The Return of Black Douglas (16 page)

She had no comeback, for she knew one thing about Alysandir Mackinnon and that was he spoke the truth.

“Is it fair enough?” he asked.

“’Tis fair, yes,” she said, mimicking him, then followed it with a weak smile.

“Keep looking at me like that, and I’ll change my mind. Forbidden fruit tastes sweetest.”

She did not say anything. She couldn’t. She wasn’t too experienced in sexual matters. Plenty of guys had tried to put a move on her, and plenty had tried to persuade her to have sex, but she had never had sex with anyone until she was engaged. She’d wasted it on Jackson, thinking herself in love with him and too naïve to see that he was nothing but a womanizer.

And then Alysandir comes along. He pushed her back and rolled on top of her. “Ye know what I think? I think ye dinna know what ye want. I think ye want to mate with me but yer afraid to admit it.” He kissed her nose. “I did say I would do my best to persuade ye.”

“It wouldn’t take much,” she said and closed her eyes.

“Isobella, look at me,” he said, kissing her face.

Her eyes opened. “Why?”

He nuzzled her neck and whispered, “Because I want to see in yer eyes what it does to ye when I touch ye like this.” He drew one finger over her lips and down her throat to her chest and then between her breasts.

Her breathing quickened.

“I want to see what it does to ye when I kiss ye here.”

He followed the same trail his finger had taken a moment before, only this time he pulled the tie at her neck and pushed her gown apart. He kissed the crowns of each of her breasts.

“I want to see what it does when I move like this.” He pressed his hips against her, and God help her, she began to breathe heavily.

“Ye belong to me,” he said, whispering the words against her mouth, “only ye refuse to admit it, even to yerself. But ye will. One day, ye will.”

Was it his voice that made her feel groggy and stupid? Or was it the drink he had given her? Shivers rippled across her. She felt hot at every point where they touched.

“Yer face can drive a man wild with wanting. I have thought of naught but lying with ye like this.” He lifted his hand and pushed her damp hair back away from her face, and then he lightly traced the outline of her lips with his finger, stroking, teasing, driving her pulse wild, and set her heart to beating triple time. She studied his face intently, the dark eyebrows, the long, black hair, the full lips, the flare of nostrils, the eyes dilated heavily with desire.

He kissed her throat, whispering words in Gaelic, throwing her heart and her mind into utter confusion. He kissed her shoulders, his breath rapid and hot in her ear when he took the tip of her lobe between his teeth.

His touch sent ripples of intense desire over her, wave after intense wave, until she moaned. He took the sound of it into his mouth with a kiss so gentle that she felt she could cry. How did he know how to tear down all her defenses and leave her mindless with desire? She wanted him, so much she could not think of anything but feeling him inside her.

If he had opened his trews and pressed against her, she would have opened her legs and welcomed him.

And he knew it.

Yet he did not stop kissing her. It was delicate, elusive, his tongue cunning and skillful, teasing, tasting, flirting with her, then penetrating deeply and thoroughly. When he finished, she knew without a doubt that she had been kissed thoroughly by someone who knew an awful lot about kissing and must have devoted a great deal of time to practicing it.

When he broke the kiss, she sighed and went limp. Then she felt him shaking. It was nothing more than a low rumbling, like thunder rolling over distant hills.

The bastard was laughing. At her!

She wanted to hit him. She doubled up her fist and would have connected with his arrogant nose, if he hadn’t grabbed her arm. Embarrassment oozed from every pore, and she squeezed her eyes shut so she did not have to look at the triumphant gleam in his eyes.

“Ye canna deny it. Ye wanted me to kiss ye like that. Ye want me to kiss ye like that again. I could feel it. Ye can fight me with yer words all ye like, but yer body does not lie. I dinna know when it will be, but fair Isobella, I will penetrate yer defenses and yer maidenhead, and ye willna say a word to stop me.”

It was her turn to laugh.

“Why do ye laugh?”

“You can penetrate my defenses but not my maidenhead. I am not a virgin, Alysandir. I know it is very important to you for a woman to be a virgin, but that is not so where I come from. There was only one man, and I was to marry him.”

He did not say anything. That did not bother her, for she knew he would, after he had time to think about it.

“What happened? Why didna ye marry him?”

“A week before we were to marry, he left and went to another country with another woman. And now I am here, and he doesn’t cross my mind at all. He never made me feel like you do when you kiss me.”

She waited, and when he did not speak, she knew she had her answer. She tried to push him away, but he remained on top of her.

“I know it is important to you to be the first man to lie with a woman. That is why I told you. I cannot lie to you, Alysandir, no matter what you think.” There was melancholy in her smile. “I think you should go now.”

She gazed into the warm liquid of his eyes, his hair drying with a touch of curl, the look on his face confident but with a surprising hint of vulnerability that made her realize once again that he wasn’t all hard and conquering. It pleased her to know she had enough control that she could hurt him if she so chose. Except she knew that he had been hurt enough.

He kissed her nose and rolled away. One moment she could feel the hardness of him, and then the next moment it was gone. He stood over her looking strangely warm and beautiful—angelic almost, all tousled and bathed in the golden light of candles and a dying fire. She fought against lifting her arms to him and inviting him back, for already the place his body had warmed was growing cold.

“I will miss you,” she whispered before she could stop the words. She was praying he hadn’t heard her when he threw back his head and closed his eyes, the cords in his throat standing out.

Then he turned and walked to the door, pausing just long enough to look at her one last time. Then without a word, he was gone, and she was left with the memory of what could have been.

Chapter 21

There are two gates of Sleep,

one of which it is held is made of horn—

and by it real ghosts have easy egress;

the other shining fashioned of gleaming white ivory,

but deceptive are the visions the Underworld

sends that way to the light.

—
The Aeneid, Book 6
(19 BC)
Virgil (70–19 BC)
Roman poet

Isobella fell into a deep, fitful sleep, tossing and twisting, tormented by nightmares. She was running down a long, dank corridor that was dripping with spiderwebs and followed by the heavy breathing of a red-eyed fiend lurking close behind.

“No!” She screamed, sitting straight up in bed and looking around the empty room. Embers still glowed faintly in the grate. Wet with perspiration and still breathing hard, she assured herself it was just a nightmare and nothing more. She frowned as a suspicious look settled across her face and she thought of the Black Douglas.

“You did this,” she whispered. “You brought me here and abandoned me, and I don’t know why.” The words sounded small and forlorn even to her.

She closed her eyes, hoping for a few hours of peacefulness instead of more wild adventures in strange, frightening places. Eventually, she fell into a deep sleep, lured by the ghostly music of a bagpipe. The tapestry at the window billowed out and a great wind blew into the room, and then everything grew still. A sweet fragrance surrounded her, and she saw that the candlestick on the bedside table had fallen over. She stared at it, puzzled. Was this a dream, or was it real?

She could not tell the difference.

She could hear herself speaking, but the sound seemed to come from far away. “I know you are in here, and I wouldn’t show my face either, if I were you. How could you do something like this? And to a Douglas… I thought you were our friend, a member of the family, a chivalrous knight, and beloved protector. Well, something has certainly gone wrong, if this is your idea of being a protector. I have never felt so alienated in all my life.”

She looked around. She knew he was here, although she couldn’t see the faintest hint of a green vapor. “Are you afraid to show your true self?”

The room began to spin, and she would have smiled if she had the energy, for even a man’s ghost would spring to action when his masculinity was insulted. The spinning stopped and everything stilled. The faintest wisp of green vapor finally drifted through the open window.

“Go ahead, slink into the room and offer me your lame excuses.”

The ghost bubbled up at the foot of her bed, nothing more than an obscure shadow, glowing with light. She watched it become a glittering haze and then, at last, a solid shape in the figure of the Black Douglas.

“I dinna slink!”

She was shocked by his sudden appearance. All tall and powerful, with a scowl on his face. She couldn’t think of anything to say, except “Am I dreaming?”

“Do ye wish to be?”

“No.”

“Then ye have yer wish. This is reality, lass, and no dream, for I am here in all my ghostly splendor.”

She burst out laughing. He was so—human sometimes, but she had questions and he had answers and she wanted them. “Could I have a moment of your time for an interview?”

“Mayhap, if ye dinna ask any questions.”

She frowned.
How can I have an interview without any questions?
“Where is my sister?”

“Dinna worrit. She is safe.”

“Where?”

“Ye will ken when the time is ripe.”

“It is easy for you to be nonchalant. You aren’t the one who has been rudely thrust among strangers.”

He grinned wickedly. “Strangers, are they? ’Twould seem ye are doing quite a bit to make yersel’ friendly wi’ some o’ the inhabitants of Màrrach—one in particular.”

“Have you been spying on me? That’s quite ignoble of you. It should be against the rules of ghosting.”

“Mayhap, but there are few enjoyments left for a ghost. ’Twould be a dastardly thing to rob me of the memories it evokes, but have no fear. I dinna invade yer most private moments.”

Now she felt like a heel. “Why did you yank us back in time without asking if we wanted to come?”

“’Twas yer fate. Mayhap it was not.”

Talking to him was like talking to an oracle. “My fate? Who told you that?”

His eyes gleamed, and she felt warmed by the glow. “That is a secret ye canna have an answer to.”

“When can we go home?”

He shrugged. “Today, I have no answers.”

“Why not?”

“Because I have only questions.”

She counted to ten. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“Aye, and there ye have it.”

“That isn’t fair!”

“I dinna make the rules, but I do obey them.”

Up went her brows in surprise. “You have rules?”

“Aye, there are rules for everything in the universe.”

“But you’re a ghost, aren’t you? You come and go at will.”

“Aye, ’tis true that I am, well enough, but I am no’ God. There are some things I dinna ken and some things I canna do. Like ye, I have my limits.”

“Well, I find that depressing, and for your information, I’m having a miserable time here. They aren’t being very nice to me.”

He laughed. “’Twould seem I would have to disagree wi’ ye, lass. I seem to remember Alysandir going out of his way to be accommodating, and he might have been even nicer to ye if ye hadna done yer best to cool his ardor.”

She gasped. “You were spying on us? That is ill mannered and uncivilized. Have you no shame?”

“’Twasn’t spying, but I have a way of knowing what happens to ye.”

“Is there anything I do that you don’t know about?”

“Not verra much, but dinna worrit aboot it. Bide yer time, lass. Have ye nae heard that Rome wasna built in a day? These things take time, ye ken.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “What things?”

“Ye will—”

“Know when the time comes. Is that the only response you have?”

“Aye, for now.”

“Were you this hard on Meleri?”

“I fear she would tell ye it was so.”

“And did she complain about it as I do?”

“Aye, she did, and it seems the family trait has been passed doon to ye remarkably intact.”

“Was she ever angry with you?”

“Aye, most of the time.”

“Were you friends?”

“The best friendship has to offer, in spite of her tendency to ask too many questions, a lot like ye.”

“Maybe I inherited that from her as well.”

He grinned. “Mayhap ye did.”

“What kind of questions were they? General? Specific?”

“Weel, she once asked me what I liked aboot being a ghost.”

“What did you tell her?”

“That ye never have to open doors and yer feet never ache.”

She laughed. “Did she accuse you of things that were not true?” she asked.

“Aye.”

“Such as?”

“She liked to think I had affections for the Countess of Sussex and that it was the reason why the countess’s Van Dyke portrait was never found.”

“Did you have affections for the countess?”

His eyes were twinkled merrily again. “My time is up, and I must leave ye now.”

“You aren’t going to help me, are you?”

“’Tis not always smooth sailing. Life is riddled with doubts. Truth will come to light. ’Twould be better if ye stopped fighting it. ’Twill be over soon.”

“It is not my way to surrender.”

“Conquer or capitulate. It is the end result that counts.”

She felt lost in a cloud of gloom. “I think I will die in this place.”

He had the audacity to laugh. “I will remind ye of that one day.”

“It better be soon,” she said glumly. “My days are numbered.”

“Be of good cheer, or dinna be of good cheer. That is for ye to decide.” He stepped closer, removed his gauntlet and placed his hand along the side of her cheek. It was an odd sensation for he was still a ghostly form, yet she could feel the warmth of his hand.

“There are answers aplenty, and whys and wherefores abound, but naught are forthcoming at the present. ’Twill not be long now, lass. Have faith, and remember anything is possible if ye believe. Go back to sleep and dinna think too much aboot that which ye canna change.

“I didna bring ye back to torture ye, and I didna separate ye from yer sister to bring harm to either of ye. Mayhap there will be some trial by fire, and ye will come out the better for it. The future suffers no threat, even when the present is unbearable. Rest now, and dinna worrit that ye canna remember everything when ye awake.”

Later, when she did wake up, she had a vague sort of assurance that he had been there in her room, but some of the details were fuzzy and nebulous, like one feels when awaking from surgery. It was as if she had been there, but she really hadn’t. And she had a warm feeling that Elisabeth was being well cared for in a situation similar to her own. Or was that just because she wanted it to be true?
Anything is possible if you believe
.

But then, the opposite is also true.

When she went down to breakfast the next morning, she made two discoveries: Alysandir had gone hunting for several days, and she had no appetite.

Marion asked why she wasn’t eating.

“My throat feels raw. I’m just not hungry.”

“Ye should lay doon. ’Tis an illness aboot that has affected many in the castle. It willna last overlong. I will tell Mistress MacMorran to keep a watch over ye.”

Isobella returned to her room and went to bed. She slept until Mistress MacMorran carried a supper tray in to her and said, “’Tis a nice, thick broth to give ye strength and some cold milk to ease the burning in yer throat.”

Isobella thanked her and ate a little broth and drank all of the milk, which felt wonderfully cool. Then she slept. She vaguely remembered Sybilla and Marion coming by and Mistress MacMorran bringing her a tray, of which she ate little. By the third day, she felt wretched and wondered if she was dying. Was it her fate to come back five hundred years to die in a foreign land among strangers? Or if this was not death, then perhaps insanity? That was possible. Nothing made sense anymore.

She had a vision that she was back home on the Blanco River. She and Elisabeth were young girls again, swinging on a rope out over the water. When they let go of the rope, they fell with a splash into the cool, clear river. Laughing hard, they swallowed a bucket of water, only to stagger out and swing again.

She could almost feel the water, so cool, going down her parched throat… She swallowed and then frowned when she felt something press against her lips. Her mouth tasted sweetness, but it wasn’t water. It was something almost as delicious as a Mexican vanilla cone at Amy’s Ice Cream in Austin.

“Drink a little more, lass… verra, verra slowly now.”

A male voice, vaguely familiar. Gradually she became more aware, but her perception was still fuzzy. What is he feeding me? Is it poison? She turned her head away and slapped at his hand.

“Why are you trying to poison me? Can’t you see I’m dying?”

He chuckled. “Nay, lass, dinna worrit aboot dying. ’Tis only a sickness that comes every year. ’Twill no’ kill ye, even if it feels like it will.”

She was surprised that she could not remember how long she had been ill, for each day seemed to bleed into the next. What was it he had said? A sickness that comes every year? Body aches, stuffy nose, fever, chills, sore throat, headache.
All I have is a Renaissance version of the flu?

“Drink this. ’Twill make ye feel better.”

“What are you giving me?”

“Milk and honey. ’Twill nourish ye back to health.”

He shoved the cup at her again. “Drink it doon, lass.”

She opened her eyes, and the blur of his face sharpened. “Gavin,” she said. He pushed the cup against her lips. She had to drink it, drown in it, or end up wearing it. After three gulps, she turned her head away.

“I am Grim, Alysandir’s younger brother,” he said proudly. “I am the ninth of twelve bairns. Gavin and I are twins, but he is number eight because he was born first.”

Grim, she thought. Boy, did they ever misname him, for a happier, jollier looking guy she had yet to see. He had Alysandir’s dark coloring, but his eyes were a silver-blue.

“Ye are feeling a wee bit better now.”

“A wee bit,” she said. “Has Alysandir returned?”

“Nay, he hasna.”

“Why are you here instead of Mistress MacMorran or Sybilla and Marion?”

“They are sick wi’ the same thing that ails ye. Many in the castle are sick. Those of us who are well are helping oot.” He stood and smiled down at her. “Rest now. Ye will be feeling more like yersel’ on the morrow.”