Chapter 15
“Tainted frog legs?” Donall shook his head, not caring if Lady Isolde saw his doubt.
He watched her across the small oaken table, not surprised when she countered his amusement with a tightening of her lips, the narrowing of her lovely amber-flecked eyes.
He didn’t mind for she was quite fetching when riled.
So he held his peace, waiting as the room quieted around them, the only sound the crackling of the hearth fire, the whistling of the night wind, and the light snores of her sleeping dog.
To further annoy her, he rested his shoulder against the carved post of her bed and stretched out his legs. Then he fixed her with a stare sure to fluster her even more. His reward came swiftly for her cheeks flushed deeply as she reached for her cup and took a long sip of ale.
“It is quite true,” she insisted, returning her cup to the table. “The frogs hail from an old well and the water is often fouled.”
“Indeed?”
“Oh, aye.” She nodded.
He had her now. “Your cook knows this?”
“Everyone does.” She fell for his trap. “The well has been stagnant for years.”
Donall flashed a victorious smile. “Then why would the good man who oversees your kitchens send his lady chieftain a blighted supper?”
She opened her mouth, but snapped it shut again as quickly. The tops of her ears turned scarlet. He’d caught her out this time, proving that she was up to something.
What a shame his empty stomach chose that moment to rumble.
“Lady, I have no’ truly eaten in days.” He eyed the frog leg in his hand. It smelled delicious, and was also plump and roasted to a fine golden brown.
His mouth watered.
Besides, he needed sustenance if he was to escape.
For reasons he couldn’t quite explain, he also enjoyed riling his comely captor. So he bit into the frog leg.
“Most fair eating,” he commented the moment he’d forced the bitter-tasting morsel down his throat.
“Stop!” She lunged across the table, trying to snatch the frog leg from his fingers. “You cannot eat that.”
How I wish I hadn’t. He gave her another quick grin, keeping his opinion to himself.
“Ah, sweeting, but I already have enjoyed a bite,” he said aloud, holding the horrid tidbit above his head.
“I am not your sweeting.” She made another grab for the frog leg.
“True,” Donall agreed. “If the notion so distresses you,” he added, easily keeping the frog leg from her grasp, “why should you care what I eat?”
“Because-” She broke off and huffed.
Burying his own agitation, he glanced at the other offerings on the table, using the distraction to steel himself against the greater temptation she presented.
“Lady Isolde, I am the one with reason to be grieved,” he said, returning his gaze to her. “Sore reason.”
“That is a matter of opinion.” She pursed her lips in a way that made them appear lush and soft.
Kissable.
Annoyed that he’d noticed, he focused on the lone freckle on her cheek. “Would you but listen to reason, I am sure you would share my views.”
“I will not be wheedled into releasing you.” She returned his stare. “Not by your ludicrous ransom offers, silly tales, nor by your boorish airs.”
Donall placed a hand over his heart. “You pain me greatly.”
“You will feel worse if you eat that frog leg.”
“Ah, but I am famished,” he said the moment he’d gulped down another odious bite. “Starving for nourishment, see you?”
“I shall have other victuals brought up.” She glanced at the door, started to rise.
He stood, seizing her arm. “Too late,” he said, drawing her back onto her seat. “The truth is nothing else will satisfy after what you have so generously offered me.”
She settled on the chair, narrowing her eyes as he released her. “Is that so?”
He nodded.
“Now I am the doubtful one.” She clutched at her still-loosened bodice, the slight trembling of her fingers confirming what he already knew: she still hoped to seduce him yet she didn’t know where to begin. Or perhaps she lacked the daring.
Yet she persisted, even now, proving she understood every lurid barb he’d fired at her. Without question a maid, she also seemed well versed in the subtleties of carnal passion.
A potent combination.
The innocent and the siren rolled into one delectable package. On the thought, something inside him broke loose. An odd tugging that caught him unaware with its intensity.
“You needn’t wonder at anything, lady.” He damned the roughness of his voice, hoped she wouldn’t know that it was a sign of lust, his unwanted and foolish capitulation.
He looked at her, feeling as if the floor tilted, hurtling him into a waiting abyss. “If I cannae purchase my way out of here, I also cannae ignore other escape routes. Know that, minx, and be warned.”
“Why?” Her chin came up, her eyes glittering in the candlelight.
“Because…” He leaned toward her, close enough to give her a fast, hard kiss on the cheek. If he felt like it, which he didn’t. “A Highlander unleashed is a force more powerful than any storm on earth. You should know that.”
“You have yet to take what I’ve offered,” she said, glancing aside to stare at the night mist now blowing past the tall, arch-topped window.
“Nae, I haven’t.” Yet.
“And will you?”
“Lady, you ask too much.” He followed her gaze, but he’d seen enough swirling Doon mist to last a lifetime and then some. What interested him more – the gods help him – was the way her fingers still grasped the top of her gown.
He watched her closely, his entire body tightening for he’d bet his sword she’d finish undoing the laces if he so much as blinked in encouragement.
In her own way, she was just as foolish and headstrong as her grizzle-headed elders.
A dimwit would know that even though she clearly despised him, she wouldn’t hesitate to use her sweet, lush body to see her will done.
He might be muscled enough to uproot an oak if a rage took him, but he didn’t think he had the strength to refuse if she stripped and beckoned to him.
And what man would, you arse?
A bairn? A cloudy-eyed ancient who’d like as not forgotten he even had danglers?
Neither a child nor a graybeard, he was simply doomed.
It was a truth that slammed into him like an iron fist.
In true pain, he sank back onto the edge of the bed. Gods help him, but he felt hollowed, betrayed by his own need, and furious. Until this moment he’d denied his attraction to her.
Now…
Something was changing. He could feel a shift in the air, crackling tension as if a lightning bolt struck the room, causing everything to jolt and then hum, even making his own blood thunder in his ears. And when she finally turned back to look at him again, he saw an echoing storm in her eyes.
She held his gaze, a Celtic warrior goddess. “You do not know me at all, sir. If you did, you’d be aware that I would singlehandedly tear down every mountain in our beloved Isles and Highlands to avenge my sister and restore peace to my people.
“Nothing is too much. Not even what I would do with you.” She blinked then and the candlelight revealed the sheen of unshed tears. “I have thought long and hard about this, you may be sure.”
“Lady…” He inhaled deeply, feeling more trapped by her distress than the iron around his ankle.
If he had one weakness, it was a distraught woman.
He also wished she hadn’t used the words long and hard. His mind and even his heart were softening toward her, but his damnable male-piece paid neither any heed. Her provocative words, innocently spoken or no, fired his blood.
He looked at her, knew his expression would be fierce. “Speak plain, lass.”
“I am trying.” She pushed to her feet, clasped her hands before her.
“Tell me what you want of me, Isolde of Dunmuir.”
“I think you know.”
He did, but only nodded.
I would hear the words from your sweet lips. I am no’ so great a ravening beast that I’d touch you otherwise.
As if she heard the unspoken words, she lowered her gaze, but the haunted look in her eyes sank into him, stealing past his defenses and wrapping around his heart.
He cursed himself for pushing her. Just as troubling, the longer he stared at her bowed head, the more his emotions battled within him. Unwelcome emotions, every last one.
Sakes, but she tempted him.
Light from the hanging cresset lamp bathed her with a luminous glow, glossing her coiled braids to a fine, richly burnished bronze. Her bodice once more gaped free, revealing the lush swell of her breasts above the edge of her chemise.
A glimpse made all the more maddening for he knew those luscious curves had yet to know the pleasure of man’s touch.
Equally dangerous, her chemise appeared to be made of a transparent, filmy fabric such as he’d never seen. If she stood before him wearing nothing but it and the room’s candlelight, not an inch of her well-made body would be hidden to him.
He frowned and pulled a hand down over his chin. He could hardly breathe. And, by Odin’s bluidy wounds, when had the room grown so warm? The back of his neck burned hotter than if a fork-tongued firedrake crouched behind him spewing him with flames.
He swallowed hard and rubbed his nape.
It didn’t help.
The dryness in his throat and the heat searing him inside and out remained. She looked up at him then, her eyes wide, shining, and so filled with trepidation he felt like ten kinds of a rotting arse for what he was about to do.
As if the devil himself had run off with his last shred of chivalry, he grabbed his half-eaten frog leg and threw it into the hearth fire. Then he stood.
“Tell me, lass. What is your will?”
“I want you to take me,” she said softly.
“You mean lie with you?” His chest tightened, his groin likewise. He hadn’t been as prepared for her answer as he’d thought.
“Aye.” She nodded. “I wish to forge an irrefutable union with you in the hopes of ensuring lasting peace.”
“That cannae be.” He shook his head. “Even if I agreed, all you would achieve would be the loss of your maidenhead. Our clans would still feud.”
“I wish you hadn’t eaten any of that,” she said, staring at the platter of frog legs, the strange words proving her addled. She was clearly as witless as her gaggle of graybeards.
Sure of it, he glanced at the sharp-tasting frog legs.
How he wished that he found her as unpalatable. Better yet, that he could have her and his freedom.
At once, the image of her redheaded cousin Niels rose in his mind. The frog legs loomed there, too. And again, he heard the giant’s words, spoken to the strange lad called Lugh.
He’ll want a newt from the sacred well to go along with his bag of bats. He’ll be gone once he has what he’s after.
Donall’s heart thudded in his chest. For the first time since he’d been captured, hope surged within him. And a powerful rush of rampant desire.
Fighting the guilt that also swept him, he let his gaze roam over Isolde from head to toe. His hands ached to do the same. Something fine, warm, and bright began to pulse deep inside him. How could it not? Giving her what she wanted might serve him as well, even hastening his escape.
The beginnings of a smile touched his lips. Perhaps he could have her and his freedom. What better way to win her confidence than by bedding her?
Bedding her well.
Once he’d won her affection, she’d lessen her guard and he’d escape. He and Gavin could be gone before she wakened from a sated slumber. More guilt jabbed him at the thought, but he forced himself to think instead of Baldoon and his people. They needed him and he’d already been gone too long.
As if she sensed his capitulation, she raised her head. “You have decided,” she said, the words a statement, her tone dull and flat.
Resigned.
For a beat, he considered relenting. But he had to be gone from here by any means he could, fair or foul. So he stepped as close to her as his chain allowed and then reached to cup her shoulder.
“Fair lady, you have convinced me,” he declared, and his smile deepened. “I have decided to oblige you.”