Chapter 26
“You’ve a visitor.”
Something about Rory’s tone let Donall know just who the visitor was.
His eyes snapped open and he sat up on his pallet, the sleep he’d been chasing forgotten. The guardsman filled the threshold, his feet pressing against the doorjambs, his arms folded. As ever, he wore a scowl darker than the coldest winter night.
“A fine e’en to you.” Donall smiled, knowing a cheery greeting would irk him.
“Ingrate MacLean whoreson,” Rory snarled, setting his hand on his sword hilt. “Left to me, you’d be feeding fish about now.”
“A real ray of sunshine, aren’t you?” Donall leaned back against the wall and crossed his ankles.
“Step aside, Rory.” Isolde’s voice floated out from behind the lout. “I cannot enter if you block the door.”
Donall’s pulse quickened. His entire body warmed, even the tips of his ears and his toes.
Why did he react so strongly to her? He should feel anger.
Call out for Rory not to budge, to keep her from entering the cell.
Instead, he found himself trying to peer around Rory’s bulk, eager for a glimpse of her.
She shouldn’t affect him that way.
But she did.
“So that is the way of it,” Gavin chuckled from his own pallet. Leaning in, he kept his voice low. “I was right.”
“Nae, you have a nose longer than an old woman.”
Gavin’s chuckling resumed.
Annoyed, Donall turned back to the door.
His friend had as much a chance of stealing his attention as he did of slipping his foot out of the cold band of iron around his ankle. Some things just were and he suspected that, as far as he was concerned, Lady Isolde was one of them.
Something about her got under his skin, and he didn’t like it. So why did he feel like grinning as she stepped past Rory and into the cell?
In truth, they could have been anywhere. On a birch knoll, at the edge of a dark, mist-shrouded bog, on one of Doon’s high cliffs, a rocky shore, even in the middle of the great city of Glasgow. It would scarce matter for everything around them seemed to fade away, leaving only her.
He hadn’t seen her in four days and though he’d half convinced himself she couldn’t be as fair as he thought, he now saw he’d erred.
She was even more fetching than he remembered.
“Lady,” he said in greeting and pushed to his feet.
Gavin stood as well. “Gavin MacFie, my lady.” He cut her a gallant bow. “I'd offer you my devoted services, but” - he spread his hands – “I am in no position to be of use to you.”
“Sir Gavin,” she acknowledged, inclining her head. “I have heard many good things about you. I regret we meet under these circumstances.”
“Laird MacLean.” She hardly glanced at him.
The slight stung.
The lopsided grin spreading across Gavin’s bearded face stabbed deeper. Donall gave him a warning look, but the knave was oblivious, wholly captivated by the lady.
Donall drew a tight breath. For reasons he didn’t want to examine, it pleased him that Lady Isolde didn’t seem aware that she’d won Gavin’s devotion with a few words of flattery and a glance from her amber-flecked eyes.
Far from it, she crossed the stone floor to the cell’s small window opening, her black skirts swirling about her ankles, her wildflower scent light and precious in the evening’s cold, briny air.
She looked out the window, standing there with her shoulders straight and her back proud. To his surprise, her dignity stirred his heart even more than her body’s lushness roused his blood. She clasped her hands behind her, and his gaze clung to them.
White-hot desire bolted through him as he remembered her fingers against his chest, then kneading his shoulders, and finally sifting through his hair during their kiss. Innocent or not, she had a seductive touch. His manhood twitched at the memory, his loins tightening with need.
Gavin was watching her, too, and Donall couldn’t decide if his fingers itched more to grab his friend’s chin and turn his face aside, or to undo the two long braids hanging down Isolde’s back.
Thick, silky, and glossed to a rich coppery-red sheen, her braids were now even more lovely than when she wore them coiled around her ears in the ramshorn style she seemed to favor. This way they swung free, the green-banded tips grazing her hips.
“You should wear green always, my lady,” he heard himself say. “The color suits you.”
“I shall consider your recommendation,” she said, still not turning around.
It was just as well she didn’t. He was sure raw lust stood in his eyes.
Damn the lass.
He tried to stop looking at her. He failed.
Light from the corridor torch spilled through the open door to glisten across her hair, picking out the varying shades of red and gold and bronze.
Just as bedeviling, the sea wind was beginning to kick up and each time it gusted past the cell’s window opening, bursts of chill air rushed in, carrying her witchy wildflower scent right beneath his nose.
Did she bathe in perfume? Or was it soap? Perhaps scented oil? Something she took pains to smooth all over her luscious, well-made body?
He could almost see her hands gliding along her legs, then back up again.
She might then rub the scent across her belly before moving up to leave a trace beneath the soft, full rounds of her breasts.
Then, he was sure, she’d touch a dollop of the oil, soap, or whatever, between her thighs. If only to madden him…
She was succeeding.
And that infuriated him. He didn’t want to desire her.
“Why are you here, lady?” He leaned against the wall and struck a casual pose, should she turn to face him, which she surely would after his next words. “Did you come to discuss enlightenment?”
“I wanted to see Sir Gavin,” she said, turning indeed.
Gavin’s smile broadened. “I am your servant, lady.”
Donall frowned. “I thought-”
“That I wished to visit you?” Lady Isolde met his gaze. “Truth be told, I did not think you’d be here.”
“Ach, to be sure,” he agreed, a new kind of annoyance surging through him. “You thought I’d be away suffering a bit of agony at the hands of your two henchmen?”
“I did believe they would be questioning you elsewhere,” she admitted. “I wanted to speak to Sir Gavin about your brother.”
“Why?” He arched an eyebrow. “What can he tell you that I haven’t?”
“Perhaps nothing, perhaps much. How can I know without meeting him?” She turned back to the window.
She couldn’t look at him.
She’d almost left when she saw he was shirtless. The last time she’d seen his bare chest, he’d been grimed with dirt from his first cell’s muck-covered floor. Smeared so darkly, she’d hardly been able to tell where he began and the murky shadows ended.
Now…
His clean chest stripped away all secrets. He was more than a bonnie man. He was magnificent. Cast a-glow by the torch flames, his broad, hard-muscled chest took her breath. She especially liked the smattering of dark hair that arrowed down to disappear beneath his low-slung belt.
Had she ever seen a more desirable man? She hadn’t, and was sure she never would again. Both truths carried enough weight to crush her. Yet she dare not be swayed by natural female appreciation. Now more than ever…
She needed answers.
But for a few moments, she’d keep her back to him. She wasn’t as strong as she would have hoped. She needed to shield herself from his dark beauty. His charm, said to be powerful enough to lure the stars from the sky. His stubbornness and the startling things he made her feel.
The soft flutters tickling her belly, so low by her thighs.
A shame she couldn’t enjoy such a pleasurable sensation. Instead, she only felt discomfited.
Especially when she stared across the sea to the other source of her ill ease. A looming presence that devoured convictions she’d never doubted, and left confusion in their place. That something was a dark mass rising low above the horizon:
MacKinnons’ Isle.