by L. L. Muir
“Jump, lass.” Monty held out his arms, to catch her like a babe. “I’ll catch ye.”
Morna looked doubtful.
“Aye, but after ye’ve caught me, Montgomery Ross, what will ye do with me?”
“What I should have done a year past, sister. I’ll take ye to Ivar MacKay and pity him the rest of his days.”
“Holdin’ this skiff in one place is not the easiest task for a landman, Morna.” Ewan cursed and turned the boat around. “Now get yer arse in here before we all end up in Norway.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Gone.
He was still gone. He hadn’t reconsidered and returned. Jilly would never see Montgomery Constantine Ross again—at least not in human form—there was still that statue.
She’d stalled long enough. Her knee-jerk reaction had been to wait, postpone, but when would this chance come again? Where would they hide Morna from the Gordons? Certainly not there—the clan would be allowed back in the castle soon.
It all seemed meant to be. There would be no other chance for Ivar and Morna. This was it. Besides, they'd waited long enough, hadn't they? And it wasn't like those two had only known each other for a couple of weeks. It wasn’t as if Jilly’s fresh feelings for Monty could trump a love affair like that.
Romeo and Juliet, together again. That's why she'd come. Meeting Monty and realizing her heart worked just as well as everyone else's was the bonus—the payoff—for coming.
Jilly slapped the wood of the pathetic door, welcoming the sting in her hand, a change from the sting in her chest.
Who was she kidding? She was going to die. She'd never love again. And she couldn't blame the Muirs or anyone else. Her fault. She should have stayed away from him.
Actually, she could share the blame with a certain writer back in her time—Mayhue—the one who made those Highlanders so romantic, so magical.
Mr. Magic was gone now, off somewhere, shopping for groceries for a few hundred people. A year's supply.
When he returned, what would he think?
Would he be saddened not to see her again? Glad she was off his hands? Pissed she'd taken her sister away? Or relieved he would no longer have to watch for the fairy?
Please, God. Let him be a little sad.
What she needed was a few hours in the sun, but that couldn’t happen there, in spite of the rare sunny day outside. She’d have to wait until she was home. That was the ticket. If she was a good girl and finished her chore, she’d reward herself with a nice bright dose of Vitamin D when she got back to real time.
She took the stairs one by one, dragging her fingers along stones that would be missing the next time she saw them. Everything she needed was in her pockets. A small knife was hidden in her sock, in case she needed to chisel her way out of the tomb once they were home. Of course she wasn't stylish, but one didn't dress up to climb back into the dark. She had her boots, the long plaid jumper over her Swagger tee, and her leather jacket. Who really cared if she mixed centuries?
At the bottom of the chiseled steps, her heart jumped. Mhairi and Margot grabbed her. A hand slapped over her mouth.
"Wheesht!"
"Sorcha's inside."
"Find yer way to the workroom, beneath the hole. We'll distract her and then come for ye. Whatever ye do, stay out of the tomb!"
The combined shove from both sisters had Jilly running to get her feet back beneath her. Adrenaline kept her from thinking at all. She just fled. But as she rounded the corner leading to the lower stairs, she ran nose-first into a man. She recognized the kilt.
"Ivar!" she whispered and raised her eyes.
He wasn't Ivar.
The dude now holding her upper arms in a painful grip could have qualified for a very handsome bugger if not for the sneer on his face and the chill in his blue eyes. His long hair was dark and greasy. He smelled like pine and sweat, but it was a sour sweat, like he'd been wearing his lucky underwear and was near the end of a very successful season.
She turned her head to gasp less potent air.
He glared. "Sorry to offend yer delicate nose."
His Gaelic was just as easy to understand as Monty's.
"Who are you?'
"I’m Luthias, a cousin to Ivar. He's sent me to get ye."
That didn’t make sense. Ivar was coming there.
His grip on her arms slackened. Was he trying to win her trust?
An alarm screeched in her head—Grandma's warnings and her self-defense instructor's voice combined into one loud siren.
She took a deep breath. She'd been in this situation before, when she'd first tried to get away from Monty. This time she would not be the cop without back-up, giving the perp an ultimatum.
"Where are we going?"
"To the burn. Ivar will meet us there. What he wants to do after that, I’ve no ken. He just couldn't risk coming. Monty said Ivar will die if he crosses the water again." He produced a cloak and put it over her head while she tried to appear cooperative.
Monty's threat hadn't stopped Ivar before, which meant this guy underestimated his cousin. The thought gave her hope. And the Muir sisters, they were around somewhere. They could tell Ivar where she was being taken, if this Luthias was telling the truth.
And she always had the knife in her sock...
They paused inside the back door.
“There will be a distraction, then we go.” Luthias looked over her shoulder as another man came up behind her. “Where are the other two?”
“Chasin’ a pair of old women. They’ll find their own way.” The man reached for Jilly’s arm, but Luthias shook his head and the other pulled back. She pretended as if she hadn’t noticed.
“The Muir sisters, I’ll wager. They won’t be a problem. No one listens to them.” Luthias looked at the door without seeing it, as if listening.
A noise cut through the wood, but it seemed very far away. A woman was screaming.
“That’s it. Let’s away.” He pulled the door open and the three of them crossed the open space and began weaving behind and between buildings. Dozens of people were hustling toward the castle as if late for a parade. No one noticed three cloaked figures moving in the opposite direction.
Jilly missed a step when she recognized the name on everyone’s lips and realized she, too, recognized the screams.
Sorcha.
Was someone hurting her, or was she in on it? Maybe she was crying wolf—or ghost, rather—in front of the giant wood door. If it helped get another woman away from Monty, Jilly would have been more than willing to pull a stunt like that. If she belonged here, of course. Which she didn’t.
But Jilly would never have helped in a kidnapping.
She didn’t even want to think about Monty’s reaction when someone presented him with a ransom demand for someone as...inconvenient...as she was.
She caught herself trudging along a bit too willingly when she remembered why it was she needed to escape—Morna and Ivar needed her. Even if Monty didn’t.
She tried to put on the breaks, to lean back and dig in her heals, but almost without noticing her resistance, Luthias pulled her along with his forearm in her armpit and his hand on her wrist. So insistent. So strong. The image of the knife in her sock popped up in front of her eyes with a little ruler next to it on which were written the words, actual size. It looked pretty comparable to the pinkie finger wrapped around her arm.
She was screwed. And if the Muirs were being chased by his thugs, they wouldn’t have heard where she was being taken.
Holy. Freaking. Crap.
# # #
Ivar was waiting in the hall when Morna and her escort arrived. Monty would forever remember his old friend’s reaction when he and Ewan took the hoods from their heads—Ivar stumbled and fell on his arse.
Morna laughed, and her sweetheart looked at her suspiciously. “If ye’re laughin’, lass, it canna be yer brother standin’ there.”
Morna came over to Monty, bless her, and wrapped an arm around him—witho
ut a thought to helping her lover from the floor.
“He’s cleared his head and remembered things aright. And soon as Jillian appears, we’re going to all decide what’s to be done.” Morna kissed Monty on the cheek and moved to Ivar whose lazy arse was still embracing the floor. “I’ll not be going back, Ivar. It all worked as we planned; they’ll believe I’ve thrown myself into the sea.”
Ivar stood and strode purposefully toward him. If the man struck him, Monty’d not fight back. He deserved everything but this man’s forgiveness, for laying all his sins at this man’s feet.
Ivar’s fists flew around him, not at him, and Monty was the recipient of the fiercest hug a man had ever endured. When Ivar released his hold and stepped back, Monty’s smile was nearly erased by a perfectly placed blow to the cheek.
Jillian needed to be here, to notice he’d turned the other cheek, that the monster was gone at last.
Monty looked behind Ivar, then at his face.
“Where is Jillian?”
“She’s no’ with me, mon.” He held out his arms no doubt to show she was not hiding under one. “Hell and damnation, ye didna leave her in the dungeon and forget about it, did ye now?”
Ignore Ivar or throw him to the floor? A hard choice.
“Ewan, see if she’s above stairs,” he said, deciding on the former. He was in too fine a mood to spill blood. Jillian was going to be pleased he’d decided to help with her plans, but would be even happier when he told her his idea for keeping her with him.
When his sister eyed him suspiciously he determined too much must be showing on his face and promptly thought of duller things, such as why the gray was missing from the stables. No doubt a lad had taken her out for exercise. Heaven knew, as laird, he’d not been out and about enough to know what was going on in his own clan. That would change soon enough. His kith and kin would be milling about his hall again in but a day’s time. He was surprised to realize he hadn’t missed anyone, not while he’d had Jillian to keep him company.
After far too long, Ewan popped through the archway with a frown. “Monty, she’s no’ up there.”
Surely she wouldn’t go down in the dungeons, and the three of them had come through the back rooms but a moment before. His stomach lurched at the impossible image of her being sucked into the hole and taken away from them. From him.
Without a word, Ivar and Morna headed out the back, their own brows worried.
“I already checked the battlements.” Ewan rubbed the back of his neck with his hand, a familiar sign of worry. “She’s got to be here somewhere.” He sawed harder. He didn’t believe it.
Monty didn’t dare move. If he stayed put, she’d come in the hall door with wind in her hair and contrition in her eyes, claiming she hadn’t been able to refrain from doing something or other. She’d beg him to forgive her for arranging for Ivar and Morna to come back, then plead for him to understand why the two should be together.
He’d hear her out and let her endear herself to him for a wee while before he told her his plan. She’d be thrilled, of course, throwing her arms around his neck and pressing her lips to his in unabashed joy.
If he only stood very still. And waited.
“Where could she be?” asked Ewan, his arm finally too tired to continue worrying his neck.
“Why don’t ye ask Ivar?” The sultry voice had come from behind.
Sorcha Murray stepped out from the shadows of the tomb, her hands on her hips where they were always wont to be. If Monty didn’t know better, he’d suspect there were groves worn into her skin where each finger perched, day after day.
Ivar and Morna stepped back into the room, out of breath, but still joined at the hands.
“Ask me what?” Ivar said.
“Ask him where the MacKay woman is.” Sorcha tilted her chin up, her eyes glittering and wide. “She is a MacKay, is she not? Yer wee plaything? The whore ye’ve been holed up with for a dozen days—and nights?”
Sorcha’s head whipped to the side in anticipation of a hand no one had seen Morna raise, but the latter lowered it carefully.
“We’ve none of us the right to use such a word, Sorcha Murray.” Morna hung her head. “None of us.”
Ivar came from behind and grabbed his lover’s shoulders, pulling Morna back against him and Monty realized he’d done this. He’d made sinners of them all. He’d brought shame to a pair whose love had once been pure.
He’d see it made right, though. As soon as Jillian came out from hiding. Did she believe he’d be angry?
“Don’t ye wish to know what he’s done with her? The wee bitch?” Sorcha laughed when Morna took a step toward her, only to be pulled back against Ivar’s chest yet again. “Ivar sent a man to fetch her, to meet him at the MacKay/Ross burn. No doubt ye’ll find her body near there.”
“How do ye ken of this man, Sorcha?” he asked softly.
“I was here. Waiting for ye. How was I to know ye’d been betraying me?” Her eyes sparkled anew.
“We had no understandin’, ye and I. There was no betrayal. If things had gone as planned, I’d have been with another woman all these days, only she would have been my wife.” Montgomery moved ever so slowly toward the widow. Ivar would never do anything to Jillian. He believed she was his only hope for staying with Morna, but the widow didn’t know that.
At last, here was the face of his enemy. Thank the Lord he recognized it as such this time.
“Betrayal is the only thing ye do know, Montgomery Ross. And now ye see Ivar MacKay shares yer talent.” Sorcha’s eyes narrowed at him, her nose curled to one side as if she smelled something foul. “A MacKay? Ye preferred a MacKay to me?”
“Sorcha, who came for the lass?” he asked.
She blinked. A hard blink meant Sorcha was preparing an untruth, just as Ewan rubbing his neck meant the man was worried. Monty knew her too well for her to lie to him and succeed.
“I only recognized the set of his plaid. He said Ivar sent him, and she trusted him enough to go along. What does that tell ye?” She shrugged. “It’s too late, I’m sure. If ye but rid yerself of this one, ye can clean our hall of all MacKays once and for all. Then we can allow our people back inside.”
Sorcha put her hands behind her and swung her hips back and forth. He’d been so oblivious to her little rituals before, but never again.
“I suppose ye’re right.” He had her attention now and moved to the woman’s left. She turned toward him as he went, so slowly she didn’t seem to notice her own movement.
Without any hesitation, and from years of fighting side by side, Ivar moved silently out from behind Morna and behind the widow as she turned.
“And I suppose ye’ll be needing me on the odd night, now that she’s gone. Harvest is a comin’, ye ken.”
“I ken.”
Sorcha smiled in satisfaction and he realized how often he’d mistaken that smile before. Revolted, he looked away from her.
He shouldn’t have.
She spun to look where Ivar had been, the glint of steel peeking out from behind her back. Before she could consider wielding her weapon, however, she was firmly in Ivar’s grasp.
“He’s got me, Monty! Don’t let him kill me too!”
Monty couldn’t help himself. His blade was at her throat from one pained heartbeat to the next.
“She is not dead!” he roared.
Morna was pulling gently on his sleeve, but he couldn’t risk taking his eyes from Sorcha again. Surely her eyes would tell him what he needed to know—that Jillian was alive. He refused to look away until he saw it.
“Monty,” he heard his sister croon. “Monty, do ye want to stand here all day and argue, or did ye want to go find yer Jillian? Wherever she is, brother, she needs ye to hurry.”
Thank God for forgiving sisters. She was right, of course. Jillian needed him.
He dropped his arm and backed away.
“How could ye do it, Sorcha? Did ye have no care for my happiness, then?” He knew the answer, but need
ed the woman to break down, to tell him with whom she was conspiring. “Did he make ye promises I couldn’t make ye?”
“He promised to kill ye,” she hissed. “Did ye think ye could just forget I lived? Ah, no. Ye will cease to exist for me. For everyone.”
“Ivar’s man, Luthias. He has yer lass.” The Muir sisters in all their blue glory peeped down from the gallery and for the first time in his life, Monty was glad to see them. Perhaps shooing the pair from his home was a ritual he could dispense with.
“There is a trap for ye at The Burn, Laird Ross. He is holding her in an empty cottage just to the South and West of there. He hopes to kill Ivar as well.”
“But why?” Ivar’s voice was strained, high. Betrayal was always painful. “What have we done to the mon?”
Sorcha tipped her head back to look curiously at him.
“Did ye really never know, then? Could ye actually have been so in love that the two of ye never noticed what yer man and Isobelle did whilst they gave ye yer privacy?” Sorcha snorted. “Love makes ye blind, then, to the rest of the world.” To Monty she said, “Luthias was just as smitten with Isobelle and because of the pair of ye, his love is dead. He will see ye suffer as he has suffered, I think. He’d have killed Morna too, if he could have gotten his hands on her.”
Sorcha looked at Morna and frowned, but her mouth stretched into that smile once again...then she twisted and lunged from Ivar’s hold.
Monty jumped in front of his sister and sunk his dagger into the widow’s breast at the same time Ivar’s blade pierced her heart from behind. As they both stepped back, her body sagged to the side. Even in death, one of her hands made its way home to her hip. Her sightless eyes sparkled only with a square reflection of light from the high window while a dark red carpet of blood spread beneath her odd pose.
Ivar stepped around it to gather Morna into his arms.
“Laird Ross?” One of the Muirs broke the silence, her voice echoing about in the arched ceiling.
“Yes?”
“How did she give herself away?”
Monty shrugged. “I realized she was spending time with a MacKay.”
“How?” Ivar and Morna asked in unison.
