Chapter 23 #2
“Wet and groused as you are, I’d say so.” Gavin pulled on his beard, studying him. “You could’ve come from a tryst in the sea. And now you’re vexed because the storm broke, wresting you apart?”
“I willnae even answer that.” Donall shut his eyes again, sought the peace of sleep.
He needed rest.
But Gavin’s lopsided smile and good cheer, despite the graveness of their plight, crept beneath his closed lids, stealing his slumber, and his ire.
Reminding him why he loved the MacFie as if they truly were brothers, and not merely fostered ones.
He slanted another glance at him.
“Sakes, but I am glad to see you alive,” Donall said, feeling a pinch where he supposed his heart beat in his chest.
Gavin’s smile broadened. Leaning across the space between their pallets, he gave Donall a friendly whack on the shoulder. “And I you.”
“Owww…” Donall winced.
“What’s this?” Gavin paled. “Guidsakes, what have they done to you?”
“All manner of villainies.”
Villainies, and a bounty of such exquisite tortures I may never recover.
Gavin fell back against the wall. “Gods, but I am sorry,” he said. “There I was jesting about wenches and such. I wanted to cheer you.”
“I know. And you did.” Donall rubbed his shoulder as he spoke. “My heart is already lighter.”
“Do you wish to speak of it?”
“Later.” Donall pushed the image of Lady Isolde from his mind as best he could, and again drew a deep breath of the rain-chilled air.
But the storm-washed night couldn’t cleanse her from his thoughts. Had she bespelled him, indeed? He didn’t know. If she did have some kind of magic, he wanted none of it.
Yet…
The truth was he suspected she’d already snared him.
“You’re quiet.”
“I’m weary.”
Gavin snorted. “You look glum for a man who has been in the company of such a beautiful woman.”
“I just dinnae wish to speak now.”
“When?”
“Perhaps after they’ve brought the supper and bath they’ve promised.” Donall fussed with the woolen blanket over his legs, hoping it wasn’t infested with fleas.
Relieved when he couldn’t spot any, he glanced again at his friend. “Just be warned. When I tell you what I’ve been about, you will think I’ve taken up the bardic arts and am spouting the most outrageous tale you’ve ever heard.
“You may no’ even believe me.” Donall shook his head. “I wouldnae.”
“Where have they been keeping you?” Gavin prodded, flicking his gaze from Donall’s plaid-covered legs to his still-damp hair. “Dinnae tell me they’ve taken their twisted pursuit of revenge so far they’ve lashed you to a rock in the sea?”
“It was almost that bad, aye.” Donall released a long sigh, then described the broch’s sea dungeon and how he’d spent his days suspended by a chain from its dripping ceiling.
Gavin jolted. “By all the gods!”
“I doubt there are any on this plaguey end of Doon.” Donall was sure of it. “They likely left centuries ago.”
Glancing around the tiny, stone-walled cell, he added, “I am glad the bastards gave you a less odious whiling place. No slime-coated walls, nor slithering creatures breeding in fouled floor rushes. No tide rushing in to freeze your danglers…”
“Gods’ bones, they’ve gone too far-”
“So they have,” Donall agreed, fixing his gaze on the torch flames he could see through the door’s crude-cut air hole.
The torch gave off a soft, buttery glow. A spot of comfort in the cold, wet night, and a warm contrast to the silver light that filled the cell with each crack of thunder.
A golden flame in a sea of darkness. The same red-gold as Lady Isolde’s hair. As well, the fire that coursed through her veins. Passion she didn’t know she possessed.
Until he showed her.
Donall started, then shot a quick glance at Gavin. Sakes, he must’ve fallen asleep. He didn’t know if he’d muttered those words, or if they’d only circled through his dreams. Taunting and teasing him just like the bonnie lass who’d inspired them.
“What did you say?” Gavin sat staring at him, his broad shouldered form backlit by the night’s eerie storm-washed light. “I cannae hear you above the thunder.”
Donall blew out a breath. So he had spoken aloud. But his friend hadn’t caught his words.
Devil’s luck.
“I said wait until you hear where I’ve spent my nights.”
“You didnae sleep in your cell? Or the sea dungeon?”
“Nae.” Donall tucked the blanket around his legs. He’d never been more cold. He could’ve been on the high moors, facing a fierce winter wind. The kind that brought the chill of coming snow.
He remained exhausted; his body so sore that breathing pained him.
A warm bath would be a relief.
“Did they torture you at night?” Gavin prodded.
“Nae,” he admitted. “But the trials I faced then were a worse torment than any I received by day.”
“Why do I think you are speaking of the lady chieftain?”
Donall frowned. As ever, Gavin read his mind. Indeed, he wouldn’t be surprised if the knave could peer through walls.
Gavin’s crooked grin appeared, hinting that was so. “Aye, why can’t I shake the feeling you mean her?”
“Because you are right,” Donall admitted. “I did mean her. I can think of nothing else.”