Page 27 of Devil Black

He snorted rudely. “Sin? Is that what you call it?”

“Others have. Lying with a man outside of wedlock—”

“Wife. Isobel.” Deliberately he used her name. “I am the not the man to condemn anyone. I believe not in sin. I do not even believe in God.”

That brought her wide eyes back to his. “How can you fail to believe in God?”

“Quite easily. He has, in turn, failed to believe in me enough to convince me He exists. The point is, a man—or woman—cannot earn the damnation of a nonexistent deity.”

He watched the thoughts move in her eyes—such beautiful eyes. At last she whispered, “Well, then, if you believe not in sin, why would you hear the circumstances of my downfall?”

Why, indeed? It was a legitimate question. And Dougal’s native honesty required him to answer it. With his hand hovering over her flesh, longing to touch her again, he admitted, “I would know what he meant to you, this unknown man who first enjoyed your favors.” And that, he acknowledged to himself, was a dangerous desire, indicative of the need for possession. He wanted to know this woman and so to own her, body and soul.

She looked surprised. “What he meant to me? Pain and betrayal, nothing more. He was my brother’s friend, who came to stay with us that summer, a handsome wretch who paid me more attention than I deserved. He poured compliments and lies into my ears and tricked me into meeting him alone.”

“He seduced you.”

Color flooded her face. “It was my fault. My father made that quite clear to me after we were discovered. His actions may not have been right, but I bear full responsibility for my ruin, and I must live with the consequences.”

“And he? This rascal who led you astray? What befell him?”

“Naught. He returned to the army.”

“Your father did not call him to task?”

“Oh, yes, but he was betrothed to another; nothing could be done. I—I would not have wished to wed with him anyway. Once we lay together, I saw him for what he was, an empty-headed charmer with no morals and no substance.”

“Had I been your father, I would have whipped him within a hair of his death.”

That made her lips part and her eyes cling to his. “I believe you. But he and my brother, John, went back to their posts soon after—they were comrades in arms, you see—and almost immediately John fell in battle. My father could think of nothing else then but the loss of his son and heir.”

And so she, Dougal thought bitterly, had no justice. No more so than he.

“You did not pine in his absence? You did not miss him—love him?”

Distaste and a hint of horror filled her eyes. “Love him? That craven, spineless deceiver? Yes, I pined once he had gone—with regret for the fool I had been, with remorse and grief for all I had given away.”

“Grieve no more, Wife.” Dougal touched her at last, buried his fingers in the wild glory of her hair. “For have you not made a fine match with one of the most important—and infamous—landholders in all Scotland?”

She whispered breathlessly, “It seems I have.”

“I will never lie to you,” he vowed, “or deceive you—whatever my sins.”

“Then surely our futures are cast together,” she said.

Chapter Thirteen

“Husband—Husband, you had best come awake!”

Dougal opened his eyes to weak, morning light and a staggering rush of emotion he identified, with some surprise, as contentment. For an instant he savored it, along with the warmth of the bed and his delectable awareness of the woman who lay, utterly naked, within his reach.

He could not remember the last time he had experienced anything besides anger, bitterness, or the desire to strike out, to hurt and maim. Surely this strange, soft emotion came of being utterly spent on a sexual level—he had lost count of the number of times they had coupled last night. For he knew naught of happiness, did not deserve it, and certainly did not hope for it.

Yet for this brief instant, it seemed his.

The sleet had, at last, stopped dashing against the stones of the keep, and the wind had died. His wife summoned him from sleep.

He turned his head on the pillow and looked at her. A vision, a queen from a wild, ancient tale, with her auburn hair tangled about her naked shoulders, her lips—and her nipples—swollen from his kisses, and a fathomless look in her eyes. She looked like the war goddess who came to sleep with warriors and to bless them. Yet surely he was beyond blessings?