Seduced by a Highlander (17 page)

There was only one thing to do about it, and she would do it loud and clear. She forced a smile when Cam and John entered the house toting bundles of firewood under
their arms. She didn’t ask Patrick how everything had gone when he returned to the hall and took his seat at the head of the table. She didn’t care, and she was going to let all her brothers know it.

She couldn’t have planned it any better herself when Lachlan pounded down the stairs and announced that MacGregor refused to eat anything from anyone’s hand but Miss Fergusson’s. He sent his apologies, but hers was the only hand he trusted not to poison him.

“Let him go hungry then,” Patrick muttered, shoving his spoon into his mouth.

“No,” Isobel said, rising from her chair. “If he wants me to feed him, then by all means, I shall.”

She took the bowl from Lachlan’s hand and tugged on Patrick’s sleeve. “Ye are not going to drink that unholy whisky ye and Andrew Kennedy brewed behind the barn last winter, aye?”

“Not unless I want to be abed fer the next sennight, sick as a dog.”

She smiled, looking a bit like Tamas. “Lachlan, fetch it fer me, will ye?”

“Ye are not going to make MacGregor drink that, are ye, Bel?”

“No, Cam,” she replied, turning to him. “I am going to feed it to him.”

Patrick grimaced into his cup but voiced no objection. John asked if he could watch. Isobel refused and emptied some of Tristan’s stew into her bowl to make room. When Lachlan returned, she took the bottle from him, popped the cork with her teeth, and poured a goodly amount of the foul-smelling liquid into his supper.

“Ye will not get him to agree to a second spoonful, sister,” Patrick said, laughing, as she reached the stairs.

“Aye,” she answered in a low voice her brothers could not hear. “I will get him to eat every drop.”

She didn’t look at Tristan as she entered the room. She thought it best not to. Tamas turned from scrubbing the window and tossed her a scowl such as could have been found on the face of the most miserable battle-scarred warrior. She ignored that, as well.

“Yer brother Lachlan boasted that ye cook better than any lass in Scotland.” Tristan’s voice seeped through her bones like sun-warmed honey.

“He embellishes,” she said, refusing to allow his husky tone to sway her from her task. “Has my elixir relieved yer pain?” She sat down in the chair beside the bed and finally spared him a glance.

He nodded, fixing those wolf-colored eyes on her while she stirred his stew. Her hand trembled just a little and she cursed silently that he should see his effect on her. His arm was still bound to the bedpost. The rest of his body certainly posed no threat to her, and yet she had the uncomfortable sensation that he was in complete control and she was the prey here. “I do not expect ye to trust any of us, Mister MacGregor, but I would have ye know that none of my brothers would poison ye.” She scooped some stew onto his spoon.

“Nae, they would only shoot me with arrows and fire stones at my head.” He smiled at her when she finally met his gaze. Hell, he wasn’t even angry… or mayhap he was and masked it extremely well.

“We were not trying to kill ye,” came Tamas’s hard voice from the window. “If we were, ye would be dead.”

“He speaks the truth,” Isobel assured. “We wish to send ye home alive and escape yer kin’s bloodlust fer further revenge. Now, open yer mouth, please.”

Tristan followed the spoon as she brought it to his lips and then lifted his eyes to hers again. “It smells foul; I thought—”

Deftly, she dipped the spoon’s contents into his mouth. A look of horror came over him as the flavor settled over his taste buds. He looked about to spit it out, so Isobel did what she promised herself she would not do. She smiled at him. “Good? I prepared it myself as I do all our meals. I would not claim to be the best cook in Scotland”—she scooped up another heaping—“but I admit that I do take pride in my dishes.”

He swallowed, rather forcefully, and retreated deeper into his pillow when the spoon came near a second time. “Why, just a few nights ago Andrew Kennedy claimed that he could live happily fer the next thirty years on my cooking.”

He opened his mouth, accepting more. “Who is this…” He shivered from his toes to his shoulders, chewing quickly and swallowing even faster. “Andrew Kennedy?”

“One of Patrick’s friends.” She fed him a third helping.

“And what is he to ye?”

“An admirer… of my cooking,” she added, smiling as brightly as the sun.

He seemed to melt before her eyes. Ah, good, the brew was taking affect. She remembered how drunk he had been in England after only two cups of the king’s finest wine. She forced back a nervous giggle at the potency of the whisky he was ingesting now. He was going to feel like hell for the next few days, but it would prove to her brothers that she felt nothing for their sworn enemy.

“Ye know,” he said, his eyes and his voice going all soft on her. “Ye grow more bonnie to me each day.”

She almost dropped the spoon on his chest, unprepared,
not for his craftily spun words, but for the way in which he spoke them. Tenderly, meaningfully, as if nothing in the world meant more to him than having her believe him. She glanced at Tamas, wishing now that she hadn’t made him clean up the honey.

She shoved more stew into Tristan’s smiling mouth and leaned in closer to him. “Ye must not speak so in front of my brothers.”

“Ye smell pleasant too.” He chewed more slowly now and even licked a drop off his lips.

The sight of his tongue so close nearly made her spring from her chair and run from the room.

“Clean and fresh like dewdrops on the grass—”

Such pretty words. A little more stew and she would not have to listen to them again for a few days.

“—and like some lost memory of Eden, ye have haunted me.”

Isobel swallowed, the spoon poised in midair. She haunted him? No, he was lying, trying to seduce her.

“What is that he is saying?” Tamas moved away from the window and took a step toward the bed.

Quickly, Isobel pressed her finger to Tristan’s lips. “Cease yer talk, MacGregor!” she whispered on a swift breath. “I will not have them think there is anything between—”

He kissed her finger.

Isobel pulled back with a shriek and Tamas rushed the rest of the way to her side.

“What is it? What did he do?”

“Nothing.” She tried to sound calm, but Tristan’s unbidden, intimate kiss stole her breath. “Here.” She shoved the bowl into Tamas’s hands and stood up. “Finish feeding him. I… I cannot stand the sight of him anymore.”

She had never lied to her brothers before, and she felt terribly guilty as she fled the room, heart pounding through her kirtle. He kissed her again! The bastard! The bold, reckless, profoundly charming—even on his way to becoming completely soused—son of a dog kissed her again!

Tamas studied their groggy captive thoughtfully, lifted the bowl of stew to his nose, and then pulled it away with a snarl. Patrick’s failed brew. They all remembered the smell of it permeating the house like an attack of angry skunks.

“My sister wants me to make certain ye finish eating it all, and I always do as she says. But first”—he carried the bowl to the window, plucked up the rag he’d used to soak up the honey, and practically skipped back to the bed—“ye will be needing this in case I spill some on ye.” He grinned while he spread the cloth over his victim’s bare chest. He felt only a tad bit guilty when MacGregor grinned back at him.

T
ristan woke from his delirium two days later. Or rather, he was revived from it. One does not wake from death, after all. He opened his eyes and a cannon-ball smashed across his skull. Good God, he’d never felt anything like it. Tamas’s well-aimed stone hadn’t made him hurt this much. It pained him to breathe. What had they done to him this time? What had
Isobel
done to him? Hell, she had poisoned him, and she did it with a smile on her face. They were all mad! Somehow, he had to move. He finally had to admit defeat. It had been a mistake to come here. Clearly, they did not want peace. He had to escape their demented clutches, but he couldn’t even think without a wave of nausea threatening to overtake him. He tried to calm himself, slow his heartbeat in the hope that his wits would return to him.

Isobel had claimed that none of her brothers meant to kill him, but she had deceived him. They were taking turns trying to end his life slowly, torturously.

Two hours later, he still could not believe she had hand-fed him poison. He tried opening his eyes again
and realized for the first time that no one had entered his room all day. Likely, they believed him dead, so why bother?

Lunatics.

The pain in his head had subsided a bit, but the wrapping above his brows was driving him mad. He rotated his wounded shoulder, pleased and relieved that it, too, felt better. Slipping his arm from its sling, he pulled the wrapping away from his head and set about working on the thick knot securing his other wrist to the bed. He was getting the hell out of here while he still had breath. His healing arm was stiff, so he used his teeth to tear the rest of the knot away. The moment he was free he became aware of another kind of pain stabbing through him. Nae, not through him, but
on
him. His flesh felt as if it was on fire. Stinging, itchy, burning a little… He pushed himself up on his good elbow and looked down at the angry welts covering his chest and belly. He knew there were more beneath the rag affixed to his chest. That rotten runt of a Fergusson’s work. Och, Tristan didn’t give a rat’s arse how young the boy was, Tamas was going to regret this.

He sat up fully and then leaned over the side of the bed and threw up what was left in his stomach, which was practically nothing after two days without food.

Pushing himself up, he tore the rag from his chest and tightened his jaw against the agony of his hair being ripped out. What manner of devils were they? He swiped his mouth with the cloth, then threw it at the wall.

Hell, he was hungry. He would hunt just as soon as he was a safe distance away. He had to find his breeches and his horse. He looked around the room. Where was his sword? Could he even walk to it once he found it?

He swung his good leg over the edge first and then
carefully eased the other over the side. He was about to attempt to stand when the door opened.

Ah, it was the fair Isobel come to check the corpse. He almost smiled at the stunned look on her face when she saw him sitting up.

“Sorry to disappoint ye, ye heartless wench,” he snarled.

“How did ye…?” Her wide gaze swung to the bedpost where the rope that had bound him lay wilted on the mattress.

A small head, the one Tristan remembered as belonging to the lad who had shot him in the leg, appeared around Isobel’s left arm. Damnation, how many of them were there?

“John”—Isobel pushed him away from the door—“go fetch Patrick.”

“Aye,” Tristan shouted after him. “Fetch Tamas, too, so I can hurl him oot the window!”

Isobel gasped and when he looked at her, her eyes narrowed into thin slits. “How can ye even jest about doing such a thing?”

“I am no’ jestin’, Miss Fergusson,” he snapped back. “And ye’ll be next.”

“Quit threatening her, MacGregor.” This time Tristan knew the face appearing at her side. Cameron. And the bastard had Tristan’s sword.

“Ye’re a bunch of thieves as well, I see.”

“Do not move!” Cameron warned, waving the blade at him when Tristan tried to push himself off the bed.

“So then,” Tristan jeered at him, “ye mean to kill me with my own sword?”

Almost instantly, Cameron lowered the weapon, and his gaze along with it. “I do not mean to kill anyone.”

“Aye.” Tristan laughed hollowly. “None of ye do.”

“D’ye scoff at my words?” Isobel charged, now looking as angry as he felt.

“Aye, I scoff at them! D’ye stand there and deny poisonin’ me, Miss Fergusson?” He cut her off with the force of his fury when she opened her mouth. “D’ye deny that ’twas yer own brother who mopped the honey off the window and placed the sweet rag on my chest while I was fightin’ death?”

“Fighting death?” Isobel looked about to laugh at him and Tristan felt his blood boil.