Knight In My Bed (25 page)

He glanced at the pallet the kitchen lads had hurriedly assembled for him. Though fashioned of naught finer than a coarse linen sack stuffed with straw and dried bracken, topped with a worn-looking blanket, its dubious comforts beckoned as his own noble four-poster at Baldoon had ne'er done.

Saints, but he was weary.

Scowling as darkly as he could -- to hide his pain -- he expelled a deep, hopefully not so glaringly ragged breath. By God's good grace, his hands no longer trembled, but as if some vicious demon of rascality sought to test his limits, the instant his hands had ceased shaking, his fool knees had gone weak on him.

Wobbly.

They knocked and shook with a fervor he feared would soon make more clatter than the storm raging outside the cell's wee excuse for a window.

Sure enough, Lorne's gaze flicked briefly to Donall's knees. His heavy-browed eyes widened imperceptibly, but naught else signaled he'd noticed aught amiss.

He simply gave Donall a curt nod. "Victuals should arrive anon, and later a bath." Gesturing to the cloth bundles lined against the far wall, he added,
 
“Your clothes. Everything is there. Untouched, save your weapons. I can do naught else for you."

"You can let us --" Gavin halted in mid-sentence at Donall's warning glance.

Ignoring Gavin's puzzlement, Donall returned the gray-beard's nod. "'Tis enough, and appreciated," he said, astounded by his own words. Amazed his lips had held back the snide rebuff dancing on the tip of his own tongue, and replaced them with pure frippery.

Grudgingly spoken, but were he wholly honest, not without respect. And in keeping with the odd rules of chivalry that existed among those who'd once knelt to take the coveted blow of honor. Enemies or nay.

"Then, sirs, I bid you a good night." He acknowledged their knightly bond with a stiff bow, then took
 
his leave.

Gavin blew out his breath on a gusty sigh. "Who the devil was that?"

"A friend." The answer came from someplace so deep inside Donall even he couldn't fathom its reasoning. "Do not ask me why, but I believe he is a friend."

"But not one well disposed enough to free us?" Gavin sank back onto his pallet.

"I rather think not," Donall said honestly, and sought out his own resting place.

"And who is the 'misguided ladyship' the pock-faced cur referred to?" Gavin wanted to know. "The fetching MacInnes chieftain perchance?"

Donall slanted a sideways glance at his friend. As he'd suspected, an odd glimmer of amusement shone in Gavin's hazel eyes.

A look Donall knew well.

And dreaded.

Or would if the MacFie's glib tongue and sunny charm of manner had not oft taken the sting out of many an awkward situation.

The man was a veritable font of good cheer.

A loyal friend and skilled warrior, oddly blessed with more uncanny insight than the most far-seeing hen-wife.

At times
.

And Donall sorely hoped this was not one of them.

In case it was, he busied himself ... a method sometimes successful in staving off Gavin's launches into uninvited philosophical discourses. Pretending great care, Donall flicked out the woolen blanket Lorne had provided, and smoothed its scratchy warmth over his outstretched legs.

Gavin cleared his throat.

Loudly.

Grimacing, Donall steeled himself for the good-natured jab he knew was about to come his way.

"The incessant plucking of your fingers on that moth-eaten rag gives you away, my friend." Gavin began tapping his chin with steepled fingers. "So she is the lady Isolde."

"What do you know of her?" Donall shot back before he could cloak his words with a cool layer of aloofness.

Warming to his topic, Gavin stretched his arms and deftly cracked his knuckles. "Some claim a fairer maid never graced these isles."

Donall leaned his head against the wall. "She is passable."

"You've seen her?" Gavin sat forward, keen interest sparking in his eyes. "Faith, but you are ever a fortunate buffoon," he said, but cheerily, wholly without malice. "I've had naught to leer at but these miserable walls."

"I haven't been leering," Donall snapped, inexplicably annoyed by Gavin's word choice.

"Ahhhh..." The corners of Gavin's mouth tilted in a crooked smile. "So that is the way of it."

"The 'way' of it is far out-with the bounds of anything even one possessed of your rife imagination could dream up." Donall pinched the bridge of his nose. "You would not believe me if I told you."

"Compel me to try." Gavin rested his arms on his up-drawn knees.

"Pray desist, Gavin. 'Tis woefully exhausted I am, and would but sleep." Donall closed his eyes. "You'll soon learn the nature of my involvement with the lady."

"
Sleep
?" Gavin leaned sideways and poked his fingers into Donall's ribs. "Don't dare even think to do so after making such a statement. What manner of involvement are you enjoying with her?"

Donall's eyes snapped open. "By the devil's arse, MacFie, do I look as if I've been enjoying myself?"

Gavin rubbed his bristly chin. "Wet and disgruntled-looking as you are, I'd say you were enjoying yourself. Mayhap trysting with her in the sea?" His voice hummed with merriment. "And now you are vexed because the storm broke, thus wresting you apart?"

"Would that I hadn't asked you to tender an opinion." Shutting his eyes again, Donall sought the sweet oblivion of sleep.

The saints knew he needed the rest.

But Gavin's lopsided grin and good cheer, despite the graveness of their plight, crept insidiously beneath his closed lashes, stealing Donall's sleep, and his ire.

Reminding him why he loved the MacFie as if they truly were brothers, and not merely fostered ones.

Cracking his eyes a slit, he slanted a sidelong glance at the grinning lout. "Saints, 'tis glad I am to see you," he said, and dragged a hand through his hair.

Gavin's smile flashed even brighter. Leaning across the space between their pallets, he gave Donall a friendly whack on the shoulder. "And I you."

"OWWW. . ." Donall winced.

"God's teeth!" Gavin's face paled. "What have they done to you?"

"All manner of villainies," Donall sighed, struggling to keep his eyelids from drifting shut.

Villainies, and a bounty of such exquisite tortures I can think of scarce else.

Gavin fell back against the wall. He dragged a hand down his face and blew out a long breath. "My God, but I am sorry," he said. "Jesting about wenches and such frivolity. I but meant to cheer you."

"And you did ... do." Donall gently rubbed his shoulder as he spoke. "Already, my heart is lighter." "Do you wish to speak of it?"

"Mayhap later." Pushing those lush charms from his mind as best he could, Donall filled his lungs with the invigorating scent of rain and salt spray.

But even the brisk storm-washed air streaming through the cell's small, squarish window couldn't fully cleanse her from his thoughts.

"When later?"

"Perhaps after they've brought the supper and bath they've promised," Donall said, readjusting the woolen plaid over his legs. "But be warned, you will think I've taken up the bardic arts and am spouting the most outrageous tale when you hear what I've been about."

"Where have they been keeping you?" Gavin prodded, his all-seeing gaze, sharp and keen, flitted from Donall's plaid-covered legs to his still-dripping hair. "Do not tell me they've taken their twisted pursuit for revenge so far they've kept you bound on a rock in the sea?"

Donall cocked a brow at his friend. "'Twas nigh as debauched," he confirmed. Seeing no purpose in evasion, he expelled a long sigh, then described the old broch's sea dungeon and how he'd spent his days suspended by a chain from its dripping ceiling.

"By all the saints and prophets!" Gavin's light green eyes widened.

Donall gave a bark of mirthless humor. "I vow such venerable worthies deserted this end of Doon centuries ago, my friend."

Glancing around the tiny, stone-walled cell, he added, "'Tis glad I am they've rendered you a less odious form of hospitality. No slime-coated walls, nor slithering creatures breeding in fouled floor rushes."

"Upon my word, they've gone too far-"

"Aye, too far indeed," Donall agreed, his sufferings in the wretched confines of his first cell, and even in the sea dungeon, farther from his mind than the splendor of the late Bruce's court and all the fine and willing wenches he'd bedded there.

Setting his mouth into a grim line, he fell silent and fixed his gaze on the dancing flames of the resin torch Lorne had thrust into an iron bracket near the door.

The torchlight gave off a soft, buttery glow. A pool of comfort amidst the deep shadows. A warm contrast to the cold silver light bursting into the cell with each new crack of thunder.

A bright golden flame in a sea of darkness.

The same burnished gold as the wench's braids.

The same leaping fire he knew coursed through her veins.

Unbridled passion she didn't even know she possessed.

Until he showed her

Donall started, then shot a quick glance at Gavin. Saints, he must've drifted to sleep ... he didn't know whether he'd muttered those words, or if they only circled through his consciousness, taunting and teasing him ... just like the fair maid who'd inspired them.

"What did you say?" came Gavin's too-innocent-sounding voice. "I cannot hear you above the thunder if you persist in mumbling beneath your breath."

Donall grimaced. He needn't see the MacFie's all-knowing gloat to ken he'd indeed spoken aloud. And, regrettably, loud enough to be heard.

"I said, 'Wait until you hear where I've spent my nights,"' he said, trying to make the best of his slip. "You spent them elsewhere?"

Now he truly had Gavin's full attention.

"Aye." Keeping his gaze lowered, deliberately away from his friend's prying eyes, Donall tucked the warm blanket more firmly around his legs. They still trembled. Or at least his knees did.

And ne'er had he been more cold.

Or exhausted.

A warm bath would be the finest bliss.

"Did they torture you nights?" Gavin coaxed, and Donall didn't dare look at him. He could hear his friend's wild imagination gearing up for a full assault.

Hard fingers poked into Donall's ribs again.

Donall raked a hand down his face in sheer frustration. When he'd banished enough of his vexation to meet Gavin's probing gaze, he sent the lout a fierce glower.

"Aye, I have been plagued evenings as well," he admitted. "And those trials proved a far worse torment than that which they inflicted on me by day."

Gavin tilted his shaggy head to the side. "Why do I think you are referring to the lady chieftain?"

Donall glared at him, his lips compressed into a tight line. Saints above, but Gavin could read a man's mind. He wouldn't be surprised if the knave could peer through the stoutest of Baldoon's walls.

Gavin's crooked grin emerged. "Aye, why can't I shake the feeling you are referring to her?"

Donall expelled the breath he'd been holding.

"Because," he said, acceding his friend's sound victory, "I
am
referring to her."

He wasn't coming.

Isolde bit down on her lower lip and tried not to think about the lateness of the hour. It was well past matins, deep into the small hours. Even the raging storm had passed, its bluster gone, blown away to haunt its terrors upon another unsuspecting corner of the night.

But while the wrath of Devorgilla's so accurately predicted gale had lessened, leaving only a damp chill and the soft patter of a lingering drizzle in its wake, the turmoil whirling through Isolde increased with each beat of her thumping heart.

Intensified with each long, agonizing moment of waiting for Rory and Niels to usher him into her chamber for the night.

For lessons in ...
enlightenment.

For more knightly kisses.

She stared at the fine silver candelabrum gracing her table. A treasure she' d secretly resurrected from her parents' old chamber, a room void of life since her da's passing. A dark place filled with cobwebs and memories.

And a few fine things like the candelabrum.

A frown creasing her brow, she smoothed her fingers over its gleaming silver base. She'd spent an hour polishing it to its former glory, even seeking out sweet heathery-scented beeswax tapers ... all to impress the MacLean.

But he hadn't come.

And like the candles, no longer elegant and glowing, but ugly clumps of misshapen wax guttering deep in their sockets, her hopes for the night, too, had died a humbling death.

At least she' d dined well.

As had Bodo.

Naught but the thin rind of her trencher remained of the fine meal she' d assured they' d partake of this eve. She' d even ordered Cook himself to deliver the victuals, not trusting Rory should Devorgilla accost him along the way, outsmarting him with more of her meddlesome trickery.