Devil Black Read Online Free PDF Page B

desperation arise and threaten to choke her.
    She had been given a sleeping chamber in the monster’s keep. Shortly after his outrageous declaration, his threat of marriage, the woman—his sister—had cursed him, employing words no decent woman might utter, and marched from the room.
    Dougal had then called a servant, an ancient man wearing a filthy kilt, and instructed him to make their guest comfortable in the “best bedchamber.”
    The “best” proved rough, indeed. The room, though spacious and lofty, contained few comforts. The stone walls seemed to radiate damp; the furnishings consisted of a wardrobe with warped doors, an ancient chest, and a bed, about which Isobel barely dared think. The servant kindled a pitifully small fire in the hearth and abandoned Isobel to her doubts and fears.
    As soon as she found herself alone, she began to tremble, the remnants of her courage deserting her abruptly. Panic filled her heart as she struggled to make sense of her situation.
    The MacNabs awaited her arrival: that one truth nothing could change. Someone would discover the wreckage of the coach containing her attendants—injured or dead. Her fate would eventually become evident.
    She paced the chilly room, trying to remember what her father had said about this region of Scotland. Lawless, infested with bandits, yet he had been confident MacNab, advantaged by his connections with the King, could protect Catherine. Obviously, even her father had misjudged the temerity of a bandit who would snatch a woman supposedly under MacNab’s protection.
    Isobel cursed her father for his careless arrogance. It was typical of his high-handed tendency to assume no one would interfere with him, or his. He should have sent a small army rather than a coachman and a pair of attendants. Or MacNab—curse him also!—should have sent an escort, since presumably he knew the dangers of these roads.
    But none of that would help Isobel now. She must deal with what lay in her hands, and it did not look pretty.
    She knew nothing about her captor, save his first name. She knew little enough of where he had brought her after leaving the road, through rough country, much of it, and incipient darkness. He possessed this keep, which argued some measure of wealth, yet this place was shabby, ill kept, and possibly ill staffed. She knew a guard stood outside the door of her chamber, for she had heard the exchange between him and her captor after she had been shut in.
    “She goes nowhere, Geordie, understand?”
    The guard replied with a grunt that needed no interpretation.
    The only windows in the room were two slits so high Isobel doubted she could reach them even if she climbed onto the chest. She found herself caught and fairly, like a trout in a net.
    But…why? Her captor—this lawless, terrifying man—said he meant to wed with her, but that was illegal without her consent or that of her father, and it made no sense. What sane man would snatch a stranger for a bride?
    Chances were he was not sane. That thought caused Isobel’s knees to wobble; she sat down abruptly on the edge of the bed. She knew madness when she saw it. Despite her father’s platitudes and praise, neither of her brothers had been completely sane. For that matter, her father possessed a streak of madness, come on since her mother’s death, that made him cold and unreasonable.
    Isobel considered herself capable of dealing with difficult people, but not in this case, not when the stakes promised confinement and forced marriage.
    Which, to be truthful, did not differ so terribly from what Father had planned for Catherine. This chamber might as well be located in MacNab’s house, and Catherine could be sitting here awaiting her fate, to be bedded by a stranger.
    Isobel closed her eyes for a moment, grateful she had at least been able to spare her sister that.
    And what would happen now? That question dominated her mind. Presumably the coach had wrecked at the bottom of the hill.