Knight In My Bed Read Online Free PDF Page B

man she'd dreamed of on the night of Beltaine.
    Would that she hadn't placed the yarrow sprigs under her pillow!
    But she'd wanted to see if the herb's magic would conjure her true soul mate.
    A man she'd hoped to recognize as anyone but Balloch MacArthur, the man the clan elders meant to name as her betrothed.
    Now, may the Holy Apostles stay her by, she was sorely afeared the man in her dream, her soul mate, might be her worst enemy, Donall MacLean.
    Isolde returned her gaze to the crone. "I must know," she said. "Is the MacLean the man you saw in the cauldron's steam the night of Beltaine?"
    The cailleach pursed her lips and reached again for the ladle. Isolde gently pushed aside the old woman's arm. " Is he ?”
    “The man in my vision was the one, your soul mate," Devorgilla hedged, dusting an invisible speck of lint off her sleeve. "And he was not that bumbling ox, Balloch," she added, confirming Isolde's suspicions about the crone being able to read minds.
    Relief washed over Isolde upon Devorgilla's last pronouncement, but not enough. The niggling fear that Donall the Bold might be the one was too bothersome a notion for her agitation to lessen.
    “Your true soul mate is a braw man, a fine warrior," Devorgilla continued at Isolde's silence. Shuffling across the room to a rough wooden shelf that ran the length of one wall, she began rummaging through a jumbled assortment of clay pots, earthen bowls, and jugs.
    "Images seen on the night of Beltaine do not lie, the power of the old gods should not be doubted," the crone said, lifting a small leather flagon off the cluttered shelf.
    She hobbled back to Isolde. "The man I saw was dark of hair and eyes, his muscles spoke of hard training, and he was ... good."
    "Then he cannot be the MacLean, dark and well muscled or nay." Isolde felt better already.
    Somewhat better.
    But the crone merely shrugged. "The vision did not show me the man's face."
    "Is this the anti-attraction potion?" Isolde held up the little flagon Devorgilla had given her.
    “`Tis what you carne here for, aye," the cailleach said, moving toward the door, then opening it wide. "Now you have it, mayhap you should be on your way. My bones tell me a storm will break soon."
    Isolde swallowed the urge to tell the crone a storm already had broken, and its fury threatened to engulf her very soul.
    Instead, she called Bodo to her side, thanked the crone for the shielding infusion, and stepped into the night.
    To her great dismay, she caught another of Devorgilla's cagey little cackles as the old woman closed the door after her.
     
    About an hour later, on the opposite side of Doon, pounding sheets of rain drenched the massive walls of Baldoon castle and jagged streaks of lightning ripped across the night sky.
    A sky gone as dark as the many ells of black mourning cloth draped across the chancel and high altar of Baldoon's private oratory.
    A lone man knelt in prayer before the altar, his broad shoulders and lowered head silhouetted against the flickering light of countless lit candles.
    High above him, the curved line of tall, round-topped clerestory windows sent rainbow beams of color streaming into the chapel with each new flash of lightning, but the man did not notice.
    To his left and right, clustered groupings of slender, round pillars supported the vaulted ceiling and formed shadowy arcades where young boys stood, their heads lowered m they rang hand bells to ward off the demons that might attempt to torment the departed soul of the man's late wife, Lileas MacInnes.
    Deafening booms and claps of thunder repeatedly rattled the precious panes of jewel-toned glass high above the altar, and even seemed to shake the oratory's cold stone floor, yet the grieving man prayed on, fully undisturbed by the fury out-with the sanctuary of the semicircular chapel.
    A dark cloud of sorrow, thick and cloying as the incense-laden air, clung to the man who appeared to hear neither the mournful ringing of bells, the unbridled