Chapter Nine
“I shall summon the witnesses.”
Dougal MacRae did not know when he had felt so enflamed.
Certainly, he had never lived the life of a monk.
He enjoyed the act of coupling. Even more did he revel in his ability to bring a woman pleasure.
He gloried in the power of it, the control, and having a woman quite literally in the palm of his hand.
In his experience women—most women—liked to pretend themselves immune to arousal, a product of how they were raised, he supposed. But once he got his hand up a skirt or down a bodice, his efforts were well repaid.
This woman, he sensed, would need little such coaxing. Her veneer of modesty lay very thin over a momentous fire. And it kept him so hard, he somewhat doubted he could wait for the priest.
He smiled wryly to himself as he returned to the door and bellowed for another servant. He always kept control, even in the direst circumstances. Indeed, he prided himself on his steely composure. How could he falter now?
He stole a look over his shoulder at his captive. There she sat with her auburn hair fallen, loose about her shoulders, and that look in her eyes—half knowing and half speculation—that drove him wild. He must have her this night, witnesses or no.
When Ranald—another of his guards—appeared, Dougal told him, “Go fetch Lachlan.
“That is one witness accounted for,” he said, turning back to his captive, once the man had gone. “The hour being what it is, I suppose my sister will have to serve after all.” Because he could not wait.
“Who is Lachlan?”
“An acquaintance, and a gentleman of the district. Do not fash yourself, lady, he will come.” Dougal poured himself more whisky, then went to the door and bellowed a third time. “Meg!”
His sister must have been lurking in the vicinity, pretend otherwise as she might—she arrived far too swiftly, in response to his call, to have been far distant.
Without preamble, Dougal commanded, “You will stand witness for me. We are to wed this night.”
Meg bent a look on him before sweeping his captive with an incredulous glance. “What new madness is this?”
“No madness.”
“Aye, so—perhaps it is, rather, revenge. You want her because she was to be MacNab’s?”
He wanted her because the blood in his veins demanded it. He said, “O’Rourke is on his way. Take our guest to her room, send her your maid, and help her—” he waved a hand, “prepare.”
“Prepare?” One of Meg’s eyebrows ascended. “For you?”
“Just do it, Meg. I mean to accomplish this respectably.”
Meg laughed harshly. “You snatch her off the road, another man’s bride, and then speak of acting respectably?”
Dougal met her stare with one of iron and, miraculously, she backed down.
“Come,” she said to his captive, who shot to her feet, strung tight and trembling, and followed Meg out.
Damnation, Dougal thought when they had gone, and splashed more whisky into his cup.
He felt keen as a knife’s edge and had to fight to find the patience that had stood him in such good stead these last years.
All would come in time, revenge and pleasure.
He had never dreamed they might be so intertwined.
****
In silence, Isobel followed the beautiful woman—Meg—back to her room, where Meg brushed past the guard as if he did not exist.
Once inside, Meg closed the door and turned to regard Isobel carefully.
“This is a bad night’s work,” she said. “I tell you now, I cannot influence my brother. Even God—whom Dougal refuses to acknowledge—cannot influence him once he has something in his head. But I swear, if he is forcing you to this, I will do my utmost to stop him.”
Isobel heard no sympathy in Meg’s voice, no softness—just the same savage certainty that emanated from Dougal MacRae.
“I appreciate that,” she said.
“Oh, I do naught for you—and I stopped fretting for his soul long ago. But he is taking you to further a dangerous feud, and if he winds up on the losing end, it shall benefit me not at all.”
I have landed in a nest of vipers, Isobel thought, each more selfish than the other.
Cautiously, she said, “This feud of which you speak is with MacNab?”
Emotion sparked in Meg’s eyes. “My brother may be many things—hot tempered, hard-headed, misguided—but his memory is long and his mind set on revenge. You find yourself, now, a pawn in his game.”
“For what does he seek revenge?”
Meg shook her head. “That is not for me to tell. But know MacNab once took something that was Dougal’s alone. He has waited long to strike back.”
Isobel’s mind raced, trying to make sense of disjointed thoughts and emotions. “And I am the means of striking back?”
“So it would appear—at least for the present. What he may do anon, even the devil cannot say.”
“Can you get me out of here?” Isobel asked frankly. “Persuade him to send me home?”
Meg shook her head. “I might convince him to ransom you, though quite frankly I doubt it. If you ask me, woman to woman, I will try.”
And there lay the dilemma, thought Isobel, in the starkest of terms: marriage to Bertram MacNab, for which she had already steeled herself for Catherine’s sake, or to this man who turned her bones to water with a single glance. A choice—at last.
She must go to the bed of one man. Which would it be?
She drew a ragged breath and took a turn about the barren room. If she honored her agreement with MacRae, faced the priest with him, would he lie with her in her bed this night? So had he vowed. She found the prospect as thrilling, and terrifying, as that of an approaching storm.
Meg waited, impatience radiating from her.
This, Isobel thought, may be the only choice I am given to make in my entire life.
If she went to MacNab, at least she had hope of seeing her father again, perhaps even Catherine, some day, and Catherine’s child.
If she threw her lot in with MacRae, she chose unknown danger and darkness.
And passion, curse it—there was the passion, as well.
“Send me your tire woman,” she said, looking at Meg again. “I have nothing to wear for a wedding. All my luggage was lost.”
She heard Meg draw a breath, sharp with surprise. “You choose him? You are certain? I warn you, once the choice is made, I abandon you to your fate.”
As I have long been abandoned, Isobel thought, and nodded. “Send your woman.”
Without another word, Meg went out. Isobel stood where she was, wondering at herself. Surely she had gone mad, in this place of madness. But her soul—at least that would be her own.
Meg’s woman, who arrived soon after, proved nothing Isobel expected. A virtual child, with pale hair and fey eyes, she wore a cap and a dove grey gown. She carried an armload of clothing, and she cast a measuring glance over Isobel as she entered.
“My lady sent me, Lady Catherine,” she said softly.
And Isobel thought—Catherine. They think me Catherine. When the drunken priest arrived, when he performed the ceremony, he would marry Catherine Maitland to Dougal MacRae. Would that be binding, would it stand?
“Shall you bathe?” the maid asked, and Isobel considered it. In a manner completely unanticipated, she went to her marriage bed this night. Unprecedented intimacies would open her to that man downstairs.
She looked at the maid. “Tell me your name.”
“Nell, lady.”
“Nell, I am ill prepared for this. I have no belongings, I am not sure—”
Briskly, Nell dumped the clothing on the bed. “My lady sent some things of her own that you may borrow.” She pulled out a gown of pale green, embroidered all over with patterns of leaves. “I will tell the men to bring hot water.”
Nell turned away, and Isobel examined the gown, stroking it with numb fingers. Her wedding finery.
Sudden tears filled her eyes. Seldom had she felt more alone, nor, if she admitted it, more frightened. She could not let herself give in to the fear. It would avail her nothing. She told herself she did this, too, for Catherine’s sake. She knew she lied.
The tears, she promised herself, were tears of anger. Life had not dealt fairly with her, so far—did not deal fairly with her now—but she wanted this one thing, this one man.
She wanted the feelings he had aroused in her with that kiss, and all the desire that accompanied them.
Yet if he came to her bed this night, he would discover the truth—she was no tender virgin—and something about the hard honesty she had seen in his eyes made her wish to be honest with him, as well.
She did not wish to begin her marriage—sham as it might be—on the basis of a lie.
He needed the truth, and he needed to know her name.
“Isobel Maitland,” she whispered under her breath. “Nay—Isobel MacRae.”