by Sondra Grey
His free hand came down to grip her chin, and he tilted her head up to meet his gaze. Isla didn’t try to stop herself. She bit him, lightning fast and hard. Calum cursed, jerking his hand back, startled, and nearly dropping her wrist. Isla tugged, trying to get away from him, but he regained his hold and propelled them forward until they slammed into the door. The breath left Isla’s lungs in a whoosh.
“Calm down,” he told her, but Isla writhed to free herself from his grip. Her free hand came up to strike at him, but he grabbed it with quick reflexes, holding both hands behind her back. She struggled as his grip tightened, panting as he trapped her between his chest and the wall. She tried to kick out and he stuck a knee between her legs to trap her in her gown. They were pressed flush against one another, the both of them heaving.
Isla looked up to spit at him, but his gaze stilled her. It was carnal, hungry, and indeed, as he pressed into her she could feel him, hardening against her stomach. A wave of longing tore through her, her anger sharpening into something sensual. Damn her body. Acting against her wishes it softened, her chin tilted up, lips parting.
Sensing the change in her, Calum’s smile was small, but didn’t reach his eyes. “Like that between us, is it?” he asked, and Isla shivered, hating herself for reacting.
They heard the Earl’s voice before he reached the door. Calum released Isla, and they both stepped away.
“All settled then?” the Earl boomed as the doors flung open. He strode towards his desk, holding a sheet of paper in his hand, followed by a portly gentleman carting a few large books. “Let’s get this contract drawn up.”
CHAPTER TWO
T hat night, the Gordons, the Grants, and the MacLeods dined on roasted pheasant. The great hall was full to the bursting with celebrating clansmen, drinking and toasting what everyone now seemed to agree was an excellent match.
Isla had left the contract negotiations the moment her uncle had entered the room. There was no way she was going to marry Calum Grant, and so the negotiations mattered to her not one wit. She realized that neither Calum nor the Earl were going to listen to her. If she wanted to escape Calum, she’d have to follow her mother’s example and make a run for it when everyone was sleeping.
Isla had also been hiding in her rooms when Leith Macleod had been summoned to the negotiations, but Gair and Tom had also been present for the contract signings. Gair had arrived at Isla’s rooms to recount the proceedings. Apparently, the gentlemen had agreed to an alternative arrangement. Anne Macleod would marry Christopher Gordon, and so the MacLeod’s and the Grants would still be bound by blood, but bound through their relationship with the influential Lord Gordon. It was an arrangement that suited everyone.
Nobody said a word about the pregnancy. Apparently, all involved were content to blame the strange shift in betrothals on Christopher Gordon, who had put in a formal challenge for Anne Macleod and publicly attempted to appease Calum Grant by offering up his cousin. This had all been staged while Isla paced her rooms, planning her escape.
Isla had fumed over Gair’s account of the incidents. Auctioned off like some milk-bearing heifer, and in public fashion! No wonder Deirdre had run away. Isla couldn’t imagine her mother acting as a chess piece on someone else’s board.
Upon arriving to dinner at Rhona’s side, Isla had expected everyone to be tense. Instead, the whole of the room seemed to swell with merriment. Even Leith looked appeased, and smiled and winked at her when she was forced to seat herself beside Calum. To her immense irritation, Calum seemed entirely at ease. The Earl, at his merriest, even got Calum to laugh at one point. As if this whole situation were a joke! Only Rhona seemed as subdued as Isla felt; her eyes kept seeking out her niece’s as if to assure herself that Isla was all right. Realizing that Rhona was worried about her, Isla tried to relax. Rhona would be devastated upon learning of Isla’s escape, but Isla wouldn’t stay merely to spare her aunt’s feelings. She would not marry Calum Grant. She would not spend her life tied to someone who did not love her. She would go to another village. Get a job as a healer. She could have this baby herself.
When the dinner was over, Isla all but fled from the hall and to her room. Rhona tried to follow her, but Isla told her aunt, as kindly as she could, that she wished to be by herself.
The quiet of her room was in stark contrast to the noise of the hall, and Isla felt, suddenly, more alone than she’d felt in her entire life. More alone, even, than when she was fleeing Elleric. At least then she’d known she was heading to find family. Now, her family had abandoned her – sold her off to a man who didn’t want her.
Isla would not cry. There was no control to be had here, not when you were tied to someone like the Earl of Gordon. You were a pawn, only; to be moved around in ways the benefited the clan. Isla needed to take action, to gain some control back. She paced her room, thinking of her mother.
A part of Isla knew that her anger at the Earl was unjust. He was, to a degree, trying to see her and her child safely settled. When it came down to her current situation, she was, in a way as guilty as Calum, but she would not be manipulated by that guilt.
She remained in her room until late in the night, when the castle quieted and she was sure that everyone had bedded down for the night. Then she left.
The halls were empty when she tip-toed out, and she kept to the shadows on her way down to the stables. There was no time to pack, or find food. She’d sell her silver combs when she reached a nearby town and use the money to take her…where? To the lowlands, perhaps, where nobody had ever heard of Isla Macleay.
That she met no one on the way to the stables was miraculous, but upon entering the front of the stables, she found several clansmen bedding down in the straw. She was forced to enter through the paddock doors, relieved when no one seemed to be sleeping near the back of the stables, where they kept the finer horses. Wondering which horse she might get to come along with her quietly, Isla wandered the stalls. She didn’t want to steal anything of value. She didn’t want to steal anything at all, but she needed to get away quickly.
“I’d offer you my horse, but he might bite your hand off,” Calum’s voice at her back startled a shriek from her, and she whirled and backed away so fast she tripped.
His hands shot out, and grabbed her shoulders before she lost her bearing. She wrenched away from him, backing up until the wood of a stall pressed against her back.
“Quiet lass, you’ll not want the men in the front to hear and come running.” He warned, his voice low. She couldn’t see his face in the dark, but she could sense the danger emanating off of him. She circled to the left, trying to put distance between them.
“There’s no use running, lass.” He shook his head, but kept his distance. His voice sounded almost pitying and she hated him for it.
“How’d you know I was going to run?” she asked.
“It’s how I met you, wasn’t it? Running. From what though, I still wonder?”
“It’s not your concern. Nor is this,” she hissed, waving her hands. “You’ll leave me alone and say nothing of it!”
Calum clucked his tongue against his teeth and shook his head. “And be made a laughingstock in the morning. No. Come, I’ll walk you back to your rooms.” He took a step forward and held out his hand to her. Isla swatted it away and took a step back.
“Do not come near me,” she said. “I want nothing from you. I want to be gone from here!”
“Tis not possible.” He was firm, his hand returning, steadily, palm out. “Come with me, lass, I’ll not drag you.” His tone brooked no defiance. Isla narrowed her eyes at him. She was out of options. Fine. Let him walk her back to her rooms. She’d wait a while longer and take her leave of him.
“And don’t think to be running off after. I’ll sit outside your rooms if I have to.”
Isla took a steadying breath, and then bolted. She grabbed her skirts and shot for the entrance. Tall and swift, Isla’s momentum carried her nearly out of the stables. But just as she was in
sight of the doors, steel arms banded around her, hauling her up and back so suddenly that air burst from her lungs.
She opened her mouth to scream, but a heavy hand came down and clamped over it. “Shhh! Do you want the whole castle to know what we’re about?”
Isla struggled against his grip, biting at his hand until he removed it, swearing and dropping her. She stumbled up to run again, but he reached out and, before she knew it, had her pressed against the stable walls. He held her arms behind her back, so tightly she knew there’d be bruises in the morning. Before she could struggle, her hands were bound behind her by something that, she suspected, was the black ribbon he’d worn in his hair.
When he released her, she whirled, all fire, and struck out at him with her foot, nearly tumbling off balance without the use of her hands. Calum had to sidestep her to avoid the kick and Isla took off again at a run.
She got no more than a few feet before he was on her, and then she was face first in the hay, her ankles being bound by one of the ropes normally used to secure stable doors. Tears of anger, humiliation, and frustration streaked down Isla’s face. Calum tried to speak to her, but she turned her head. So he said nothing, and hoisted her up until she was dangling over one broad, strong shoulder.
As they strode out of the stables, Isla saw only the packed dirt floor, and then the stone of the castle floors. There were a few times when he paused, when she heard footsteps, and they waited with in the shadows. Isla could have called out. She could have asked for help. But then someone would see her, trussed up like a lamb on its way to be sheered. Keeping quiet, she let him drag her back up the tower, back to her rooms.
Once they were through her door Calum laid her gently on the soft coverlet and picked some of the straw from her hair.
“Untie me,” she said, when she was sure her voice would be steady. She sounded dead, and she felt the swamping depression of defeat.
“No.” He sat down next to her and brushed the hair off of her face with a gentle hand. She hated his gentleness. She wanted the rough Calum, the Calum that had dragged her through the woods and thrown her over the side of his horse. That Calum was easier to hate. “You’ll run again, and I can’t allow that to happen. Not now Isla, there’s too much at stake.”
“There’s nothing at stake,” she said. “This is all a game! I’m nothing to you, and nothing to them, and I’m going to leave. I’m going someplace where I don’t have to think about any of you ever again.”
Calum kept stroking her hair, swept a tear from her cheek with his thumb. “It doesn’t work that way, lass. If you were just Isla the healer, perhaps. But you’re not. You’re the niece of a proud Clan Chief. You are pregnant with my child – and both The Earl and I have our enemies. You leave, and you’re still a piece to be used. There’s no going back, or moving on. If you leave, you’ll disgrace your uncle. I’ll be obligated to find you, and if I’m searching for you, if the Gordon’s are searching for you, if the MacLeod’s are searching for you – then so will the Cameron’s, and the Douglas’s, and the MacDonald’s. You’ll be used as leverage, ransomed… I cannot untie you Isla.”
“You could,” she said, she was crying now. His tenderness was undoing her. “You could let me go. You could forget all of this.”
He was silent a moment and then his hands stopped their stroking. He leaned down and picked her up, so that they stared at one another, face to face. Even in the dark she could see clearly the rough beauty in his features, the sympathy in his eyes. Be angry with me! She urged him. She’d never received anyone’s sympathy – their ire, their frustration, their amusement. She couldn’t bear sympathy. It wasn’t an emotion Deirdre ever allowed.
“There’s no forgetting, Isla.” He reached down, his hand flattening intimately over her stomach.
“Don’t pretend you care about me!” she said, reaching for her haughtiness, for her healer’s cool. “Release me! Unbind me, and let me be rid of you!”
His gaze firmed, lips pressed flat a moment. He took a long breath and then spoke again. “Isla. Think rationally. I know you are a rational woman at heart. Look on this with intelligence, and not passion.”
He met her stare and held it, and Isla took a deep breath. He was right. She was letting her passion rule her better instincts. She needed a cooler head. She scooted away from him, needing the distance, and he let her. When she felt she could speak without heat, she inclined her head.
“I’m sorry, Isla. I’m sorry about what I said in my study. I was appalled at myself, at my behavior that night of the feast, and I sought to blame you for what had occurred. I acted impulsively.” He shook his head, “You bring that out in me. I have little control around you.” He reached out, warm hand encircling her knee through her gown. “And rather than cool off, think things through, I left. I rode to Skye to meet with the MacLeod’s and engaged myself to Anne. It was a mistake, and I knew it immediately, but I did it because I thought it was in the best interest of my clan. I knew if I didn’t obligate myself to another, I’d ride back to find you – I’d act in my own self-interest, instead of the interest of my people. I thought I was doing what was best. And in doing what was best for me – I did not think of you. And I’m sorry.”
Isla didn’t want to forgive him. She pressed her lips hard together and breathed only through her nose.
“I wish I were upset at the way things turned out,” he said, ruefully, giving her a half smile that died when he saw her face. He shrugged. “I’m not. Anne still gets a husband, and I get an alliance with the Gordons. I get a child,” he paused, reaching a hand out for Isla’s face, but she jerked it away. “And I get you,” he finished softly. “And I’d be lying to both of us, Isla, if I said I didn’t want you.”
Isla said nothing. She refused to be persuaded by anything that came out of Calum Grant’s mouth. She stared at the window and thought of her freedom. She thought about the sea at Aberdeen, of fleeing south and spiting all of them.
“Think it through Isla,” he said, softly. “Think it through. Think of your options. You can marry me, be lady of Dundur, raise your child with a father who will love it. Or I can leave.”
She looked at him, sharply, and he shrugged. “I’ll not let you run, but if the morning comes, and you still wish to be free of me, I will speak to the Earl myself.”
Isla’s breath caught in her throat. Was he only saying that to appease her? She stared at him, and he met her stare. No, he meant it.
“Sleep,” he said, standing up and removing his boots. He left his kilt and shirt on and walked around to the other side of the bed. Laying down on it, he took up almost half of the mattress. “Sleep,” he repeated, closing his eyes to her. “Think on it. We’ll speak in the morning.”
How he could fall asleep in her room, with her tied up and sitting over him, and the rest of the castle only a scream’s worth away, Isla couldn’t fathom. But in minutes, Calum’s breathing was deep and untroubled.
Isla stared at him. Doubt had found its way into her certainty and she sat there, working at her hands, trying to loosen the ribbon because all she wanted to do at that moment was pace and wring her hands.
Perhaps Calum hadn’t tied her wrists that tightly, or perhaps the silk ribbon wasn’t the best fabric for tying knots, but she had the ties loosened enough to work the knots over her knuckles and free her hands.
Isla worked quickly, shaking out her wrists and reaching down to untie the knot at her feet. Beside her, Calum slumbered on, chest rising and falling in a peaceful rhythm. Isla stood, ready to leave again. But when she turned, to check and make sure Calum was really and truly asleep, she stopped.
Lying atop her bed, jaw slack, hair loose, kilt rucked up so that his muscular thighs were bared, he looked like she imagined a fallen angel might look, as if he’d tumbled from some height, and landed, limbs loose and askew.
A vision flashed before her eyes: Calum in the courtyard of Dundur, after his run-in with the horse. Unconscious, bleeding and helpless. Isla’s ar
ms crossed instinctively over her stomach. Inside her, his child grew – a child that would never know its father if she left. Could she leave? Could she still leave?
The sun was perhaps an hour from rising when Calum awoke. His breathing stopped short, and he snorted, as if a dream had ended. Abruptly his eyes opened and he turned to his left, to where Isla should have been. She saw the momentary panic in his tense shoulders, in the abrupt way he sat up. Then he spotted her, sitting in the chair in the corner of the room.
He took a deep, steadying breath, his voice rough with sleep as he said, “You’re still here.”
“Yes.”
“Then you’ve decided what you’ll do?” He didn’t move a muscle, just watched her.
“Yes.” She said. “I’ll marry you.”
There was no smile, no celebration. Her tone made it clear that marriage to him was not what she wanted. And Calum seemed to take that in stride. He stood up, nodded and went to retrieve his boots.
“Then, my future Lady Dundur, I recommend you get some sleep. We wed in just a few short hours.”
He reached down and took her unwilling hand in his. He pressed a warm kiss to the top of her palm and then strode out her door.
The wedding was held at the castle chapel, which was big enough to accommodate most of the clansmen from all three clans. The ceremony was short, and while those who viewed it admitted that the Laird of Dundur looked resplendent, and his bride looked absolutely breathtaking, none commented over how joyed the couple looked. Indeed, the Laird of Dundur looked calm and collected, but Isla Macleay looked almost lifeless, expression blank, gaze fixed somewhere past the priest’s head.
When the kiss had to be sealed, people watched, breathless, as the Laird of Dundur took his new wife by the chin, folded her close to his chest, and covered her mouth with his. And they’d swear that the young healer’s knees had wobbled.
