She was all too aware of movement across the room but refused to look. If he was headed her direction, she’d know well enough, all too soon.
“Malcolm MacDowylt. Laird and chieftain of Clan MacGahan. At your service, Lady Danielle.”
He pronounced her name with a roll of the vowels that made her want to hear it again.
After a moment of internal debate, she risked a peek, relieved beyond measure to find he’d wrapped a length of cloth around himself like some medieval Highlander.
“Now that formal introductions have been made, I’d ask again that you be so kind as to make yer way back to yer own chamber so I can get a least a wee bit of sleep before sunrise.”
Wrapped in a plaid, with his arms crossed over his chest in a way that made the tattoo covering his heart appear to pop out at her, he really did remind her of the cover of one of her favorite books. All he needed to complete the picture was a sword.
“Lady Danielle? Are you no listening to me, lass?”
No doubt but that was a Scottish accent she was hearing. Lord, could the night get any stranger?
Accent or not, she reminded herself, he could well be some psycho kidnapper for all she knew, since there was little other explanation for how she got here.
“Please just let me leave. All I want is to go home. I don’t care who you are and I swear not to say anything to anyone.” Pleading with these people never worked in books or movies, but she still had to try.
“Yer free to go anytime you like, though I canna say how far you’ll get in the dark. It’s what I want, as well. For you to go back to wherever it is you belong. But at this moment, I’ll settle for having you on the other side of that door.” He motioned his head toward the door she’d come through earlier. “And come first light, we’ll get Elesyria in here and figure out exactly how to get you home. Will that do?”
Apparently, it would have to.
With an emphatic nod of his head, he moved back to his bed and climbed inside, pulling the curtain shut behind him in what Dani could only describe as a rather forceful gesture. No doubt about it, she’d been dismissed.
Free to go, was she? Testing his offer, she hurried to the big door behind her and pulled it open to stare into the darkest space she’d ever seen. It could be a closet or the longest hallway in the world—she simply couldn’t tell.
“You’ll take yer candle with you, aye? There’s no a good reason to leave it burning and waste good wax.” The muffled words floated from behind the curtains as if MacDowylt had already snuggled into his covers for the night. “And shut the door behind you. I’ve no fancy for that cold draft whipping through here on this night.”
So he knew the door was open. And he didn’t care.
Her options suddenly felt more limited than when she’d thought herself prisoner. She was free to wander around in a strange place in the pitch dark, but there was no guarantee that would be any better than the room next door.
Shivering from the cold, she picked up her candle and made her way back through the door where she’d first entered, refusing to give that man the satisfaction of a response.
Back inside her own “chamber,” as Malcolm had called it, Dani looked around. There was still the second, untried, door.
As soon as she opened it, she realized it was more likely hallway than closet. Facing the same direction as the big door in the next room, it opened into the same dark, cold space. She held her candle out in front of her and confirmed her assessment in its wavering light.
Stepping back inside, she shut the door, pulling the wooden bar down across it as a final measure. A glance to the door separating her room from Malcolm’s confirmed there was no bar to secure that entrance, so she settled for dragging one of the heavy wooden chairs up against it.
There. That should serve her purpose.
She pulled one of the covers from her bed and wrapped it around her like a cocoon before dropping down on the hearth next to the fireplace. Though the stones weren’t particularly comfortable, it would at least be a warmer place to wait for morning than sitting at the table.
Wait, not sleep. There was no way she could ever close her eyes and relax in this place.
WITH THE CLOSINGof the second door, Malcolm sighed, feeling the first modicum of relief he’d known in the past twelve hours.
Danielle. Dani.
Her name was as uniquely lovely as the woman herself.
Not that he cared. He didn’t. He had less use for the woman than he would have had for a horse with three legs. She was nothing to him but another burden on his already overloaded back.
He punched his pillow hard, wadding it into a ball under his head even as he jerked at his covers in a vain attempt to find his own rest.
She wanted to go home, did she? Wherever home was. At least that much was a relief. From the way Elesyria had fluttered around her when they’d arrived here hours ago, he’d feared that might not be the case. That damned Elven mother-in-law of his had all but declared the newcomer was here to stay and his responsibility to boot.
