The Curse of Clan Ross (73 page)

Yes, he knew better than to touch her. But her safety had to come before all else or his preparations were for naught.

She struggled against him, but beneath her grunts of frustration he felt her barely concealed sobs, and he suddenly understood. She would rather fight to the death than allow him to see her weakness.

He almost laughed in relief but knew the woman would take insult.

Pride.

Her pride had very nearly killed them both. And perhaps her pride was the source of her previous woes as well. But Gaspar took heart, for pride was an affliction he could cure. He only needed to get her safely inside her cell, and he could begin.

He pressed the side of his face to hers and whispered in her ear. “My lady, do you wish to live?”

She lifted a boot and kicked his shin in answer.

He reached up and put his hand at the back of her head, then spun with her and crushed her body against the wall, knocking the wind from her and pressing so firmly she was unable to breathe deeply. She panted in his ear while he waited for her to appreciate the power he held over her. If nothing else, she wouldn’t have the strength to fight her way out.

He tried not to dwell upon what any other man would do with that power, especially with a woman who felt as if she were designed to fit perfectly against him. To say nothing of the taste of her. He had no need to put his lips to her in order to know the flavor of her. Just the smell of her hair woke his senses more easily than any woman from his youth. If he were ever to taste her in earnest, his soul would be lost to the devil in the blinking of an eye. The knowledge was as certain as the scar across his face.

Isobelle Ross was the embodiment of his salvation. It was one of the two reasons he’d brought her to his island. But the body he was pressed against could just as easily be his destruction. So he would need to tread carefully—just as carefully as he tread those steps beyond the door.

“Please…” she whispered.

He stopped pressing, but did not step back. “You wish to live?” he asked into her ear.

“Aye.” Her word was little more than breath, and chills raced up his back and into his hair where that breath had burrowed itself.

“I wish you to live as well, woman. So I suggest you trust me.” He leaned back to look her in the eye.

She shook her head. “Trust is earned, not freely given for any who would demand it.”

He sighed. “You must step inside your…
room
.”
 

Her head shook faster.

“Hear me, my lady. This was fashioned for your safety. Can you not look upon it as such?”

“I canna,” she whispered. “Ye doona mean to keep me safe, but only to keep me. And when ye’ve wearied of me, ye’ll make a fire at me feet.”

Her fingers moved slightly between his hands and the wall against which he still pressed them, and he realized it would be much easier for her to trust him if he weren’t poised to ravish her. So, still holding her hands, he lowered them, warily, while looking into her eyes, willing her not to fear him.

“I vow, Isobelle Ross, I’ve brought you to this tower to save you from such fires.”

 Her gaze dropped to his lips. He licked them without thinking, and her eyes widened. Without realizing it, he’d begun to lean toward her, and her panic threatened to return. He straightened and released her hands, then turned so his body remained between her and the door.

He smiled and gestured to the open gate. “Perhaps, then, you can think of it as the only place you will be safe…from me.”  

She straightened away from the wall and when he tensed, she very nearly smiled. “Aye, my lord. I will try to see it as a sanctuary, but only if I alone hold the key.”

Gaspar shook his head. “Perhaps we can begin again.” He bowed slightly. “Welcome to my island and to my home. This room has been prepared especially for your visit.”

One of her brows rose sardonically. “Only a visit, then? Such implies ye dinna expect me to stay long.”

He smiled. “We shall see.”

She gave a single nod, then turned to examine the ironwork. Her next step faltered and she glanced over her shoulder at him, her eyes wide.

“My, my,” she breathed. “Does the Pope come to visit much? I expect you allow him
his
key.” She stepped forward and caressed the intricate pattern in the screen that was worthy of any artist in Venice. Small
fleur de lis
covered the lower three quarters of the screen, while the top quarter was arrayed with holes in the same pattern. Here and there, one of the small symbols was turned on its head, drawing the observer forward, drawing in the eye, demanding attention as one tried
to discern the true pattern. The closer one moved, the more brilliant the pattern. Not unlike the woman herself.
 

Gaspar resisted the draw of the screen and forced his eyes to remain upon his new guest. Her eyes scanned the room even as she closely examined the screen. She’d missed nothing. Not the fact that the screen ran down the middle of the floor and turned at an angle near the end, creating a cell from the far half of the stone room to the front. The screen was anchored to walls and floor, as were the bars to each side of a section of screen that acted as a gate. Another solid section of screen hung from the ceiling and attached to the top of the more intricate section. For the prisoner, there would be no escaping over the metal walls. Neither could there come any threat from outside them.

Of course, there was no such threat. Gaspar himself would be the only person to see her, and he would be no threat, though she would not believe it now. But he’d made special arrangements for her to be perfectly safe from himself, even if he were tempted to touch her a second time, which could never happen.

It might seem unfortunate that the little holes allowed only a modicum of light to pass through them, thus leaving the inner half of the room in shadow, but Gaspar had designed the room with just that in mind, so he might watch her at times without her knowledge, to assess her progress.

Curious as a child, but still wary, she stood to the side of the gate and peeked into the cell. She would have noted the narrow bed and stool. The chamber pot. The small table and single candle.

“More than they allowed me in my tomb,” she murmured.

The sudden wave of sympathy caught him off guard. She was lying, of course. He needed to remember to trust nothing she said.
Nothing.
But it would explain why she was so terrified of being locked away.
 

He resisted the urge to order her inside and bit his tongue while he waited for her first step inside the gate. But he thought it best to keep his post until the gate was securely closed. Isobelle Ross was no simpleton, and he had to remain on his guard lest she think of a clever way past him.

She paused and glanced back at him, noting his stance. “Ye demand me trust, but ye canna seem to give it in return, aye?”

He laughed. “You, my lady, are far too clever to trust. I admit it freely.”

She snorted delicately and walked to the window. He was certain she was taking the tower’s measure, guessing her chances of escaping.

“Dare I ask,” she said, still looking out the window, “the true reason ye’ve brought me to yer little paradise? Ye’ve promised no fire. And if ye would see me drowned, ye could have left me to the sharks. So. Do tell.”

He waited for her to face him before he answered, hoping to witness her perfect understanding when it finally came.

“My lady, I have brought you here to save your soul, to take you back from Satan’s ranks.”

“Oh, is that all?” She grinned. “Then I should be back in my cottage by breakfast, I reckon.”

He allowed himself to smile at her jest, though inside he was disappointed indeed. She did not understand anything. Yet. But he was going to help her, even if it killed him to do it.

She kept her gaze on the blue waters outside the window and started only slightly when he swung the gate shut. The click of the lock was both satisfying and sad, knowing she was finally in his care, but that there would ever be a solid wall between them.

She would need a few moments alone to allow her new situation to settle in her mind, and then they could begin. But first, he needed to refresh himself…

…with the coldest water he could find.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Isobelle stood at the window and waited for her escort to leave. She would not dissolve into tears while he watched, though it was plain to see he was waiting for her to do just that.

A swish of fabric behind her. Footfalls moving out the door and down the steps. She was alone, though the feel of him lingered in the room.

How could one man raise so many emotions in her in only a morning?

His eyes were beguiling. To spend any length of time looking into them would be any woman’s downfall. And to have the man pressed against her… She shivered. It would be folly to dwell over long on the memory of it. In fact, it would be wiser to allow her thoughts to simmer and steep into a fine hatred of the man instead.

Man? Hah! A monster.
No different than the pious jack-n-apes who’d forced Montgomery to bury her alive. Oh, how she wished she could visit that wicked bastard in his sleep.
 

She noticed her hands first, her fingers shaking over the edge of the window. But it wasn’t just her hands shaking. The vibrations moved up her arms, into her shoulders. The back of her head shook where his fingers had held her, had protected her head from knocking against the rough wall. She pulled her shoulders up to still the movement. Then she heard the shake of her breath, felt the floor move beneath her as her knees joined in. A hundred times, the shaking had overtaken her while she waited inside her would-be tomb, waiting for her brother to rescue her, not knowing if it was possible for him to break through the thick stone floor upon which her tomb had been erected.

She forced her eyes to remain open and searched the distance for sunlight dancing on the waves.

“Ye see?” she whispered to herself. “Outside. I’m outside.” She stretched her shaking limbs between the bars, rustled her fingers together. “Air. Sunshine. Sea.”

Outside.

Eventually, the shaking ebbed away. And the tears began.

~ ~ ~

A while later, there came slow footsteps in the stairwell. More than just her captor. A few more steps. A pause. More steps.

Isobelle’s curiosity could be contained no longer and she turned. Was she to be a sacrifice? Would a true monster be coming to collect her as his dinner? There had been a dragon carved into the wood above the arched doors, and a dragon carved on a pylon next to the dock. Was there a dragon living within her very tower?

She marveled that her tears and tremors had ceased, that the memory of her tomb and the fear of another such sentence was more frightening to her than the fear of a scaled beast that might be coming for her. Perhaps it was due to the fact that such a beast would kill her swiftly—a merciful death—while men who once sat in judgment of her had no mercy at all.

But this time, she’d been arrested, imprisoned—albeit an unusual prison—and yet she could not say for certain her captor lacked compassion. There had been something in the way he looked at her, almost pitying, that made him different from the priest who had so gleefully sentenced her to death in Scotland.

This man, with his painfully beautiful face, had already plucked her from an unfriendly sea, had stood at her back while she recovered herself, had allowed her to take her plaid. He’d even given her hope that she might return again to her little cottage—though she could never return in truth, for Signora Crescento now feared her to be a witch. And even if she returned there on the morrow, the suspicion would grow and spread like a fire on a dry moor. She would be forced to move on, forced to leave no word for Ossian, for if she left a trail, those who sought out witches would be able to follow.

Without Ossian to stop her, she’d likely go home, even if it meant her death.

Thus, her captor may not be a monster, but he had surely ruined her new life in Venice. At least it was reason enough to hate the man. It was not much, but if she protected that little seed of hatred, it would keep her from looking too deeply into his eyes…

The servant he’d called Icarus shuffled into the room backward, carrying the ponderous end of a long wooden bench. The man’s face was dark red and his cheeks pumped like billows as he walked beyond her vision into the shadowed side of the room on the far side of her decorative cage. Carrying the other end of the bench was her tall tyrant who looked only mildly uncomfortable with his load. His tunic and cape were gone. His white under-tunic hung against his lean stomach. At the shoulders were tied full white sleeves that billowed around his arms, giving her no sense of his strength if not for the ease with which he’d thwarted her escape.

He gave her barely a glance before turning away, disappearing through the door. His servant limped along behind, one hand pressed to his back. The door remained open. Their descending footsteps were easily heard.

Why the bench? What purpose would it serve? Would she be expected to entertain an audience? Would a jury of the kirk’s men sit before her and wait for a confession? Or did they hope to see some madness overtake her, to compel her to do something only a witch would do?

Well. They would be sorely disappointed on both counts.

She stood on the bed and peered through the little holes that decorated the upper edge of the iron wall. The bench was a stretch of brown shadow. No markings. No notches carved into it. No curve to the wood. With nothing to hint at its purpose, she was left wondering. The possibility of an audience left her a bit wounded, betrayed by her captor.

Her handsome captor.

What could he be thinking, to bring her here? To a remote island, away from the city, away from the church and its leaders? An inconvenience for any who might be brought to see her. Or…

Or is he hiding me from them?

A flash of hope caught in her chest. It made no sense to hide a witch, unless… Unless he thought she might be of use to him.