The squire inclined his head. “Is there aught else I can do, milady?”
“Aye, there is.” Linnet briefly touched her fingers to his arm. It trembled, and she noted he still bore an unhealthy pallor. “You can rest yourself.”
Turning, she stooped and withdrew a small flagon from her opened herbal satchel. “I’m going to give my husband some wine laced with valerian. It will help him sleep through the morn, mayhap longer. You can lift his head so I can get the brew past his lips.”
She paused and touched the back of her hand lightly to the lad’s cold cheek. “Then I’d like you to take a wee draught of it as well.”
Color shot into Lachlan’s cheeks, and he bobbed his head again. “I thank you, lady.”
Together, Linnet, the squire, and Sir Marmaduke managed to get a goodly portion of the valerian concoction down Duncan’s throat. And, luckily, he didn’t stir but continued to slumber deeply.
Sir Marmaduke glanced at her, his good eye filled with concern. “Lady, you have done all you could this night and more. You command my deepest respect and admiration.” He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Dawn is nigh upon us, and as you have sent Lachlan to rest, I vouchsafe ’tis wise we both follow him and see to our own.”
Linnet’s gaze flew back to her husband, his body still half-naked save for linen wrappings. He rested well, she knew, for the rise and fall of his broad chest was steady, and he even issued forth an occasional light snore.
But she didn’t want to leave him.
The Sassunach lightly squeezed her shoulder. “’Tis best we leave him where he is. We would do him no favor by waking him through our efforts to transport him elsewhere.”
“But—”
“Do not worry, lady, he will be fine,” he assured her, using the side of his callused thumb to brush away a tear that had slipped from the corner of her eye. “He is too stubborn to be aught else.”
A painful constriction in Linnet’s throat prevented her from replying, but she gave him a shaky smile in gratitude.
“Fergus and his lady will soon return with the woolens you asked them to fetch. They will make Duncan and the other wounded men comfortable. There is naught else you can do. Not this night. Duncan would want you to rest.”
He stepped back then and offered her his arm. “Come, I will escort you to your chamber.”
After a last troubled glance at her sleeping husband, Linnet took the Sassunach’s arm and let him lead her away. When they reached her room, Thomas quickly opened the door for her, but before she could enter, Sir Marmaduke stayed her with a hand to her elbow.
“Would you that I sit by the fire while you sleep?” Flickering light from a nearby wall torch clearly showed the concern on his ravaged face.
“’Tis kind of you, but I will be fine,” Linnet declined, at last accepting how tired she was. She wanted naught but to slip into bed, cradle Robbie in her arms, and sink into the mind-numbing bliss of sleep.
“You are certain?”
“Aye.”
“As you wish, lady.” Sir Marmaduke nodded respectfully and left her alone.
She watched him go, bid young Thomas a good night, then let herself into her room, bolting the door behind her.
Nigh asleep on her feet, she arched her lower back and stretched her aching arms above her head.
Then she crossed the room and pulled back the bedcurtains.
Robbie was gone.
A smiling man lounged upon the bed in his stead.
Before she could scream, a steely arm slid around her waist from behind, and a foul-smelling hand clamped tightly against her mouth, thoroughly stifling any sound she might have made.
“Fair lady,” Kenneth drawled from the bed. “I thought you would never come.”
17
“’t would not be wise to bite Gilbert’s hand,” Kenneth warned, falsely guessing Linnet’s intent. “His manners are crude, and he would not handle you as gently as I’d prefer should you sink your teeth into him.”
Linnet shuddered, fair gagging, her skin nigh onto crawling off her bones in sheer revulsion. The hand clamped so suffocatingly tight across her mouth reeked far too much like rotting fish for her to dare attempt such a deed.
The stench was bad enough. She wouldn’t torture herself further by tasting the lout’s stinking flesh!
She did narrow her eyes to glare at the smug bastard still reposed atop her bed, though. He’d crossed his feet at the ankles, folded his arms behind his head, and it was obvious someone had tended and dressed his injured thigh.
“It will do you naught good to shoot daggers at me with your eyes, lovely though they may be,” he said, his voice low and silky, rife with amusement.
His dark blue eyes, so like Duncan’s, gleamed whilst he slid his gaze lecherously over her breasts, then to her feet and back again. “On my honor, lady, I vow you are possessed of many, ah, lovely attributes. I shall enjoy savoring them all.”
Wresting herself free of Gilbert’s meaty hand, Linnet fumed, “You will burn in hell afore you lay a hand on me! And dinna speak of honor, for you do not know what it is. ’Tis what you’ve done with Robbie I wou—” the fishy hand clapped over her mouth again, cutting off her protestations.
“The lad is unharmed. Think you I bear ill will toward my own son?” Kenneth affected a look of mock astonishment as she struggled wildly against the bear of man who held her captive.
“You will soon be reunited with the child, my sweeting,” he crooned, Duncan’s pet name for her a travesty on the bastard’s lips. “If you would becalm yourself, we can be gone from here. Indeed, your resistance surprises me. I thought you desired my attentions?”
His lips curving into an arrogant smirk, Kenneth brought one hand from behind his head. A lock of glossy black hair dangled from his fingers. “Why else would you have let this token of my admiration fall upon the woodland path? Lest you hoped I would happen upon it and be honor-bound to return it to you?”
Outrage made Linnet’s heart race and her cheeks flame. Even the tops of her ears burned with seething anger.
She shook, too.
Badly.
Only her fury and concern for Robbie kept her standing upright.
And angry she was.
Mightily so.
Enough to disregard her repugnance and bite deeply into Gilbert’s grime-covered hand.
“Oooooow!” he howled, letting go of her to bring his foul-smelling appendage to his own mouth.
Whipping up her gown, Linnet grabbed for her dagger but steely fingers curled around her arm, staying her hand. Despite his wounded leg, Kenneth had sprung from the bed with a speed and agility she’d hitherto seen only in her husband and the Sassunach.
Breathing hard, her heart pounding, she had no course but to watch helplessly as her malefactor plucked the dirk from her boot.
“My most humble thanks, lady. I was about to insist you surrender your weapon.” Still smirking, he tucked her blade beneath his belt, then drew her flush against the broad expanse of his chest. “Now cease squirming,” he instructed, covering her mouth with his own hand, “and dinna scream or I shall silence you with my lips and hold you still by mounting you.”
Linnet promptly swallowed the cry she’d been about to let loose.
She froze, too, standing perfectly still, as if carved from stone, in the miscreant bastard’s unyielding arms.
“That is better. Much better.” He smoothed a hand down her back as he spoke. “Do not make a sound as we leave here,” he advised her, hooking the fingers of his other hand under her chin and forcing her face to within inches of his own. His hot breath grazed her skin and turned her stomach.
“Should you choose not to heed my warning, I shall cast you to the ground where we stand and have you just to spite my brother.” His mouth came so close to hers she feared he’d plunder her lips any moment. “Have I made myself understood?”
Linnet nodded, fighting off the waves of revulsion washing over her at his nearness, at the
feel of his vile hands touching her body. She could not be sick… she had to keep her strength and wits about her until she was rejoined with Robbie and could plot their escape.
“Good,” Kenneth replied to her nod. Then he loosened his hold on her and stepped back. Folding his well-muscled arms across his chest, he arched one brow and ran his gaze over her breasts again. “Dinna think I would not do as I’ve said. ’Twould be an act I’d relish under any circumstances, and partaking of your sweetness afore my brother’s affronted eyes would only heighten the pleasure.”
Still eyeing her breasts, he motioned toward the tapestried wall next to the hearth. “Free the passage, Gilbert. If we do not exit this chamber now, I will need to explore the lady’s treasures here, and I wouldna deprive myself of the sheer bliss of anticipation.”
To Linnet’s amazement, the brigand named Gilbert strode to the wall, pushed aside the hanging tapestry, and exposed a half-opened door in the stone wall.
At her sharp intake of breath, Kenneth chuckled. “So you dinna know of the secret passage?” he breathed just above her ear, nudging the door with his foot until it swung fully open to expose a dank-smelling set of stone stairs spiraling downward into blackness.
He leaned closer still, pressing heavily against her as he forced her into the darkness and they began a slow, circular descent. “You mustn’t feel alone for not being aware of the passage. I am not supposed to know of it either,” he boasted, his voice full of barely suppressed mirth. “But, alas, my brother was e’er the fool… the dullard never guessed I’d oft seen him slipping in and out of it in our youth.”
Her eyes not yet accustomed to the dark, Linnet slipped on one of the slick, moss-covered steps. “Ho, lady,” Kenneth chided, his arm snaking about her waist, his iron grip preventing her from tumbling down the stairs.
“Slow and cautious if you will, fair one. The bolt you fired into my leg has left me a wee bit unsteady on my feet. I may not be able to catch you should you slip again.”
Lifting his hand, he let his fingers glide through the loose strands of her hair. Linnet shuddered and tried to pull away, but he only tightened his hold on her. Even without seeing his face, she could sense his gloating.
As if her ill ease pleased him.
“Aye, so is better, lass. Nice and slow,” he breathed and Linnet knew he did not mean her hesitant steps on the curving stone stairs. “I would not wish to see you battered and bruised. Such an unfortunate state would spoil my pleasure later on.”
The tone of his softly whispered words, smooth and cajoling, made Linnet cringe. He’d spoken as if they sat across from each other in a finely appointed solar sharing a trencher of victuals and a jug of good wine.
Like lovers.
Bile rose in her throat at the very thought.
He chuckled again, undoubtedly aware of her discomfiture, relishing it. His low laughter echoed grotesquely off the cold, dank walls of the dampish passage. “Nay, I dinna care to see you marred,” he said again. “I mean to enjoy your favors.”
Of a sudden, he took a handful of her hair, twisting the strands cruelly, pulling until she gasped from the pain. “Afterward…” He let his voice trail off and released her hair.
Linnet said naught even though his unspoken threat struck terror through her. She bit down hard on her lower lip to keep from flinging angry words at him.
And to keep from crying.
Tears and bursts of temper would scarce help her now.
She needed to think, not provoke him. Her mind raced, frantically seeking a means to get herself and Robbie away from him and back to safety.
At her silence he plunged on, taunting her with apparent glee. “Is it not amusing I am snatching you from beneath my brother’s self-righteous nose… and by way of a passage he thought none but his arrogant self knew existed?”
Duncan. Her heart screamed out his name as they descended ever deeper into the cold, dark bowels of Eilean Creag. They passed several low-ceilinged passages leading off from the curving stairwell, and Kenneth must’ve sensed her desire to flee, for he paused briefly beside the entrance to one of them.
“This tunnel leads to your husband’s solar and beyond, ending in the chapel,” he told her, nodding toward the impenetrable blackness looming beyond the passage’s arched entrance. “’Tis nary a stone of this castle I dinna ken, no matter how well my brother thought to keep its secrets to himself,” he jeered. “A man can move unseen throughout the entire holding, and disappear afore one is missed. Long afore one is missed,” he added in a sinister tone surely meant to unsettle her.
But Linnet kept her tongue, glancing about her as they passed several other tunnels on their winding way downward. Each one smelled ranker than the last. ’Twas a cold, damp smell. An unpleasant one reeking with the stench of rotting sea kelp and dead fish, all blended with the sharp tang of brine and the musty odor of stale air.
Gooseflesh rose on Linnet’s arms. Had Duncan used these secret passages to appear so unexpectedly in her chamber at times? Aye, she supposed he had, making use of them to gain entry when she would ne’er have unbolted the door to him.
Searing, stabbing heat, like the pricks of a hundred tiny needles jabbed painfully into the backs of her eyes, and she blinked rapidly, chasing away the tears she wasn’t wont to shed. Instead she dwelt on her memories of Duncan coming upon her, seemingly out of nowhere.
How often had he surprised her awake with tender kisses and gentle hands?
More often than she could count.
A fierce surge of longing and regret rose within her, nigh robbing her of her breath in its intensity. How could she not have known he’d meant to court her, woo her?
Saints forgive her, she hadn’t. Not truly, not till now, this very moment.
In the darkness of the stairwell, his face flashed before her: his deep blue eyes stormy with passion, then with the skin around them crinkled in merriment, and yet again, this time his proud brow furrowed in frustration as he sought to put his feelings into words and couldn’t.
Without warning, a strong gust of cold, briny air swept up the stairwell from below, its bone-deep chill sending shivers down her spine.
A chill slid over her heart, too. And it grew colder with each downward step. Its icy fingers seized her in a grip tighter, more inescapable, than Kenneth’s firm hold on her arm.
Holy Mother of God, would she ever see her husband again?
E’er be able to tell him she didn’t care that he fair stumbled over his tongue whenever he attempted to speak his heart? Would she ever have the chance to assure him it mattered naught?
That she finally realized he cared?
Would she ever have the chance to reveal she found his bumbling way with words endearing? Sweeter even than the bonniest prose an accomplished bard could sing?
A hot lump rose in her throat, and she pressed her lips firmly together, willing the constriction to dissolve. When it did, she took a deep breath and squared her shoulders.
She had to be strong. If not for herself, for Robbie.
She had no other choice.
The cold wind increased then, accompanied by a hollow wail and the sound of waves washing over rocks, then receding. Kenneth hurried their steps, practically dragging her around the last few curves of the stairs until they emerged into a good-sized cave.
Deep shadows and flickering light from a small brazier cast eerie, shifting images on the glistening walls and domed ceiling. The sea wind was stronger here, whistling unhindered through a tall crevicelike opening on the far side of the cavern, the chill gusts whipping her cloak against her legs and tangling her unbound hair.
Sea spray dampened her skin and burned her eyes, whilst dampness from the wet, sandy floor seeped through the leather soles of her boots until her toes felt like clumps of ice.
Rubbing her hands together to keep warm, she glanced around. Two men guarded the narrow entrance, each one holding a sputtering, smoke-spewing torch. Gilbert, the smelly giant who’d seized her whe
n she’d stepped into her chamber, remained hulking on the bottom step of the stairwell.
His towering bulk blocked all hope of snatching Robbie and disappearing into one of the secret passages, ruined any chance of escape.
Even worse, Robbie was nowhere to be seen.
Straining her eyes for a glimpse of him, Linnet tried to peer past the two men lurking near the cave’s entrance. She hoped to see the child somewhere on the rock-strewn shore beyond, but she saw naught except whitish curtains of fog drifting across the jagged boulders and the choppy, pewter-colored surface of the loch.
Ill ease curled through her, settling in the pit of her stomach like a coiled, venomous snake. “What have you done with Robbie?” she demanded, finally finding her voice.
“I woulda thought your special talent would’ve taken you straight to his side,” Kenneth quipped, his tone full of mockery. “Or is your sight as false as my brother’s supposed valor?” he added, releasing her to limp hurriedly toward the two men guarding the entrance.
Linnet ignored the insult to her husband for Kenneth’s taunting words about Robbie, and his sharply barked orders for his men to ready boats for a swift departure, sent alarm coursing through her.
She must find the lad.
Frantic, she scanned the cavern, peering deeply into its shadows, desperately searching for some sign of her stepson, half-afraid of what she’d find.
Her sight was no help. She’d attempted to look inside herself, but had glimpsed naught but darkness and cold.
Then her gaze fell upon a dark, rounded lump in the farthest corner of the cave, and her worst fears were confirmed.
Almost hidden behind a cluster of black, glistening rocks jutting out from the cavern’s sloping wall, the wee lad huddled, knees drawn to his chest, his wooden sword clenched tightly in his hands.
Linnet ran to him, dropping to her knees on the wet sand. “Robbie, lad, praise God you are not hurt,” she cried, hugging him to her breast. “They will take us from here, laddie,” she whispered, holding him close, “but dinna you worry. I will find a way for us to escape, and your da will surely come looking for us. “
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