Knight In My Bed (10 page)

Before she could voice a protest, Bodo burst between them, his hackles raised, his barks piercing. The MacLean released her at once. Her pulse racing, she snatched up the snarling dog, pulling him close against her chest, as much to soothe him as to ease her own agitation.

"I do not have the frivolous leisure of time, your most fair ladyship," Donall seethed, his voice restrained though fury still blazed in his eyes. "
Why am I here?"

"So I can save you," Isolde breathed, unable to stop the hastily whispered words from slipping past her lips.

"
Save me
?"

She nodded. "Aye."

Incredulity rendered Donall speechless. Stunned, he gaped at her, a plethora of possibilities whirling through his head. And not a one of them made a whit of sense. The wench had a warped view of the world if she thought to fatten him up nightly, keeping him alive for the sole purpose of driving him to madness with her bountiful charms, only to surrender him to the whims of her crazed men-folk come the morn.

Her henchmen had taken much pleasure in assuring him his visits to her bedchamber were to be of short duration, naught but a brief reprieve from the onerous agonies they meant to inflict upon him by the light of day.

Donall swore under his breath and raked a hand through his still-damp hair. "By all that's holy, woman, I want neither your food, the lunacy of being shackled to your bed, nor your deliverance from whatever ills you mean to save me from."

He paused, turning away from her to pinch the bridge of his nose. Saints, but the world had careened out of control of late! His household hovered on the verge of disaster, he'd walked blindly into a trap he should have seen coming at him full-tilt, and the lady would claim she wants to save him.

"What I want, Isolde of Dunmuir, is out of here." He wheeled around to face her. "
Now.
"

She shook her head. "That, sir, is an impossibility."

"Yet you vow to save me?" he roared, balling his hands to tight fists to counter the tension thrumming through him.

She clutched her dog tight and peered at him from amber-colored eyes gone over-bright. The entire length of her trembled, yet she lifted her chin and met his glower without flinching. And curve him to the gates of hell and back, but he couldn't help but marvel at her brave courage in the face of his blustering.

Did you kill her, Iain?

Swear by the Rood your quick temper had naught to do with this foul deed.

Donall's own words carne back to haunt him, a repetitive drone in the darkest corner of his heart, cutting him to the bone and chiding him for the swiftness with which he'd let his own temper get the better of him.

The wench began inching backward, a slow and cautious retreat, leaving naught but her vacated chair and a lingering trace of her wildflower scent, within an arm's length of where he stood.

That she feared him, felt the need to flee from him, despite her valiant show of bravery, dealt him a more severe blow than the combined lot of her misguided minions could dare hope to achieve.

Including the giant.

Awash with shame at having frightened her, Donall took a step forward but the cold iron clasped around his ankle halted his progress, stopping him as irrevocably as recalling his own words to Ian had capped his rage.

Careful to keep his voice calm and his mien unthreatening, he repeated his question, "Why, and how do you purport to save me?"

To his relief, she stopped her backward retreat, but the way her fingers dug into her little dog's fur bespoke her continued nervousness. "Exactly how, I am not yet sure," she said, not quite meeting his eyes. "As for why, 'tis self-preservation. My own and that of every man, woman, and child residing under my roof or within the realm of my responsibility."

Donall folded his arms. "You fear the wrath of the MacLeans should I be put to death?"

"Aye," she affirmed, her face still pale. Nigh color-less save the lone freckle gracing the curve of her left cheek.

And, dame his fool hide, but his fingers itched to reach out and touch it.

His brows snapped together in a fierce scowl.

No doubt thinking he meant to lash out at her again, she spun around and hastened to the hearth, her black skirts pooling out behind her, her long braids swaying, their lush tips just brushing her sweetly rounded hips.

The devil take him, but his fingers itched to take hold of those braids, too. Undo them and revel in the silken mass he knew her unbound tresses would be.

What he'd do with her hips didn't bear thinking about.

It was a blessing she kept her back to him, for his frown raged even more fierce now. His blood ran thick and hot even as his fury coursed cold and uncompromising through every inch of him.

He stared long and hard at her rigid back, her squared shoulders, and the proud tilt of her head. The woman had already proven herself a consummate liar when she'd declared her foul-smelling tonic to be a freckle-banishing remedy.

And she'd lied to him just now, too.

Exactly how she meant to save him, she wasn't sure,
she'd claimed.

Ha!

The lass knew what she was about and then some.

He knew, too.

Without a doubt.

Her intent was glaringly apparent ... it loomed behind him in all its four-postered glory.

Loomed and waited.

As he, too, would wait.

For the first opportunity to free himself and Gavin and put Dunmuir's half-crumbling walls behind him.

Pompous graybeards, comely mistress, looming bed, and all.

CHAPTER FIVE

The Wench Todey with him.

With the well-practiced skill of a princeling's pampered harlot, she circled him, her lithe form swaying to some silent music only she heard. 'Round and 'round him she twirled, boldly enticing him with the smooth warmth of her supple curves one moment, only to pull away the next.

Always circling.

Ever teasing.

Rousing.

And wearing naught but her own creamy skin, the glorious mass of her unbound hair, and the rosy glow of the dying hearth fire.

She held a length of shimmering silk in her hands and used it in ways that would send him to his knees anon if the didn't soon grant him surcease from her lascivious display.

Her hips gently rocking, her eyes alight with all manner of licentious promise, she twirled the silk into a rope and slipped its taut length between her legs. For one agonizingly long moment, she held it there, pulled tight against the lush tangle of red-gold curls shielding her womanhood.

Slowly, torturously slow, she began drawing the rope back and forth in an intimate caress. Her eyes drifted shut, a soft sigh escaped her, and a look of pure, exquisite ecstasy slipped over her face.

Lust, raw and untamed, surged through Donall. More aroused than a beardless squire about to spill his seed in the throes of first rut, he watched her salacious performance, his gaze riveted on her hands, the length of silk, and the lush vee winking at him from betwixt her shapely thighs.

As if she knew he hovered on the very edge of his need and meant to bedevil him, she ceased her saucy antics and slid the makeshift rope from between her legs. Meeting his eyes, she laughed, a light, tinkling sound, and unfurled the silk.

She held its length before her, letting it hang between them like a banner, its rippling transparency clinging to the pert tips of her breasts and accentuating the dark, triangular shadow of her femininity.

Longing, fierce and uninhibited, swept through Donall. A swift and furious maelstrom, forceful as the racing white waters of a Highland burn after a cloudburst, his desire swelled and crested, out of control and unrestrained.

Wild.

Then she laughed again. A deeper, throatier laugh. Discordant and troublesome ... almost a growl.

Donall stiffened, his senses alert with a nameless foreboding. A peculiar
something
skipping down his spine, strangely at odds with the other, more primal urges she' d awakened in him.

Using a wanton's coy tricks, she cast his fickle prick-lings of doubt to the four winds by wetting her sweet lips and dipping the edge of the banner to afford him one lightning-quick glimpse of her hardened nipples.

Captivated, Donall reached for her, but she danced backward, maneuvering herself just out-with his grasp. Another mischievous tinkle of laughter escaped her and she snapped the silk, whipping it once more into a taut rope. Still chuckling, she whirled away to slip behind him, the rapid fluidity of her movement leaving a trace of her wildflower scent hanging in the air.

Fully besotted, intoxicated with need, and driven to savor even the faintest whisper of her sweet perfume, Donall drank in the smell of her.

Smell?

Again, a flurry of ill ease stirred inside him, but before the sensation could leap to life, she began sliding her hands up and down his arms, deftly massaging his aching muscles and caressing his hands, milking his fingers with a proficiency he' d never before enjoyed.

Not even from the most talented stew-house harlots.

Would that she'd milk his tarse thus.

Giving free rein to the bliss of her touch, Donall drew in another deep breath of the heady scents surrounding him.

Bewitching him.

Her light wildflower fragrance, the tangy musk of her own arousal, and the reek of that noxious potion she'd poured down her throat.

Only, of a sudden, the odious tonic smelled more stale than sharp. Seemed somehow ... different. As did her hands. No longer soft, smooth, and gentle, the hands holding his in place behind his back were callused, rough, and large.

Too large to be a woman's. And the coarse rope some heavy-handed varlet wound ever tighter around his wrists was anything but silken. A vicious kick in his shin ripped away the shroud of deep slumber.

"Blood of Christ!" Donall roared, now fully awake, the last vestiges of his dream spinning away in a red cloud of throbbing pain.

"I bid you a good morn." The giant stood before him and Donall knew at once the source of the stale smell he' d noted while yet asleep.

'Twas the dullard's breath.

Donall glared at him, a new kind of desire pulsing thick and hot through his veins. The irresistible urge to give the smirking whoreson a fine taste of his blade's steel. Saints, but his fingers itched to curl 'round the hilt of his broadsword!

Instead, he swore.

A volley of dark oaths menacing enough to send the devil's most debased miscreations scuttling for cover.

"Speak thusly in our lady's presence and I’ll cut out your tongue for offending her gentle ears." The oversized oaf matched Donall's glare.

"Speak thus to me again, and 'tis I who shall do the carving," Donall shot back, aching to test the skill of his sword arm against the ham-fisted ox.

So long as he was kept against his will, he'd speak however the mood seized him. If Isolde MacInnes took umbrage at his vocabulary, she could release him and spare herself having to suffer through his rantings.

Ready to spout another stream of nastiness simply to prove his point, he sent a pointed glance toward her bed, fully expecting to see her cowering there, her beautiful face pale, her amber eyes wide with shock. But the timber-framed monstrosity loomed empty, its heavy curtaining flung wide to reveal a jumbled whirl of furs, sheets, and pillows.

The massive four-poster looked as if it'd hosted a wilder night of passion than he'd ever had the good fortune to indulge in.

Following his gaze, the giant eyed the snarl of bed-coverings with undisguised disapproval. "If you used her roughly, start saying your prayers."

Donall bristled. "I didn't use her at all."

His aching limbs and screaming back muscles bore testament of his denial. Irrevocable proof he'd spent the night asleep on his feet. Propped against the unyielding hardness of a bedpost rather than plying the fair lady's softness with a rigidity of a most different nature than the cold wood of her bed frame.

Not that he hadn't been tempted.

A temptation he'd ignore even if the strain turned his vitals blue.

"I want naught of your chieftain save my release." As if to mock his lie, frustration, twisting and writhing like a trapped serpent, spewed its venom deep in Donall's innards. "I would sooner present myself to the nearest holy order and spend the remainder of my days living under the cross than take my ease with your lady."

“`Tis the salvation of your mangy hide, she claimed as much when we passed her on her way to the chapel just now," a second male voice said from behind him.

"On her way to pray for her dead sister's soul, she was," the same man added and gave the rope around Donall's wrists a sharp tug. "Her
murdered
sister."

Donall twisted around to glower at him, but having tied Donall's hands, the miscreant now kneeled on one knee and appeared to be fumbling with the end of the chain binding Donall to the wench's bed.