Knight In My Bed (9 page)

Of a sudden, the lacings of her gown seemed over-tight and an uncomfortable heat welled inside her. Quickly, lest he see how thoroughly he unsettled her, she glanced pointedly toward the shuttered windows.

Anywhere but at him.

The moment she looked away, he must've moved, for his chain made a loud clinking sound. An aberration in the thick silence hanging so heavily in the chamber, the noise sent a twinge of guilt straight to her core.

A trace of guilt shot through with a good dose of frustration.

Guilt at keeping her plan a secret from the elders.

Frustration, that their own stubbornness made such a deceit necessary.

Both emotions curled 'round her heart with startling tenacity, squeezing so fiercely she almost gasped. She would have, too, was she not keenly aware of the MacLean's penetrating stare. His all-seeing gaze had waxed bolder and she needn't look at him to know it.

She kept her own attention firmly trained on the closed shutters. Driving rain still beat down with a vengeance, and the dank, wet smell of water-sogged wood and cold, damp stone pervaded the chamber, but the worst of the storm had
 
moved on. The loud cracks of thunder came with less frequency and each resounding rumble sounded more distant.

If only the tempest brewing inside her would pass as swiftly.

But the MacLean's sheer proximity rivaled the might of any storm. His compelling presence proved greater, more daunting, than the wildest gale ever to pound this windswept side of Doon.

Bound or nay, he exuded raw male power.

A shiver swept over her. One that had scarce little to do with the damp chill seeping in past the rain-drenched shutter slats. Steeling herself against his annoying ability to rile her, she stiffened her back and reached for her tankard of mead.

And another oversized chunk of green cheese.

She wouldn't let him spoil her appetite, nor allow his overbearing self to wreak havoc upon her emotions. She need only give him her body. Isolde ate the cheese and reached for more. Her heart would remain pure ... untouched.

Unsullied.

Hers.

Feeling somewhat better, she washed down the cheese with a hearty gulp of the sweet-tasting mead.

"You fair astound me, milady," came her captive's deep voice, honeyed and smooth, yet still laced with unmistakable mockery ... and totally spoiling the taste of the thick mead flowing innocently down her throat.

Isolde set down the tankard at once. "How so,
milord
?" she challenged him, placing the same irreverent emphasis on "milord" as he' d used when addressing her as "his lady."

His mouth curved in a slow smile that would've been devastating in its sheer potency had its warmth reached his eyes. Instead, his dark gaze flicked coolly over the generous helping of roasted seabird she'd piled high on the thickslabbed trencher of brown bread set before her.

Embarrassment flooded her. She hadn't realized she'd taken such a large portion.

"For a maid, you are possessed of a most hearty appetite," Donall the Bold commented. "I am wondering if all your appetites are so ... healthy?"

Her breath caught at the hidden meaning behind his dry observation. She might yet be virtuous, but she was by no means ignorant. And what she hadn't known about the
things
men and women do together, the joy woman, Evelina, had told her.

In great and shocking detail.

Determined to ignore her rising agitation, and especially the way his false smiles made her blood quicken, she lifted her spoon, intent on finishing her soup.

"I haven't eaten since yestermorn," she said, and her stomach growled as if to prove her hunger. "You'll surely agree I need all my strength, and my wits, to properly deal with t-this situation that's been thrust upon me."

"
Thrust upon you
?" For once both of his brows shot upward.

"Aye." She gave him a sharp look, daring him to claim otherwise.

But despite her best efforts to occupy herself with finishing her meal, ill ease pursued her with unflagging persistence. A pulsing heat inched its way up her throat, and became more bothersome with each moment she was forced to endure his disturbing perusal.

"Must you stare?" She set down her spoon, her raging hunger insignificant next to the turmoil his brazen scrutiny unleashed inside her.

"You are disturbed by my looking at you?" His brow furrowed but a hint of pure devilry gleamed in his dark brown
 
eyes. "Do correct me if I misunderstood, but that which you would have me do for you, namely take you to wife, if I was wont to oblige you, would involve much more than merely gazing across a table at you."

Isolde's patience thinned. "I told you, I seek an alliance, not marriage."

"A pact that must be negotiated behind a barred bedchamber door? With me attached to your bedpost?"

"Are you not hungry?" she quipped.

Another of his lazy smiles slid across his face. "Ne'er have I been more ravenous."

'Then eat your fill, there is naught stopping you."

For a moment, he looked close to laughter again, but then the smile that had been playing across his sensuous lips faded, and a dark, somber look settled over his features. "You err, Isolde of Dunmuir," he said, the rich timbre of his deep voice oddly stirring. "There is much that prevents me from staving the hunger consuming me this moment."

Undaunted, she shoved the platter of roasted seabird toward him. "The gannet is plump and tender ... delicious.”

"Plump?" He eyed the platter skep-tically, his gaze skimming first over the gannet's crisp-roasted, golden breast, then boldly lighting upon her own. "I would not say plump." He narrowed his eyes then, and she could almost feel the heat of his gaze upon her flesh.

With deliberate slowness, he lifted the tankard in sardonic toast. "But of a certainty, well formed, tender, and
succulent
."

Pretending not to have understood the ribald undertones in his silkily spoken words, nor to have noticed his brazen stare, Isolde lowered her own gaze to the spread of victuals Cook had undoubtedly taken great care to prepare.

Rather than scoff at her voracious appetite, Donall the Bold ought be grateful. If those in Dunmuir's kitchen weren't aware of her appreciation of fine and plentiful viands, there would be less food to share with him.

In addition to the roasted gannet, Cook had sent up a steaming mazer of leek soup and a goodly portion of soft green cheese delicately flavored with herbs. Precious little remained of the cheese, but she hadn't yet touched the small spiced cakes and the large ewer of honey-sweetened mead was more than ample for two.

Certainly not a noble feast, but the repast, though humble, had been carefully prepared and was the best Dunmuir's kitchen could presently conjure.

Those who supped below-stairs had contented themselves with the leek soup, of necessity much watered-down, coarse black bread, and simple ale.

Indeed, she'd rather down bitter ale and suffer through watery soup along with everyone else, but Cook enjoyed providing Dunmuir's chieftain with the best victuals he could. His pride would be sorely dented if she bade him to serve her the meager fare doled out in the great hall.

Swallowing her resentment at the deprivations her people had to bear and at having to endure the MacLean's taunts and stares, Isolde dipped her spoon into her soup. A delicious aroma rose from the mazer, and much to her dismay, her too-long neglected stomach gave forth another low grumbling noise the instant the fragrant steam reached her nose.

"Do keep eating. I enjoy watching you." The MacLean's voice, rife with undercurrents, sliced through the silence. "Indeed, if I were of a humor to -"

"Wedding you ne'er entered my mind," Isolde declared before he could finish whatever slur he'd meant to bestow upon her.

Far from appearing chagrined, the trace of amusement in his eyes blossomed into a merry twinkle. "As I was about to say, were I of a humor to have you, which I am not, such a robust appetite as you display would undoubtedly make our time together most interesting."

Isolde's spoon froze halfway to her mouth. She fixed him with a look she hoped would wither the tartness from his too-loose tongue. "I am not a bawd, Sir Donall."

"Yet you would play a bawd's game. A game that sends trepidation into the very fiber of your maidenly heart." He peered sharply at her hard, his all-knowing gaze taking in the way her fingers clenched her spoon. "Aye, for all your daring, sweeting, you are afraid."

"I fear naught. Least of all you."

"Then mayhap you should." A wholly different light came into his eyes and Isolde's heart turned over at the transformation. "I am not a man to have his passions trifled with, Lady Isolde."

To her growing mortification, he reached across the table, pried her fingers from around the spoon, then upturned her hard. His dark gaze not leaving her face, he trailed one finger down the sensitive flesh of her palm.

She jerked in reaction, a startled gasp escaping her lips. His touch, brief though it'd been, had sent heated tingles racing up the length of her arm. And now, afterward, a strange warmth lingered where his hard still cradled hers.

A stealthy beat that seeped straight through her resistance and slowly spread through her entire body.

Even the tops of her ears burned!

"Or did you not have me hauled up here, to your bedchamber, so you could ...
trifle with my passions?"

"Of all the cheek!" She tried to yank free of his grasp, but his fingers encircled her hard like bands of steel.

"Be wary, my lady, of what you purpose to achieve.” He gave her hard a brief squeeze. ”Your folly could get you burned."

His taunt let loose, he released her band, leaned back against the bedpost, and crossed his arms.

Her bedpost.

Her bed.

And yet he sat there, a self-satisfied look on his bonnie face, appearing completely relaxed . . . at home.

As if he were laird and master of Dunmuir Castle and not she.

"If not to offer yourself to me in marriage nor, as you deny, to have me initiate you into the joys of carnal pleasures," he goaded her, "then why all the secrecy? What mysterious revelation do you care to make, or expect to bear from me, that cannot be broached in a dungeon cell?"

"My reasons are my own and shall remain thus for a while at least." She clung to the image of his hands stained with her sister's blood rather than acknowledge how indecently attractive he looked lounging so casually upon her bed, one massive shoulder resting against her bedpost.

He emanated power, carefully restrained anger, and something she couldn't define. An elusive something she recognized as having to do with the natural urgings Evelina had claimed flared hot between men and women.

Certain men and women.

The joy woman had called such stirrings a rare and precious gift.

A special occurrence Evelina professed to have experienced only once: with the unnamed benefactor for whose love she'd abandoned her lucrative trade.

Isolde helped herself to another bite of cheese. If she concentrated on eating, maybe she could rid herself of the lurid images Evelina's instructions sent parading through her head.

But the wild and base acts pranced on, marching with shameless abandon all over her maidenly sensitivities. Most alarming of all, the brazen images now bore faces. Hers and the face of the man who'd visited her dreams the night of Beltaine.

Her soul mate according to Devorgilla.

A man who bore a disconcerting resemblance to Donall MacLean.

Isolde shuddered and snatched another piece of cheese.

"How much of a while do I have, then?" The MacLean's deep voice shattered the spell he' d cast over her with his damnable touch and his striking ...
maleness
.

"A sennight, a fortnight?" he demanded. "A day?"

Isolde peered at him, her mind still befuddled, her senses even now reeling with torrid images. "Hmmm?"

Impatience glittering in his eyes, Donall the Bold shot to his feet. He braced his hands on his hips and scattered every last wispy illusion tumbling through her mind with the sheer weight of his stare.

"Lady, I have listened to the rants of your gray-bearded worthies. The oversized buffoon and his cohort standing guard out-with your door are overeager to visit all manner of unpleasantness upon me." His contempt leaped between them, palpable and menacing. "Should they make good their threats, I shall be offering my felicitations to my Maker in one month's time."

He slammed his fist on the table. "
One month
, " he thundered. "And you order me bathed and affixed to your bed yet refuse to tell me why or how long you would see me suffer through this perverse form of torture?"

"It is not my will to torture you."

"Nay? You torment me by your very presence and 'tis well I think you know it.' He towered over her, his face dark with rage. "What is your will?"

Trembling, Isolde pushed to her feet, intending to shove her chair between herself and his wrath, but his arm shot out and he seized hold of her, his fingers digging into the tender flesh of her upper arm.