Devil Black (31 page)
Isobel looked up. Dougal had caught her at her morning ablutions. Bright sunlight poured through the slit windows of the chamber and turned her hair to flame. Barely a week had passed since the rescue, but the grey weather seemed to have cleared as miraculously as the cloud of despair on Dougal’s heart.
“How is Lachy?” Isobel asked.
“Definitely on the mend—Meg even believes he will keep his arm. Lachy must be nearly well, for he insists on sending for O’Rourke, to perform for him a marriage service.”
“O’Rourke does perform a very fine marriage. To that I can attest.” Isobel raised one eyebrow. “But has Meg agreed to wed with Lachlan?”
“Not yet, though I canna’ think she clawed him back from the very edge of death only to reject him now.”
Isobel did not reply. Dougal watched as a single drop of water trickled down her neck, caressed her throat and headed toward still more interesting regions. By the devil’s horns, how bonny she looked with that red hair all loose, flowing over her shoulders, and wearing but a thin sleeping gown that revealed the tantalizing shape of breast and thigh.
He had not yet attempted to share her bed since their return from MacNab’s stronghold. He had told himself he might yet be arrested if Randal MacNab complained loudly enough to the King, and that Isobel needed time to recover from her ordeal. Aye, he had made all kinds of excuses, dodging the truth, which was that there were things needing to be said between them, and a ghost still to be laid.
Now she lifted her chin and her clear eyes met his steadily. At that look, he felt his blood stir.
“And so Bertram MacNab did not succumb to his injuries, either?”
Dougal leaned against the doorway. “He did not. The man is strong as a bull.”
“And evil as a demon. Husband, will you not come in?” She added carefully, “You might tell me the rest of your news.”
Dougal sauntered in and closed the door behind him. “As you wish.” He sat on the bench in front of the fire, where he had a good view of her, bending to her basin. “Word has it the King, tiring of the cold and damp, has left Stirling and returned to London. It may be Bertram will rot in his cell a long time.”
“So then Randal MacNab will be unable to bend the King’s ear?”
“He will not. But only listen to this—it turns out the estimable scribe William Campbell is himself right close to the King and went to him directly with his account of MacNab’s sins. Who would have thought?”
Isobel stared. “Certainly not I.”
“Nor I.” Dougal stretched comfortably. “The man from whom I got the news says ’tis largely why Bertram was arrested in the first place.”
She raised an eyebrow. “The man from whom you got the news?”
“Campbell, himself.” Dougal grinned. “He stopped by here late last night on his way from Stirling, while you slept. He is away again now, on the King’s business.”
Carefully, Isobel laid aside her cloth and hand towel; he saw her breasts rise as she drew a breath. “Does this mean it is over—truly over?”
“I suspect so. Campbell says Bertram is a broken man who does not wish to live. Apparently that last wound he took refuses to heal.”
Isobel shuddered, but said, “He has what he deserves. And what of his father?”
“Now, there is an interesting thing. When Campbell recited to James a full account of what had taken place, and the things he heard Randal say, the King became so incensed he confiscated all MacNab lands in Lothian. The King does not take well to being a pawn to another man’s ambition. It makes a fine justice, does it not?”
Isobel nodded, still watching him.
“Campbell has recommended a steward—someone local, you understand—to oversee MacNab’s former holdings. He is a man you know right well, who has vowed most sincerely to settle down and live the balance of his life for his lands—and his family.”
“Has he, indeed, so vowed?”
Gravely, Dougal nodded. “So as for whether the thing is over and done—in part that rests with you, Wife, does it not? Can you put what happened behind you? Can your wounds heal?”
She met his gaze, fearless and challenging. “Can yours? They are far deeper than my own.”
He lifted a hand and touched the scar on his cheek. Then he rose and approached her, his thoughts rampant in his mind. Of all the things he needed to say to her, one reigned supreme, and his native honesty would not let him dodge it now.
“I suspect my wounds will scab over now that they have been cleansed,” he said. “Perhaps that is the best for which I can hope.” He reached out softly and touched her face, brow, and chin. “I need to tell you, Wife, I will always love Aisla and will never love any other as I did love her.”
“You think I do not know that?” Gently, she withdrew from his touch, her eyes still holding his.
“’Twas a first love, and with something innocent in it. I suppose ’tis hard for you to imagine me innocent.”
She shook her head.
He smiled sadly. “Do you know, she and I never even lay together? I feared hurting her. I kissed her, aye, and dreamed. I made promises—too many promises—but she was taken from me before I could taste her, in truth.”
“And so she will always be pure to you, no matter what happened after. She will always,” Isobel added bitterly, “be beautiful and young.”
“Aye.” He went on heavily, “But I, for my sins, have changed a great deal. I am no’ the lad I was then, but a man, with a man’s needs. A man’s wants. Isobel, I ha’ been so unfair to you, forcing you into this marriage, neglecting to value you as I should. You have every right to walk away from me now, return to your father, or go make a life for yourself. If that is what you want, I tell you fairly I will not hold you, and I will settle a sum of money on you so you might have what I suspect you prize most—independence.”
Isobel’s eyes widened and she got slowly to her feet. “You would grant me that?”
“Someone should. You are strong and courageous, and graced with the brains to make your own way.”
“Oh!” she said.
“Thomas Hewett has agreed to stay here, however,” Dougal went on, not at all steadily now, “to act as my bailiff, and your sister, of course, with him. I did hope you might choose to remain here with her.”
“You are saying I should stay for Catherine?”
“No.” Dougal closed his eyes for an instant and called upon a deity all too often denied, before he sank to his knees at her feet in unthinking humility. “Stay, Isobel, please? Stay wi’ me.”
She caught her breath, and one hand flew to her throat. He captured the other, still damp, and brought it to his lips to kiss, not the back of it but the palm.
She said, “I can imagine very little worse than living my life with a man I love but who loves me not.”
“Nor I,” he agreed, searching his mind, his heart for words—the right words—those he needed to make her understand. “I do not deserve you. I know that fine. But by God, I want you. No—not just in my bed but in my life. I want you to fill my days, my dreams, share with me your laughter and the beauty of your spirit. Isobel, I thought my heart crippled and blighted, and it was, aye, it was—until you poured your light upon it. I thought I could never love again—I was wrong!”
Isobel trembled where she stood, but she did not bend. “Aisla will always come between us.”
Dougal felt the incipient blow of her imminent refusal, but he held strong. “I see now Aisla was a lass loved by a lad, as a lad loves. He gave her all his heart, everything he had to give. My heart, now, is a far uglier thing—scarred, torn, and battered. But ’tis a man’s heart, and for what it is worth, I offer it to you. ’Tis true, Isobel, the lad I was will always love that lass who was Aisla. But the man I am will always love you.”
Tears flooded Isobel’s eyes. She clasped his hand between both of hers and drew him up until they stood close, so close even the sunlight could not part them.
“Is it enough?” he whispered. “Dare I hope?”
“I find your heart—battered, scarred, and ever-true—a fair prize. And one I think I must accept.”
His arms closed around her, and the last of the hurt inside him eased. “Ah,” he said, “and I promise you will never regret—”
She laughed, the sound slightly breathless, and slightly wicked. “That I very much doubt, Husband. There will be regrets in plenty, rues and quarrels, hurt feelings and fallings out. But what I promise you in turn is none of that will ever part us, nor ever make me stop loving you.”
Dougal felt his heart rise on a surge of feeling that buoyed and lifted him, so unfamiliar he barely recognized it as happiness.
“It is a good promise, and one I make also,” he said devoutly. “But how can I show you my gratitude, scoundrel that I am?”
“I can think of but one way,” Isobel said, and led him softly to the bed.
A word about the author...
Born and raised in Western New York, Laura Strickland has been an avid reader and writer since childhood. Embracing her mother's heritage, she pursued a lifelong interest in Celtic lore, legend, and music, all reflected in her writing.
She has made pilgrimages to both Newfoundland and Scotland in the company of her daughter, but is usually happiest at home not far from Lake Ontario, with her husband and her "fur" child, a rescue dog. She practices gratitude every day.
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