Devil Black

by Laura Strickland

  “I do have a few pieces of jewelry on my person that I am willing to hand over—not terribly valuable, I fear, and I have no emotional attachment to them.”

  “Why do you not keep them for the moment?” Dougal suggested.

  “Keep them? Why?” She turned her head again. The shrieks inside the coach had risen to an alarmingly shrill level. “Oh, Bethan, do get hold of yourself.”

  “Might I ask, lady, who is in the coach?”

  “My maid, a bit disconcerted at present.”

  “Tell her she has naught to fear. She shall remain unharmed. I mean to steal but one object this evening.”

  “Oh? What might that be?”

  Dougal bowed low from the back of his horse. For answer, he edged the beast nearer the coach, closer to her. He longed to see her face, the color of her eyes. He suspected she must be homely as the back end of a sow. No woman could possess such courage and beauty besides.

  She stiffened when he looped his arm around her and scooped her up effortlessly out of the road. He felt indignation flood her and—was it fear, at last? He had no opportunity to tell, because she turned immediately into a wildcat, twisting, hissing in fury, and beating against him with both hands.

  One blow landed on his chin, a respectable thump. Others rained down on his forearms and battered his chest. She made a soft, tempestuous armful, all right, and to his surprise he felt himself grow aroused. Ah, and he had not even seen the wench’s face.

  The shrieks of the maid, apparently watching from the open door of the coach, doubled. All three coach attendants started up.

  “Ah, ah!” Lachy cautioned them and waved his sword. “Is she truly worth your lives?”

  “Miss Catherine!” one of the men bleated.

  Ah, so that was the firebrand’s name. He restrained her, forcing her against his body using but one arm; the other still employed his sword. He enjoyed using his strength and clearly felt it the moment she decided she had no hope of escape.

  She swore bitterly under her breath, causing him to smile again. “Hush,” he bade her with his mouth against her hair. “I will not hurt you—much.”

  “Who are you?” At last she sounded shaken. Not terrified, he would give her that.

  “Now, lady, you canno’ expect me to tell you that, here before your maid and your attendants.” He gestured with his sword. “All of you, inside the coach.”

  They obliged, albeit reluctantly, and Lachlan shut the door and then turned the coach, with some difficulty, in the narrow road. The coach now pointed back down the hill. Dougal had chosen his spot well.

  “What are you going to do?” his captive demanded. She had gone very still, watching the scene. He could feel her breathing, though, and he could smell her—a bouquet of pure woman that made his senses swim.

  “If they are lucky, they will not be hurt,” he said into her ear, and felt her shudder.

  Lachy rode to the front of the coach, took up the coachman’s flail, and hollered at the already spooked team of horses. They tossed their heads and took off at a dead run, the coach bouncing and clattering behind. Dougal could still hear the maid shrieking as it disappeared down the hill.

  Catherine made a strange sound in her throat. “They will wreck and be killed!”

  “Perhaps not. But they will be a long way distant from here when they stop.”

  Lachy had dismounted and was gathering the weapons from the road. Dougal nodded to him, sheathed his sword, and lifted his horse’s reins. He and Lachlan would see no more of one another this night.

  “What happens now?” Catherine demanded.

  With an unwarranted feeling of possession, Dougal shifted the arm that pinned her so his hand splayed over her breast. Her body pressed against his so fiercely, he could feel every breath she dragged into her lungs, and he wanted to enter her, so badly it hurt.

  “Now? Now you come with me.”

  Chapter Five

  “Welcome, Lady Catherine, to my abode.”

  Isobel blinked up at the stones of the structure as the black horse thundered through the gate. Night had now truly fallen; she had seen very little of the countryside during the ride hence and had been almost wholly distracted by the presence of the man pressed to her back, but here torches flared and fear stuttered over her senses. She could not guess where she might be, but the place breathed age.

  A keep of some sort, not large, though it gave that impression. The black horse’s hooves clattered on stone, making echoes off the face of the building proper. Tiny windows stared down at Isobel, and her heart struggled within her breast. She did not know for what she had hoped during the long, captive ride, but not this. The grim place offered little hope of escape.

  And, of course, escape possessed her mind—escape and gratitude that, at least, Catherine was not here in her place. By now Catherine should be far away from home, perhaps even wed with her Thomas and out of this nightmare.

  A lone retainer ran out when the horse entered the courtyard. He wore a rough kilt and leather jerkin, and he hurried to shut the gate against the darkness before catching the black horse’s bridle.

  “Well, now,” he growled, peering up at Isobel from beneath a wrinkled brow.

  “Give him a good rubdown, will you?” her captor returned. “He’s run hard and carried double.”

  “Never bothered him afore,” the man said.

  Afore? How often did this monster who had hold of her seize women? Ah, Isobel had heard of such men, in tales told of Scotland’s depravities, yet had never quite believed. Neither, apparently, had her father, or surely he would have sent a stouter escort.

  Her captor’s hand, which for miles had splayed across her left breast, at last shifted. She felt the play of muscles in his body as he swung her across the saddle effortlessly and dismounted with her still in his grasp.

  Isobel’s feet hit the courtyard and refused to hold her; the long, rough ride had robbed her legs of strength. Her captor grunted. Without a word, he swung her up and over his shoulder. Before she had the breath to protest, he carried her through the door of the keep.

  The place smelled of wood smoke and clammy stone, and something that might be wet dog. Isobel could see little enough besides the floor passing beneath her, until they entered a chamber and her captor kicked the door shut behind them, then set her down quite carefully.

  They looked at one another.

  The light here came from a fire that burned steadily on the hearth and from a few tapers set about the room. A rough place it seemed, but Isobel, holding hard to her wits, had no eyes for it.

  “Who are you?” she demanded, reaching for her courage. “What is the meaning of this? You cannot just snatch women from the road—”

  “Can I not?” he returned swiftly, his voice pricked with humor. “Imagine that!”

  I am in trouble, Isobel thought clearly, far more trouble than I have ever seen. He must be a bandit, one of the rapscallions for which Scotland was famed. He looked like a devil, one who happened to possess a lean, clever face and a long, lean body to match. Isobel weighed him as she might any adversary, looking for strengths and possible weaknesses. The process, made difficult by terror, won her a disparate number of facts: terrifying aspect, clothing as rough as that of the retainer outside, black hair tumbling down his back like the mane of his horse, and an air that virtually oozed confidence. He oozed something more, as well: a blatant maleness that, even in these circumstances, made Isobel’s senses stammer.

  She could not let herself think about that now. She needed all her energy to fathom the level of intelligence behind those eyes, narrowed between lashes black as ink, and to guess his intentions.

  He did not look stupid, which would have benefited her much, since she had confidence in her own wit. And he looked as dangerous as an adder.

  “Who are you?” she asked again, wishing she sounded less shaken. “Why am I here?”

  He took his time completing his examination of her before deigning to reply. His hard ga
ze, invasive as a touch, seemed to strip the clothing from her, lingered long on her hair, which had come unbound during the ride, and even longer on her bosom. Reading that look, Isobel very much feared she knew his intentions, and the breath caught hard in her throat.

  Thank heaven she was no virgin, if he meant to rape her.

  But he gave her a graceful bow before saying, “My lady, you are here because the King has decreed I find a bride.”

  That stole every coherent thought from Isobel’s mind. The King? A bride? And, in Scotland, were men in the habit of snatching those from the road?

  “I…” She struggled to speak. “I am the intended bride of another. Sir Bertram MacNab.”

  Her captor inclined his head. “I know the man, villain that he is. You would do better with me.”

  “That is scarcely the point. My father has entered into an agreement with Lord Randal as to a marriage between our families. You cannot just seize another man’s betrothed wife.”

  “Aye, you keep saying that. Yet you are here, are you not, Lady Catherine?”

  “You mean to hold me for ransom, is that it?” Isobel asked, calming a bit. Ransom was reasonable, at least in this environment, and Lord Randal would pay. She could be out of here inside a day.

  His gaze played over her again, slowly, and something that might be a smile quirked one corner of his mouth. “And, what of the King’s decree? If I am a good and obedient subject, I must wed you myself.” Wed, and bed, his tone implied—possibly not in that order.

  “I doubt very much you are a ‘good and obedient’ subject,” Isobel remarked.

  “You have barely made my acquaintance, yet you judge me so harshly?”

  “I have not made your acquaintance at all. You abduct me from my carriage at sword point on a dark road and send my maid and attendants to their possible deaths. At least tell me your name.”

  He smiled, a real smile this time, and it was not pretty. “They call me Devil,” he told her. “Devil Black.”

  Isobel shivered. Standing there in the leaping firelight and with the wind gusting outside, her superstitious Celtic side surged to the fore, leaving the practical Yorkshire half of her nature in the lurch.

  “I requested your true name,” she said. “Or are you too much the coward to give it to me?”

  He frowned, and at that moment the chamber door flew open and a woman rushed in, a raw, avid look on her face.

  “I do no’ believe it, Dougal!” Her eyes raked Isobel where she stood. “Have you gone mad entirely?”

  Dougal, Isobel thought, Dougal the Devil. Oh, how it suited! Yet hope leaped in Isobel’s heart. Here was a woman, surely a merciful, gentling influence…the man’s lover, perhaps? But no, the resemblance between them was uncanny, and she looked as wild as he.

  Black hair, worn loose, spun in a glossy curtain down her back, and she carried the energy of a western gale. Her face—undeniably beautiful—held an element of cruelty, as well, and when her eyes met Isobel’s, the hope in Isobel’s heart abruptly died.

  “Who is she, and how did you come by her?”

  “Calm yourself, Meg. This has naught to do with you.”

  “You can say that?” The woman’s eyes flashed what looked like hatred. “Do no’ tell me this is MacNab’s bride?”

  “He snatched me from the road,” Isobel said quickly. “He endangered my attendants. It is a violation of every rule of decency.”

  The woman—Meg—laughed. The sound carried real humor and a hint of mockery. “If you expect decency from him, miss, you are sorely mistaken.”

  “And yourself, mistress?” Isobel returned swiftly. “Have you no proper feeling either? Is this Scotland, or wild America?”

  The woman smiled, and her resemblance to Isobel’s captor became rampant. “You might be safer in America just now,” she pronounced, and turned on the man.

  “’Tis a mad stunt, Dougal. Do you want MacNab and his army at the door?”

  Dougal walked to a side table, where he poured himself a drink of amber liquor—whisky, perhaps.

  “I welcome a visit from our erstwhile neighbor at any time; I and my men will meet him with drawn swords. But MacNab will have no way of knowing who has snatched his fine son’s bride till he finds and interviews her servants, and no proof I have her even then.”

  Scathingly, Meg said, “The man may be stupid, but not an utter fool.”

  Dougal drank deeply. “They saw little—not enough to identify me. ’Twas dark and, suspect what he may, he will not dare accuse.”

  Isobel’s blood chilled in her veins. No one had seen this man’s face, nor that of his now vanished accomplice—no one, save herself. But she had seen both him and his presumed sister. He seemed a ruthless man; would he prevent her from telling? Was she fated to die here, in this unknown place?

  “You think not?” Meg demanded, with another look at Isobel. “You think the abduction of a virgin bride insufficient to rouse all MacNab’s boldest instincts? I think you may have overstepped yourself this time.”

  Dougal shrugged, displaying no apparent concern. He too eyed Isobel—with speculation. “I may have other plans for her.”

  “Rape?” Meg asked. “Surely not.”

  Isobel’s heart leaped into her throat. What sort of folk were these, who could discuss such an abomination so calmly?

  But Dougal answered, echoing, “Surely not.” He crossed the room until he stood so close to Isobel she could smell the damp on his clothes, and the slight tang of whisky on his breath. Isobel fought not to shrink away. The man gave off an aura like that of a stalking wolf: power tinged with the threat of destruction.

  She gazed into his eyes and saw they were not black, after all, but a dark, smoky grey that seemed to smolder like a banked fire.

  He reached out and captured her chin between long fingers that felt like steel. “You are a beauty, I will give you that,” he crooned. “And you have spirit. A bit too fine for MacNab, I am thinking.”

  Heat flooded Isobel’s skin, and she struggled to meet his eyes, defying the fear inside. Of all the terrible moments in her life, this competed for worst, yet she must be grateful, yes—at least Catherine did not stand here in her place. The thought sent a rush of courage through her, and she jerked herself free of his grasp.

  “I understand, sir, you are no gentleman, and you play some evil game I am not at liberty to understand. But I demand you impart your intentions toward me.”

  “You demand, do you?” A curious look invaded his eyes, half annoyance and half admiration. He withdrew just far enough to make her a mocking parody of a bow. “Why, my lady, I intend to make you my wife.”

  Chapter Six

  “I shall escape from here,” Isobel vowed to herself, a promise muttered under her breath. She could not, however, imagine how. She surveyed her surroundings and felt desperation arise and threaten to choke her.

  She had been given a sleeping chamber in the monster’s keep. Shortly after his outrageous declaration, his threat of marriage, the woman—his sister—had cursed him, employing words no decent woman might utter, and marched from the room.

  Dougal had then called a servant, an ancient man wearing a filthy kilt, and instructed him to make their guest comfortable in the “best bedchamber.”

  The “best” proved rough, indeed. The room, though spacious and lofty, contained few comforts. The stone walls seemed to radiate damp; the furnishings consisted of a wardrobe with warped doors, an ancient chest, and a bed, about which Isobel barely dared think. The servant kindled a pitifully small fire in the hearth and abandoned Isobel to her doubts and fears.

  As soon as she found herself alone, she began to tremble, the remnants of her courage deserting her abruptly. Panic filled her heart as she struggled to make sense of her situation.

  The MacNabs awaited her arrival: that one truth nothing could change. Someone would discover the wreckage of the coach containing her attendants—injured or dead. Her fate would eventually become evident.

&nbs
p; She paced the chilly room, trying to remember what her father had said about this region of Scotland. Lawless, infested with bandits, yet he had been confident MacNab, advantaged by his connections with the King, could protect Catherine. Obviously, even her father had misjudged the temerity of a bandit who would snatch a woman supposedly under MacNab’s protection.

  Isobel cursed her father for his careless arrogance. It was typical of his high-handed tendency to assume no one would interfere with him, or his. He should have sent a small army rather than a coachman and a pair of attendants. Or MacNab—curse him also!—should have sent an escort, since presumably he knew the dangers of these roads.

  But none of that would help Isobel now. She must deal with what lay in her hands, and it did not look pretty.

  She knew nothing about her captor, save his first name. She knew little enough of where he had brought her after leaving the road, through rough country, much of it, and incipient darkness. He possessed this keep, which argued some measure of wealth, yet this place was shabby, ill kept, and possibly ill staffed. She knew a guard stood outside the door of her chamber, for she had heard the exchange between him and her captor after she had been shut in.

  “She goes nowhere, Geordie, understand?”

  The guard replied with a grunt that needed no interpretation.

  The only windows in the room were two slits so high Isobel doubted she could reach them even if she climbed onto the chest. She found herself caught and fairly, like a trout in a net.

  But…why? Her captor—this lawless, terrifying man—said he meant to wed with her, but that was illegal without her consent or that of her father, and it made no sense. What sane man would snatch a stranger for a bride?

  Chances were he was not sane. That thought caused Isobel’s knees to wobble; she sat down abruptly on the edge of the bed. She knew madness when she saw it. Despite her father’s platitudes and praise, neither of her brothers had been completely sane. For that matter, her father possessed a streak of madness, come on since her mother’s death, that made him cold and unreasonable.