Page 64 of Devil Black

“More like a bodyguard,” Dougal said. “I need someone I can trust to keep him alive at all costs.”

“Aye, well,” O’Rouke spoke before Lachlan could, “I am all in favor, me lads, of keeping alive.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

“At least I am still alive,” Isobel told herself, in an effort to battle the panic that had overtaken her mind: alive, imprisoned, and far more terrified than she had ever been.

Terror, she knew, made a poor companion, especially in her present circumstances. A weakening emotion, it might render her helpless when the moment to act arrived. She would do better to feel anger, indignation, determination—anything that might empower her.

And yes, she felt all those things: anger at her father, that he had allowed his friend MacNab to snatch her like a bundle of goods, that he did not intervene now to set her free; indignation that Randal MacNab should arrogantly decide he could get away with such a deed; determination to free herself, if no one else would help her.

And longing for her husband... She could scarcely let herself think about Dougal, the pain was so bright. He would be furious over this, she knew—his wife in the hands of his enemies—but why? She feared he would feel anger that MacNab had got one over on him, not distress for her own sake.

Her new prison, and she did not mistake it for anything else, was a well-appointed bedroom twice the size of her chamber at MacRae’s keep. It had a fine curtained bed, a chest for the clothing she did not possess, and an upholstered bench in front of the fireplace. She wondered if Aisla had inhabited this room before her and how much suffering it had seen. It had been Aisla’s former husband, Bertram MacNab, who escorted Isobel here: she had not liked the barely veiled eagerness in his eyes.

Whatever he and his vile father planned for her, she knew to her toes it would be unpleasant. She meant to fight them to her last breath. If she could not escape any other way, she would jump from the window, and if she could find no other weapon she would set fire to the bed. But first she supposed she should attempt to employ reason.

Marshaling her wits and determination, she marched to the door and tried to yank it open. To her surprise it was not locked; the man standing guard—a huge fellow armed with not one but two swords and wearing MacNab tartan—turned to look at her in a reproving manner.

“I wish to see my father,” she told him. She had managed only a glimpse of her sire when Bertram MacNab dragged her in, kicking and struggling. He had been standing beside Randal in the doorway of a chamber off the great hall, and though she called to him he had not responded.

“You are to stay here,” her guard pronounced. “My orders,” he grinned, “until young master comes.”

Isobel liked neither the grin nor the implications. Her stomach clenched, and she struggled to look imperious. “I wish to see my father. I have that right! You can either take me to him or bring him here to speak with me—I do not care which.”

“Get ye back inside and wait,” the man advised. “I take no orders from you.”

Isobel looked him in the eye, stiffened her back and screamed. She had a good set of lungs when she chose to use them, and this was a shriek worthy of an eldritch delivering a curse. It bounced off the stone walls of the corridor and reverberated painfully.

The guard flinched and drew one of his swords. “Stop that! Foolish wench!”

Isobel sucked in a breath and screamed again, louder.

People came running—first two more guards and an ancient servant, a woman who looked like she worked in the kitchen. Isobel wanted to see but one face, her father’s, so she screamed on.

The guard with the sword raised his free hand to strike her. She ducked, wove between two of the other men, and ran for the stairs.

“Catch her!” someone cried, and swore.

Isobel did not hesitate. She reached the top of the stone stairs, knocked the serving woman aside, caught her foot in her skirt, and nearly tumbled all the way down.

She caught herself with the help of the balustrade and charged down with at least five people following her.

“What in hell is this commotion?” Randal MacNab stood once more in the doorway of the chamber off the hallway. Like a small battering ram, Isobel bashed her way past him, her eyes wild.

The room, a chamber similar to the solar at MacRae’s, looked pleasant and comfortable. Two benches flanked the fire, and on one of them her father rested. Bertram MacNab she saw nowhere.

“Father!” Isobel started forward, but Randal MacNab reached out and nabbed her shoulder, his grasp anything but kind.

“What do you think you are about, miss?”

“I want to speak to my father.” Isobel glared into MacNab’s eyes. “You cannot prevent me. I have a right, a daughter’s right to see him.”

MacNab grinned unpleasantly. “Then see him.”

He released her, and she stumbled to the bench before the fire. “Father,” she began.

Gerald Maitland did not so much as glance at her. He sat canted to one side, his neckcloth loosened and his eyes half closed. Isobel’s heart, already beating triple time, sped further. Was he ill? Dead?