‘Lord Dunstan!’
Conal’s voice broke through the closed chamber door a mere heartbeat before the man swung it open and entered. To her relief the priest followed in his wake.
Finally. She exhaled with a loud sigh, drawing the attention of all three men.
Dunstan motioned the men further into the chamber. ‘Father Paul, is all ready?’
‘Just as you requested.’ The priest emptied the contents of the satchel he carried on to the table. ‘I take it this is your intended bride?’ the priest asked Dunstan.
‘Yes.’
‘No,’ Isabella answered at the same time.
Ignoring her, the priest went about his business of unrolling and flattening a document, sharpening a quill and stirring the ink. He moved aside and waved Dunstan to the table. ‘Your signature, my lord.’
Dunstan paused, holding the quill less than a breath above the document. The feathered end wavered slightly, a small drop of ink splashed down on to the vellum, spreading like a brackish-coloured droplet of blood.
An ominous omen of the future? Isabella’s stomach clenched at the thought.
He scrawled his name at the bottom of the document, then extended the pen towards her, warning, ‘Don’t make this difficult.’
‘No.’ She stared at the quill before glaring at him across the table. ‘You can’t make me do this.’
‘Yes, actually, I can and will.’
She gasped at the certainty in his words. Knowing there would be no reasoning with him, she turned to the priest. Surely he could be made to see how unwilling she was to wed Dunstan. ‘I am being forced into this unholy alliance. It will not stand.’
The priest ignored her, seemingly content to gaze around the chamber. His unconcerned air splashed an icy cold on the heated rage that had been building in her chest.
‘Are you not a man of God? Do you not represent the Church in this matter?’ Isabella swallowed hard in a desperate attempt to remain rational. ‘I cannot be forced into this union.’
Father Paul looked down on her with the expression of a long-suffering parent dealing with an unreasonable child—the same type of look she’d endured countless times from Warehaven’s priest when she’d railed against lessons she had no desire to learn.
‘Child, it seems you do not fully understand the direness of your situation.’
The calmness of his voice had the opposite effect of what he’d most likely intended. Instead of soothing her, it set her teeth on edge. ‘I am not a child.’
Dunstan snorted, before suggesting, ‘Then stop acting like one.’
She ignored him, intent on making the priest see her side of this argument—and then agreeing with her. ‘There is nothing about this situation that I do not understand. I was taken from my home. Saw an arrow pierce my father’s chest as he came to my defence. I was made to tend my captor’s injuries. And now—’ she flicked her shaking fingers at the document on the table ‘—against everything that is just and right I am being forced to agree to a marriage that neither I, nor my family, would desire.’
The priest’s eyebrows rose. ‘I am certain your family would find it more desirable for you to wed someone you detest now, than to return to them next spring carrying a bastard.’
Next spring?
The floor heaved beneath her feet.
Dear Lord, she’d not taken the season, nor the weather, into consideration. Her brother and Glenforde would be unable to come to her rescue for months.
And the priest’s concern over her carrying a bastard come spring made her ill. She drew in a long breath, hoping to calm the sudden queasiness of her stomach. There had to be a way out of this.
‘Child.’ Father Paul touched her arm. ‘Surely now you see the sense in a marriage.’
‘No.’ Isabella shook her head. ‘There will be no chance of creating a child.’
‘You cannot know the future. You are here on Dunstan without any protection, with no suitable companion.’ The priest shrugged. ‘Even if Lord Richard was the most chivalrous knight of the realm and placed not one finger upon your person, nobody can say the same of every man on this island.’
She glared at Dunstan. ‘You have so little control over the men in your command?’
When he said nothing, she crossed her arms against her chest and turned her attention back to the priest. ‘Then lock me away in a cell.’
‘Locks can be picked, cell doors can be broken.’
Would he thwart every idea she suggested? ‘But—’
Dunstan cleared his throat, interrupting her. ‘Enough. Your fate was sealed before I stepped foot on your father’s land.’ He tapped the quill beneath his signature on the document. ‘Either sign this yourself, or I’ll make your mark for you.’
‘No!’ She slapped both of her hands on the table. ‘I will not do this. There has to be another option. One less...distasteful.’
Dunstan swirled the nib of the pen across the document, making a rather elaborate mark below his name. ‘You will not do this?’ He made a show of staring hard at the vellum on the table, before shrugging. ‘It appears to me that you have already signed of your own free will.’
This could not be happening to her. In a hazy blur, Isabella saw Conal drop something into Dunstan’s outstretched palm. Before she could make any sense of his intention, he grasped her left hand and slid a gold band on to her ring finger.
Instead of releasing her hand, he engulfed it in his own. ‘With this ring, I, Richard of Dunstan, wed Isabella of Warehaven.’
Her throat ached with the need to scream. She jerked free of his hold, asking in a choked whisper, ‘What have you done?’
No answer was required, or forthcoming, as she knew exactly what he’d done. He’d planned this every step of the way.
He’d had some document drawn up that took Lord only knew what from her, placed his signature and hers on it with witnesses present who would swear she’d signed of her own free will. Then, he’d sealed the deed by placing his ring on her finger.
As far as anyone was concerned, she was wed to this knave. There was only one small...task...keeping them from being for ever joined in unholy matrimony.
While he might be able to forge her mark on a document, Dunstan would find bedding her much harder than he might think. Isabella clenched her hands into fists. Harder? No. She would make it impossible.
‘My part here seems to be done.’ Father Paul snatched the document from the table, rolled it up and tucked it back into his satchel. ‘I’ll take this. Should you have any desire to read it, you will find it safe in my care.’
He took a step back and paused. ‘Lord, Lady Dunstan, if you wish a blessing on your union, you know where to find me.’
After the priest left the chamber, Dunstan crossed the room and pulled the sheet from his bed.
Isabella frowned. What was he doing now?
In the blink of an eye, he slid a dagger across the tip of a finger, splattered the blood on to the sheet and then tossed it to Conal. ‘Lock this up somewhere safe.’
She stared in shock at Conal’s back as he hastily left the chamber. Everything about this farce of a marriage—from the creation of the document, her forged signature and now to the evidence of the bloodied bedding—had been seen to in advance.
‘You pig!’ She turned her full attention to Dunstan. ‘You dirty, filthy pig. I would like to see you