Kate Wingo - Highland Mist 01 (12 page)

“Ye’ve come close to the mark seeing as
how ye’ve brought his trull.”

“Silence!” Iain bellowed, his angry shout causing the servant on the other side of the great hall to drop his broom
and scurry out of the chamber. “Ye’ll not speak of Lady Yvette so disparagingly. She’s to be held for ransom, her worth set at two thousand pounds.”

Laoghaire MacKinnon’s mouth fell open, her dumbfo
unded expression near comical. “And who in the whole of Scotland has such a fortune at his command?”

“No one
that I know of. However in England, the Earl of Lyndhurst has that much and more to milk.”

“
Lyndhurst!” The color drained from the Scotswoman’s face. “D’ye mean to say that this bitch is related to the whoreson who killed Kenneth?”

A taut silence ensued.

Glancing from one MacKinnon to the other, Yvette nervously realized that she was caught in the middle of the same argument that had raged between Iain and his cousin Diarmid six days prior. And though this time no one held a knife blade to her throat, she was fretfully aware of the fact that Laoghaire MacKinnon had begun to palm her sword hilt in a most threatening manner.

Too afraid to ask,
Yvette silently wondered at Kenneth’s identity, having heard that same name bandied between Iain and Diarmid.

Had Kenneth been Laoghaire’s husband?
she wondered. That would certainly explain the Scotswoman’s impassioned outburst.

“Lady Yvette is
Lyndhurst’s daughter,” Iain replied after a lengthy silence, the words pushed through his lips with obvious disdain.

As t
he statuesque beauty glared at Yvette, blue eyes, nearly identical in shape and color to her brother’s, glistened with unshed tears. “How could ye bring her here?” she hoarsely whispered.

“It is done.”

“I’ll no’ have this English bitch sully my home.”

Raising a dark brow, Iain’s gaze slowly
roved the perimeter of the unkempt great hall. “It looks to me as though ye’ve done a fine job yerself of sullying
my
castle.”

“I’m yer sister
no’ yer gillie!” Laoghaire retorted.

“Aye, ye’re my sister
. But ye’re fast turning into a foul-mouthed hag,” Iain retorted.

Turning on her booted heel, Laoghaire MacKinnon
charged over to the broom that the frightened servant had dropped onto the floor. With a muttered oath, she bent at the waist and picked it up. Then, hefting it onto her shoulder like a spear, she hurled the broom at her brother.

Iain grabbed
Yvette by the upper arm, yanking her out of the projectile’s path.

“Damn ye, woman!” he bellowed as the
broom clattered onto the stone floor mere inches from where Yvette been standing.

“If ye want yer keep swept clean, do it yerself!” Laoghaire
hollered before she stormed out of the chamber.

With a noticeably w
eary expression on his face, Iain slowly shook his head. “She gets that wildness from the MacLeod side of the family. Our mother was just as brazen. Although she, at least, had the decency to wear a dress.”

Not knowing what, if anything, she should say, Yvette kept silent
. It wasn’t her place to comment on the eccentricities of the MacKinnon family.

Glancing about the empty great hall, Iain frowned. “Where in
the holy hell is everybody? Dinna they know the laird has returned? Eara! Fergus!”

Within
moments, two harried servants rushed into the great hall, each entering from a different direction. Both red-faced, both out of breath, they simultaneously bowed and curtsied, their ungainly obeisance accompanied with a flurry of Gaelic. Then, their movements again synchronized, the two wide-eyed servants turned and stared at Yvette.

“
Fàilte do′n Eilean Sgitheanach
,” the young woman said, nervously bobbing her head.

Yvette helplessly glan
ced at Iain for a translation.

“Eara is bidding
you a fond welcome to our isle,” Iain told her with the hint of a sarcastic smile.

Not wishing to offen
d the well-meaning servant, Yvette affected a cordial demeanor as she said, “That is most kind of you, Eara. But I am not here of my own free will. I am your lord master’s prisoner.”

“
Then ye’d be the first prisoner tae be held at the castle and no’ the dungeon,” Eara replied in a heavily accented English, her gray eyes owl-like.

Iain, looking every inch the lord and master, folded his arm
s over his chest and said, “A distinction that gives Lady Yvette no pleasure, I’ll wager.”

“I have never taken pleasure in being at a man’s mercy,” Yvette retorted, not bothering to hide her annoyance.

“Did I no’ tell ye that no harm would come to ye?” Iain countered. “As long as ye remain within the confines of the curtain wall, ye can come and go as ye please.”

Hearing that, Yvette placed her right
hand over her heart. Then, bowing her head in a show of mock gratitude, she said, “I thank you most kindly for putting me on such a long tether. Truly, you are a benevolent and magnanimous jailor.”

“Woman, ye’ll curb that shrewish tongue of yours or I’ll put ye on a
very
short tether,” Iain grated. “One that will get ye no farther from my bed than the chamber pot.” Turning toward the two servants, he thrust his chin at Eara and said, “Take the hostage to the oriel at the top of the stairs. Then get her hot water and a clean change of clothing. Not only does she sound like a harridan from hell, she’s beginning to look like one.”

“Why, of all the gall!”

Ignoring Yvette’s startled exclamation at hearing herself referred to in less than flattering terms, Iain next issued orders to his manservant. “When I return I want a warm meal on the table. And a tankard of ale beside it.”

“Where are you going?” Yvette impetuously called to Iain’s backside as he strode toward the
door.

“To make my peace with Go
d,” he muttered. “If such a thing is possible.”

“
In nominee Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti . . . amen
,” Yvette murmured as she made the sign of the cross.

Her prayers finished, she awkwardly rose to her feet, her aching muscles protesting the sudd
en shift of position.

Before her abduction,
she’d given little thought to the comfort in which she lived her daily life. Each evening a servant lit the fire in her bed chamber, carried hot water for her bath, warmed her feather-stuffed mattress, and laid a clean linen nightdress at the foot of the bed.

But as she’d quickly
surmised soon after her arrival at Iain’s stronghold, no such indulgences were to be had at Castle Maoil.

“My life of ease is but a faint memory,” she
said with a weary sigh as she surveyed the oriel.

As bare as a
nun’s cell, the oriel was little more than a curved alcove at the top of the stairs. With a gaudy red and black length of plaid in lieu of a door, the small chamber boasted a lumpy cot, as well as two wall pegs on which to hang her clothing. And though there was a window, the wood shutter incessantly rattled due to the unceasing wind.

I don’t even have the
simple comfort of a beeswax candle
, she lamented, glaring at the odiferous clay oil lamp that was set into a stone niche.

Hearing the raucous echoes that emanated from the great hall below, Yvette glanced at the unappetizing, half-eaten pottage
that she’d earlier begged from one of the scullery maids. Had the cook added a pinch of galingale, some chopped onions, and a handful of peas, the thick porridge might have been edible.

“But
, alas, it is not,” Yvette mumbled as she opened the shutter and tossed the remains of the pottage out the window.

While she had no pleasant memories of her late husband Roland Beauchamp, she well recalled the nightly feasts that took place in
his sumptuously appointed great hall, the likes of which rivaled the king’s table at Windsor Castle.
Figs stuffed with cinnamon and eggs. Salmon and currant dumplings. Custard Lumbarde. Almond-Cardamom cakes.
Amidst a fanfare of trumpets, each dish had been served by a veritable army of well-trained servants that included ewerer, panter, butler, and cupbearer.

Not that she
desired such extravagance. She simply wanted a well-cooked, well-seasoned meal. But with Laoghaire MacKinnon in charge of the kitchen, Yvette suspected the food in Iain’s great hall would be no more palatable than the pottage she’d just flung out the window. While such fare would fill the diner’s belly, it would leave the palate utterly bereft.

Just one of the reasons
why Yvette had elected to remain in her spartan alcove rather than dine in the great hall. Moreover, she didn’t think she could bear the onslaught of accusing stares. She’d already discovered that Laoghaire MacKinnon wasn’t the only person at Castle Maoil who wrongly believed her responsible for Hamish MacKinney’s tragic death.

Because she was
an English noblewoman, Yvette had known all along that her arrival would incite some animosity. However the tide of hate and suspicion had proved far greater than she’d expected.

Suddenly
noticing a blurred motion out of the corner of her eye, Yvette spun toward the ‘door.’ Tension gave way to relief when she saw Eara poke her head around the plaid drapery, the young woman one of the castle’s few kind inhabitants.

“
The laird ha’ sent me to bring ye tae the great hall,” Eara said with jerky bob of her blond head.

Needing to acquire
all the allies at Castle Maoil that she could muster, Yvette smiled as she said, “Please send my regrets to Lord Iain and inform him that I have already dined.”

Clearly surprised, Eara’s brows shot upward.
“Aye, mistress.”

With another jerky bob of
the head, the scullion fled the alcove.

A few moments later,
overcome with an urgent need to escape the rank-smelling oil lamp, Yvette yanked her mantle off of the wall peg. As she flung the costly garment around her shoulders, she was struck at the odd pairing it made with the simple Scottish garb in which she was now clothed. A
léine
and
arisaidh
Eara had called the trailing linen dress and long piece of plaid fastened at the shoulder with her ruby brooch.

Pulling aside the curtain
that separated her quarters from the stair landing, Yvette surreptitiously glanced down the hall, a shudder coursing the length of her spine when she saw the stout wooden door that led to Iain’s bed chamber. Although she’d not seen him since their earlier altercation, she feared one heated argument wouldn’t stop him from summoning her to his chamber.

Grimacing,
she shoved the dread thought from her mind as she climbed the winding stairs that led to the parapet. Opening the door at the top of the stairwell, she stepped onto the narrow walkway. Like voluminous sails on a ship, her garments immediately unfurled in the brisk wind.

“
Mayhap if I walk myself into an exhausted stupor, I won’t care what Iain MacKinnon does to my body,” she muttered as she despondently stared at the night sky.

Overhead, a
host of twinkling stars gleamed against the inky black sky.

Catching sight of a
burning star as it streaked across the heavens, Yvette fervently whispered, “I wish that—”

Just then, t
he door to the stairwell flung open, the unexpected sound startling her into silence.

“When I give a command, you
will
obey . . . or suffer the consequences,” Iain snarled as he strode across the parapet.

Yvette braced her
self against the stone merlon. Trapped, she could do naught but stand and face the laird’s fury.

Silhouetted against the flickering torchlight that emanated from the stairwell,
Iain looked like the devil’s own with his towering height and broad-shouldered bulk. Adding to the illusion, his black hair blew about his face in unruly abandon. As though wind-whipped by hell’s scolding blast.

“I did not disobey you,”
Yvette quickly asserted in her own defense.

“Ye refused my summons,”
Iain countered, the animal heat radiating off his plaid-swathed body. “’Tis one and the same.”

Yvette had
heard this line of reasoning before – when he dragged her to the standing stones to punish her for having thrown a rock at the charging boar.

Hoping to appease him, she said, “Forgive me, my lord
. But I have already supped this evening. Thus, I did not see the need to go to the great hall.”

“Yer wa
nts and desires matter naught. Ye now do
my
bidding.”

The onerous decree
gave rise to a resentful chortle. Gesturing to the moonlit sea behind her, and the stark gray castle before her, Yvette said, “The scenery is different. The castle is different. But the play is little changed.”

“Christ’s blood!
What does
that
mean?”

“It means that my wants and desires have never been mine to decide.
Always
I have had to do some man’s bidding. You are simply another in a long line of overbearing men who wants to bend me to his will.”

Iain’s
blue eyes narrowed. “Aye, I’ll bend ye . . . right over my knee. Yer English overlords were too lax, I think; for ye have none of the docility I’d expect from a noble-born lady.”

“If you wanted a docile lamb, you should have abducted a more accommodating noblewoman,”
she huffed.

Without warning,
Iain grabbed Yvette’s right arm and yanked her against his chest. “I should have beaten ye when I had the chance. Then mayhap we would no’ be having this nonsensical conversation. Instead, we would be in the great hall filling our bellies with mutton and turnips.”

“I do not care for mutton and turnips,
” she said contemptuously. “Nor did I care for the tasteless bowl of pottage that passed through my gullet like a ball of congealed slop. I am an earl’s daughter. I deserve far better than turnips and slop. Now turn me loose!”

Ignoring the command,
Iain pulled Yvette that much closer, his body now pressed intimately close, shoulder to thigh.

“I’ll turn ye loose only after I’ve bent ye to my will,” he snarled, overwhelming
Yvette with the mingled aromas of peat smoke, lye soap and whisky.

Able to feel Iain’s heart hammering against her smashed breast,
Yvette’s breath caught in her throat. Shoving her hands against his chest, she tried to push away from him. But with a merlon directly behind her, she had nowhere to go.

“And
just how do you propose to bend me to your will? Are you going to force me to lean over the parapet while your raise my skirts and beat me senseless?” she recklessly challenged, unwilling to surrender to the brute.

“While the idea is appealing,
and no’ wi’out merit, I know a better way to bend ye to my will.”

As he spoke,
Yvette suddenly caught a whiff of another scent, this one decidedly earthy, with the tang of musk about it. And though her knowledge of such things was sadly lacking, she knew that she what she now smelled was a highly aroused male.

Realizing the precariousness of her situation, sh
e began to frantically squirm.

With a
n arrogant smirk stamped onto his lips, Iain leaned into her, imprisoning Yvette between his body and the stone merlon. Feeling his stiffened manroot insistently prod against her belly, she suffered a frenzied panic.

“Unhand me!”

“No. I willna,” Iain growled . . . just before he captured her lips in a punishing kiss.

Momentarily stunned at the feel of his mouth on hers,
Yvette went slack in his arms. Smooth, hard lips molded to hers with a forceful intensity, Iain’s head slanting, first one way, then the other, as he thoroughly ravaged her mouth.

Suddenly feeling
his hand possessively cup her breast, Yvette opened her mouth to protest his lechery. Which is when Iain seized the advantage and boldly thrust his tongue between her lips.

Sweet Mary!
She had no idea that a kiss could be so unchaste!

As Iain licked, and nibbled, and suckled her lips,
outrage turned to pleasure as Yvette experienced an unexpected surge of lust.

Mewling softly,
she sank her fingers into Iain’s hair as she raised herself on tip-toe, brazenly undulating her hips against his swollen manhood. In response, Iain groaned into her mouth as he rubbed a thumb across her hardening nipple.

Yvette
instinctively arched upward. Untangling her fingers from the coarse silkiness of Iain’s hair, she frantically ran her hands over the broad expanse of his back, able to feel the muscles tense and bunch beneath his linen tunic.

Oh, but
he’s a brawn man
! So virile, she desperately wanted to feel his body intimately pressed against—

Without warning
, Iain suddenly jerked his mouth away hers. “Go to your chamber and wait for me. This night ye will serve me in my bed,” he rasped hoarsely. “For I am now your lord and master. As I have just ably proven to ye.”

Humiliated, Yvette shoved
Iain aside as she lurched toward the stairwell. Bracing a hand against the stonewall to keep herself from stumbling, she hurriedly descended the curving set of narrow steps.

Curse the man!
I should have thrown myself from the parapet when I had the chance!
For it would have been far better to have suffered that ignoble end than to suffer Iain MacKinnon’s animal lusts.

Reaching the oriel,
Yvette angrily grabbed a handful of the red and black plaid that hung from the alcove opening. As she stared at the gaudy fabric, she was seized with the impulse to yank the plaid length from its moorings and set it ablaze.

Nay,
I want to set the whole castle ablaze!

Only then would she have the satisfaction of seeing Iain’s hopes and dreams reduced
to a pile of rubble and ash.

Deeply ashamed of her wanton behavior,
she couldn’t fathom why Iain had purposefully aroused her. Or why he had incited a tumult of lust-crazed emotion, if his only intention had been to douse her ardor with his hurtful arrogance. Never had she been so fraught with passion. So feverish and achy.

All because
a Scottish barbarian dared to kiss me.

Unable to explain her attraction to
such a wild and savage man, Yvette wondered if the powerful attraction had arisen because she was wholly dependent upon Iain MacKinnon; for everything from the clean clothes she wore to the cheerless alcove that gave her more privacy than most members of the household enjoyed. Moreover, she even depended upon him to save her from wild boars. And lust-crazed enemy warriors. And furious Scotswomen with deadly swords.

No matter the danger,
Yvette knew that Iain would protect her. Not because he had fond feelings toward her – for she was certain that he did not – but because she belonged to him. She was Iain’s property. His chattel. Her worth set at the staggering sum of two thousand pounds.

When
the laird of Clan MacKinnon gazes at me, he sees naught but a chest full of gold coin
.

And because of that, the i
mpious and dissolute laird was unworthy of even her passing notice.

On the few rare occasions when she’d dared to
imagine the ‘perfect’ man, Yvette had always conjured in her mind’s eye a cultivated, refined man. One who was kind and gentle. Never,
never
, not even in her most provocative imaginings, had she ever yearned for a fearsome savage.

However
, to be completely honest, there were times when Iain did not seem quite so savage. In fact, on a few occasions she’d even glimpsed a look of profound sadness in his blue eyes. Which surely proved that the laird of Clan MacKinnon was not a complete savage. For a complete savage could never experience the more tender emotions of pity, grief or love.

Although Iain had been anything but tender w
hen he kissed on the ramparts. In those charged moments, he’d been full of lust. Vital. Virile.
Untamed
.

And
to her utter shame, she’d reveled in it.

Iain’s
kiss, bold and passionate, had wrung a response that Yvette had not thought herself capable of feeling; one that made her cling to him like a wanton. Furthermore, she suspected that had he yanked up her skirts and taken her against the stone merlon, she would have offered no resistance.

Humiliated
, she covered her face with her hands.

Sweet Mary
! What is happening to me?

She did not want
to share Iain MacKinnon’s bed. Or to spread her legs and couple with him like a lust-crazed animal. Nor did she wish to be a prisoner in his stone fortress situated at the edge of the world.

She wanted only to be her o
wn woman. Free to set her own course. Free to make her own decisions. Beholden to no man save for one who would respect and cherish her. But more than that, she deeply yearned for
something
, the word to describe that which she longed for eluding her. If even the word existed to describe the union of a man and woman in which the feelings and concerns of the one were of utmost importance to the other.

Surely
, there was a word to describe such a union. There
had
to be. Unless such a union only existed as a flight of fancy, impossible to attain in the real world.

Disheartened
, Yvette’s shoulders slumped.

Within moments, t
he tears she’d held at bay for six long days spilled down her cheeks, unabated. And though she valiantly tried to choke back a sob, she discovered that she could not, one sob giving birth to the next.

Leaning her forearm against the wood shutter,
Yvette hid her face in the crook of her arm, attempting as best she could to muffle the harsh, tell-tale sound.

As she’d cruelly learned,
Castle Maoil was a most inhospitable place.

About to pull
aside the length of red and black plaid that curtained Yvette’s quarters, Iain stood motionless instead.

The grating sound of her muffled sob
s was like a knife twisting in his gut.

Christ’s blood!
He wanted only to take his ease between her thighs. He didn’t want to endure a tearful onslaught while he plowed her woman’s body.

Annoyed
, Iain shoved the heavy piece of woolen fabric aside and stalked across the alcove.

Grabbing
Yvette by the chin, he yanked her head in his direction. “Ye’re crying,” he baldly accused.

Unable to look him in the eye, she hurriedly swiped h
er hand across her wet cheeks. “You are mistaken, my lord.”

“I am the MacKinn
on . . . I am never mistaken.”

“Ah! Y
ou are no stranger to humor.”

“I didna make a joke.
If I say ye were crying, then ye were crying.”

“But, of course. How could I have forgotten?”
Yvette snickered, glaring at him through glistening brown eyes. “You are
the
MacKinnon. You have but to say the word and I live or die.” As she spoke, an errant tear rolled down a flushed cheek.