Kate Wingo - Highland Mist 01 (24 page)

This is no different than being
condemned to the depths of hell,
Yvette thought dispiritedly, the flickering torchlight doing little to dispel the dank gloom of Castle Maoil’s dungeon. Much less dispel the gloom that had settled in her heart like a gray Highland mist.

Because she’d not been
afforded so much as a three-legged stool, she sat on the stone floor of Iain’s dungeon, her legs bent, her head wearily resting atop her knees. Through the iron wicket set high in the door she could hear the monotonous shuffling of feet in the outside corridor; evidence that a guard kept vigilant watch over the laird’s prisoner.

The knave actually
threw me into the dungeon!

Simply because she
’d asked him to make love to her. Or perhaps it was because she’d had the temerity to ask Iain to allow her to stay at Castle Maoil.

In truth, Yvette
didn’t know which infraction carried the heavier penalty.

In
hindsight, she now realized that it’d been pure folly to think that Iain could ever put aside his staunch sense of honor. Even more foolish, she had secretly hoped that, like the spider who wove a gossamer web to lure an unsuspecting fly, she could ensnare Iain’s heart. Too late, she’d discovered that his heart belonged to his dead brother. To his clan. To Scotland. The contents of his heart having been foresworn long before he met her.

Yea,
it was sheer folly to hope that I could ever finagle my way into his affections.

Early on, Diarmid had warned her about Iain’s unyielding honor.
‘ . . . here in the Highlands, we have only our honor. We live and die by it.’
At the time, she thought Diarmid had spoken false. Then, later, when she realized the truth of it, she’d paid no heed to the warning, the sentiment sitting awry with her illusions of love. And though Iain had never offered her false hope – she would grant him that much –she’d still foolishly believed that she could transmute his lust into a more tender emotion.

Today
, she’d painfully discovered that such alchemy was but the stuff of dreams.

She’d
not only been foolish, but foolhardy, as well. Having tempted fate, she’d lost everything that she’d gained thus far. Like countless lovelorn fools before her, she’d injudiciously acted on the yearnings of her heart. Only to learn the meaning of unrequited love.

And what a bitter taste
it doth leave in my mouth.

Despite the fact that
Iain lusted after her, he could never love her. Not after the foul treachery perpetrated by her father at St. Ives kirk. First and foremost, Iain wanted vengeance for his brother’s murder; and she was simply the means by which he intended to gain his long awaited revenge.

‘I will have my two thousand pounds!’

Iain could not have been more forthright if he’d taken anvil and chisel, and incised those words onto her still beating heart.

Suddenly h
earing the lock ominously rattle, Yvette held her breath as she waited for the dungeon door to swing open. She feared that it was Iain come to take her back to Lyndhurst. Or to Angus. It made no difference into whose custody she was placed, both prospects equally unappealing.

As
the guard pushed the door open, Yvette was surprised to find Diarmid standing in the entryway with a tray in his hands.

“
It’s a peace offering,” Diarmid said with a hesitant smile, having waited until the guard slammed the door shut before speaking. “Bread, cheese, and a jug of wine. And while it isn’t ambrosia, I hope the simple repast will ease the enmity ye bear me.”

“I do not hold you to blame
,” Yvette made haste to assure him. “Nor do I bear you any ill will.”

In fact, she pitied the young man for
having been forced, upon pain of torture, to enact Iain’s edict. Diarmid had simply been caught unawares in the tempest, torn between loyalty to his laird and compassion for a defenseless Englishwoman.

“Come,
join me,” she entreated, motioning for Diarmid to sit beside her. “I would have you share the ‘simple repast’ with me.”

Diarmid’s
smile broadened as he seated himself next to her.

Feeling the light press of his shoulder against hers, Yvette gratefully returned
his smile. Whether Diarmid knew it or not, she had need of that small bit of human contact to ward off the gloom.

As she reached
for the jug of wine, it didn’t escape her notice that there were two pewter cups on the tray. Clearly, the enterprising young Scotsman had hoped all along that she would extend an invitation to him.

“I will have ye know that the Bruce gave high praise for yer sumptuous table and lamented yer absence from it,” Diarmid said as he pulled a dirk from his
belt. Deftly cutting a piece of smoked cheese from a large wedge, he handed it to her.

Ravenous, Yvette accepted the
slice of cheese. It had been long hours since she’d broken her fast.

“Did you tell King Robert that I am incarcerated in the dungeon?”

As he handed Yvette a hunk of rye bread, Diarmid shook his head and said, “I made no mention of it. It would shame my wretch of a cousin were the truth to be known. And though the lie didna sit well on my tongue, I told His Grace that ye were indisposed.”

Yvette gestured to the four dreary
walls of her cell. “I do not think it such a lie, do you?”

“
Mayhap ye’re right.”

Not wishing to discuss her incarceration
– or the heartbreaking clash leading up to it – Yvette said, “I am curious to know what the king of Scotland is doing at Castle Maoil. Should he not be holding court in Edinburgh?”

“
Because of the bounty that Longshanks has put on the Bruce’s head, the king is a hunted man.” As he spoke, Diarmid poured more wine into her cup. “The Lord of the Isles has given Robert sanctuary. And since Iain is the vassal of the Lord of the Isles, he offered to bring the king to Castle Maoil.”

Surprised by the revelation, Yvette peered at Diarmid over the brim of her pewter cup.
“So then the king’s visit is to be kept secret?”

“
Aye, ’tis a very great secret. If the MacDougall Clan was to find out, they’d more than likely lay siege to the castle.”

Several
moments passed in silence. Then, suddenly realizing that he’d just divulged to an English noblewoman Scotland’s best kept secret, Diarmid’s tawny brows worriedly drew together in the middle.

“Ye willna mention the king’s whereabouts to any of yer English kinsmen, will ye?”

Hoping to pacify his obvious concern, Yvette shook her head and said, “Rest assured, your secret is safe with me. I have no interest in political intrigues.”

Moreover, she knew that a violent devastation
of Castle Maoil would ensue if she disclosed to anyone King Robert’s location. While Iain MacKinnon had broken her heart, that did not mitigate her love for him. Should Lyndhurst ever discover that the same man to whom he’d paid a princely ransom had been hiding the king of Scotland, he would exact a fierce and deadly retribution. If that happened, all that would remain of Castle Maoil would be rubble and ash.

To prevent that from happening,
Yvette would do all in her power to protect Iain and his kinsmen.

“Ye are verra quiet of a sudden.”

“I was just thinking that—” The pleasantry that she’d intended to utter instantly fell flat when Yvette belatedly realized that Diarmid’s blue eyes were identical in shape and color to Iain’s.

For one
suspended moment, she actually imagined that she was peering into Iain’s beloved blue eyes. And because of that profane flight of fancy, the tears she’d managed to hold at bay since her banishment to the dungeon began to seep down her cheeks unabated.

In no time at all
, Diarmid’s face blurred, Yvette’s vision distorted by the copious tears.

“The devil take Iain for doing this to ye
!” Diarmid heatedly exclaimed. “He is a brute of a man!”

Embarrassed by her emotional surfeit, Yvette swiped her f
ace with the back of her hand. “What you deem as brutish behavior is naught but a shield to hide the pain in his heart.”

A
pain inflicted by my own father.

“’Tis no excuse for
his behavior,” Diarmid argued. “If I could relive the day that Iain abducted ye from Glencova, I would fight him to the death so as to spare you the shame of sharing his bed. ’Tis my fault that all of this has happened!”

Hit with another onslaught of tears, Yvette turned her head away from the earnest
young man sitting beside her. Little did Diarmid know that the day she’d been abducted from Glencova, events had been set into motion that profoundly altered the course of her life. In the weeks since, she had changed so wholly, so completely, she didn’t know how she could ever return to her old life. It was as though she’d become a new woman.
Reborn
.

And Iain MacKinnon
was the catalyst for that change.

“I dinna care what Iain threatens me with
. I swear that I will do all in my power to keep ye safe from him,” Diarmid avowed.

Deeply touched by
the young man’s impassioned affirmation, Yvette gently caressed his flushed cheek with her fingertips. “From the very beginning, you have been my champion. And for that, you have my gratitude.”

Taking
hold of her hand, Diarmid placed it firmly over his heart. “Mayhap I desire to be more than your champion.”

And m
ayhap I desire to smash my fist into your face,
Iain silently fumed as he listened to Diarmid’s duplicitous avowal.

Standing
on the other side of the heavy door that led to the dungeon, he shook with fury, outraged by his cousin’s perfidy.

Fight me to the death, would he?

If it ever came to that, he’d dispatch Diarmid to the devil so quickly, his cousin wouldn’t know what hit him.

Curse Diarmid!

He’d only been gone from the isle a few hours and the younger man was now flagrantly usurping his authority, making sweet overtures to
his
woman.

And Yvette
was still very much Iain’s woman.

Back at
the tavern, he’d decided that he could not stand by and let her marry Hugh de Ogilvy, a man old enough to be her grandfather.

He’d come to that d
ecision as he’d stood slobbering over the chest full of gold coins. And though torn asunder by his lust for vengeance, and his lust for the exotically beautiful Englishwoman, the prospect of keeping Yvette at Castle Maoil as his mistress had been too tempting. It was as if he’d been magically transported to the Garden of Eden, with Eve standing before him dangling a lush, juicy piece of fruit.

And like the
poor, hapless Adam, he found himself unable to refuse, the temptation too great.

As he continued to peer
through the iron-grated wicket, Iain watched as Diarmid, pressing Yvette’s hand to his lips, went on bent knee before her.

By hell
! That is all the treachery I can stomach!

Enraged
, Iain kicked open the unlocked door.

“Get your bloody hands off her, you traitorous jackal!”

Two heads, one tawny, one sable-haired, instantly swiveled in Iain’s direction, Diarmid and Yvette openly gaping at him. As though they’d just seen a passing shade turn into a man before their very eyes.

Cursing in Gaelic, Diarmid lurched to his feet, kicking over
a cup of wine in the process. “Leave be, cousin. This is a private
matter between me and Lady Yvette. It concerns ye naught.”

“I am
the
MacKinnon.
Everything
that happens within these stone walls concerns me,” Iain was quick to inform his steward. “I have the final say over all that happens here. And I say ye willna take Yvette as your mistress.”

She’s my woman. Mine.
And no man, save for me, shall have her.

“
Ye erroneously presume that I intend to make her my mistress,” Diarmid retorted, his gaze resolute. “When, in truth, I intend to make her my wife.”

“Damn ye, Diarmid MacKinnon! You canna have her. She belongs to me.
If she marries anyone, it will be
me
!” Iain roared, surprised that the words came so easily to his lips.

Aye, w
hy didn’t I think of it sooner?

Taking
Yvette to wife was a very good plan. Furthermore, it would give him more leverage when that black-hearted knight Galen de Ogilvy realized he had no intention of making the exchange on the morrow. By the time the ruse was uncovered, he and Yvette would already be handfasted. Once consummated, a handfast was as legally binding as a marriage performed by a priest.

God knows
I’ll need those legal rights when de Ogilvy shows up at the castle gate with his armed contingent.

“Perhaps we should ask the lady which husband she prefers,” Diarmid
said forcefully, the cocky bastard refusing to call retreat.

“I am already Yvette’s lord and master
. As well she knows,” Iain asserted. “Therefore,
I
am the man she will choose.”

No sooner were those words spoken than
Yvette, her eyes flooded with tears, awkwardly stumbled to her feet. Noticing how she shrugged off Diarmid’s attempt at assistance, Iain could barely repress the urge to lord it over his cousin.

“I would have no man own me!
” she hissed, glaring at both of them through watery brown eyes. “I am not a prize to be won. Nor a possession to be bought and sold. I am a woman. A woman who wants only to be cherished and—”

Suddenly pushing her way past them, Yvette ran from the dungeon.

After searching the whole of the castle, Iain finally found Yvette on the battlements.

Wedged
between two stone merlons, her knees drawn up to her chin, she put him in mind of a forlorn child.

As
Iain stepped toward her, Yvette didn’t so much as turn her head to acknowledge his presence, her gaze studiously fixed on the green hills in the distance.

Standing beside her, Iain could feel a slight q
uiver course through her body. When she finally turned her head to peer at him, her expression was livid.

“Leave me!
I want nothing to do with you.”

Steadfastly resolved to see the thing through to the end, no matter the outcome, Iain said,
“I am no’ leaving until I speak my mind.”

“Ah, yes
! How could I forget? You are my ‘master,’ the great lord of Castle Maoil, and the even greater laird of Clan MacKinnon,” Yvette retorted, her anger liberally laced with sarcasm. “No man, woman, child, or beast can walk these hallowed grounds without your knowledge or consent.”

“I
am simply a man,” Iain said candidly as he took hold of Yvette’s hand and pulled her upright. “And a dim-witted one at that.”

Eyeing him warily, Yvette said,
“While I concur with the assessment, I would have you tell me how so.”

As he considered his response, Iain realized anew that Yvette had about her a frailty that was
at odds with her haughty mien.

No,
she’s not frail
, he amended. Rather, she was delicate, the lady a delicate English rose, prickly thorns and all.

And I do no’ wish to be separated from her.

That thought, like a spark of light in the midst of a stygian darkness, made Iain all the more determined to keep Yvette close to his side. So that he could protect and safeguard his delicate rose.

Keeping his movements as gentle as possible
, Iain smoothed several windblown tendrils that had escaped the two tightly coiled braids that framed either side of Yvette’s face.

“You ar
e no’ a prize nor a possession. You are a gift, pure and simple. The most precious gift that I have ever beheld. Furthermore, ye’re wrong to think that I dinna cherish ye.”

Iain
paused, surprised by the lump that had suddenly lodged in his throat.

“And
I would have ye stay at Castle Maoil as my wife,” he continued when Yvette made no answering reply. “But that is for ye alone to decide. Whatever yer choice, I will abide by it. And if ye choose Diarmid, so be it.”

For
I would rather have ye stay here, married to Diarmid, than to lose ye forever.

“And what of the ransom
that you demanded from my father?” Yvette pointedly inquired.

Iain stoo
d silent, uncertain how much to divulge.

Once he formally refused
the chest of gold coins, he will have impulsively,
nay
, recklessly, ignited a blood feud between the noble de Ogilvy family and the Clan MacKinnon. And that meant that the Furies, in the guise of a black-clad knight and his battled hardened men-at-arms, would soon arrive at the castle gate demanding retribution. All because he desired a brown-eyed woman above all others.

Sweet Jesu, what have I
done?

Painfully aware
that he would ultimately have to pay a very high price for his impetuosity, Iain wondered if it wasn’t too late to change course. All he had to do was take Yvette to Lochalsh on the morrow, hand her over to Galen de Ogilvy, and take possession of his bloody two thousand pounds.

And then spend the rest of
my life wondering about her, riddled with worry, concerned that she might be ill-used or ill-treated.

While unable to
consign Yvette to an uncertain fate, Iain knew that if the forfeiture of the ransom was ever disclosed, he’d be made a laughingstock; the once proud Scottish laird who let an English temptress lead him around by the cock. His kinsmen would not only think him foolhardy and witless, but weak-hearted
for having deliberately thrown away his chance to avenge Kenneth’s death.

Ach, Kenneth, I will
yet avenge yer death
, he silently vowed, unable to reconcile his voracious need for vengeance with his insatiable desire for the woman who stood before him.

Making
Iain wonder if he would
ever
be able to reconcile the two.

“Yer father refused to pay the ransom,” he
finally said after much deliberation, the lie tasting like bile on his tongue.

“As
he has never held me in high regard, I am not surprised that my father declined to part with his precious gold,” Yvette murmured dejectedly, the sheen of tears in her eyes. “Clearly, my value has been set at a price less than—”

“Ye are worth far more t
han two thousand pounds,” Iain avowed. “Dinna think otherwise.”

The
hint of a bitter smile flashed across her face. “Yea, the words come easily to your lips now that the fortune has been snatched from your grasp.”

“Yer point is well t
aken. However, I’ve had time to reconsider what I said prior to leaving for the mainland and—” Iain stopped in midstream, uncertain what it was that he wanted to say.

Probably because he was u
ncertain as to his feelings for Yvette Beauchamp. While he lusted after her, there was more to it than a mere bodily craving. Although how much more, he couldn’t say.

Suddenly distracted, Iain
rubbed his hand back and forth across his jaw as he tried to ponder his way through his conflicted emotions.

Long moments passed,
the yawning silence widening between them.

His mind
finally made up, Iain reached for both of Yvette’s hands. “It doesna matter what I earlier said to ye. We canna change what came before. We can only change the here and now. And now I want to marry ye,” he said forthrightly, convinced he’d made the right decision. “I want to be yer husband. I want to give ye my protection and keep ye safe from harm. And I want ye to lie by my side. Each and every night.”

“And it matters naught that I am the
Earl of Lyndhurst’s daughter?”

“I dinna care if ye’re
the devil’s spawn,” he retorted. “I want ye and it doesna matter who sired ye.”

“Without my father’s consent, I bring
no dower to the marriage,” Yvette said quietly. “Although I will gladly offer my landed estate in Northumberland as a wedding gift.”

“That is well and good,”
Iain said with a brusque nod, his gut twisted like a Gordian knot. “But ye’ve failed to mention which of us ye choose to wed.”

“I choose to marry
you
, Iain MacKinnon.”

Taken aback by the joyful surge
that he felt at hearing Yvette’s impassioned declaration, Iain reached over and cupped her flushed cheek in his hand.

Och,
her gaze is so warm. So vibrant. Like a quiet storm
.

“’Tis a great relief,
” he said, smiling broadly. “For I would have an uprising on my hands should we return to the days of turnips and oatcakes.”

“Rest assured, I will keep you well fed.
”

Turning her head,
Yvette nuzzled her mouth against the palm of Iain’s hand. As her heated breath grazed his skin, she gently bit into the fleshy mound under his thumb.