Chapter 27
MacKinnons’ Isle.
With its rugged coast gentled by distance and its stern-faced cliffs softened by the glow of a Hebridean gloaming, the MacKinnon holding appeared scarce more threatening than a long, dark lump on the horizon.
But the burden it represented for Isolde lay so near she tasted its foulness with each indrawn breath.
A taste more bitter than the trace of Devorgilla’s anti-attraction potion clinging to her tongue. Praise be, the crone had upped its potency.
Sadly, it still did not seem to work.
Or perhaps the MacLean’s bare chest was just too bonnie?
Fearing that was so, she would just ignore his dark good looks. How strange that Sir Gavin, undeniably a fine-looking man, didn’t affect her at all.
While the MacLean…
She drew a tight breath, knowing she’d be wise to keep her attention on the one thing able to freeze her heart.
“Have either of you seen the view?” She continued to look out the window opening, a chill working through her, blowing its icy breath on the warmth kindled by the MacLean and his hard-muscled chest.
“Laird MacLean,” she addressed him directly when neither man responded. “Do you know what lies on the horizon?”
“You need to ask?” His voice held an odd roughness, hinting that he knew her thoughts. “Some things need not be seen to ken they are there. The weight of their influence warns of their presence.”
“Fair lady,” Sir Gavin began, “we would have looked out the window were we not chained to your wall.” A trace of humor took the sting out of words that could have been harsh if spoken by another.
“Our chains are too short for us to enjoy whatever view so engages you,” he added, and Isolde could almost hear the smile in his words.
Her own lips curved, some of the tension leaving her. Gavin MacFie was a gallant, and she understood why Evelina thought so highly of him.
She turned from the window. “The view is not one I favor,” she said, looking only at him. “Nor is it one I can avoid. It greets me every morning.”
“You mean the same view as from your sea dungeon?” The MacLean’s voice speared straight to her heart. “MacKinnons’ Isle?”
“I do.” Isolde nodded, facing him.
Light from the corridor’s torch shone on his raven-black hair and emphasized the width of his shoulders.
He truly was much too dark, entirely too virile, and dangerously alluring.
“I am no’ fond of that devil-damned chunk of rock,” he said, his gaze intense. “Indeed, few places rile me more.”
Isolde studied the stony look on his face, noted the chill of his voice. “It is but an island, as is Doon.”
“Nae,” he said, unblinking. “It is a breeding ground of cravens.”
“You wished to speak of Iain?” Sir Gavin cut in, clearly trying to ease the tension.
“I did.” Isolde turned to him, again struck by his goodly nature. Almost as tall and well-built as the MacLean, his hazel eyes held warmth. A spray of freckles and his easy, lopsided smile made him seem years younger than the MacLean even though they had to be of similar ages.
She found herself smiling at him.
“I do not know much about the man my sister married.” She didn’t dare look at the MacLean. “Only that she adored him, and believed he felt the same about her.”
The MacLean said nothing, but she felt his gaze burning into her.
“My sister believed in the faeries,” she said, her heart squeezing to recall Lileas’ sweet nature, her vulnerabilities.
“She saw the moon as a living goddess, swore sea-dragons swam off our shores, and she sometimes spoke with trees. She believed even stones have souls, and memories. When she lost a pet, she’d take to her bed for weeks, claiming her heart was so broken she no longer wished to live.
“Lileas was perhaps too sensitive for this world.” She drew a breath, her own heart thumping hard. “What I wish to say is that she was too trusting.”
“My brother ne’er lied to her.” The MacLean’s voice came hard. “If anything, he shielded her.”
“At Baldoon? Why did she need protection in her husband’s home?”
“Dinnae twist my words, lady. Our hills, glens, and even these isles are as harsh as they are beautiful. All Highlanders know that. Danger can strike from anywhere. Iain watched o’er her as any man sees to his wife’s well-doing.”
She glanced at him. “But did he love her?”
“I have told you he did.”
“So you have.” Isolde gave her attention back to Sir Gavin. “Still, I would hear someone else’s opinion. Someone who doesn’t share his blood.”
The MacLean sat back against the cell wall, made a noise low in his throat that could’ve been called a snarl.
Ignoring him, Sir Gavin leaned toward her. He had an open face and clear gaze, making it easy to trust him. “What would you know of Iain?”
Before she could speak, the MacLean shifted noisily on his pallet.
“She has already been told all she needs to know. My brother is innocent.”
“Can you swear his hands are not stained with my sister’s blood?” Isolde challenged him.
“Why ask me when you came to question Sir Gavin?”
Something in his tone gave her pause. He sounded irritated in a different way from the other times she’d asked about his brother. Could he be perturbed by her wish to visit his friend?
“I told you why. You carry his blood.”
“Aye, and Gavin has been his friend since birth.”
“He is not family.” She regarded him intently.
Was he jealous?
The possibility surprised her. It also intrigued her. She just didn’t care to examine why that was so. For now, she was better served to stand straighter, brush at her sleeve and then her skirt.
Anything but think of him and the emotions he awakened in her.
“You are being deliberately difficult.” She hoped she didn’t sound like a fishwife. “You are annoyed because I came to see your friend and not you.”
Sir Gavin chuckled.
The MacLean said nothing. But his eyes glinted and his expression turned a bit more stubborn, his casual pose on the pallet, a mite too contrived.
He was jealous.
Tucking that away to consider later, Isolde turned to Gavin. “Good sir, can you tell me if the rumors are true? Does Iain MacLean have an uncontrollable temper?”
“Ah, well…” A crease appeared in Gavin’s brow, his open features clouding. He started to reply, but she spoke first.
“So it is true,” she said, her heart sinking.
“Aye, he does!” The MacLean shot to his feet, his eyes blazing. “All MacLean men have tempers, if you’d hear the truth. But we dinnae murder our wives.”
“What of the MacLean who started our feud?” She had him there. “You will remember. The laird who drowned his MacInnes bride on the Lady Rock.”
“May the wrath of the gods sink that accursed islet beneath the sea,” he swore, then glared at the ceiling. When he looked back at her, a cold mask had settled over his face.
“That happened so many centuries ago there is scarce a MacLean or a MacInnes who recalls the names of that ill-fated pair.”
“But we know the names of Iain and Lileas.”
“So we do.” He turned away from her. His shoulders tensed visibly, and when he tightened his hands at his sides, his knuckles gleamed white.
“MacLean men are strong-passioned,” he said. “When a MacLean loves a woman, he is a man consumed. With every breath he takes, he gives her all of himself, protects her with his life. She is his life.”
Isolde took a step backward, almost reeling from the power of his declaration. His words, his passion, seemed to fill the cell, crowding the air and causing the walls, the floor, and ceiling, to swoop in to crush her.
She put a hand to her breast, drew a thin breath. From the corner of her eye, she saw Sir Gavin push to his feet and start toward her.
“You’re frightening her, Donall. Have done.” He might have said more, but the MacLean thrust out his arm and grabbed his friend’s elbow, halting him.
“Nae, I am no’ scaring her.” He glowered at Sir Gavin. “She is bold. She wouldn’t flinch if every stone in Scotland leapt up, grew horns, seized lightning bolts as spears, and came bounding after her. I am telling her what she wants to know, the truth.”
Keeping his gaze on her, he released Sir Gavin and folded his arms. “You did come here for answers, did you not?”
Isolde glanced at Sir Gavin. He was staring at the MacLean with a look she couldn’t place.
“Well?” The MacLean narrowed his eyes at her. “Will you admit it?”
“Of course, I want the truth.”
“By the hounds, Donall, stop scowling at her.” Sir Gavin gave him a light shove. “You are being an arse.”
“She should listen,” the MacLean said, stepping in front of her.
“I do.” Isolde’s heart stocked. The sheer male power streaming from him kept her as firmly in place as his chain held him. “I always listen.”
“That is good.” He cupped her chin, lifting her face to his. “Better would be accepting the truth.”
“Yours or mine?”
“There is only one.” He stepped even closer, smoothed the side of his thumb along her jaw. “It lurks out there in the mist, somewhere just beyond our kenning. We cannae yet see it, but we will. Do you agree?”
She nodded.
Some of his fierceness eased, but the flare of triumph in his eyes was almost as unsettling as his frown.
Worse, he leaned in again, this time coming so near that his soft, warm breath brushed her cheek. Her heart thumped for she knew he was going to kiss her. But he only inclined his head as if acknowledging her surrender. To her surprise, he took his hand from her chin and stepped back from her.
Returning to his pallet, he stood beside it, one shoulder against the wall.
“See here, lass. For a MacLean to do away with his lady would mean ending himself as well,” he said, his voice low.
He gave her a long look and the smoldering in his dark eyes became a full-fledged burn. “That, Isolde of Dunmuir, is the way of it. My brother did not murder your sister. He loved her.”
To Isolde’s amazement, she believed him.
Or wanted to.
But Lileas’ sweet face loomed before her, pale lips moving, trying to tell her something. Then the image spiraled away, shattered by the hammering of Isolde’s heart.