May the devil snatch his soul for mocking her. Ne’er had he spoken thusly to a woman, but she possessed the ability to rile him beyond the outermost bounds of his patience.
Yet, even now, he felt compelled to go to her, was beset by an overwhelming desire to caress away her anger and banish his insults with kisses, sharp-smelling potion on her lips be damned.
He would, too, were she any other woman.
Were he not manacled to her bed.
Tearing his gaze from her, Donall stared into the crackling flames lapping at the hearth log. Anger roiled and simmered deep inside him. Annoyance at himself for upsetting her, exasperation over the deep-seated longing eating a hole in his gut.
A longing he couldn’t seem to extinguish despite his most ardent efforts.
Donall swore softly under his breath.
His brows drew together in a frown.
Heedless of what nonsensical and provocative proposals she might make once her agitation cooled, he would not bow to the temptation presented by his fetching keeper.
At the moment, though, if he was completely honest, doing just that was his most dread fear.
A fear he wasn’t wont to share with her.
Gazing heavenward, Donall prayed for the cunning he’d need to persuade her to release him before she discovered how very much he desired her.
The lady would no doubt take sore advantage if she knew.
Chapter Four
RELEASE ME AND a fine mantle lined with miniver shall be yours,” Donall the Bold tossed out another bribe. The hundredth he’d dangled before her ever since Niels had deposited their evening meal upon the chamber’s only table.
A sturdy oaken table he’d dragged across the room, placing it near the bed so she could share her repast with the MacLean without necessitating the removal of the iron shackle secured around his right ankle.
And already, Isolde regretted the simple gesture meant to hinder needless embarrassment between them during their first shared meal.
A fool notion he’d quickly seized to his advantage. An ill-considered impulse that sentenced her to suffer his repeated and increasingly ludicrous attempts to talk his way out of confinement.
“Not interested in furs?” He rubbed his chin and feigned a look of astonishment. “May I tempt you with twenty ells each of exquisite samite and sendal silk?”
Ignoring him, Isolde tore off a piece of brown bread and popped it in her mouth.
“A circlet for your hair set with agates and sapphires?” Isolde swallowed the bread. “Such frippery does not interest me.”
With an exaggerated sigh, he leaned forward on one elbow and peered intently at her. “A coffer of gold?”
Isolde peered right back at him. “Your wealth cannot buy my favor, Sir Donall. What I want from you cannot be bought with coin.”
He straightened at that, not answering her in words, but loudly declaring his frustration by the cold set of his jaw and the fury snapping in his eyes.
“My conditions, what I desire from you, will not lessen your riches.” Isolde struggled to remain composed beneath his sharp perusal.
A scrutiny meant to needle her.
A game he enjoyed playing.
That she knew, for a decidedly false smile began tugging at the corners of his mouth and a telltale glint danced in his dark brown eyes. Truth be told, she couldn’t quite shake the notion he found himself highly amused by her refusal to accept his absurd bids to ransom himself.
Not that she could fathom what about her rebuttals he seemed to find so entertaining.
Nor why he continued to stare holes in her rather than fill his belly or quench his thirst.
Isolde gestured to the victuals spread upon the table. “You have touched naught,” she said. “This is finer fare than you have recei—”
“The finest fare I’ve e’er seen, lass,” he interrupted, a strange huskiness edging his deep voice. Not taking his gaze off her, he leaned back against the bedpost and crossed his arms. “Still, I have good reason to abstain from such delicacies as you would offer me.”
Unable to withstand his assessing stare or the shameless intimations lurking behind his guileless-sounding comments another moment, Isolde turned aside to glance at Bodo. The little dog still dozed upon his bed by the hearth.
“Ah . . . a soft bed and a crackling fire.” The smoothly spoken words grated sorely on Isolde’s nerves. The man seemed capable of making the most innocent observation sound mocking.
Scornful.
“Since you place little value on the treasures I’ve offered you,” he droned on even though she’d turned her back to him, “I vow you hold such simple comforts in higher esteem?”
“Aye, sirrah, I do.”
He made a noise that could have been a snort of derision . . . or a chuckle. “I cannot persuade you with baubles and rich attire?”
“Nay, you cannot.” She twisted back around to face him. “I am content with little and neither needful nor desirous of finery or jewels.”
“If that is the truth, Isolde of Dunmuir,” he said, quirking a dark brow at her, “then I am most interested to hear what it is you do wish of me?”
Isolde felt her face flush. He noticed, too, for a near wolfish grin stole across his handsome features.
A knowing grin.
The grin of a victor.
Or a predator about to pounce upon its cornered prey.
Plucking idly at the folds of the well-worn lenicroich Rory had grudgingly relinquished to him, he glanced down at the borrowed plaid, his dark gaze rife with undisguised contempt. “Since there can be no question you and yours have dire need of the riches you scorn, I am indeed at a loss to imagine what conditions you mean to demand of me.”
Too riled to think of an adequate retort, Isolde met his arrogant appraisal of her means or, more appropriately, her lack thereof with a wrathful glare of her own. Far from the legendary charmer the tongue-waggers claimed him to be, she found Donall MacLean naught but boorish.
A master of churlishness.
And much too bonnie for his own good.
Even the poor quality of the homespun lenicroich he’d draped around himself did little to detract from his annoying air of superiority.
Or his stunning good looks.
If anything, the faded saffron of the garment’s soft folds emphasized the glow of his sun-burnished skin, even as the simple bone bodkin at his shoulder underscored her clan’s inferior status.
Isolde flinched at that telltale representation of her clan’s lesser standing. When he’d been taken, his own plaid had been fastened with a most noble brooch, one studded with glittering gemstones. His brooch now rested in the bottom of her locked strongbox, in safekeeping, until he’d met her conditions.
If ever he would.
Excruciatingly aware of the way he perched on the edge of her bed, studying her, Isolde helped herself to a too-large piece of green cheese. Half because she wasn’t willing to let him see she’d erred, and half to appease the hunger gnawing inside her, she stuffed the entire chunk into her mouth and began to chew.
“If it is not my wealth,” he boomed, his voice loud in the close confines of her bedchamber. His mirth, an insult. “Then it must be me you desire.”
Isolde almost choked on the cheese. Her eyes tearing, she reached for the single tankard of ale and helped herself to a healthy swallow.
“I desire naught but what is best for my people and this isle.” She plunked down the tankard and dabbed at her lips with a napkin. “Peace.”
The MacLean leaned forward again. “A piece of what, milady?” he probed, the mildness of his tone in stark contrast to the devilish glitter in his eyes.
Blessedly, a familiar whimper spared her having to respond to his double-edged rudeness. Bodo stood on his hind legs, his forepaws resting on the edge of her chair. He peered up at her, an expectant look in his bright eyes.
“One so eager should not be made to wait.” With deft fingers, Donall selected a choice morsel
of roasted seabird and offered the scrap to the little dog.
“Do you not agree?” He cast her a wholly innocent-looking glance as Bodo scampered to his side and took the proffered tidbit from his fingers.
Isolde compressed her lips and drew herself up straighter in the hard-backed chair. She would not be maneuvered into a corner by his knack for turning a clever phrase. The unchivalrous knave would need more than a tasty tidbit to win her favor.
She would not follow Bodo’s example and lavish adulation on him simply because he waved some flavorsome delicacy in front of her nose. Be it a tantalizing piece of perfectly roasted meat, a selection of sumptuous raiment, or a chest brimming with sparkling jewels.
Yet she would have to lavish some kind of attention on him if her plan was to succeed.
“Have you lost your tongue, milady?”
“What I have lost, sirrah, is my sister,” she snapped, driven to shrewishness by the sight of Bodo leaning contentedly into the blackguard’s bare leg.
His dark gaze never straying from her face, Donall the Bold reached down and rubbed the dog’s shoulders. “I share your loss.” For once, his voice held not a trace of sarcasm, but considering who and what he was, Isolde found the sincere-sounding words a greater affront than his usual mockery.
“All in my household mourn the lady Lileas,” he went on, smoothing the backs of his fingers down the length of Bodo’s spine. “Most especially my brother.”
“I find that difficult to believe.” She hadn’t missed the odd glimmer that flickered in his eyes when he’d mentioned his brother.
Iain MacLean.
Her sister’s murderer.
“Had your brother not stranded Lileas upon the Lady Rock, binding her there by her own tresses, dooming her to drown with the incoming tide, there would be no need for you or those beneath your roof to share my grief.” The sharp-toned litany rolled off her tongue with surprising rapidity, spurred on by her anger over Lileas’s death, and her resentment over what she’d taken upon herself to do to ensure a permanent end to such senseless tragedy.
But do it she would.
And with aplomb.
As if he’d read her thoughts and meant to enlighten her as to the sheer folly of her intentions, an icy mask seemed to drop over his face. “My brother did not kill his wife,” he said, his expression inscrutable, his words hollow-sounding.
Forced.
Not quite convincing.
“How do you know?” Isolde prodded, ire whirling inside her.
“I simply do,” he said, his dark countenance still unfathomable, his tone as cold as a black north wind. “My word will have to suffice.”
Isolde curled her fingers around the pewter tankard and brought it to her lips. “I am afraid it doesn’t,” she said over its rim before she took a fortifying sip.
“Then release me so I can search for the true murderer and quell your doubts.” With lightning speed, he reached across the table, seized the tankard from her hand, and slammed it onto the table. “Keeping me here is madness!” Isolde shrank back against her chair, her daring flown. Even Bodo took flight, dashing for the refuge of his padded bed by the fireside as swiftly as his short legs would carry him. Isolde stared after him, wishing she could flee the MacLean’s wrath as easily.
Instead, she clung to the comfort Bodo’s wee presence afforded her, even from across the room. Doubts, the man had said. Isolde fought back the bitterness rising in her throat. She had more doubts plaguing her than he could banish in a lifetime.
And the matter of his brother’s guilt wasn’t one of them.
Nay, it was her own ability to seduce him that she held in question.
That, and the wisdom of attempting such a feat.
“Why am I here, Isolde of Dunmuir?” he demanded, his words ringing hard in her ears. “To what purpose am I chained to your bed?”
Isolde expelled a deep sigh and met his furious gaze. “You are chained so you cannot escape.”
For a very brief moment, something surprisingly akin to admiration flashed in his eyes, but a tiny muscle jerking in his neck betold the true depth of his anger. “Answer my question: why am I bound to your bed?” He leaned toward her. “Perchance to sleep there?”
Heat surged up Isolde’s neck.
“With you?” His two words screamed outraged incredulity.
Isolde squirmed, embarrassment swelling her tongue to ten times its normal size. Not that he needed verbal confirmation of his suspicions. The hot flush stinging her cheeks surely told him what he wanted to know.
As if to prove her logic, he laughed.
Gritting her teeth, she struggled not to display any further reaction to his rudeness. But then he let his gaze roam boldly over her breasts.
Her breasts, and any other part of her not hidden from view by the table.
Her cheeks fired anew.
“Gracious lady,” he said, blessedly ending his brazen appraisal, “had you presented me with such an honor at any other time, rest assured a chain would not have been needed to keep me at your side.”
With all the dignity she could gather, Isolde lifted her chin and hoped he could not hear the wild thundering of her heart. Nor would she humiliate herself further by admitting he’d indeed guessed her intentions.
The seduction was supposed to follow a natural course.
Instead, she found herself held hostage by his drawled comments and probing stares, ill prepared to counter the verbal barbs he kept shooting at her. With amazing ease, he’d rendered her unable to do aught but sit calmly by and wait for the next brilliantly scathing observation to leap from his tongue.
A wicked gleam lighting his eyes, he ran his fingers along the edge of the table. “Much as I regret disappointing you, I must decline your tempting offer. Matters of greater import demand my immediate attention.”
His arrogance chased the fetters from her tongue. “My offer to you, sirrah, is one of peace. ’Tis well I know you may not have personally stranded my sister on the Lady Rock, but by association, you are guilty of condoning the deed. You bear the stain of an innocent’s blood on your hands.”
His face darkened, the roguish glimmer in his eyes extinguished. She’d expected a sharp retort, his denial. But rather than proclaim himself blameless, he clamped his lips into a tight line and leveled a cold, silent stare at her.
“No protestations?” Isolde bristled. “You do not deny it?”
“Deny blood on my hands? What warrior could make such a claim?” He paused, obviously striving to contain his fury. “I am a belted knight, lady. Much blood has sullied my hands, but ne’er without a fair fight and nary a drop of a woman’s.”
“I said by association.”
His eyes narrowed to slits. “May God the Father strike me dead if I lied to you.”
“You are a master of words, e’er sidestepping the truth—” Isolde faltered, the accusations she meant to hurl at him sticking in her throat, trapped there by the utter futility of arguing with him. Each harsh word spat in anger lessened her chances of inducing him to crave her favor.
Not that she cared to begin testing her wiles this night.
The morrow would serve as well.
No doubt sensing her capitulation, the insufferable wretch arched a patronizing brow. “At the moment I am master of naught but my word,” he said, his gaze lighting briefly on the heavy-linked chain binding him to her bed.
Isolde drew a deep breath. With but a few tersely spoken words and a single glance, he’d wrested control from her, imperiled her seduction plan by goading her into shrewish behavior, and unwittingly drawing her attention to the invisible chain binding her to the bed.
Her chain, one woven of all her sore troubles, condemned and confined her as soundly as his bound him.
Not that he’d spend her a smidgen of sympathy if he knew.
Impervious and proud, he sat upon the edge of her bed, peering at her, his steepled fingers slowly tapping his chin, his cold expression signaling he knew exactly wh
at disturbing thoughts troubled her heart and creased her brow.
Mother Mary, but he unnerved her.
His piercing gaze made her feel as if he’d pinned her to the tapestried wall behind her, affixed her there with the brute strength of his supercilious stare.
Of a sudden, the lacings of her gown seemed overtight 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.
Sue-Ellen Welfonder - [MacLean 01] Page 6
