Page 89 of Devil Black

Isobel’s chin came up. “You will grant my request,” she pronounced, “or I shall bid my husband leave me here. And then, sir, what will you have?”

Chapter Thirty-Six

“Listen to me,” Dougal said, “we do not have much time.”

They huddled close beside the fire in MacNab’s great hall, the four of them alone, as private as a room under guard could be. MacNab had ordered Catherine brought down from her imprisonment to join Isobel, Dougal, and Thomas. Catherine had gone into Thomas’s arms and not come out again; the two of them spoke in murmurs, oblivious of their companions.

Isobel, standing beside her own husband, shot a half envious look at her sister. Of course she was glad Catherine and Thomas were together, however briefly, and she wanted Catherine to be happy. She had done much and gone far since their mother’s death to assure just that. Yet at this moment she felt inclined to weep for the fact that she, herself, could not burrow into Dougal’s arms where she so longed to be.

She lifted her eyes and searched those of her husband. What she saw there made her throat tighten: banked rage, determination, and concern for her. Concern. That was all. She must have been mistaken when, a few moments ago, she thought she had glimpsed love.

“Your hand—” he began.

“You are right,” she interrupted him. “We have no time now to speak of that.”

“Have they hurt you in any other way?” He tipped her chin up, his eyes plundering hers for the truth. “Bertram did not—?”

Isobel shook her head. “Not yet. So far we have been kept together. There is no way out of our prison. I have looked. But that is not why I asked to see you alone. Dougal—”

Passionately, he broke in, “I will no’ fail you, Isobel, I swear it. I will win you free from here somehow, so I do vow!”

His earnestness made tears flood Isobel’s eyes. She seized hold of him with her good hand; the other was paralyzed by pain. “Yes, but you cannot surrender your lands. That is what I wanted a chance to tell you, Husband. I know what they mean to you, how dear to your heart!” Indeed, were his lands not the sole occupant of that fiercely-guarded chamber? “There must be another way.”

Slowly, he shook his head. “I have thought on it, on naught else. MacNab is a clever bastard and has long plotted to have my lands—do you no’ see? Had the King condemned me to death, who but the King’s good friend would have been awarded stewardship over my confiscated holdings? The greedy lout will have them one way or another.”

Isobel said, as steadily as she could manage, “But you cannot sign away all you own, all your ancestors held—not for me.”

“I will not leave you here.”

“You are thinking of Aisla, are you not?” Isobel challenged. “You think on how she died here, in his hands. You regret—”

“Regret does not begin to describe it.”

“So,” Isobel drew a breath, “you act, still, for her and not for me.”

“You are wrong.” He reached out and his fingers touched her face softly, like the brush of feathers. Again, she saw something stir in the smoky depths of his eyes. “I care for you, Isobel, and ’twould murder me to leave you now. I care as much as I am able—”

“There must be another way.” Thomas repeated Isobel’s own words. He stepped to their sides with Catherine tucked into his arm. “What about a challenge?”

Dougal turned guarded eyes on him, with no reply.

Thomas spoke on, “My father used to tell us tales of the old times, as he called them, here in Scotland and sometimes, in Viking days, in Yorkshire as well. Great matters were known to be settled by single combat—one warrior pitted against another. If you challenge yon monster’s son, Bertram, honor will not let them refuse.”

“Honor?” Dougal repeated the word as if foreign to him. “Did you not say, yourself, these men know nothing of it?” He lifted his hand and touched the deep scar on his cheek.

“It gives us a better chance, surely,” Thomas urged, “than signing away your lands? Even if you do that, how do we know MacNab will release our wives?”

“I agree,” Isobel cried. “You are a fierce warrior. I know you will win—”

Catherine, reading Dougal’s expression, spoke up unexpectedly. “He would win, did MacNab give him a fair chance. It is what you fear, is it not, Brother-in-law? An unfair contest?”

The room went suddenly still. Isobel, caught by the look in her husband’s eyes, felt some of the pieces of the past fall into place.

“It is what happened before, is it not?” she hazarded. “This would not be the first time you fought Bertram MacNab. Last time was for Aisla?”

“Aisla?” Thomas questioned.

Isobel glanced at Thomas and Catherine while Dougal stood as if carved from wood. “Bertram MacNab’s first wife, and the woman Dougal loved—loves still.”