Page 68 of Devil Black

“Isobel!”

Something other than pain, fear, or exhaustion made her hesitate then. She half spun just as the rider reached her. His arm came down, snatched her from the ground, and swung her onto the horse before him. The arm felt like iron. An instant’s terror convulsed her before she went suddenly still. She knew that touch, hard as it might be. More, she knew the scent of him and the profile just visible beneath the plaid he wore.

“Isobel,” he repeated her name and pushed the plaid back from his hair, onto his shoulders. Wild, black locks streamed loose in the wind and grey eyes, glittering like the moonlight, stared into hers.

“By all that is holy,” he exclaimed, which seemed an amazing thing for a devil to say, “how came you here?”

Isobel began to tremble, which did not prevent her from pressing closer, burrowing into the warmth and strength of him. She clutched his plaid as a drowning woman might a thin curl of rope.

His arms drew her in closer. They hurt, but she reveled in this ache.

“I escaped,” she said brokenly. “I was trying to come to you.”

His hands, gentle now, caressed her, stroked her back, her hair. “And MacNab?” he began.

“Hunting me.” She shivered. “He will be hunting me by now.”

“He will not have you,” Dougal vowed. “That I swear, on my life.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“Your wife is in a bad way,” Meg said flatly, but with sympathy in her eyes. “She may be dying, I cannot tell.”

Dougal, who once more sat with Lachlan in the great hall, choked on the mouthful of whisky he had just taken and looked at his sister, stricken. He leaped to his feet without intention.

“Eh? But her injuries did not seem so great. Her shoulder—” Isobel had cried out when he lifted her down from his horse, in the courtyard.

“’Tis not her shoulder,” Meg interrupted him. “There is somewhat amiss inside. She bleeds profusely.”

Dougal felt the color drain from his face. “What did that bastard do to her? She swore to me he did not rape her.”

Meg shrugged. “Were I to venture a guess, I would say she is miscarrying—at a very early stage. I just thought you should know.”

“My child?” Dougal swayed on his feet. “She carried my child? She never said.”

“Likely she did not know,” Meg told him tersely. “She seems baffled, now, as to what is amiss, but cries out with the pain.”

Dougal stood like a man struck and stared at his sister. His child, the heir he so desperately needed to secure his lands. And Isobel...

“I thought you might wish to see her,” Meg said dryly, “before it is too late.”

Lachlan surged to his feet and clasped Dougal’s shoulder. “Go, man!”

All the way up the worn, stone stairs, Dougal’s thoughts hollered. Men lost their wives in childbed, he knew—it was a fact of life. Yet this could be laid directly at MacNab’s door, another thing the bastard had taken from him, and bitterness burned in his chest.

“Women lose bairns,” he said, “and do not die of it.”

Meg glanced back at him. “She bleeds too heavily. If she dies, ’tis that will take her.”

Dougal’s throat closed. “There must be somewhat you can do—women’s medicine?”

“I am no physician.”

“Send for one! I will send Lachy.”

“Is there a physician in the district? I cannot bring one to mind.”

“In Stirling—”