Devil Black Read Online Free PDF Page A

famed. He looked like a devil, one who happened to possess a lean, clever face and a long, lean body to match. Isobel weighed him as she might any adversary, looking for strengths and possible weaknesses. The process, made difficult by terror, won her a disparate number of facts: terrifying aspect, clothing as rough as that of the retainer outside, black hair tumbling down his back like the mane of his horse, and an air that virtually oozed confidence. He oozed something more, as well: a blatant maleness that, even in these circumstances, made Isobel’s senses stammer.
    She could not let herself think about that now. She needed all her energy to fathom the level of intelligence behind those eyes, narrowed between lashes black as ink, and to guess his intentions.
    He did not look stupid, which would have benefited her much, since she had confidence in her own wit. And he looked as dangerous as an adder.
    “Who are you?” she asked again, wishing she sounded less shaken. “Why am I here?”
    He took his time completing his examination of her before deigning to reply. His hard gaze, invasive as a touch, seemed to strip the clothing from her, lingered long on her hair, which had come unbound during the ride, and even longer on her bosom. Reading that look, Isobel very much feared she knew his intentions, and the breath caught hard in her throat.
    Thank heaven she was no virgin, if he meant to rape her.
    But he gave her a graceful bow before saying, “My lady, you are here because the King has decreed I find a bride.”
    That stole every coherent thought from Isobel’s mind. The King? A bride? And, in Scotland, were men in the habit of snatching those from the road?
    “I…” She struggled to speak. “I am the intended bride of another. Sir Bertram MacNab.”
    Her captor inclined his head. “I know the man, villain that he is. You would do better with me.”
    “That is scarcely the point. My father has entered into an agreement with Lord Randal as to a marriage between our families. You cannot just seize another man’s betrothed wife.”
    “Aye, you keep saying that. Yet you are here, are you not, Lady Catherine?”
    “You mean to hold me for ransom, is that it?” Isobel asked, calming a bit. Ransom was reasonable, at least in this environment, and Lord Randal would pay. She could be out of here inside a day.
    His gaze played over her again, slowly, and something that might be a smile quirked one corner of his mouth. “And, what of the King’s decree? If I am a good and obedient subject, I must wed you myself.” Wed, and bed, his tone implied—possibly not in that order.
    “I doubt very much you are a ‘good and obedient’ subject,” Isobel remarked.
    “You have barely made my acquaintance, yet you judge me so harshly?”
    “I have not made your acquaintance at all. You abduct me from my carriage at sword point on a dark road and send my maid and attendants to their possible deaths. At least tell me your name.”
    He smiled, a real smile this time, and it was not pretty. “They call me Devil,” he told her. “Devil Black.”
    Isobel shivered. Standing there in the leaping firelight and with the wind gusting outside, her superstitious Celtic side surged to the fore, leaving the practical Yorkshire half of her nature in the lurch.
    “I requested your true name,” she said. “Or are you too much the coward to give it to me?”
    He frowned, and at that moment the chamber door flew open and a woman rushed in, a raw, avid look on her face.
    “I do no’ believe it, Dougal!” Her eyes raked Isobel where she stood. “Have you gone mad entirely?”
    Dougal, Isobel thought, Dougal the Devil. Oh, how it suited! Yet hope leaped in Isobel’s heart. Here was a woman, surely a merciful, gentling influence…the man’s lover, perhaps? But no, the resemblance between them was uncanny, and she looked as wild as he.
    Black hair, worn loose, spun in a glossy curtain down her back, and she carried the energy of a