Knight In My Bed (41 page)

Turning, he set off in the opposite direction.

The direction of the hall.

Gavin loped after him. "Come, Donall, you are unarmed. What quelling would you evoke without your steel? If aught is amiss here, let us gather your men and return."

"Since when do we need arms to best a parcel of doddering graybeards?" Donall snapped, ill humor to rival Iain's rising inside him. "Saints, we could topple the lot of them with one hot breath!"

"And the red-haired giant and his sour-faced companion?" Gavin reminded him. "Both stout-armed and with steel a-plenty hanging from their belts?”

"I've dispatched men twice your size with naught but my fists. As you have as well." He glowered at Gavin. "Since when has your nerve taken flight?"

"I vow about the same time your good sense abandoned you," Gavin said, his voice annoyingly smug.

Donall's temper broke, and he lunged at his friend. "It is my lady's safety 1 would secure, not yours or mine," he seethed, hauling Gavin up by the front of his tunic. "What is senseless in that?"

Rushing between them, Evelina placed a hand on each of their heaving chests. Donall swore, and released Gavin. That lout had the cheek to let one of his lopsided grins spread across his broad face.

He winked at the lady Evelina. "Love always brings out the best in a MacLean," he said. "Their temper."

Yanking down his tunic, Donall shot a murderous look at Gavin. "I say we stay and have done with whatever menace imperils my lady." To the angel, he said, "I would know what it is that troubles you."

A guarded expression came onto her face. "A ship will soon land here. I cannot reveal why, for to do so would break my lady's trust," she said. "Let it be enough to know I fear for her safety once those onboard make their tidings known."

Donall swore again, a darker stream of epithets than before. His ire thus vented, he tossed back his hair, drew a breath. "All the more reason we cannot leave."

Tamping down his vexation as best he could, he leveled his most lordly stare at her, warming it with just a hint of his most seductive smile. "Fair maid, I admire your heart and spirit, but I cannot protect the lady Isolde unless I know what foe she faces," he said. "You must tell me."

She hesitated, closed her eyes. When, at last, she looked at him again, Donall knew he'd won. "'Tis Balloch MacArthur," she said. "The man her clan council would see her wed."

"Sweet holy saints," Gavin burst out, earning him a dark look from Donall.

Ignoring Gavin, Donall narrowed his eyes at Evelina. "She is betrothed?" The words tasted like dirt on his tongue. "To MacArthur?"

The beauty swallowed, clearly uncomfortable. "Nay, my lord," she said, her ill ease evident in the slight tremor of her soft voice. "She is to be betrothed to him ... or was."

Donall clenched his jaw. "Is or was?"

Evelina lowered her head.

Striding forward, Donall captured her chin, forced her to look at him. "Very fair lady, I’ve told you I admire your bold heart. Do not disappoint me now." His tone left her no quarter but to answer him. "What is with MacArthur? What tidings can he bring that could cause such grief?"

Evelina's brows drew together. "He is surely come to break the betrothal agreement because ... because ...”

"
Because
?" Donall urged when she faltered.

"Because my lady sent him word she carries another man's child," Evelina said in a rush. "Yours, milord. Or so she hopes."

Donall's jaw dropped. Shock, joy, wild elation began pumping through him. "And why did she send such tidings?"

He had a suspicion.

A wondrous one, but needed to bear the words.

He stared at her, lowered his brows in an attempt to look stern. "Answer me."

Evelina's face tinged pink. Casting a helpless sidelong glance at Gavin, she said, "She is not yet with child, sir. But she hoped by claiming so, she'd be able to rid herself of Balloch. I warned her otherwise, but she refused to listen. And now he is nigh upon us and will reveal what my lady has done. The elders' wrath will be great."

"Not so great as mine had they wed her to that fool swaggerer," Donall vowed, his mind reeling with Evelina's revelations. He released her chin, then shoved a hand through his hair.

A decision made, he turned to Gavin. "You go, fetch Iain and my men," he said, "I shall stay behind and speak with MacArthur."

Gavin glanced heavenward again. "And what, pray, would you bandy about with the whoreson? The man is not known for his fine conversing skills."

Donall smiled, amazed he could. But his decision, his plan, grew more appealing the longer he considered it. "I shall tell him and all who care to listen that the lady does carry my child and that her council erred in allowing him to believe a betrothal could take place," he said, his smile deepening. "Could not take place because she is already promised to me."

Gavin snorted. "You are a prisoner here," he argued. "If you do not come with me, those two guards will hie you back to the sea dungeon before you can spout one word of such utter nonsense."

He shook his head, a look of incredulity on his broad, honest face. "Saints, but you are a fool."

"
MacArthur
is the fool," Donall said, the control in his voice amazing him. "A blustering one. A braggart who' d run home with his tail betwixt his legs if faced with the bite of my steel."

"Steel you do not have." Gavin whirled away, threw up his hands in disgust. "You think to take on a shipload of armed and angry men? Without a sword to swing at them?"

He spun back to face Donall, his face flushed. "Nay, nay, nay, my friend, if aught so perilous is about to unfold here, I say we head to Baldoon and mass your men for a swift return.”

"Swift?" Donall's brows shot upward. "We need days, two at best, to reach Baldoon by foot. Then add a few more to rally our men and ride back." He pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. "Nay, we cannot afford the time."

"You may not have to, my lord. Your men should soon be here," Evelina said, surprising them.

They both looked at her, their haggling forgotten.

"My men ... here?" Donall could scarce breathe, so great was his astonishment.

His hope.
        
.

The lady nodded, and Donall's heart swelled to bursting. "I sent Lugh to fetch them several days ago," she said. "God willing he made the journey safely."

"Lugh?" Gavin glanced between them.

Donall answered, his admiration for the lady mounting by the minute. 'The dark-haired lad who spooks about the dungeon gathering cobwebs and the saints know what all," he said, pleased he knew yet something else Gavin didn't. "I heard the pock-faced lout call him Lugh," he added, glancing at Evelina for confirmation.

She nodded. "He is the
cailleach's
grandson," she verified. “ `Tis his poking about you owe your escape, for it was he who told me of the tunnel that opens off the sacred well's well shaft. He discovered the tunnel while fetching frogs from the stagnant water at the bottom of the well. He's explored its length and claims it leads to the open moorland."

Donall comprehended. "The moorland that stretches between here and Baldoon?"

"So Lugh claims," she said.

Another thought occurred to Donall, began to eat at his burgeoning hope. "I thought the lad couldn't speak?"

Evelina shrugged. "He speaks to me," she said, the trace of sadness in her voice again. "Men always do, even young ones like Lugh." She paused, gave another gentle sigh. " He will speak to your men when he reaches Baldoon, too. Because I've asked him to."

Donall's heart began to thud hard against his chest. "And you believe my men will be waiting on the other side of this tunnel?"

'”Your men, and your steeds," Evelina promised, and smiled. "If young Lugh was able to lead the two horses there as he' d meant to do," she added. "And, of course, if he reached your holding."

"Come, Donall." Gavin seized his arm, his boyish grin back. "Of a sudden, I have a fearsome craving to see a swarm of ugly MacLean faces a-smiling at me."

And this time, when Evelina and Gavin hurried down the dark passage, Donall kept pace with them, a fool smile of his own spreading boldly across his handsome face.

Isolde stood in the shadows of the stair tower and stared across the hall at the erupting chaos, at the disaster unfolding before her eyes. The unraveling of her carefully wrought plans.

The unraveling of her life.

She drew a great breath and pulled back her shoulders. It was time to face her shame. The very air in the smoke-hazed hall rang with angry shouts. Accusations, taunts, and slurs. Both from her own kinsmen and Balloch MacArthur's men.

Her gaze sought and found Lorne. She locked eyes with him as she started forward. Of all those present, only he appeared unmoved. Not ranting, nor red-faced with rage as the others all appeared to be. The old knight stood off to the side, one hand resting lightly on the hilt of his sword. The look on his face revealed naught but wariness.

Niels and Rory stood in the midst of the storm, their faces dark with anger. But the loud clamor of voices raised all around them blocked out their shouts and she could only hope theirs were lifted in support of her.

Lorne.

Her cousin and Rory.

Bodo
.

Her hopes rested on them. The few she trusted to stand beside her.

Naught else swayed in her favor save her last-minute decision to leave Bodo locked in the quiet safety of her bedchamber, well away from the vengeful wrath of Balloch MacArthur.

Would that she could sequester herself from him as well.

She scanned the throng as she elbowed her way through the jostling, furious crowd, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Only his man, and a party of hard-bitten angry-looking MacArthur warriors.

Despite her distress, the irony of his absence brought a wan smile to Isolde's lips as she pushed past the empty high table, making for the hearthside where they all stood, no doubt too riled to sit.

Both she and Evelina had been wrong.

Evelina, because Balloch had not come himself as she' d predicted.

Herself, because even though he hadn't come, his pride had not stayed his tongue.

Her secret tidings to him, her deceit, her shame, were on the tongues of all those present.

All save Lorne, and to her great dismay, even he had betrayed her. She cast one last frantic glance around the crowded hall before she squared her shoulders and pushed through the circle of men to stand in their middle and to face their wrath.

Lorne had vanished.

The old knight, her last hope in this sea of angry faces, had left the hall.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Consigning Herself To their wrath, Isolde pushed through the circle of men. "Kinsmen, honored
guests
," she greeted them, her voice proud, her head high. "My humble regrets that I have kept you waiting."

"'Tis humble regrets for your treachery you should be a-tendering," someone yelled from the back of the assemblage of glaring men.

"A fornicator!" another voice rose above the swell of angry rumbles and slurs. "And with the cheek to give herself
 
proud of such base depredations."

Her uncle nodded tersely at that, then stepped away from the knot of MacArthur warriors he'd been standing with. He strode toward her, his barrel chest thrust forward, his eyes aglow with a strange combination of zeal, anger, and ...
triumph
?

"Well, lass," he said, coming up before her, "what have you to say for yourself?" He fixed her with a cold stare. “Since you seem disposed to wax so eloquent, mayhap you can tell us what drove you to such flagrant and whorish behavior? And with him? Laird of the MacLeans?"

A chorus of riled men's voices roared approval of Struan's aggression. Their faces blended in a blur of anger, an impression made all the more intimidating by the glare thrown out by the nearby hearth fire. It cast an eerie reddish glow o'er their jeering countenances, giving them the look of the devil's own.

Hell's minions come to wreak punishment on her for loving Donall MacLean.

Her sole solace was in noting the worst scowls graced MacArthur faces. Her own kinsmen appeared vexed and troubled, but not hate-charged as Balloch's men did.

Save her uncle, whose blood seemed to run hotter than all those present combined.

"I'd mind you we await your answer," he said coldly. glaring at her. "And have a care how you answer lest you wish to pay most dearly for your sins."

"Sins?" A thin voice chimed from somewhere in the crowd. "Be it a sin when a lass falls for a braw laddie?" The voice rose a notch, grew a mite stronger. "Be that so, I shall be in sore trouble when I meet my Maker, for many were the lassies whose heads I turned in my younger day! And I partook o' way more than their bonnie smiles, I did!"