Page 55 of Devil Black

The bellow from the battlements froze Dougal’s heart in his chest. A fortnight had passed, awaiting the arrival of his new wife’s father, and the situation in the keep had steadily deteriorated. His warriors were edgy, Meg irascible, Lachlan gloomy. And Dougal’s relationship with his wife veered between cautious hostility and passion so bright it seared him to the bone.

Now on this cold, bright, snow-dusted morning it seemed something would happen—at last.

Dougal had been up since dawn, unable to sleep and unwilling to disturb his wife’s slumber. In the chilly dining hall, he nursed a mug of ale for his breakfast and half listened to Lachlan whine about his continued ill-treatment at the hands of Meg. When the summons came, he and Lachlan stared at one another, and then Dougal swore viciously. His sword was in his hand even before he rushed to the outer door with Lachlan in his wake.

Aye, and there they were, Gerald Maitland no doubt among them. They made an impressive showing in the clear light, a group at least a score strong with their pennants snapping in the cold wind.

Dougal’s warriors, no doubt as eager for action as he, formed a group around him, and he knew the men on the walls would be ready to fight as well. If it happened here, on his doorstep, so be it. ’Twould not be the first time blood had stained this ground.

As the party approached, Dougal’s quick eyes dissected it. He saw no agents of the King, just a strong battalion of MacNab clansmen at Randal and Bertram’s backs. And there at Randal MacNab’s side a stranger, well-muffled against the cold, who must be Gerald Maitland.

Dougal sneered. He supposed he could not offer his wife’s father a naked blade in greeting, much as he longed to. The blood pounded in his veins, and he felt rabid for a fight. Yet talk must come first.

The party came to a neat halt perhaps thirty feet from Dougal’s doorstep, the horses blowing steam into the cold air. Dougal, with his entire birthright at his back, felt the weight of the moment. The choices he made in the next few minutes could cost everything. And he had never been a man to play it safe.

Yet he had a wife now to defend, as well as an inheritance—and, perhaps, a child on the way? He had wondered about that this morning before dawn, when he ran his hand over her naked belly. She showed no sign, yet, of increasing. But how could he pump so much seed into her without founding a bairn?

His narrowed eyes moved to the man at Randal MacNab’s side, searching for some resemblance to Isobel and finding none. The man’s high forehead and prominent nose made him look pained, his grey hair gave no hint as to its original color. But the expression he wore defined, quite well, his mood.

“MacRae!” Randal MacNab hollered. “Do you mean to give us battle? Or let us in?”

“A braw question,” Dougal returned. “Which does your arrival warrant? And what of the fact you ha’ been haunting my lands for weeks, trespassing and tempting my warriors’ swords?”

“Looking after my interests,” MacNab maintained.

“You have no interest in what is mine.” For a thousand pounds sterling, Dougal could not have kept the disparagement from his voice.

“But this man does.” Randal gestured to the rider beside him. “This is Gerald Maitland, father to the woman you abducted and raped.”

“Oh, aye?” Dougal snarled. “And can Gerald Maitland not speak for himself?”

“I can.” Maitland edged his mount forward. “Are you holding my daughter? Did you seize and force her against her will?”

Dougal struggled to remind himself this man knew only what MacNab had fed him—a poisoned fare. He considered giving Maitland the benefit of the doubt, and failed to persuade himself.

“And which daughter might that be?” he shouted, knowing his very tone was an insult.

Even at that distance he saw the angry flush rise to Maitland’s cheek. “Isobel, as you know right well.”

“Truly? Yet I perceive, sir, ’tis your daughter Catherine you sent north as a bride for Bertram MacNab.”

Maitland exchanged an incredulous look with Randal MacNab before saying, “I thought to send my daughter Catherine but was deceived in that. Isobel took her place.”

“And you did not miss the one for the other? Tut, tut, sir. What sort of father must you be?”

“Cur! Answer my question, else you will do so at the demand of my sword! Do you hold my daughter Isobel?”

“She abides here with me, aye.”

“Do you hold her against her will?”

“I do not.”

“You imply she chooses to be here with you and is not, in fact, captive?”

Dougal had already parted his lips to answer when something struck him in the small of the back with the force of a hurled boulder. He jolted forward and then pivoted as his wife pushed past him, half fastened clothing and hair flying, to face the party on the doorstep.

“Father? So, you came.”