CHAPTER 5 #4
“I want to discuss your assessment of my son’s condition,” Alex murmured, his gaze still locked on the fire. “As you may be aware, some members of the clan have…” he paused, searching for the appropriate word, “misgivings about your methods of treatment.”
“And what about you, MacDunn?” Gwendolyn challenged sharply. “Do you believe I am intentionally causing your son harm by giving him fresh air and light?”
“Not intentionally, no,” Alex replied. “Your freedom depends upon my son’s recovery, therefore you have nothing to gain by his suffering.
But David’s health is extremely delicate.
The healers who have attended him in the past have been vigilant about protecting him from all sources of cold and draft, assuring me his lungs and chest could not endure the strain of a chill. ”
“And these healers have not cured David, have they?”
“No,” he admitted. “But they have kept him alive through horrendous bouts of illness, when there was every indication that he would die.”
“Perhaps,” Gwendolyn allowed. “Or perhaps David survived in spite of their treatments.”
Alex turned and regarded her curiously. “Is that what you believe?” The thought had occurred to him many times, but he had never voiced it.
“I don’t know,” Gwendolyn answered. “The air in David’s chamber was hot and foul and thick with smoke.
I cannot see how anyone could lie imprisoned in such a haze for weeks on end and not be sickened by it.
I also fail to see how it can possibly be healthy for a child to be deprived of fresh air and sunlight for extended periods of time. ”
“His previous healers said he was too weak to endure the impurities that exist in outside air,” Alex explained. “By keeping his room sealed and burning various herbs, the air was kept warm and purified, and the constant darkness enabled him to rest.”
Gwendolyn snorted with contempt. “The air was stale and corrupt. Even I could barely tolerate it, and I am far stronger than David. Having spent time in a dungeon, I can attest to the fact that perpetual darkness rapidly weakens both the body and the spirit.”
Alex studied her in silence. He could find no indication that the woman standing before him suffered from anything akin to a frail spirit.
Her tattered gray gown clung loosely to her slender frame, its dampness accentuating both her feminine curves and the exquisite delicacy of her.
Her hair was spilling in ebony ripples over her thin shoulders and down her pale arms. He found himself remembering how selflessly she tore off her sleeves to bind his chest, after stitching him closed with her own hair.
He knew for a fact that her appetite was poor and her body excessively thin.
He did not know whether she had always been like this or whether the trauma of her father’s death and her subsequent arrest had reduced her to this state.
Whatever the cause, she looked as if she would snap beneath the force of a stiff gust of wind.
And yet, incredibly, a powerful strength emanated from her as she stood there facing him.
It was a strength of conviction and courage, and he found himself both fascinated and aroused by it.
Desire pounded through him, clouding his mind and interrupting his thoughts.
He wanted to reach out and touch her, to draw her into the fold of his arms and press himself against her, to hold her fragile form tight as he hungrily kissed the sweetness of her mouth, the silk of her cheek, the enticing hollow at the base of her throat.
They were alone in his chamber. He could easily take her.
She was his prisoner, alive only because he had torn her from the jaws of death.
No one would question his right to bed her if he chose.
And he knew he could make her want him, for he had felt the same hunger burning in her when he had kissed her before.
He thought of her cradling his son, holding him with tender strength as she poured warm water over his hair, remembering how the soapy stream washed across her slick flesh.
And suddenly Alex wanted to caress her there, on the velvet cream of her arms, to run his rough palms down the length of them and drag his tongue languidly over the soft, clean skin.
Gwendolyn regarded MacDunn uneasily, flustered by the intensity of his gaze.
She had seen this look before, and the memory quickened her breathing and heated her blood.
She was vaguely aware of the fact that she should speak, or move, or do something to shatter the charged stillness, but her throat was dry and her body leaden, rendering action impossible.
MacDunn moved toward her with slow, sure purpose.
Gwendolyn shivered, not because she was afraid, but because she remembered what it was like to be crushed against the muscular wall of his body.
MacDunn reached out and laid his hands on the bare skin of her shoulders, his touch searing her cool flesh.
Gwendolyn stared at him helplessly, mesmerized by the painful need burning in his gaze.
He languidly drew his palms down the slender length of her arms, then wrapped his powerful fingers around the narrow bones of her wrist, chaining her to him.
The amber pulse of the fire flickered around him, sculpting the hard lines of his face in shadows and light, and turning his hair to gold.
He seemed achingly beautiful to Gwendolyn in that moment, like a magnificent pagan god who had somehow fallen to earth.
His grip was just on the threshold of bruising, as if he feared she might suddenly try to flee, but she kept her arms still and regarded him steadily, betraying not the slightest hint of fear.
And so he bent his golden head over the softness of her inner arm, inhaled deeply, and tasted her with his tongue.
A low, feline sound curled up the back of her throat as MacDunn caressed her with his hot, wet touch.
He dragged his tongue up the length of her arm, then lifted her hair so he could rain hungry kisses along the smooth curve of her neck and jaw.
Now that her wrists were free, Gwendolyn wrapped her arms around his massive shoulders, clinging to him for support as he roughly captured her lips with his.
He tasted her with urgent possessiveness, stealing her breath away as he plundered the deepest recesses of her mouth.
His hands began to roam her back, her shoulders, her hips, touching her and tasting her and drawing her further into his embrace, until she was pressed intimately against the hard length of him, separated only by the thin barrier of their clothes.
Somewhere in a corner of her mind Gwendolyn was vaguely aware that this was wrong, that she was a prisoner and he a mad laird, but an incredible need had veiled her perception, so that nothing made sense except the wine-sweet taste of MacDunn’s mouth, the rough feel of his jaw scraping her cheek, and the shifting ripple of his muscular back beneath her fingers.
She was MacDunn’s prisoner, yes, but in this moment no more so than he was hers, for she could feel the desperate yearning in his touch, and knew that somehow he did not want to want her.
And that made their forbidden kiss hotter and darker, because the deeper he tasted her, the more she desired him, until finally her fingers were threaded in the thickness of his hair and she was pulling him down onto the softness of his bed.
MacDunn growled with pleasure as she hungrily returned his kiss; then he wrenched his mouth away so he could nibble on her chin, her neck, the delicate bones at the base of her throat.
He lowered his head to the lush swell at the neckline of her gown and caressed it with his tongue, sending a shiver of fire through her.
A sudden pounding at the door made her gasp.
“MacDunn, you must come quickly!” called Elspeth, her voice shrill.
Alex inhaled deeply, but remained stretched over Gwendolyn, fighting to regain his senses. “What is it, Elspeth?”
“ ’Tis David, m’lord,” she reported anxiously. “The lad has taken horribly ill. That witch has cast some evil spell on the wee thing, and I don’t know how to save him!”
The smoky languor in Alex’s blue eyes froze. Without a word, he rolled off Gwendolyn and raced to the door.
Gwendolyn hurried into David’s chamber just behind MacDunn and Elspeth, and found the poor child retching violently into the chamber pot Marjorie was holding for him.
He had vomited all over his fresh bedclothes, and his dinner tray had been knocked to the floor, suggesting this attack had come on without warning.
Robena was busy closing the shutters, and the sour smell of sickness was rapidly permeating the air.
“You evil witch—see what you have done to him?” hissed Elspeth. “I told you your ways would make him ill!”
Gwendolyn stared at David in shaken bewilderment.
When she had left him alone just moments ago, he had been weak and tired, but relatively well.
Now he was hunched over the bed, whimpering pitifully as he struggled to catch his breath.
What could have brought on such an attack?
Was it possible that the cool air and warm bath had been a shock to his delicate constitution and had therefore induced this reaction?
The thought filled her with guilt. If her inexpert ministrations had reduced David to this awful state, then she should confess to her ignorance now and relinquish all responsibility for his care.
Not because she feared MacDunn would punish her if the boy died—which the laird surely would—but because she could not bear the thought of being responsible for David’s suffering.