Knight In My Bed (7 page)

"Mother of God, woman, what are you about there?" came the MacLean's outraged voice behind her.

"Naught that concerns you." She wheeled to face him, a leather-wrapped flask clutched tight in her hand. Her creamy skin had gone a shade paler, and her beautiful eyes were wide and over-bright.

"So long as I am chained to your bed, lady, what you do does concern me," Donall said dryly. "I would know what foul brew you've swallowed and why?"

She pressed her lips together and simply stared at him. Proud, indignant, and obviously struggling to ignore the shudders still wracking her elegant, and temptingly supple body.

A body whose tremors he wouldn't mind stilling by drawing her tight against him in a crushing embrace, saints preserve him.

As if she sensed her victory over his flagging will to resist his attraction to her, she lifted her chin and gave him a tiny, grudging smile.

A smile that sank into him like the sun's warmth on a fine midsummer's day.

Donall closed his eyes and concentrated on the cold iron pressing against his ankle until its chill vanquished the stirrings unleashed by a single, fleeting smile.

When he looked at her again, she was replacing the little flagon's stopper. She'd moved to the hearth, and the fire's glow highlighted her curves and gilded her thick braids with pure gold. His pulse quickened in reaction, and he frowned against the ease with which she seemed able to stir his blood.

And this time the damnable shackle did little to still his untoward urges. But to his immense relief, the thought of Gavin being held somewhere within her castle walls did quell his ill-placed lust.

"Where are you holding Sir Gavin and how fares he?" he demanded, his tone gruffer than he'd intended.

She met his guaranteed-to-intimidate stare full on, her eyes blazing with a fine boldness of her own. "No ill has befallen your man. He is comfortable enough in a cell far more habitable than yours and will be sailed to his clan's isle of Colonsay as soon as-"

"As soon as what?" Donall mimicked. "As soon as you and your gray-bearded minions have seen me draw my last?"

At once, the annoyance vanished from her eyes and she paled visibly, flinching as if he'd struck her. "I understand why you are wroth with me," she said, a hint of guilt lacing her words and flickering across her beautiful face. "But you err in thinking I -"

"I err?" His brows shot upward. “`Tis you and your buffoons whose heads are stuffed with falsehoods and nonsense."

She began pacing the chamber, the hem of her black mourning gown swirling around her shapely ankles, her light, wildflower scent floating out to bedevil him anew each time she passed.

"Aye, sir, I do believe you speak the truth," she said suddenly, peering sharply at him. "The notions that fill my head and haunt my dreams do appear foolhardy at the moment. Unfortunately, I am loath to relinquish them."

Too flummoxed by her speech to do aught but gape at her, Donall waited.

She came to stand before him.

Dangerously close before him.

So close, another scent rose up from her, but this one offended his senses as foully as the pleasant wildflower fragrance roused him.

The remnants of the sharp-smelling potion she'd gulped, still clinging to her tongue
.

A pungency so strong Donall forgot all else.

With lightning speed, he reached out and seized hold of her wrist. "I would know what manner of brew you imbibed."

She tried to jerk away but he clamped his fingers in an iron grip. Apparently unaware of the offensive smell clinging to her, she glared at him. "What I swallowed, sirrah, was a potion to ... to rid my complexion of freckles," she declared in a rush, her whole demeanor challenging him to doubt her.

"Truth tell?" Donall captured her chin in his free hand and turned her face toward the glow of the nearest cresset lamp. "I vow the mixture is potent indeed for I see nary a freckle to mar your fair skin."

"Then mayhap your eyesight is as lacking as your chivalry."

Donall tamped down a near irresistible urge to throw back his head and laugh. At her audacity as well as the lame pretext she'd so glibly tossed at him.

The woman was an inveterate liar.

The fair-skinned womenfolk in his household had tried every freckle-purging remedy known to man and not one had e'er smelled so abominably.

"Ah, I do believe I see one." Donall smoothed the side of his thumb over the curve of her cheek. "Aye, 'tis a great need you have of such an elixir."

"My needs are greater than you can know," she said, and a foul-reeking whiff of her breath caught him full in the face, even as the fleeting trace of vulnerability he'd glimpsed in her eyes caught him off guard and tugged at something deep inside him.

A disconcerting something he didn't care to identify or scrutinize.

A most unsettling something.

The laughter he'd been trying to suppress ever since she made her ludicrous pronouncements about freckle-banishing potions froze in his throat and he released her as if she'd scorched him.

With effort, he concentrated on the ramifications of his present predicament rather than how soft her cheek had felt beneath his thumb or how the smooth warmth of her wrist had seeped into his fingers, distracting him so thoroughly he near forgot who she was and why he stood, half-naked and fettered, in her bedchamber.

He could not allow himself to fall prey to her comeliness.

Nor dare he let himself be influenced by the disturbing aura of susceptibility that enveloped her at times, despite her obvious grace and courage.

She peered intently at him and he couldn't help but notice the faint purple smudges beneath her eyes. To his great annoyance, the barely there shadows only underscored the air of vulnerability he was fighting so hard not to be affected by.

"You spoke of needs," he said, holding her gaze but willing himself not to truly see her. "I, too, have needs most urgent. Detaining me ill suits my purposes and your own as well."

Donall struggled to contain his wrath over the chaos that could soon erupt at Baldoon. Iain would keep a cool head only so long. "Having me put to death before a jeering circle of feeble-witted graybeards will spell endless grief for your clan. 'Tis a consequence you should well consider.”

Her far too appealing look of injured innocence evaporated at once and a flare of pure indignation blazed in her gold-flecked eyes. "Think you I am unaware of the folly of executing a MacLean?" She appeared to thrum with agitation. "Most especially the laird."

Donall shrugged. "So you mean to intercede on my behalf at the execution?'

“There will be no execution," she said, her obvious discomfiture announcing how much she resented making such a revelation. "I have other plans for you."

The giant's cryptic words rang again in Donall's ears but he strove to ignore them. The notion was too preposterous to bear even a seed of possibility.

More absurd than the wildest tales the most highly skilled fili could spin in a hundred endless winter nights.

Stifling an inexplicable urge to laugh at the outrageous images parading through his mind, Donall forced himself to look disinterested.

Mayhap even a bit bored.

"Other plans?" he spoke at last, casually lifting a brow to emphasize his indifference.

She nodded. "A covenant."

"A
covenant
?" An odd sinking feeling coupled with a distinctly perverse sense of hilarity soundly conquered his pretense of nonchalance.

He could almost see her redheaded dolt of a henchman looming up behind her, admonishing him to "be gentle with her" lest he wished his bones ground to powder.

"What manner of covenant?" Not that he cared to know.

Isolde MacInnes drew a deep breath. "A pact of peace. A plan to ensure the long-lasting harmony my father sought and my sister died trying to achieve."

Somewhere in the distance, thunder boomed. The low rumbles jarred the shutters and echoed off the walls, allowing Donall the brief respite he needed to gather his wits.

She could not possibly mean what he suspected.

No maid as exquisite as Isolde of Dunmuir would barter herself.

Not even for peace.

"... the sooner certain conditions have been met," she was saying, seemingly unaware of the odious tang still tainting her breath, "the sooner you and Gavin MacFie may leave."

"I shall leave, your ladyship, the instant the first opportunity affords itself," he vowed. "And I vouchsafe Sir Gavin would tell you the same. Regardless of whatever conditions you think to suffer upon us."

Two spots of bright red appeared on her cheeks. "Only you must fulfill my conditions. I want naught from Gavin MacFie," she said in a huff, and Donall inhaled another whiff of whate'er wretched brew she'd swallowed.

The pestiferous scent, her own words, and those of her
 
oversized oaf of a guardsman combined to paint lewd and outlandish images in Donall's mind.

The laughter he'd been repressing all evening escaped him at last.

Isolde MacInnes's lovely eyes widened at his mirth, and the two spots of color on her cheeks suffused into a dull red flush that slowly spread clear across her pretty face.

"Lady, if you seek to bring about peace by the method I am sorely beginning to suspect you have in mind, namely by offering your bonnie self to me as my bride, then I must beg you not to imbibe any more of your foul-reeking brew," he said, regretting the words even as they hastened past his lips.

"Marriage to you, sirrah, was never a consideration." She bristled visibly. "What I had in mind was an alliance of ... of convenience. One I was foolhardy enough to believe might benefit us both."

She glared at him for a long moment, then stormed away, fleeing to the row of tall, shuttered windows on the far side of the room. There she stood, her back rigid, her shoulders squared, and hell and botheration, but he wished he could tear out his tongue.

May the devil snatch his soul for mocking her. Ne'er had he spoken thusly to a woman, but she possessed the ability to rile him beyond the outermost bounds of his patience.

Yet, even now, he felt compelled to go to her, was beset by an overwhelming desire to caress away her anger and banish his insults with kisses, sharp-smelling potion on her lips be damned.

He would, too, were she any other woman.

Were he not manacled to her bed.

Tearing his gaze from her, Donall stared into the crackling flames lapping at the hearth log. Anger roiled and simmered deep inside him. Annoyance at himself for upsetting her, exasperation over the deep-seated longing eating a hole in his gut.

A longing he couldn't seem to extinguish despite his most ardent efforts.

Donall swore softly under his breath.

His brows drew together in a frown.

Heedless of what nonsensical and provocative proposals she might make once her agitation cooled, he would not bow to the temptation presented by his fetching keeper.

At the moment, though, if he was completely honest, doing just that was his most dread fear.

A fear he wasn't wont to share with her.

Gazing heavenward, Donall prayed for the cunning he'd need to persuade her to release him before she discovered how very much he desired her.

The lady would no doubt take sore advantage if she knew.

CHAPTER FOUR

RELEASE ME AND a fine mantle lined with miniver shall be yours," Donall the Bold tossed out another bribe. The hundredth he'd dangled before her ever since Niels had deposited their evening meal upon the chamber's only table.

A sturdy oaken table he'd dragged across the room, placing it near the bed so she could share her repast with the MacLean without necessitating the removal of the iron shackle secured around his right ankle.

And already, Isolde regretted the simple gesture meant to hinder needless embarrassment between them during their first shared meal.

A fool notion he'd quickly seized to his advantage.

An ill-considered impulse that sentenced her to suffer his repeated and increasingly ludicrous attempts to talk his way out of confinement.

"Not interested in furs?" He rubbed his chin and feigned a look of astonishment. "May I tempt you with twenty ells each of exquisite samite and sendal silk?"

Ignoring him, Isolde tore off a piece of brown bread and popped it in her mouth.

"A circlet for your hair set with agates and sapphires?"

Isolde swallowed the bread. "Such frippery does not interest me."

With an exaggerated sigh, he leaned forward on one elbow and peered intently at her. "A coffer of gold?"

Isolde peered right back at him. 'Tour wealth cannot buy my favor, Sir Donall. What I want from you cannot be bought with coin."

He straightened at that, not answering her in words, but loudly declaring his frustration by the cold set of his jaw and the fury snapping in his eyes.

"My conditions, what I desire from you, will not lessen your riches." Isolde struggled to remain composed beneath his sharp perusal.