Free Devil Black by Laura Strickland Page B

rising a bit faster than was called for by the activity.
    “Has the search been called off, the night?”
    He grinned. “Called for darkness. MacNab is beside himself with fury and suspicion. He would like to accuse me of something. He would also like to keep searching, but the weather is vile—snow, mixed with sleet and rain. All his helpers withdrew from him.”
    “I see.”
    She laid her sewing aside at last, and Dougal felt her looking at him, her gaze a virtual touch on his bare torso, arms, and the sopping hair down his back.
    “You will be chilled, Husband, and hungry for your supper. Shall I ask for it to be brought here?”
    Dougal allowed his desire to show. “I confess to being hungry, Wife, but not for food.” He saw the color flood her cheek. “Did I not,” he repeated himself, “tell you to wait for me?”
    “And have I not?” Her eyes challenged him. “Would you have me wait naked on the bed?”
    “Aye. Oh, aye!” Without thought, he unfastened his kilt and let it join the rest of his clothing on the floor. “Come, Wife, and only let me show you.”
    ****
    Some time deep in the night, while the wind still gusted about the stones of the keep and the sleet drove hard, Dougal MacRae found himself spent—or nearly so. He lay in the big bed with his wife naked in his arms and his hand splayed on her breast. She breathed softly, and he thought she slept, though he could not be sure. His own mind felt wonderfully empty of thought or conflict—for once he knew no anger, spite or desire for revenge. This woman had successfully relieved him of everything but satisfaction.
    Aye, and she proved clever and well adept, for a virtually untried, half-English woman, presumably gently raised. Curiosity prodded his mind as he wondered how, and in what circumstances, she had lost her virginity. He wondered, but it did not really matter. She proved passionate, open to try whatever challenge he set her between the sheets. And she tasted better than the sweetest honey wine.
    Curse it, just the thought made him want her again. He opened his eyes and caught her watching him.
    Surprised, he touched the hair clustered on her neck. “Wife, I thought you slept.”
    Unexpectedly, she said, “Your sister, Meg, warned me about you, today.”
    “Did she, so? Interfering bitch!”
    “There is no love lost between you, it seems.”
    “None at all.”
    “And why is that?”
    Dougal drew a breath that tasted of pain. “’Tis a long and ugly tale, that. Not suitable for your ears.”
    Her blue eyes narrowed. “You do know, eventually someone is going to have to tell me the truth. If I am to live here, your past and present cannot remain unknown to me.”
    “Aye so, but ’tis a tale for another time.”
    “Why does Meg hate you?”
    Dougal felt his heart grow heavy as a stone. “Let it just be said she has good reason. You have wed wi’ a devil, after all.”
    Isobel said nothing, though her eyes held his. He found himself breathless at such daring—not many women would face him so.
    “Is this, then, the devil’s mark?” She raised one finger to trace the scar on his cheek, and he shivered, affected by so simple a touch from her.
    “The devil’s mark, aye,” he breathed.
    “And this? And this?” She caressed with soft fingers the scars on his shoulders, chest, stomach, arms, some of them twisted and livid, seams on his skin. “How did you acquire so many blemishes? In hard battle?”
    “Hard battle, aye.” He captured her fingers in his and raised them to his lips. “Tell me, Wife, do these blemishes ruin me in your eyes?”
    “They do not,” she admitted steadily. “But I confess myself curious. Did you fight for the King?”
    “No.”
    “Against him?”
    “I am my own man, and fight only for my own causes.”
    “So many? You must indeed be a fierce warrior.”
    Not fierce enough. He felt grief flash through him again.
    “So, Wife, my sister has warned you against me—yet here you are still,