Knight In My Bed by Sue-Ellen Welfonder Read Free Book Online Page A

raiment fetched for you."
    "You are full kind," he said.
    Isolde knew he did not mean a word.
    Hoping the meager light from the hearth's low-burning fire and the chamber's two hanging cresset lamps was too poor to reveal her discomfiture, she smoothed the folds of her gown. "Further, if you prove less ... less slanderous of my person than you were earlier, and if I see no cause to be fearful in your presence, I shall see you unchained."
    "So you are brave as well as kind." A half smile played at the comers of his mouth, but it was clearly another of his mocking smiles.
    Definitely not a sincere one.
    "I've no need to be overly courageous. Two of my best warriors guard the door." She declined to mention they now stood a goodly distance away, well out of decent hearing range.
    "My guardsmen are well armed," she declared, fighting the unsettling impression he found her words .. amusing. "Harm me and they will be upon you in a heartbeat. Let loose more of your slurs"
    "My slurs ?"
    Irritated more by his arching brow than his sarcastic tone, Isolde crossed the room to a row of tall, arch-topped windows. Cut into the thickness of the wall, the windows were the room's best feature and, in fine weather, provided sweeping views of the neigh-boring isles.
    But they were shuttered now, not that it mattered. The storm raging beyond them suited her mood. And it was far more prudent to stare at the neutrality of closed shutters than to turn around and face him.
    Him, and the heavily curtained bed looming so dose behind him.
    "To what slurs do you refer, lady?" Again, his tone held a trace of amusement.
    Plague take the man !
    Isolde whirled around, her patience flown straight through the shutter slats. "`May your manhood wither and fall off,` she quoted, not caring if she sounded like a fishwife. " You'd sooner-“
    "`Sooner plunge my staff into a she-goat,"' he finished for her, a slow smile spreading across his handsome face.
    A smile so cold it chilled her to the marrow of her bones.
    His glance lighted briefly on the iron band around his ankle and the length of chain binding him to her bed. "Pray tell me, fair one, what man with blood in his veins would not protest at such confinement?"
    His words sliced away the last threads of her fast-dwindling composure and the knocking of her knees increased to such a degree the clatter could surely be heard by all within ten leagues of her humble castle's walls.
    Worse, she found herself unable to answer him, for someone else's words crowded out her own.
    As if Devorgilla stood beside her and whispered in her ear, the cailleach's thin, reedy voice echoed in Isolde's mind ... How many men do you suppose would keep a civil tongue under such circumstances?
    Something light and cool brushed along the exposed nape of her neck, lifting the fine hairs there, and sending a delicate little ripple down her spine.
    Isolde glanced behind her, half expecting the crone to be hiding in the shadows of one of the deep window embrasures, but naught was there.
    Nothing stirred save the storm-driven wind racing through the night beyond Dunmuir's snug walls.
    Of such a gentle, caressing breeze as had drifted past her there was no trace.
    This time when she turned back to the MacLean, his dark countenance had turned to stone. "Know this, Isolde of Dunmuir, ne'er have I done harm to a woman, and ne'er shall I," he said, barely restrained anger tainting the rich timbre of his deep voice. "There is naught under God's heaven that could drive me to do so."
    He crossed his arms. "Nor can you tempt me to touch you in other ways." He stared at her so penetratingly, she feared he could see clear into her soul. "Should you foster such ignoble intentions."
    A particularly strong gust of wind rattled the closed shutters, a howling gale followed by a sharp clap of thunder, as if the very heavens meant to underscore his disdain.
    He took two steps toward her, as far as the chain would allow. A strange glint sparked in his brown