Chapter Twenty-Four
“My father does not make promises lightly,” Isobel said unhappily, dread forming a corrosive ball in the pit of her stomach.
She lay curled in a tight crescent on the bed in her chamber and spoke over her shoulder to Meg who, rather surprisingly, had brought a tray in an effort to persuade her to eat.
Three days had passed since her father’s visit.
During that time Dougal had kept away from her, had spent his daylight hours—and nights, for all Isobel knew—riding his boundaries and pacing his battlements.
When Isobel saw him from her windows, he wore a grim face and an ugly air of gloom that befitted the name they called him in the district, Devil Black.
Isobel craved the reassurance of his presence.
Even a single visit from him in the night would give her something to hold on to in the midst of all her uncertainty.
She knew he did not love her, but an indication he wished to keep her for some reason beyond his desire to spite MacNab would go far to bolster her spirit.
“In fact,” she mused to Meg’s silent presence, “I can count but three times my father made any promise to me.” The first had been when they stood watching Isobel’s mother being put into the ground, Isobel holding Catherine’s hand, and he promised he would look after them.
She supposed he thought he had done that, to the best of his ability, and he thought he was looking after her now.
If he believed the lies MacNab poured into his ear, then he believed she needed rescue and of course he would listen not to what he considered Isobel’s misguided words.
He had made his second promise when he told both Isobel and Catherine he would see them well married and cared for. That was before Isobel’s seduction and downfall, when she had completely disgraced herself in her father’s eyes. Then, he had promised her she would live to regret her deflowering.
And she had—oh, she had!
“You need to eat.” Meg slid the tray onto the bedside table. “You have taken nothing in three days.”
“I do not care,” Isobel admitted, still surprised Meg apparently did.
“You should.” Meg seated herself on the foot of the bed so Isobel could not escape looking at her. “What if you carry my brother’s child? Have you not thought of that?”
Isobel sat up abruptly. “But I have no reason to assume I am with child. Have I?”
Meg shrugged diffidently. “You expect me to know?” She inspected Isobel slowly. “Surely it is possible, given the joining has been consummated as vigorously as you continue to claim.”
“I feel no different.”
“Still, would you gamble on it, if ’tis possible you carry the heir my brother so deeply desires?”
“Does he, truly?”
“Aye. These lands may not seem much to you, coming from the sweet south, but they are Dougal’s life’s blood.”
“Yorkshire is scarcely the sweet south.”
“Well, we live simply and starkly, here. You had better take something to eat, for the sake of us all.”
“All right.” The food on the tray looked unappealing, but Isobel took up a crust of bread. “Will you stay and talk with me while I eat?”
“I am no fit nurse or companion.”
“Tell me what’s been happening. What is going on downstairs?”
Meg scowled. “Naught to the good. My brother wears himself thin minding his borders, and that fool, Lachlan, minds me. I wish he would take himself off! I will never give him what he wants.”
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, spoken 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.”