The Return of Black Douglas (15 page)

Her heart seemed to stop beating. “But, you said—you cannot mean to leave us here.”

“Ye make insufficient conclusions from sufficient premises.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Did I say it was now?

He gave her a Mona Lisa smile and vanished.

She was glad he had come, if for no other reason than to know he had not forgotten about her. She stared at the uncovered window, watching the lightning flash bright as the beam of a lighthouse. She wished someone had had the forethought to draw the tapestry. When the next slash of lightning illuminated her room, she decided to close it herself and made her way to the window.

Her attention was drawn to the figure of a man. She frowned, for she was certain it was Alysandir standing there, wrapped in the fury of the wind and swirling mist. He was staring out over the vast darkness, toward where the battered shores of Mull met the waters of the Atlantic.

What was he doing standing on the battlement walk in the midst of a storm? Was a ship running aground? Lightning flashed. She saw his head thrown back while rain pelting his face. And then she had a horrible thought. Was he contemplating suicide?

A storm such as she had never seen was setting in, and still he did not leave. She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t tear herself away from the window. There was something achingly sorrowful, even dangerous about his dark figure and the agony she sensed that had drawn him to the water. Another serrated flash of light split the night sky. And at that moment, he turned to look at the window where she stood.

They remained as they were, each staring at the other for a moment or two, before he drew together the cape that whipped wildly about him and turned away. Then, he did something that made her heart stop. Instead of turning back to the castle, he walked closer to the edge and leaned out over the embrasure.

Terrified he was going to jump, she grabbed her cape and hurried down the stairs, rushing past two surprised guards and a drowsy hound before she reached the door that led to the parapet wall.

Alysandir felt the yank on his arm and turned to see Isobella standing beside him, wild-eyed, as she tugged on his sleeve.

“Don’t do it! Nothing can be bad enough for that. Once you jump, there will be no going back.”

Alysandir stared at her, not understanding her gibberish until he saw the terrified expression on her face just before she threw her arms around him. She looked pleadingly into his eyes and said, “Please, I beg you. Don’t jump!”

Jump?
He was about to laugh outright, or at least chastise her, and then order her back to her bedchamber. But something about the desperation in her voice touched him and gentled his spirit. He looked down at her upturned face, and the blood began to run thick and heavy in his veins as an aching need for her gripped him low in his belly.

Her braids had come undone, and her hair fell in a wet, tangled mass down to her waist. Water ran in streams over her face, causing her eyelashes to clump together, but her trembling mouth, so soft and full, was his undoing.

With a muffled oath, he took her in his arms and crushed her against himself, consumed with dark, primal lust. Her mouth tasted sweet and lushly potent, and he was consumed by an aching desire to know what it felt like to be inside her. He wanted to absorb her into himself, to possess her in a way that she would never be able to forget. Nor would she want to.

Her slender arms were clamped tightly around his neck. In spite of the two cloaks between them, the hard press of her body inflamed him. He kissed her again as all about them rain poured down and the wind blew.

Her mouth was wild and hunger-laced and equal to his wild craving. She was achingly beautiful with her lips swollen from his kisses, and he could see desire burning deep in her eyes. Was he dreaming? Was this the woman of his wild fantasy? Was she his dream lover? Or was this truly Isobella he held?

Mayhap she is the granite crag upon which thou will wreck…

For a moment, her image seemed to blur before him. Whichever she was, she was here in his arms, and he did not care if she was a fantasy or not. He wanted to devour her with more than just his eyes and taste more than her lips.

“Come inside,” she pleaded. “We can talk about it.”

Part of him wanted to turn away and leave her. Part of him wanted to carry her back into the castle and make love to her until the sun was high in the sky. No part of him wanted to talk. “I want to do more than talk, lass,” he said, and he swept her up and into his arms.

He carried her inside, his body hard and throbbing with desire. He wanted to fill her with himself and spill his seed in the bed of her warmth. Her delicate arms were still wound around his neck, and she laid her head against his chest until he pushed the door to her room open and carried her inside. She lifted her head and looked around. “I thought we were going somewhere to talk.”

“We are somewhere. We can talk here.”

She lifted one eyebrow so doubtfully that he wanted to laugh. But he held the urge in check, for his desire to bed her superseded all. The humor drained away. He lowered her to her feet in front of the fireplace, surprised to see the fire still blazed so far into the night, something he accepted as a boon.

Firelight adored her face and tinted the copper spirals of her wet hair with the brilliance of rubies. He closed his eyes and imagined her standing thus, the golden glow of the fire upon her naked skin, and wearing naught but his mother’s ruby necklace. He would bathe her in the nectar of brandewijn and make himself drunk on the taste of her velvety skin.

The bottle he had sent to ease the pain of her ankle still stood upon the tray near the bed. He filled a goblet from the bottle, and when he turned toward her, he was breathless at the sight of her. Her cape had fallen open to reveal a nightgown the color of the sun—pale and amber—the damp fabric draping her damp body and flirting with her hips. He drank deeply, wanting to warm his blood and stoke the fire in his loins.

His head felt light and his body hot. He frowned and gazed down at the goblet still in his hand. He did not drink enough to be drunk, and he wasn’t dreaming. Yet the lines separating what was real, what he dreamt, and what he desired had disappeared. All was illusory.

He could not go back to his life as it had been before. Her coming had changed that. It was not her fault, nor was it his. It was not the fault of desire or the lack of it. It was not the fault of having a woman in his life or having none. The fault lay with this woman, because she was different.

She filled his thoughts by day and tormented his sleep at night. He desired her, and the yearning rose in him as the sap rises in a tree. He wanted that part of her that was warm and naïve, kind and curious, considerate, and full of empathy. He welcomed her lightheartedness and her laughter and the companionship he had with her. He enjoyed her odd way of expressing herself and, yes, even her outspoken ways. But he did not want to.

“Ye came to me on the parapet. Was it to tempt me?”

“It will take me the rest of the night to dry my clothes and hair and to warm my body—a little extreme for sport. I thought you were going to jump. I wanted to prevent it if I could.”

He almost laughed, until he saw the way her eyes glistened as she drew the cloak tightly about herself and turned toward the fire. “I think you should go now. It will be daylight soon. I need to dry my hair and get out of these wet clothes.”

“And would it have bothered you if I had jumped?”

She whirled around, her eyes flashing angrily. “Of course it would! I am not a hard-hearted wretch! You saved my life. I owe you a tremendous debt. How could I hope to gain anything by your death when you have treated me with every kindness and sheltered me in your home?”

“Those are the only reasons?”

She shrugged. “I like you. You are brave and strong, yet your heart is kind, your manner gentle, and your heart pure. You have a great future ahead of you. Your clan and your country need you. And I am indebted to you. Why would I want to watch you jump if I could prevent it?”

He gazed down into her upturned face, mesmerized by her eyes, huge and luminous, and he felt another little part of him open to her. Looking into her eyes was like staring into a clear loch, for beneath the surface there was nothing he feared, nothing that troubled him or made him distrust her.

“And if I wished to collect upon the debt ye owe me this verra night? What would ye say?” He fought against the dizziness of desire. Och, he could take her right now, standing up, on the floor, straddling her in the bed, tupping her backed against the wall.

He took her chin in his hand and tilted her face and saw that her expression was watchful, almost fearful. The lamplight filtering through her long lashes left a fringe of a shadow upon her porcelain cheek.

There was honesty in her eyes, and he knew her capable of telling the truth, yet something did not sit well with him. It was like a burr that pricked at him each time he moved, a reminder that he needed to dig deeper, to find the real reason she was here. And therein lay the crux of the matter.

He wanted to learn the truth, but he wanted her to tell him because she wanted to, not because he forced it from her. “Ye have naught to fear from me.” He wanted to be close to her on this night. He needed her warmth, her softness, her understanding, her tolerant manner to make him forget the women in his past, if only for a short while.

She studied him with eyes green as the mossy stones in Macquarrie’s burn. He needed no further prompting, for simply talking to her turned him to stone. His thumb stroked the fullness of the mouth he had wanted to kiss since she walked into the hall tonight, wearing the gown that fit every supple inch of her.

His mouth slid over hers in a hard kiss that grew more demanding as he felt her arms go around him. She groaned, and his body leapt in response. His hand covered her breast, and he felt her softness through the thin fabric of her gown. He pulled away from her and whispered Gaelic phrases in her ear.

“Let me make love to ye.”

“No…”

“Aye,” he said, and his hand lifted the damp gown so he could touch her smooth skin. Her softness made him groan. He touched her gently, insane with wanting. “Ye are denying what ye want, and yer body is the proof.”

“It isn’t the first time my body and my mind did not agree.” She pushed against him. “I can’t.”

He wanted to teach her to make love with him and to him, to bring her pleasure and to show her how to bring pleasure to him. He knew it would be perfect between them, and he would give her anything she desired…

Except marriage…

He pushed the thought aside. His hand trembled when he lifted one copper curl and rubbed the damp, silky texture between his fingers. “So lovely to look at. So desirable to touch. So impossible to trust.”

Her look of confusion turned to shame and remorse, born of a brief moment of pleasure. He sensed the sudden shift, the cool withdrawal. She wasn’t going to give in to him now. What kind of sorceress was she? For she tempted him even with her denial.

Chapter 20

A primrose by a river’s brim

A yellow primrose was to him,

And it was nothing more.

—
Peter Bell
, 1819
William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
English poet

Isobella’s first impulse was to slap him, but she knew his actions were partly her fault. He kissed her, and she kissed him back. Her arms went around him, and she groaned low in her throat. She did nothing to stop him when he put his hand on her breast. She was ready when he touched her. He knew exactly what that meant, and he was right. She had gone to him in a thin, linen nightgown and ended up here in a candlelit room, with Mr. Darcy peering down at her in his wet shirt. She had let him think that he could come to her room and she would melt against him.

But now his words stopped her, and his next question was the one she feared the most. “Who are ye? Ye appear suddenly out of nowhere and willna tell me from whence ye came. Ye wear strange clothes and speak English with an unknown accent. Ye and yer sister were alone with naught a possession but yer satchels.

“Ye act cold and withdrawn one moment, then ye melt in my arms when I least expect it. Ye can bare yer heart to me one moment, only to be shrouded in mist and mystery the next. I find ye so beautiful I ache and so full of suspect I want to lock ye away. So tell me, mistress, who are ye and why were ye spying on me from the window?”

His voice was thick, and his finger stroked her cheek. “Did ye find out what ye wanted to know? Will ye send word to someone that I am here at Màrrach? Will there be hell to pay when I leave here on the morrow? What is the real reason ye are here?”

She was flabbergasted. “I don’t know what makes you think I am a spy,” she said, and that much was true. Spying on him was absurd, but he had no way of knowing that, and she wasn’t ready to tell him. Not until they found Elisabeth.

His hands came up and closed around her neck. His thumbs stroked the hollow of her throat where her blood pounded. Her eyes never left his face. Her body trembled from fear, and yet something about him made her hope for the best. He could snap her neck with ease, or he might decide to press his thumbs just a little bit harder and harder still, until her lungs screamed for air.

She looked away and closed her eyes. Her heart cracked like the shell of an egg, and disappointment flowed swiftly throughout her body. She was so attracted to him. She had seen him as her ideal, her Mr. Darcy. But the real Mr. Darcy would never have made her feel so cheap or so insignificant, so capable of bringing him harm.

The beautiful iridescent bubble of her romantic notions, nurtured for a lifetime, suddenly burst and left behind a cold emptiness. Nothing mattered now except finding Elisabeth and asking that interfering Black Douglas to do his best to send them back to their time, and failing that, at least to help them get far, far away from here.

“Have ye found what ye came here for? Are ye an English spy? Tell me. Are ye?”

“How could you accuse me?”

He stroked her cheek and cupped her chin, lifting her face so he could see her eyes. He searched the depths for an uncomfortable length of time before saying, “The fairest face, the falsest heart.”

Pain turned to anger, and she shoved his hand away. “You dare to call me false-hearted when you have nothing to base that upon? Am I not innocent until you prove me guilty? Where is the evidence of my duplicity?” She glanced away. “I am not the monster you make me out to be. I am innocent, and you are wrong to persecute me unjustly. I am telling the truth.”

His gaze didn’t waver. “Ye could also be lying. Ye could be a spy. Ye could be many things, and until ye can convince me otherwise, ye are, at present, someone I canna trust.”

She drew back her hand to slap him, but he caught her by the wrist.

“I wouldna advise that,” he said coldly.

He jerked her against him. “Let me see what wiles ye would have used to wheedle the information from me. Ye have the mouth of a courtesan, so use it.” His mouth came down upon hers, hard. He kissed her with arrogance, abandon, and so much anger that it made her lips numb. He drove his tongue into her mouth again and again, while his fingers dug into the skin of her arms and then moved up to her hair.

He broke the kiss, and his hands covered her ears as he held her head in place so she could not move it. He wanted to master her, to show her he could control her and bend her to his will and that he could force his kiss upon her whenever it suited him.

But she saw the sadness in his eyes. Yes, he knew he could force his kiss upon her, but he would never, ever force her to kiss him back.

He released her, and she wiped her hand across her mouth. “You provoke me and think that will make me meekly submit? You will never bend me to your will like that.”

Alysandir was breathing hard, whether with passion or fury, she was not sure. “I think it is time ye told me the truth, mistress, and end this suspicion between us once and for all.”

She sighed wearily, wishing she knew how to get them off this merry-go-round they seemed doomed to ride in circles for forever, it seemed. “I am not an English spy or any other kind of spy. I do not know the first thing about spying. I did not come here for any reason, and if you really want to know, I’m not sure how I ended up here.”

A fool will try by force or skill, but ne’er can bend a woman’s will.
Alysandir leaned his head back and closed his eyes and tried to still the wild rushing of his blood.

Isobella saw the thick veins in his neck and listened to his rapid breathing and knew he fought a war within himself. In the shadowy glow from the tapers in the candelabra beside him, he looked like a being from the netherworld with his wet hair and flexed jaw muscles. When he opened his eyes, she saw such pain and despair that she immediately thought of Dante’s words, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here,” and she wondered what could be so terrible that it tormented him so.

She had no answers, but she knew the cause was more than simply suspicion. There was distrust in his gaze, yes, and it was aimed at her, but she wasn’t the one who had earned it. She knew now that, without a doubt, at some time in his life a woman had hurt him so deeply that he seemed to have difficulty drawing the line between them. What surprised her most, though, was that instead of firming her resolve, his emotional scars actually softened her feelings toward him.

The power emanating from his tense body enveloped her. She recalled him riding between the two thieves, sword held high as he slashed right and left and killed them both. He was not a weakling she could toy with or put off for very long. Besides, toying with men had never been her forte.

Even now, she could feel herself drawn toward him, moth to flame, possessed and consumed. She inhaled deeply and looked away, but that did not release her from the bondage of his gaze.

“You should go now. I am tired. I am exhausted mentally by you, from thinking about my sister, all of it.” She turned away from him and went to sit on the bed. She stared at the hands folded in her lap. Instead of turning away, he joined her.

“Lovely Isobella, beautiful and mysterious, I yearn to make love with ye. Why do ye resist so?”

She turned her head away and thought of the man in her dream whose gentle touch had made her respond without fear, without distrust. Why couldn’t Alysandir be that man? She felt hopeless. She would never be able to convince him of her innocence, and it seemed pointless to try. She sighed wistfully. Did it really matter?

She did not belong here. This was not her time. These were not her people. She had a home, a family, and a country that lay centuries away. She could not give her heart and fall in love with a man who only existed in the past, any more than she could give her heart to a man who suspected the worst of her—a man who branded her a spy before he heard her story. It pained her deeply to realize Alysandir wasn’t the romantic hero she had pegged him to be. In truth, he was no more attainable than her romantic dreams of Mr. Darcy.

“Ye canna win, lass. There is no escape from Màrrach, and if by some miracle ye were able to do so, ye would not survive long out there alone.”

Why? Why was she here? Why was this happening to her? And where was that sovereign of insufferables, the Black Douglas?

Isobella stared blankly at him. “At least I would have a chance out there.”

He remained silent, his gaze hard and unsympathetic. She was caught completely off guard when he lifted his hand and gently stroked her cheek with his knuckles. “Ye are a comely lass, and that will serve ye in far better stead than resentment and anger.”

Then he stood, and she watched him cross the room in a few short strides. He took the silver goblet from the mantel and poured a generous amount of brandewijn. He carried it back to her. “Drink it doon.”

Her hand trembled as she reached for the goblet. “It isn’t mead.”

“Drink it doon!”

She did as he asked without saying anything. When she had finished, she handed him the goblet. “My throat is on fire. What else must I endure before I can sleep?”

“And is it so bad… to be here with me?”

“There have been moments…” She let the word drift away.

“Moments?”

“Yes, brief ones, when I forget your distrust and your anger and find myself liking you, but then you turn on me and become cold and accusatory. I remember what I have been through and how much of what has happened to me is something that I cannot understand or control.

“My heart is heavy. I wish I could go home, but I fear that option will never present itself to me. When I first met you, I trusted you enough to go with you. I thought you would help me. I thought you were different. I thought you were nice. I was wrong.”

His face came closer until his lips were warm against her cheek and then her throat, while, at the same time, his hands went around her. He pulled her close and held her tightly, as he whispered against her hair, “I am nice.”

Whatever it was she had drunk, it must have been working, for she couldn’t seem to muster an ounce of resistance, and her brain completely deserted her. Oh dear, now he was kissing the curve of her collarbone and moved back to the hollow of her throat.

His lips were soft and warm, and for a moment, she forgot who she was. Just for a moment. Then it hit her. She was kissing a man five hundred years her senior. Talk about an older man. But a kiss was a kiss in any century, and he was good at it, very, very good.

She moaned, low in her throat, and he responded by pulling her closer. Her arms came up of their own accord to slip around his neck. Her heart pounded wildly. She had trouble breathing. She felt her resistance fading.

“Why are you doing this to me?”

“I wish to God I knew. I am trapped in this eddy along with ye,” he said, lying down beside her and nuzzling her ear. He pulled her close and buried his face in the smooth slope of her neck and shoulder, drawing her against the hard length of his body. He placed soft, gentle kisses along the line from her shoulder to her ear and then plunged his hands into the thick coppery strands of her hair.

She moaned and he kissed her, whispering words against her throat. “I canna think when I am with ye. I am like a wild animal pacing in a cage and ye are on the outside. I want ye until I ache, but I canna do anything aboot it. And still I yearn. I ken ye dinna feel the same aboot me and that I should leave ye be. I dinna want to drive ye away, and yet I canna let ye go.”

Her voice was low, pensive. “When I was little, someone brought a small wildcat to my father. Its leg was broken in a trap. After my father set the leg, I cared for the animal, feeding and soothing it as best I could. I came to love it, and when my father said it was time to let it go, I cried and begged him to let me keep it.

“But, he said, ‘Isobella, you cannot tame something that is wild. You cannot keep it from being what it was born to be. Its life is out there with the other wild creatures like it. To keep it here, in a cage, would please you, but it would be nothing like the life he deserves. Sometimes, caring for something means letting it go.’”

“I dinna want to tame ye, Isobella, and I dinna want to force ye to do something ye dinna want to do or to be what ye dinna want to be. But I am a man and I desire ye and I ken ye have some feeling for me. I willna force ye, and I willna stop trying to persuade ye. But if ye say no, I will stop. ’Tis fair, no?”

“And if I ask you to let me go?”

“’Tis a moot point, for ye have nowhere to go. In case ye dinna ken, Mull has few settlements and five clans who live here. Our castles are the center of our lives and our means of protection.

“‘Tis not like Paris or London, where ye can hire someone to drive ye to another place. We have no roads, no towns. A woman traveling alone would be beyond dangerous. Aye, I could take ye where ye wanted to go, but what would that solve? Even if ye went to live with the Macleans, I ken ye would come to regret it and wish ye were back here.”

“I would not, for Elisabeth would be there with me.”

“I have said I would find yer sister and bring her here, and I will honor my word. ’Tis no simple matter and will require planning, imagination, and cleverness, for Angus Maclean is a wily old fox who takes great pride in rejecting each offer I make. Can ye no’ be patient, lass?”