Chapter 20
A primrose by a river’s brim
A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more.
—Peter Bell, 1819
William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
English poet
Isobella’s first impulse was to slap him, but she knew his actions were partly her fault. He kissed her, and she kissed him back. Her arms went around him, and she groaned low in her throat. She did nothing to stop him when he put his hand on her breast. She was ready when he touched her. He knew exactly what that meant, and he was right. She had gone to him in a thin, linen nightgown and ended up here in a candlelit room, with Mr. Darcy peering down at her in his wet shirt. She had let him think that he could come to her room and she would melt against him.
But now his words stopped her, and his next question was the one she feared the most. “Who are ye? Ye appear suddenly out of nowhere and willna tell me from whence ye came. Ye wear strange clothes and speak English with an unknown accent. Ye and yer sister were alone with naught a possession but yer satchels.
“Ye act cold and withdrawn one moment, then ye melt in my arms when I least expect it. Ye can bare yer heart to me one moment, only to be shrouded in mist and mystery the next. I find ye so beautiful I ache and so full of suspect I want to lock ye away. So tell me, mistress, who are ye and why were ye spying on me from the window?”
His voice was thick, and his finger stroked her cheek. “Did ye find out what ye wanted to know? Will ye send word to someone that I am here at Màrrach? Will there be hell to pay when I leave here on the morrow? What is the real reason ye are here?”
She was flabbergasted. “I don’t know what makes you think I am a spy,” she said, and that much was true. Spying on him was absurd, but he had no way of knowing that, and she wasn’t ready to tell him. Not until they found Elisabeth.
His hands came up and closed around her neck. His thumbs stroked the hollow of her throat where her blood pounded. Her eyes never left his face. Her body trembled from fear, and yet something about him made her hope for the best. He could snap her neck with ease, or he might decide to press his thumbs just a little bit harder and harder still, until her lungs screamed for air.
She looked away and closed her eyes. Her heart cracked like the shell of an egg, and disappointment flowed swiftly throughout her body. She was so attracted to him. She had seen him as her ideal, her Mr. Darcy. But the real Mr. Darcy would never have made her feel so cheap or so insignificant, so capable of bringing him harm.
The beautiful iridescent bubble of her romantic notions, nurtured for a lifetime, suddenly burst and left behind a cold emptiness. Nothing mattered now except finding Elisabeth and asking that interfering Black Douglas to do his best to send them back to their time, and failing that, at least to help them get far, far away from here.
“Have ye found what ye came here for? Are ye an English spy? Tell me. Are ye?”
“How could you accuse me?”
He stroked her cheek and cupped her chin, lifting her face so he could see her eyes. He searched the depths for an uncomfortable length of time before saying, “The fairest face, the falsest heart.”
Pain turned to anger, and she shoved his hand away. “You dare to call me false-hearted when you have nothing to base that upon? Am I not innocent until you prove me guilty? Where is the evidence of my duplicity?” She glanced away. “I am not the monster you make me out to be. I am innocent, and you are wrong to persecute me unjustly. I am telling the truth.”
His gaze didn’t waver. “Ye could also be lying. Ye could be a spy. Ye could be many things, and until ye can convince me otherwise, ye are, at present, someone I canna trust.”
She drew back her hand to slap him, but he caught her by the wrist.
“I wouldna advise that,” he said coldly.
He jerked her against him. “Let me see what wiles ye would have used to wheedle the information from me. Ye have the mouth of a courtesan, so use it.” His mouth came down upon hers, hard. He kissed her with arrogance, abandon, and so much anger that it made her lips numb. He drove his tongue into her mouth again and again, while his fingers dug into the skin of her arms and then moved up to her hair.
He broke the kiss, and his hands covered her ears as he held her head in place so she could not move it. He wanted to master her, to show her he could control her and bend her to his will and that he could force his kiss upon her whenever it suited him.
But she saw the sadness in his eyes. Yes, he knew he could force his kiss upon her, but he would never, ever force her to kiss him back.
He released her, and she wiped her hand across her mouth. “You provoke me and think that will make me meekly submit? You will never bend me to your will like that.”
Alysandir was breathing hard, whether with passion or fury, she was not sure. “I think it is time ye told me the truth, mistress, and end this suspicion between us once and for all.”
She sighed wearily, wishing she knew how to get them off this merry-go-round they seemed doomed to ride in circles for forever, it seemed. “I am not an English spy or any other kind of spy. I do not know the first thing about spying. I did not come here for any reason, and if you really want to know, I’m not sure how I ended up here.”
A fool will try by force or skill, but ne’er can bend a woman’s will. Alysandir leaned his head back and closed his eyes and tried to still the wild rushing of his blood.
Isobella saw the thick veins in his neck and listened to his rapid breathing and knew he fought a war within himself. In the shadowy glow from the tapers in the candelabra beside him, he looked like a being from the netherworld with his wet hair and flexed jaw muscles. When he opened his eyes, she saw such pain and despair that she immediately thought of Dante’s words, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here,” and she wondered what could be so terrible that it tormented him so.
She had no answers, but she knew the cause was more than simply suspicion. There was distrust in his gaze, yes, and it was aimed at her, but she wasn’t the one who had earned it. She knew now that, without a doubt, at some time in his life a woman had hurt him so deeply that he seemed to have difficulty drawing the line between them. What surprised her most, though, was that instead of firming her resolve, his emotional scars actually softened her feelings toward him.
The power emanating from his tense body enveloped her. She recalled him riding between the two thieves, sword held high as he slashed right and left and killed them both. He was not a weakling she could toy with or put off for very long. Besides, toying with men had never been her forte.
Even now, she could feel herself drawn toward him, moth to flame, possessed and consumed. She inhaled deeply and looked away, but that did not release her from the bondage of his gaze.
“You should go now. I am tired. I am exhausted mentally by you, from thinking about my sister, all of it.” She turned away from him and went to sit on the bed. She stared at the hands folded in her lap. Instead of turning away, he joined her.
“Lovely Isobella, beautiful and mysterious, I yearn to make love with ye. Why do ye resist so?”
She turned her head away and thought of the man in her dream whose gentle touch had made her respond without fear, without distrust. Why couldn’t Alysandir be that man? She felt hopeless. She would never be able to convince him of her innocence, and it seemed pointless to try. She sighed wistfully. Did it really matter?
She did not belong here. This was not her time. These were not her people. She had a home, a family, and a country that lay centuries away. She could not give her heart and fall in love with a man who only existed in the past, any more than she could give her heart to a man who suspected the worst of her—a man who branded her a spy before he heard her story. It pained her deeply to realize Alysandir wasn’t the romantic hero she had pegged him to be. In truth, he was no more attainable than her romantic dreams of Mr. Darcy.
“Ye canna win, lass. There is no escape from Màrrach, and if by some miracle ye were able to do so, ye would not survive long out there alone.”
Why? Why was she here? Why was this happening to her? And where was that sovereign of insufferables, the Black Douglas?
Isobella stared blankly at him. “At least I would have a chance out there.”
He remained silent, his gaze hard and unsympathetic. She was caught completely off guard when he lifted his hand and gently stroked her cheek with his knuckles. “Ye are a comely lass, and that will serve ye in far better stead than resentment and anger.”
Then he stood, and she watched him cross the room in a few short strides. He took the silver goblet from the mantel and poured a generous amount of brandewijn. He carried it back to her. “Drink it doon.”
Her hand trembled as she reached for the goblet. “It isn’t mead.”
“Drink it doon!”
She did as he asked without saying anything. When she had finished, she handed him the goblet. “My throat is on fire. What else must I endure before I can sleep?”
“And is it so bad… to be here with me?”
“There have been moments…” She let the word drift away.
“Moments?”
“Yes, brief ones, when I forget your distrust and your anger and find myself liking you, but then you turn on me and become cold and accusatory. I remember what I have been through and how much of what has happened to me is something that I cannot understand or control.
“My heart is heavy. I wish I could go home, but I fear that option will never present itself to me. When I first met you, I trusted you enough to go with you. I thought you would help me. I thought you were different. I thought you were nice. I was wrong.”
His face came closer until his lips were warm against her cheek and then her throat, while, at the same time, his hands went around her. He pulled her close and held her tightly, as he whispered against her hair, “I am nice.”
Whatever it was she had drunk, it must have been working, for she couldn’t seem to muster an ounce of resistance, and her brain completely deserted her. Oh dear, now he was kissing the curve of her collarbone and moved back to the hollow of her throat.
His lips were soft and warm, and for a moment, she forgot who she was. Just for a moment. Then it hit her. She was kissing a man five hundred years her senior. Talk about an older man. But a kiss was a kiss in any century, and he was good at it, very, very good.
She moaned, low in her throat, and he responded by pulling her closer. Her arms came up of their own accord to slip around his neck. Her heart pounded wildly. She had trouble breathing. She felt her resistance fading.
“Why are you doing this to me?”
“I wish to God I knew. I am trapped in this eddy along with ye,” he said, lying down beside her and nuzzling her ear. He pulled her close and buried his face in the smooth slope of her neck and shoulder, drawing her against the hard length of his body. He placed soft, gentle kisses along the line from her shoulder to her ear and then plunged his hands into the thick coppery strands of her hair.
She moaned and he kissed her, whispering words against her throat. “I canna think when I am with ye. I am like a wild animal pacing in a cage and ye are on the outside. I want ye until I ache, but I canna do anything aboot it. And still I yearn. I ken ye dinna feel the same aboot me and that I should leave ye be. I dinna want to drive ye away, and yet I canna let ye go.”
Her voice was low, pensive. “When I was little, someone brought a small wildcat to my father. Its leg was broken in a trap. After my father set the leg, I cared for the animal, feeding and soothing it as best I could. I came to love it, and when my father said it was time to let it go, I cried and begged him to let me keep it.
“But, he said, ‘Isobella, you cannot tame something that is wild. You cannot keep it from being what it was born to be. Its life is out there with the other wild creatures like it. To keep it here, in a cage, would please you, but it would be nothing like the life he deserves. Sometimes, caring for something means letting it go.’”
“I dinna want to tame ye, Isobella, and I dinna want to force ye to do something ye dinna want to do or to be what ye dinna want to be. But I am a man and I desire ye and I ken ye have some feeling for me. I willna force ye, and I willna stop trying to persuade ye. But if ye say no, I will stop. ’Tis fair, no?”
“And if I ask you to let me go?”
“’Tis a moot point, for ye have nowhere to go. In case ye dinna ken, Mull has few settlements and five clans who live here. Our castles are the center of our lives and our means of protection.
“‘Tis not like Paris or London, where ye can hire someone to drive ye to another place. We have no roads, no towns. A woman traveling alone would be beyond dangerous. Aye, I could take ye where ye wanted to go, but what would that solve? Even if ye went to live with the Macleans, I ken ye would come to regret it and wish ye were back here.”
“I would not, for Elisabeth would be there with me.”
“I have said I would find yer sister and bring her here, and I will honor my word. ’Tis no simple matter and will require planning, imagination, and cleverness, for Angus Maclean is a wily old fox who takes great pride in rejecting each offer I make. Can ye no’ be patient, lass?”
She had no comeback, for she knew one thing about Alysandir Mackinnon and that was he spoke the truth.
“Is it fair enough?” he asked.
“’Tis fair, yes,” she said, mimicking him, then followed it with a weak smile.
“Keep looking at me like that, and I’ll change my mind. Forbidden fruit tastes sweetest.”
She did not say anything. She couldn’t. She wasn’t too experienced in sexual matters. Plenty of guys had tried to put a move on her, and plenty had tried to persuade her to have sex, but she had never had sex with anyone until she was engaged. She’d wasted it on Jackson, thinking herself in love with him and too na?ve to see that he was nothing but a womanizer.
And then Alysandir comes along. He pushed her back and rolled on top of her. “Ye know what I think? I think ye dinna know what ye want. I think ye want to mate with me but yer afraid to admit it.” He kissed her nose. “I did say I would do my best to persuade ye.”
“It wouldn’t take much,” she said and closed her eyes.
“Isobella, look at me,” he said, kissing her face.
Her eyes opened. “Why?”
He nuzzled her neck and whispered, “Because I want to see in yer eyes what it does to ye when I touch ye like this.” He drew one finger over her lips and down her throat to her chest and then between her breasts.
Her breathing quickened.
“I want to see what it does to ye when I kiss ye here.”
He followed the same trail his finger had taken a moment before, only this time he pulled the tie at her neck and pushed her gown apart. He kissed the crowns of each of her breasts.
“I want to see what it does when I move like this.” He pressed his hips against her, and God help her, she began to breathe heavily.
“Ye belong to me,” he said, whispering the words against her mouth, “only ye refuse to admit it, even to yerself. But ye will. One day, ye will.”
Was it his voice that made her feel groggy and stupid? Or was it the drink he had given her? Shivers rippled across her. She felt hot at every point where they touched.
“Yer face can drive a man wild with wanting. I have thought of naught but lying with ye like this.” He lifted his hand and pushed her damp hair back away from her face, and then he lightly traced the outline of her lips with his finger, stroking, teasing, driving her pulse wild, and set her heart to beating triple time. She studied his face intently, the dark eyebrows, the long, black hair, the full lips, the flare of nostrils, the eyes dilated heavily with desire.
He kissed her throat, whispering words in Gaelic, throwing her heart and her mind into utter confusion. He kissed her shoulders, his breath rapid and hot in her ear when he took the tip of her lobe between his teeth.
His touch sent ripples of intense desire over her, wave after intense wave, until she moaned. He took the sound of it into his mouth with a kiss so gentle that she felt she could cry. How did he know how to tear down all her defenses and leave her mindless with desire? She wanted him, so much she could not think of anything but feeling him inside her.
If he had opened his trews and pressed against her, she would have opened her legs and welcomed him.
And he knew it.
Yet he did not stop kissing her. It was delicate, elusive, his tongue cunning and skillful, teasing, tasting, flirting with her, then penetrating deeply and thoroughly. When he finished, she knew without a doubt that she had been kissed thoroughly by someone who knew an awful lot about kissing and must have devoted a great deal of time to practicing it.
When he broke the kiss, she sighed and went limp. Then she felt him shaking. It was nothing more than a low rumbling, like thunder rolling over distant hills.
The bastard was laughing. At her!
She wanted to hit him. She doubled up her fist and would have connected with his arrogant nose, if he hadn’t grabbed her arm. Embarrassment oozed from every pore, and she squeezed her eyes shut so she did not have to look at the triumphant gleam in his eyes.
“Ye canna deny it. Ye wanted me to kiss ye like that. Ye want me to kiss ye like that again. I could feel it. Ye can fight me with yer words all ye like, but yer body does not lie. I dinna know when it will be, but fair Isobella, I will penetrate yer defenses and yer maidenhead, and ye willna say a word to stop me.”
It was her turn to laugh.
“Why do ye laugh?”
“You can penetrate my defenses but not my maidenhead. I am not a virgin, Alysandir. I know it is very important to you for a woman to be a virgin, but that is not so where I come from. There was only one man, and I was to marry him.”
He did not say anything. That did not bother her, for she knew he would, after he had time to think about it.
“What happened? Why didna ye marry him?”
“A week before we were to marry, he left and went to another country with another woman. And now I am here, and he doesn’t cross my mind at all. He never made me feel like you do when you kiss me.”
She waited, and when he did not speak, she knew she had her answer. She tried to push him away, but he remained on top of her.
“I know it is important to you to be the first man to lie with a woman. That is why I told you. I cannot lie to you, Alysandir, no matter what you think.” There was melancholy in her smile. “I think you should go now.”
She gazed into the warm liquid of his eyes, his hair drying with a touch of curl, the look on his face confident but with a surprising hint of vulnerability that made her realize once again that he wasn’t all hard and conquering. It pleased her to know she had enough control that she could hurt him if she so chose. Except she knew that he had been hurt enough.
He kissed her nose and rolled away. One moment she could feel the hardness of him, and then the next moment it was gone. He stood over her looking strangely warm and beautiful—angelic almost, all tousled and bathed in the golden light of candles and a dying fire. She fought against lifting her arms to him and inviting him back, for already the place his body had warmed was growing cold.
“I will miss you,” she whispered before she could stop the words. She was praying he hadn’t heard her when he threw back his head and closed his eyes, the cords in his throat standing out.
Then he turned and walked to the door, pausing just long enough to look at her one last time. Then without a word, he was gone, and she was left with the memory of what could have been.