Knight In My Bed (2 page)

Deep inside, in a hidden place Donall did not care to let his thoughts linger, he hoped Iain's hot temper and tendency to quick bouts of irritability had nary a finger in causing the tragedy.

And now his attempts to avert further turmoil were rendered impossible by the MacInnesses' addlepated plans to wreak vengeance on him!

He strained against his fetters, frustration hot and bitter in his throat. Cold iron emphasized the futility of his efforts to break free, while the closed expressions on his captors' faces bespoke the folly of trying to persuade them to form an alliance to seek the true perpetrators of their kinswoman's murder.

But futile or folly, he must try.

Donall forced himself to swallow his anger. If only Archibald were still alive, he might have half a chance. But the old laird was gone, and the graybeards holding him captive showed none of Archibald's desire to maintain at least a semblance of peace.

Though they had been bitter enemies for centuries, the old laird's efforts had enabled the two clans to enjoy an uneasy truce in recent years. Neither Donall nor Gavin had suspected the lass they' d come upon not long after their departure from Dunmuir of pretending to have twisted her ankle. Her supposed injury allowed the scheming MacInnes whoresons to fall upon them from behind when they' d stopped to help her.

"What ails you, laddie?" The white-haired ancient nudged Donall's bare thigh. "Are you so vexed o'er being bested that you've lost your tongue?"

Donall ignored the taunt and swept the cell with his gaze, peering deep into the shadowy corners to see if his pain-addled state had prevented him from spotting Gavin. But he was indeed alone, his foster brother nowhere to be seen.

"What have you done with Gavin?" He struggled to sit up straighter. "If aught has befallen him, it is your clan who will be bested," he swore, directing his words to the hawkeyed man he at last recognized as the late MacInnes laird's brother, Struan.

"Proud words for a man in your position." Struan's gaze flicked over Donall's ironbound limbs. 'Tour man rests in his own cell and more comfortably than you, never fear. We bear no grudges against the MacFies. Our fight is with you."

"Striking a man from behind has naught to do with fighting." Ire swelled in Donall's gut. "Such trickery was a sorry deed, one I doubt your brother would have allowed."

"Archibald is dead." The youngest-looking of the graybeards stepped forward. He cast a sidelong glance at Struan. "Our
ceann cath
now advises us in war matters, and we possess the wisdom of our combined years. It is enough."

Without further discourse, he went to stand before the chink in the far wall that served as the cell's only window. Though painfully narrow, the opening had allowed a semblance of light and an occasional stirring of brisk sea air to enter the chamber. By blocking the air slit, he stole the scant comfort Donall had gleaned from the few stray breezes that had found their way into the cell.

As if Donall's thoughts were emblazoned upon his forehead, a knowing smile spread across the man's grim-cast face. "You see, Donall the Bold, brawn is not always required to make one's enemies squirm. Clever planning can often wreak a far more fitting revenge than a well-wielded sword."

"And it is the taste of my well-wielded blade's steel you shall suffer if you do not release me at once." Donall's anger heated his blood to such a degree he no longer felt the cell's damp chill.

“Your blade is secured far out-with your reach," Struan countered. "Indeed, your days of swinging swords are past, MacLean. Even your supposed prowess with another sort of, shall we say,
thrusting weapon
will serve you no more."

Bracing his hands on his hips, he gave Donall a wholly unpleasant smile. "I daresay you shall regret being denied the use of that sword once you glimpse the fair countenance of our chieftain, the lady Isolde. But alas, sampling such a tender fruit as she is a pleasure beyond your reach."

"I would sooner plunge my staff into a she-goat," Donall seethed, his shackles cutting into his wrists and ankles as he sought to lunge at the gray-beard. "May my shaft wither and fall off afore I -"

"Be assured I find the notion equally displeasing."

Donall froze. Smooth and rich as thick cream yet irresistibly spiced with the bite of pepper, the woman's voice poured over, around, and into him.

Under any other circumstances, the pleasing tones would have banished the sting of his anger with ease, mayhap even ignited fires of an entirely different sort of heat, but he was in no mood to be swayed by the sweet lilt of a few saucily spoken words.

Especially when the melodious voice most assuredly belonged to Isolde MacInnes.

A woman he had no intention of being attracted to.

"Distasteful as your presence is to me, you are under my roof and I am determined to have done with you accordingly," she spoke again, her words confirming her identity.

Donall shifted on his pallet of straw and wished more covered his manhood than a thin piece of cloth. If the lady Isolde's appearance proved halfway as provocative as the honeyed timbre of her voice and the avowals of her uncle, he would have preferred a more substantial modicum of dignity.

Cell-bound and fettered or nay, red blood yet coursed through his veins.

Nor had the blackguards put out his eyes.

Pressing his lips together, he pushed aside all thought of fetching lasses. It'd been longer than he cared to admit since he'd last taken his ease with a wench, but he did not want to be bestirred by Isolde MacInnes.

Not even a wee bit.

What he wanted was a way out of this cell.

With luck, he'd find her so unappealing; any unwanted surges of admiration would fly away at first glance. Holding his breath lest it not be so, he turned his head toward the door whence her voice had come.

She stood just inside the open doorway, holding a rush light, her aged kinsmen clustered around her. And much to his ire, he recognized her worth immediately.

Her uncle hadn't lied: she was indeed a beauty.

A powerful jolt of frank appreciation shot through him, boldly declaring his hot-blooded nature's refusal to cooperate with his avowals to resist her charms.

"Lady Isolde." He curtly inclined his head. Blessedly, his voice remained free of any indication he found her alluring. "I refuse to be a part of such foolery as your men intend to perform on me and demand you release me at once."

She stepped farther into the cell, her rush light held aloft. Its flame illuminated the finely formed contours of her face, emphasizing the smooth perfection of her skin and casting a bright sheen upon her plaited hair.

Hair the color of a thousand setting suns, its deep bronze tones shot through with lighter strands that shone like molten gold. Unbound, it would surely swirl around her gently curved hips and bewitch the good sense out of any man fool enough to try to resist his attraction to her.

She came closer and Donall caught her scent. A light, clean fragrance, fresh and feminine, with a trace of wildflowers and summer days, yet laced with a breath of some warm and tantalizing spice that promised darker pleasures beneath her aura of grace and innocence.

The sort of pleasures he'd love to awaken in her.

Were she any other woman.

"I told you she was a prize. What a pity you can no longer indulge in such sweet pursuits." Struan laid his arm around his niece's shoulders and drew her closer to where Donall sat pressed against the cell wall. With his foot, he lifted the rag covering Donall's male parts and kicked it aside. "You appear fit and hale ... I imagine it pains you to know your few remaining days will be abstemious ones?"

The white-haired ancient hovering to Donall's left chortled, a thin-sounding, old man's laugh. Isolde MacInnes gasped and turned away, her cheeks blooming near as red as her hair.

"By God's teeth, you base-minded miscreants, have none of you any shame?" Donall met the graybeards' smirks with a fierce glare. "If your chieftain is a maid, what madness possesses –“

I am a maid, sirrah, and it is you who bears the weight of shame. You, and every other MacLean male ever born." She stood with her back to him, her stance rigid and proud, her shoulders squared.

A goddess carved of stone.

She turned back, and the light from her torch shone full on her face. Her eyes, beautiful and exceptionally large, appeared dull. The sparkle that should have lit eyes of such a rich amber color was extinguished, snuffed out by a pall of sadness. Marred as thoroughly as her expression of accusation and disdain turned down the corners of her lips, thus spoiling the sweet allure of a mouth that fair begged to be kissed.

Not that he was the man to do the kissing.

Delectable lips or nay.

Donall turned on the pallet, a vain attempt to shield his male parts from her view, but even more, a fruitless endeavor to free himself from the witchery she'd cast over him. Straw jabbed the backs of his bare legs and a gust of briny air swept into the cell, bringing with it the sharp tang of the nearby sea and stirring up the stale smell of the cell itself.

Dank and sour, full of shadows, darkness, and unnamed scurrying creatures, the pathetic confines and the cold iron of his fetters flooded him with renewed vigor and scorn.

Scorn, not for the lady, but for her aged advisers and their misplaced plans to wreak revenge on him for a deed he had naught to do with.

A nefarious act he prayed had not been born of
 
Iain's lightning-quick mood swings.

Digging his nails into his palms, he banished the troublesome nigglings of doubt that threatened to eat away his very soul.

Ian could not be the murderer.

He simply would not allow it to be so.

The MacLeans, including his brother, condemned the foul deed, were stricken by it, and burned to avenge the gentle-hearted Lileas's death.

They would, too, if the MacInnesses would but listen to mason and release him.

And mayhap he'd lost all reason, too, for he half believed that whilst the graybeards turned a deaf ear upon his avowals of innocence, the lady Isolde might prove more open-minded. A wild-brained notion, to be sure, but he had naught to lose and everything to gain.

Only by securing his freedom could he locate the true blackguards and circumvent further chaos should Ian be left too long to his own devices.

Turning back to the MacInnes chieftain, he cleared his throat. "My brother had naught to do with his wife's death," he said, fighting hard to ignore his undignified state and hoping his words held more assurance than he felt.

Just broaching the matter caused his chest to constrict with pain. He could see the mild-mannered Lileas still, her red-gold hair tangled with seaweed, her slim body cold and unbreathing.

"Iain loved his wife. Ne'er would he have laid a hand on her," he vowed, focusing on the many times he'd seen Iain rain affection on his quiet wife rather than the rare occasions he'd ranted at her when beset by one of his black moods. "I'd swear his innocence on the holiest relics of the land."

Unbidden, Iain's haunted eyes loomed vividly in Donall's mind. His gut twisted at the memory of how inept he'd been in his attempts to ease his brother's sorrow. "He mourns her truly," he said, this time with more conviction.

"You lie." The two words fell upon his naked skin, cold as two chips of ice.

Isolde shivered. As so often since learning of her younger sister's death, waves of cold washed over her even as her heart burned with the need to avenge Lileas's murder. "You lie," she repeated, her gaze fixed on the opposite wall rather than upon the naked man sprawled at her feet. "No one else could have done the deed."

Slipping out of the reassuring circle of her uncle's arm, she thrust her rush light into his hands, then began pacing the bracken-strewn floor. She'd looked at the MacLean longer than she could bear. His unclothed state unsettled her, and knowing she'd soon be even closer to him, and to that part of him, made her heart pound with trepidation.

But get close to him she would.

For Lileas.

For her people.

And for herself, a tiny voice in the recesses of her mind reminded her. But those other reasons seemed sorely insignificant now.

Still, she'd be strong. Brave. She'd follow her secret plan, even if it meant relinquishing her virginity to a man she reviled. Her sister's murder must be avenged and she had to ensure the survival of her clan.

Her council wanted the MacLean laird to die. They boasted his death would prove the ultimate revenge against the MacLeans. But such a plan, justifiable though it was, would destroy the MacInnesses. Vengeance would come swift and without quarter. She might as well unbar the gates and let the MacLeans storm within. Only a fool would think himself capable of staving off an attack by a clan so powerful.

Yet almost all within her household seemed bent on being fools.

She had no choice but to implement her own secret plan. A strategy to assure the MacLeans posed no future threat. For such a gain, the loss of her maidenhead was a small price to pay.

Especially if her couplings with the MacLean left her blessed with a child as she hoped.