Rainlashed (12 page)

Even decent householders would turn their faces away from her in the state of undress she was in. At best, she would end up arrested and thrown into Bedlam. At worst—he shuddered to think what the worst that could befall her might be.

One thing was for certain—she could expect no help from anyone on the road, and without help she could not possibly survive. “You cannot walk to Edinburgh. You’ll never make it that far.”

She shrugged, not caring if she lived or died. “My skin is there. I want to be a seal again.”

Her skin was mottled blue with cold. “I believe you are foolish enough to try but I cannot let you go.” He untied the blanket he had brought with him and draped it over her shoulders. Her skin was icy as death. “You will die of cold.”

She pushed it off her shoulders and let it fall on the grass. “I must go or I will die anyway.”

Could she not see how absurd her behavior was? “You will freeze to death before you get half way.”

She took a few more tottering steps forward. “I cannot live without my skin. I do not
want
to live without it.”

He picked up the blanket from the ground and wrapped it around her shoulders. There was clearly no reasoning with her in this mood. “I am taking you home.”

Chapter Eight

She fought him bravely, but his grip on her was too tight. He bundled her up on to the horse and then vaulted up behind her before she could slip off. One arm firmly anchoring her to him, he set Seafoam’s head for home.

Her body was still trembling with cold when they reached the manor house. Tossing Seafoam’s reins to the stable boy, he carried her, still draped in the horse blanket, upstairs to her chamber. Pulling the counterpane back, he set her down on the crisp white linen sheets and drew a feather quilt over her to warm her. She curled up into the warmth, shivering uncontrollably as the heat seeped back into her bones.

Sitting at the foot of the bed, he chafed her icy feet between his warm hands until they turned from blue back to pink again. He did not like to see her beautiful feet marred with blisters from her trek on the cold ground. “You must not run away again,” he commanded her, trying once again to drum some sense into her head. “You cannot survive in this weather with no food and no warm clothes.”

She turned her head away from him and did not answer.

He would not tolerate such a clear signaling of her intention to disobey him. “You must promise me you will not run away again.” He took her head between his hands and forced her to look him in the eyes. Her safety, even her life, depended on her good sense and her promise to him. “Swear to me you will not run. Swear to me on your skin, and I will trust you to keep your word.”

Her dark eyes were cold with what looked like hatred. “I will make you no promises. I will swear you no oath. You have betrayed me. I will give you nothing.”

Her accusation hit him with the force of a blow from a claymore. “I am a man of honor. I do not like what you are implying.”

“You swore to me on the beach that you would let me go. Then last night you swore you would keep me forever, to be your slave.” She spat out the words. “I cared for you and tried my best to please you, and in return you will keep me here, whether I will or not. I will never be free. That is the worst betrayal of all.”

“I never promised to let you go.” Even as he spoke, he realized how weak his defense really was, and he felt a gnawing of guilt in his gut. “Your freedom was conditional only.”

“You lied to me with your heart. You deceived me and you let me be deceived. I want only to be gone from here and never to see your deceitful face or to hear your twisted lies again.”

He sat with her for an hour and more, pleading with her to see sense in the matter, but she lay still and unresponsive and would say nothing more.

When he finally got up to leave for a moment to attend to nature’s call, her silent, accusing gaze followed him out the door.

Down in the kitchens a few minutes later, Mrs. Abercrombie’s gaze was little warmer than the selkie as she bustled around, ordering around the terrified scullery maid in cross accents.

“Make Maya a plate of food, if you would,” he instructed her. “A soft white bread roll with some fresh butter, and a salted herring or a good piece of salmon. She has not eaten all day. I will take it up to her myself as soon as it is ready.”

“Are you planning on a picnic then?” Mrs. Abercrombie asked, her voice acid as a lemon.

Her strange question startled him. “No. Why?”

She snorted at his question. “You surely did not think you could keep the selkie here forever against her will? I saw her not two minutes ago heading out over the fields again.”

Iain swore loudly and headed off at a run.

He did not need his horse this time. She had barely made it into the fields when he caught up with her. At least this time she had had the good sense to dress herself, though the flimsy silk dress and soft slippers she was wearing were little protection from the chill wind and the misting drizzle that had started to fall.

He swept her into his arms and carried her back to the house, ignoring her struggles.

The housekeeper was watching them from the open kitchen door, her arms crossed over her chest.

“Mrs. Abercrombie, bring the food up to Maya when it is ready,” he ordered as he passed.

She gave a disapproving sniff, and her glare followed him all the way into the house.

“I will not let you go,” he said to Maya, as he deposited her on the bed again, and stripped her of her wet clothes. “You cannot think to keep on running like this. It is no use.”

She passively let him dry her hair and cover her again in the feather quilt but she made no move towards him. She simply sat still on the bed, conserving her energy, no doubt, for her next escape attempt. “I cannot stay here when my skin is not.”

“I will find you wherever you run to.”

“You do not understand.” She gave an exhausted sigh. “It does not signify how many times you come after me, or even whether you find me or not. I cannot stay here with you. I would rather die.”

No,
she
was the one who did not understand. He would die rather than let her go. “I cannot let you leave.”

By the end of the afternoon, she had tried to run away twice more. The third time he caught her as she was running across the stable-yard. By the time he caught up with her for the fourth time as she was sneaking out of the front door, he’d had enough.

“Send one of the grooms up to me,” he ordered the housekeeper as he carried Maya up the stairs for the fourth and last time that day. He would clearly have to bear with her until she had seen the folly of her ways, and was no longer so eager to escape. Until then, he would encourage her not to try to escape by whatever means he had at his disposal.

“I need some thin strips of leather with buckles on them, about this long,” he instructed the groom who made his appearance in the bedchamber a short time later. He looked at Maya with a calculating eye, and indicated with his hands about how long they ought to be. “Fine leather, the softest you can find, with small silver buckles.”

The groom doffed his cap. “Yes, master. How many exactly would you be wanting?”

“Four will be enough but I must have them this afternoon. Along with a couple of lengths of rope.”

The groom nodded. “Yes, master. I’ll see to it right away.”

“Good. See that you do.”

The sun was setting over the sea and the afternoon darkening into early evening when the groom finally returned. He stood at the door and held the leather straps out to Iain in his grubby hand. “Your straps, master.”

Iain took them and examined them with a critical eye. The light tan leather was as soft as he could have hoped for, and the buckles were of finely worked Spanish silver. He tossed the man a silver sixpence. “You’ve done well.”

Maya was lying on the bed, watching him. As he turned towards her, the straps dangling from one hand, she sat up with a start. “What are you going to use those for?” she asked. Her words held more energy and passion than he had seen her expend all day.

He sat down next to her on the bed and took one of her hands in his. “I cannot have you running away tonight or any other night,” he explained, as he buckled one strap about her unwilling wrist. “Yet I cannot trust you to stay by my side. Nor can I stay up all night and day watching you. Sooner or later I will have to sleep.”

“Let me go,” she screeched, doing her utmost to wrench herself free.

Despite the best efforts of her teeth and claws, he buckled a second strap around her second wrist. “I have to put it out of your power to run from me—”

“Let me go.” She was fighting him in earnest now, striking out at him in every way she could, more like an animal than a human.

“—until I can persuade you to stay with me of your own free will.” He looped one of the lengths of rope through the buckles on her wrists and tied first one end of the rope and then the other to the bedposts.

“I will never stay with you,” she spat at him. Her hair was in a wild tangle about her shoulders as she crouched at the head of the bed, her eyes blazing, facing him like a cornered cat. “Never. You are deceitful and untrustworthy. I would rather die.”

He stepped back for a moment to admire his handiwork. She was beautiful in her naked fury, her arms spread wide, unwillingly showing off her beautiful breasts to full advantage. He ached to lean over and place a kiss on each of those tempting nipples. “I intend to take very good care of you.”

She hissed at him, her teeth bared.

On second thoughts, he wouldn’t kiss her quite yet. She would no doubt bite him or knee him in the groin just as he was otherwise occupied. He’d finish his job first.

He sat back down on the bed next to her, the other pair of his straps in his hand. “Give me your foot.”

She glared at him and kicked out with one foot, swifter than a snake.

His hand was faster even than her foot. He caught her ankle and tugged. Her tied arms gave her no help in balancing, and with an oomph she fell onto her bottom on the bed.

Before she could recover her balance and wrench her foot back he had buckled a strap around it and knotted a coil of rope firmly into the buckle.

Just as quickly, her anger dissolved into tearful pleading. “You cannot do this to me,” she cried, as he pulled her foot towards the bedpost at the end of the bed, inexorably spread-eagling her on the coverlet. Her eyes were filled with tears. “Not even a human could be so heartless. Please, I beg of you. Let me go to find my skin.”

Her words made him pause for a moment, but only for a moment. She was only a woman, and only a half-woman at that. His only thought was to keep her safe from harm. He would soon prove to her that he wanted only what was best and right for her. He knew what would make her happy.

She wanted him to be weak. She wanted to make him feel guilty with her begging and pleading, to manipulate him into giving her her freedom, but he was not so easily swayed as that.

“Patience, Maya. I will not hurt you.” He took her other leg into his hands, caressing her ankle, over her heel and down to each dainty pink toe.

Helpless now, she could only kick feebly at him with her free leg as he buckled the last strap around her ankle and tied that to the last bedpost.

Even trussed up to the bed as she was, she continued to struggle feverishly against her bonds. “You cannot mean to keep me like this forever.”

“Of course not. Just until you have seen the hopelessness of trying to run away from me.”

“As soon as you let me go I will run away again,” she threatened.

He smiled. He knew how he would be able to keep her by his side—he just needed time to persuade her. Thanks to her bonds he now had that time. “That is a foolish promise to make when you are tied up like this.”

He ran one hand along the foot he had just tied to the bedpost, up past the ankle to the swell of her calf. Her ankle was small and delicate and her calf slender but solidly muscled. “Shouldn’t you be begging and pleading with me to let you go? Offering me everything in your power to make me happy in exchange for your freedom?”

His hand moved over her ridged knee and along her smooth, creamy white thigh. Her flesh was hard and firm under his hand—she was solid muscle with only a thin coating of fat on her. Her life as a seal must have been a hard one to give her such a trim body.

“I tried that already,” she positively snarled at him. “You promised to set me free when I had pleased you enough, but you lied. You will never let me go free.”

“In a few days, you will be begging me to keep you here,” he promised her, as he moved his hand to her belly. He was glad that he could offer her a different sort of life. No longer would she have to live the life of an animal, or rely on herself for catching her own food or for protecting herself from her enemies. She could depend on him now to see to her basic needs of food, shelter, warmth. And more besides…

There were so many delights that he was anticipating introducing her to. Already she had shown a preference for the expensive silk gowns his little sister had favored. He knew only too well how costly fashionable dresses were but nothing was too good for his Maya. She could wear silk from her head to her toes, inside and out and he would not complain at the expense. It would positively delight him to dress her as a princess.