Chapter 9
The lass toyed with him.
With the skill of a lord’s courtesan, she danced around him, swaying to music only she heard. Round and round she twirled, enticing him with a fleeting brush of her smooth, warm curves one moment, only to pull away the next.
A born seductress, she wore nothing but her own creamy skin, her gleaming, unbound hair, and the rosy glow of the hearth fire. In her hands, she held a length of shimmering silk and let it float about her, using it in ways that would have him on his knees if she didn’t soon end her sensual tease.
But she kept on, her breasts bouncing and her hips circling, her eyes alight with suggestive promise as she twirled the silk into a rope and slipped its taut length between her legs. For a long moment, she held it there, drawn tight against the red-gold curls of her womanhood.
“By the gods…” Donall could hardly breathe. His blood heated and his heart raced as he watched her.
Never had he seen a woman do anything more rousing, so wantonly wicked.
Nor had he seen one more tempting. Sakes, her hair swung to her hips, parting now and again to give him glimpses of her sweet, pert nipples.
Her woman’s mound was in clear view and caught the firelight, the curls there gleaming like sunfire, beckoning.
He wanted to look away, even turn his back to her. But, of course, he couldn’t. He did bite back a groan, his fingers, his tongue, aching to delve, exploring her.
“Mercy…” He was ready to beg. “Have done…”
Feeling almost scorched from the heat surging through him, he fisted his hands, willed his blood to cool. But his need only increased, his desperation worsening.
As if she knew, she smiled and began sliding the rope back and forth between her legs, teasing him with the intimate caress. Her eyes glazed in pleasure, then drifted shut, a soft sigh escaping her as a look of pure ecstasy slipped over her face.
He felt a powerful urge to throw back his head and roar, but he couldn’t draw enough air into his lungs.
For a moment, he wondered if he might die – if his heart could hammer so hard that his ribs would crack, breaking wide to spill his life’s blood.
Then, just when he hovered on the edge of bursting, she withdrew the silk.
Meeting his eyes, she laughed, a light, tinkling sound, and unfurled the silk.
She held its length before her, letting it hang between them like a banner, its rippling transparency clinging to her breasts and the triangular shadow of her femininity.
She laughed again. This time a deeper, throatier sound, almost a growl.
Donall frowned. A chill sped down his spine, at odds with the carnal urges she stirred in him.
But she only smiled and came closer. Dipping the banner, she gave him a quick glimpse of her breasts.
“Vixen.” He reached for her, but she danced away, keeping out of his grasp.
She snapped the silk, again whipping it into a rope.
Lightfooted, she whirled behind him, leaving a trace of her wildflower scent in the air.
Then she began sliding her hands over his back and arms. She stroked aching muscles and caressed his hands, drawing on his fingers with a sinuous suggestiveness he’d never before enjoyed.
Giving in to the pleasure, Donall inhaled deeply of the heady scents surrounding him. Her light wildflower fragrance, but also a blend of peat smoke, leather, wool, and the sea. Smells he hadn’t noticed till now.
Her touch also changed. No longer soft and gentle, the hands now working behind his back felt callused and rough.
They were also too large be a woman’s. Equally startling, the coarse rope some heavy-handed arse wound ever tighter around his wrists was anything but silken.
A vicious kick to his shin ripped him from his deep slumber.
“Bluidy hell!” Donall roared, now fully awake, the last shreds of his dream spinning away.
“A fine good morn.” Niels the giant stood before him, smirking.
“A fine taste of steel is what you deserve.” Donall glared at him, fury hot in his veins. Sakes, but his fingers itched for his sword.
But the gods only knew where it was, and his hands were bound, so he did the next best thing, and swore.
A volley of oaths angry enough to send the devil running for cover.
“Loose such words in our lady’s presence and I’ll cut out your tongue for offending her gentle ears.” The oversized oaf matched Donall’s glare.
“Threaten me again, and I’ll be the one to do the carving,” Donall shot back, willing it so. “As long as I’m here against my will, I’ll speak how it suits me. If Lady Isolde is bothered, she can release me and spare herself my outbursts.”
Ready to curse again now, he tossed a glance toward her bed. He expected to see her cowering there, her eyes wide with shock. But the four-poster proved empty, its heavy curtaining opened to reveal a whirl of furs, sheets, and pillows.
Following his gaze, Niels scowled at the tangled bedcoverings. “Say your prayers if you used her roughly.”
Donall’s brows swept down. “I didnae use her at all.”
His aching limbs and screaming back muscles left no doubt that he’d spent the night on the floor. Propped against the hardness of a bedpost rather than plying the fair lady’s softness with a rigidity of a different sort than the cold wood of her bed frame.
Not that he hadn’t been tempted.
But she was a lure he’d ignore even if the strain turned his vitals blue.
Niels leaned in to peer at the rope he’d tied around Donall’s wrists. He gave the ends one more yank, and then straightened. “See you give her no cause to grieve,” he warned, dusting his hands.
“Nae worries, you great ox,” Donall snarled. “I’d sooner go monk than tup your lady.”
“You can be glad she claimed as much when we passed her on her way to the chapel just now,” a second male voice said from behind him.
Donall frowned, recognizing the man as Rory, the giant’s shadow.
“On her way to pray for her dead sister’s soul, she was,” Rory added as he came closer. “Her murdered sister.”
“Watch your tone, bastard.” Donall twisted around to glare at him.
“You should mind yours, MacLean.” Rory dropped to a knee and fumbled with the end of the chain binding Donall to the bed. “This is Lileas’ home.”
“A poor lass drowned by her own husband’s hand,” he mumbled as he inserted a large iron key into the lock, and then began unwinding the chain from the bedpost.
“I ken fine where we are.” Donall glanced up at his broad, bearded face. “I’ve no’ forgotten Lileas either.”
“See that you don’t.”
“I’ll be remembering you, too.”
Rory snorted, busy with the chain.
“Are you freeing me – or taking me back to your dungeon?” Donall slid a look at Niels.
The giant was glowering at the mussed bedsheets and didn’t appear to hear him.
Donall smiled and drew back his unbound left foot.
Still kneeling, Rory grumbled on, “You’ll know soon enough.
We’re hopeful our lady will see the folly of-”
“Folly indeed!” Donall kicked, and sent him flying.
“Oopphhh!” Rory landed facedown in the rushes, arms and legs sprawled wide.
Donall lunged at him, but Niels was on him in a heartbeat. He jerked the chain, pricking Donall’s throat with his dirk. “Try that again and I’ll pare you to bits.”
Spitting out sprigs of dried meadowsweet, Rory scrambled to his feet, looking furious. “You just earned new quarters, MacLean,” he ground out, his eyes blazing.
“Let’s take him to the sea tower,” he said to Niels as he reached for the end of the chain.
Straightening, he leveled an icy stare at Donall.
“The sea tower’s dungeon is Dunmuir’s oldest and well suited for you.
It’s near the jakes, boasts a plentiful supply of water, and has all the comforts of hell. ”
Rory then gave the chain a jerk and headed for the opened bedchamber door. Niels took his knife from beneath Donall’s chin and shoved him forward.
At the threshold, Donall planted his feet far apart and spread his elbows wide, hoping to gain a moment to reason with them. “Have done with this nonsense and give me my sword,” he challenged them. “Fight me like warriors. One on one or two against one, I care not, but a fair fight.”
“Fair like your brother treated his lady wife?” Niels snarled behind him. “I think not.” Without warning, he slammed his foot into the back of Donall’s knees. Before Donall’s legs could buckle, he jabbed a rock-hard elbow into Donall’s lower back.
Sagging against the doorjamb, Donall clamped his jaw, stifling a groan. Niels the giant pushed him into the dimly lit passage.
“No more of that, MacLean,” he warned. “The sun will be up soon and we’ve orders to have you in your quarters before folk stir.”
Rory glanced over his shoulder, smirking. “Your new quarters.”
Careful to first search the shadows for movement, Isolde slipped from the fusty-aired quiet of Dunmuir’s chapel. She needn’t have taken such caution because, as so often in recent days, the corridor outside the little oratory was dark and empty.
The truth was few came to this gloomy corner of the castle.
With less than a month since her sister’s burial, all knew that Lileas’ soul yet lingered. Like as not, inside the chapel where she’d last rested, cold and still, candles flickering around her.
A light rustling sounded in the darkness ahead of her, perhaps a footstep or the gliding passage of a ghost. Either way, she flattened herself against the wall.
Her pulse racing, she held her breath and waited. The noise came again, closer this time, and then a rat shot past her. The wee beastie disappeared around a curve in the corridor, leaving silence in his wake. Shuddering, Isolde drew her woolen shawl tighter about her shoulders and sighed in relief.
A rat.
Not a ghost. Certainly not the restless soul of her sister, come to bemoan her tragic end.
No bleary-eyed, just-wakened kinsman either, which shouldn’t surprise her.
She understood why the elders avoided the chapel.
The demise of young and innocent Lileas weighed on them and so they shunned the holy place, a reminder of their own immortality.
Pushing away from the wall, she hurried on, not chased by old men or ghosts, but by the MacLean.
He’d followed her.
She might’ve left him in her bedchamber, propped against her bedpost and snoring, but he’d still come with her.
Though stone walls stood between them as she’d knelt upon the chapel’s cold stone floor, she’d felt his gaze damning her.
Worse, she’d thought of his slow smiles, the heated glint in his dark eyes.
The memory quickened her pulse, making her heart flutter in ways that shamed her.
Especially as she’d gone to the chapel to pray for her sister. Instead, he’d filled her mind, haunting her more than any ghost could do.
Her cares pressing on her, she fled down the corridor, now chased by guilt. Recriminations and something else. A truth terrible enough to steal her wits and doom her soul.
Running now, she reached the end of the passage and burst into the stair tower.
She took the curving steps two at a time, racing up to an iron-studded door set deep in the gloom of the third landing.
As if hellhounds and not wee Bodo chased her, she threw open the door and fled into the chill night air of the battlements.
Cold air she’d hoped would be cleansing but that proved anything but. The gusty drizzle fit the bleak path she’d chosen, while the brine-laden wind reminded her of the tears she didn’t want to shed.
Feeling lost, she stood in the darkness, listening to the crash of breakers against the rocks below. She also heard the soft patter of rain on stone.
Her heart heard something else.
Something she wanted to blot out, but couldn't.
It was the MacLean’s voice. Not his words, but the richness of his voice. Deep and seductive, it made her wonder what magic he could weave if ever he chose to speak words as bonnie as his face.
She shivered at the thought.
Scooping Bodo into her arms, she clutched him tight and began pacing the wall-walk. Even the stars seemed to chide her. They winked through the torn clouds, each one looking so cold and distant.
Disapproving.
“Oh, Bodo, what am I to do?” She shifted his weight in her arms, needing the comfort his soft warmth always gave her. But even Bodo, so precious and loved, couldn’t help her now. She’d committed the most grievous of sins.
She was attracted to Donall MacLean.