouse all MacNab’s boldest instincts? I think you may have overstepped yourself this time.”
Dougal shrugged, displaying no apparent concern. He too eyed Isobel—with speculation. “I may have other plans for her.”
“Rape?” Meg asked. “Surely not.”
Isobel’s heart leaped into her throat. What sort of folk were these, who could discuss such an abomination so calmly?
But Dougal answered, echoing, “Surely not.” He crossed the room until he stood so close to Isobel she could smell the damp on his clothes, and the slight tang of whisky on his breath.
Isobel fought not to shrink away. The man gave off an aura like that of a stalking wolf: power tinged with the threat of destruction.
She gazed into his eyes and saw they were not black, after all, but a dark, smoky grey that seemed to smolder like a banked fire.
He reached out and captured her chin between long fingers that felt like steel. “You are a beauty, I will give you that,” he crooned. “And you have spirit. A bit too fine for MacNab, I am thinking.”
Heat flooded Isobel’s skin, and she struggled to meet his eyes, defying the fear inside.
Of all the terrible moments in her life, this competed for worst, yet she must be grateful, yes—at least Catherine did not stand here in her place.
The thought sent a rush of courage through her, and she jerked herself free of his grasp.
“I understand, sir, you are no gentleman, and you play some evil game I am not at liberty to understand. But I demand you impart your intentions toward me.”
“You demand, do you?” A curious look invaded his eyes, half annoyance and half admiration. He withdrew just far enough to make her a mocking parody of a bow. “Why, my lady, I intend to make you my wife.”