Sweet Bondage

by Dorothy Vernon

  While Angus was there Maxwell kept a bright face. But when he’d gone he slumped into the big leather wing chair that was drawn up to the log fire in the main room, his face in his hands. She found it difficult to hold hatred in her heart for this man despite the fact that he was keeping her here against her will and that his manner, for the most part, was so cold toward her that it drove her to the brink of desperation. She realized just how great an emotional strain he was under. He cared deeply for his brother, that much was obvious. Although there was still such a lot she didn’t understand, and the reason for her kidnapping was a complete mystery to her, she felt that he had been following the dictates of his heart. It might seem wrong to the outside world, but he had done what he thought was right, and who could condemn a man for being true to himself? Not she. As she looked at the hurt angle of that bent black head a stirring of compassion went through her, a tiny ache that he was not as invulnerable as he cared to make out. Although nothing could alleviate the frustration of being held prisoner, there was no animosity in her entire being toward him, and she wished she could do something to help him, if only to put her hands on the strong column of his neck and massage away the coiled knots of tension. So great was this longing to touch him that she actually took a step toward him before retracting in horror on realizing what she had almost done. She didn’t like his brooding silence and wondered if she should speak to him, but for the time being decided against that as well. Yet she was strangely disinclined to leave him alone in his misery, and so she slid unobtrusively into the companion chair on the other side of the hearth, making her presence known by gently rustling the pages of one of the newspapers which Angus had brought.

  It was the signal for his head to jerk up. The lost, bewildered look because something like this could be happening to him and his disappeared as he regarded her harshly. His countenance, reminding her as it did of his predecessors’ meting out revenge in bygone days when clan loyalty was fierce, made her straighten involuntarily and square her shoulders against the onslaught she knew was coming.

  ‘Don’t exult,’ he flung at her in bitterness.

  Her hackles rose. What kind of person did he think she was? Did he hold her in such low esteem that he thought she would find pleasure in his pain?

  ‘It’s too soon to have got into the newspapers yet,’ he snarled.

  Then she realized that she had judged him too quickly. He wasn’t referring to his distress over his brother. He was telling her not to crow because there was no mention yet of Glenda’s disappearance. She wouldn’t know either way because she’d only made a token gesture of turning over the pages to let him know she was there. She had been too engrossed in her own thoughts to take in a single word.

  ‘Even if Glenda had disappeared, it seems probable to imagine that Mr. Channing would wait a day or so for some word about her before making it public knowledge,’ she said with deliberate emphasis.

  His mouth turned sardonic. ‘That’s right. Your father will stew for a few days, waiting for the kidnapper to get in touch with him, because the first thought that will spring to mind is that you’re being held for ransom.’ He showed no charity or mercy for a father’s bitter anguish. Stony indifference would have been preferable to the gloating twist of his mouth as he said, ‘He won’t dare to antagonize anyone or do anything to jeopardize his chances of getting you back. Every time the letter box clicks or the phone rings he’ll break out in a cold sweat.’

  He was reveling in the thought. How could he be so without human feelings? And to think that a few moments ago she had actually felt sorry for him.

  ‘It won’t enter his mind that you came of your own free will. He’ll think it inconceivable that you decided to stand up to him and go into voluntary hiding.’

  ‘I did not come voluntarily.’

  Clifford Channing might not rate in anyone’s books as Mr. Good Guy. For all she knew he might have done all the unspeakable things gossip accused him of doing. But there was one thing she did know for certain: his love for his daughter was beyond question. His life revolved round her. Nothing he could have done, short of murder, was bad enough to merit this kind of punishment.

  She realized she was getting het-up for nothing, reacting as if it had really happened. Glenda had not been kidnapped and so Clifford Channing was not going through that kind of mental torture. Right at this moment Glenda was very probably sitting across from her father, enjoying a conversation with him, blissfully ignorant of the fact that but for a lucky mischance (lucky for Glenda, if not for her) she wouldn’t be there.

  Angus came again the next day with another pile of newspapers and provisions. They both knew that none of the newspapers would contain a report of Glenda’s disappearance, Maxwell because he considered it still too early for Clifford Channing to act and expected him to play a waiting game, Gemma because she knew Glenda wasn’t missing.

  But before glancing at a newspaper they had both anxiously searched Angus’s face for a spark of a smile that would suggest an improvement in Ian’s condition. The compassion Gemma felt was none the less real for not knowing Ian. She would have grieved for any young life hanging in the balance.

  Angus said somberly, ‘The same, Mr. Ross, before you ask. I’m sorry I canna bring better.’

  ‘I know you are, Angus. Take the provisions through to the kitchen, will you? If you talk nicely to Miss Channing I’m sure she’ll put the kettle on for a brew up.’

  ‘Of course,’ Gemma said, rising to her feet, for once not arguing with Maxwell that Channing was not her name.

  She could have managed to carry the things through to the kitchen without troubling Angus, and it was on the tip of her tongue to say this, but then she realized that Maxwell had made this excuse to get a few moments on his own.

  It further occurred to her that there might be some advantage in having Angus to herself for a short time. He viewed her with a certain wariness, but because he was not as closely involved he didn’t have the same bitter antagonism toward her that Maxwell had. There was such a lot she wanted to know. If she worded her questions carefully Angus might give her the answers that Maxwell was withholding on the grounds that she was supposed to know them already.

  It was a puzzle to know why Maxwell was keeping her here, what Ian’s condition was and how he came to be in it, and how close Glenda was—or had been—to Ian. Pretty close, judging by Maxwell’s anger when she had mentioned Barry’s name. He had gone berserk at the thought that she that is, Glenda—had been two-timing Ian. His insistence on knowing whether or not she’d slept with Barry had been frightening. It might have been understandable if it had been Ian who flew into a rage at the possibility of her being on intimate terms with another man, but for a mere brother to get uptight about it made no sense at all. What had he said about it? ‘That’s one complication I can do without.’ What on earth had he meant?

  While waiting for the kettle to boil Gemma unpacked the dairy products, transferring the brown, new-laid eggs to the egg rack, and then she exclaimed in delight over the crusty loaves, a rich Dundee cake, and a batch of scones.

  Angus beamed, bright pride in his eyes at Gemma’s words of praise. ‘My Morag thought the cake tins might need replenishing. She’s a grand wee cook.’

  So it was Morag’s baking they had been sampling.

  ‘Your Morag?’ she queried.

  ‘Aye. It’s a handy arrangement to have husband and wife working for ye. Morag housekeeps for the laird and I’m his factor on the estate.’

  ‘The laird?’

  ‘The laird of Glenross.’ As Gemma’s eyebrows retained their puzzled lift he added, his weathered face showing surprise at the necessity, ‘Mr. Maxwell Ross, his father being dead these ten years past.’

  She was not surprised to find out that Maxwell was the laird of Glenross. He carried the authority of his title in his autocratic manner. ‘And Mr. Ross’s mother?’

  ‘She predeceased the old Laird by some five years. I suppose that you and Mr
. Ian had other things to talk about,’ he said, as though answering his own perplexity, ‘but I’d a thought with the wedding date set and everything, ye’d ken about that.’

  ‘You’d be surprised how little I do know, Angus.’ So Glenda was engaged to be married to Ian Ross, and the wedding already arranged.

  ‘Perhaps that’s to be expected,’ Angus said, springing to the defense of those who hadn’t told her the things he thought she ought to know. ‘The haste of it all fair took my breath away. You’ll pardon me for not moving with the times, like.’

  His loyalty was commendable. She made a mental note not to speak out against any member of the Ross clan, knowing it would earn this same touchy response. Running parallel was the thought that Angus was censuring her for something and that she had just been politely told off.

  Her mind buzzing with speculation, she said, ‘The wedding will have to be postponed now that Ian is in hospital.’

  Angus replied tersely, the disapproval even more deeply ingrained in his voice, as if he suspected her of flippancy, ‘The poor laddie can no get to the kirk in the wretched state he’s in. Him on his back and his mind addled with all the drugs that are being pumped into him. Not knowing, and them not daring to tell him for fear he canna take the shock, that he’ll spend the rest of his life on his back, never to walk again. I’m glad to hear that Mr. Ross has talked ye round.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘What you said just now about postponing the wedding. In the letter, the one you sent to the hospital, you wrote that the wedding was off because you couldn’t face spending the rest of your life with a—’ the voice broke, the eyes condemned—’with a cripple.’

  She gasped. ‘Oh!’ Her hand went to her mouth in horror at the cruelty of anyone writing such a letter to a desperately ill man. There wasn’t anything Angus could have said that would have shocked her more and she found herself nodding in violent feeling and total agreement with what he had to say next.

  ‘Mr. Ross didn’t think he could take that on top of everything else. The laddie was pulled out of that mangled car more dead than alive. It’s a miracle that he’s rallied this long. The master kept a bedside vigil for days, although there was little he could do there except get in the way of the nursing staff. I was with him when he read your letter. It was addressed to Mr. Ian, of course, but Mr. Ross quite rightly took it upon himself to open it. Maybe you didn’t know that?’

  ‘No, Angus, I didn’t know that.’

  Just as she didn’t know how anyone, even someone as hard and self-centered as Glenda Channing, could-add to a man’s distress by casting him off when he most needed her. Her mind exploded with criticism and reproach that Glenda could write such a brutal letter to a man facing the prospect of being crippled forever, a man fighting for his life! She shuddered at the consequences it could have had if Maxwell hadn’t intercepted the letter and Ian had pulled round sufficiently to read it Such a bitter blow could have finished him off, deprived him of the one thing that is sometimes even more vital for survival than surgery or medication, the will to live. She was beginning to understand now why Maxwell had brought her here.

  Angus seemed to confirm her thoughts as he said, ‘Even if you couldn’t bring yourself to marry the laddie, Mr. Ross was determined to make you stand by him until he was over the worst and then, he said, if you were still of the same mind, you could let him down lightly when he was more able to take it.’

  And rightly, too. If she’d got a spark of compassion or decency in her, Glenda wouldn’t have walked out on Ian, the man she was supposed to love. She must have professed to love him to have promised to marry him. But wasn’t all this rather strange, something not quite as it should be? Why the furtive haste to arrange the wedding that Angus had hinted at? Why the secrecy surrounding the engagement? Gemma would have thought that it would have been officially announced and marked by an engagement party. The Channings were noted for the flamboyancy of their parties, which they threw at the drop of a hat. Glenda’s engagement would certainly have rated a party. It was well known in the village that Glenda had some man in tow, but then, she always did. If the name of the current one was known Gemma hadn’t heard it. And not one hint of an impending engagement had been breathed; she would swear to it, because she certainly couldn’t have missed that. And yet, according to Angus, the wedding date had been set. Something definitely did not add up.

  She sought Angus’s gaze, but it slid away from her and her eyes fixed on the two cross lines between his brows. The certain knowledge came to her that it didn’t add up because she didn’t know it all. There was something, a key factor, that would link everything together and supply the correct answer. She had got plenty of information out of Angus and she felt that she could have got more if only she’d known how to go about it She didn’t know the words to use, the line to take to trick him into telling her the last vital bit.

  Giving up the struggle, she made the tea and set the tray, adding Morag’s splendid Dundee cake.

  To appease her own curiosity, since this question had nothing at all to do with the concerns of Glenda Channing, she asked reflectively, ‘Angus, who is Fiona?’

  ‘Miss Fiona? A distant relative, a kind of niece the old Laird and his lady were fond of. I suppose you might say that she took the place of the daughter they never had and so she practically grew up at Glenross.’

  ‘Is that so,’ Gemma replied thoughtfully with a speedy and quite distinct lightening of her heart.

  She carried the tray through into the main room where Maxwell was, with Angus walking on ahead to open doors for her.

  ‘Ah, that looks good,’ Maxwell said, rousing himself from his inertia. The tautness was still on his features, betraying his inner pain, which in turn burned her heart like a stabbing flame. In her imagination she took his face in her hands and smoothed the strain and anguish away with her caring fingers, giving him back his tranquillity and calm. She ached for him, for what he was suffering now, and she admired him for the measures he had taken to protect his brother from further disillusionment, even though it was causing her considerable distress.

  At the moment Ian was apparently heavily sedated, but when he came fully round, if he ever did, Glenda should be there to give him the impetus to pull through. But if she couldn’t make Maxwell believe that she wasn’t Glenda, when Ian opened his eyes from his drugged semi-comatose condition it wouldn’t be upon Glenda’s lovely face they rested; he would find himself looking at a complete stranger. It was obvious to her that Maxwell intended to keep her a prisoner until he could take her to Ian’s bedside, which would be whenever Ian was well enough to receive her. The truth would then come out and Maxwell would never forgive himself for making such an appalling mistake.

  She had to get away, for both Ian’s and Maxwell’s sakes as well as her own. She had to talk to Glenda and make her see reason. If the case was put to her fairly, without undue emotional pressure, surely even Glenda wouldn’t be so hard-hearted as to deny Ian a few more weeks, or months, of thinking they were still engaged and going to be married. It wouldn’t hurt her to wait until he was strong enough to be told the truth. And then, when he could take it, she could break it very gently to him that she couldn’t go through with the wedding. The fact that her love hadn’t proved strong enough meant that Ian was better off without her, and because he was Maxwell’s brother he must have some of his strength of character; he would accept this when he was well enough and his mind was reasoning properly.

  But how was she to get away? Then she remembered her first idea of taking the boat if the opportunity arose. Dare she, knowing nothing at all about boats, even if she could manage to sneak out and make her way down to the landing stage where Angus would have moored it without being observed? Did she really have a choice?

  She contained herself until the tea had been drunk and a portion of the cake eaten, then loaded the crockery back onto the tray and took it through to the kitchen. That had got her out of the room, but to get he
r sheepskin coat out of the cloaks’ cupboard in the hall meant having to pass the door again. Maxwell was like a cat, alert to her every movement, and fetching it would be a risk. But she decided it would be a greater risk to her health to contemplate taking the boat out without its protective warmth.

  The hall floor, made up of hand-hewn planks, was partially covered with rugs. She could use them as stepping stones to muffle the sound of her footsteps. Just the same, she took the precaution of removing her boots and carrying them. The cloaks’ cupboard was situated to the right of the main door. The pale, wintry sunshine filtered through the two small-paned windows set on either side of the door, glancing off the beamed ceiling and the somber brown walls hung with tapestries and hunting trophies. A moose’s head looked down at her in stern disapproval, marking her cautious progress. She hoped that Maxwell and Angus were too deep in conversation to observe the creak the ancient hinges made as she inched open the cloaks’ cupboard door and grabbed her coat. She contemplated leaving the door open to save a repeat of the noise, but decided against it. The open door would be the first thing Maxwell saw on coming out of the main room and his suspicions would be immediately alerted. Without that tell-tale sign he would think she was either upstairs or still in the kitchen, and she needed all the advantages she could get to work out how to start the boat. The protesting hinges again made the grating sound. She waited a moment and her heart thumped against her rib cage. Her held breath burned tightly in her throat before she expelled it in a sigh of relief as she let herself out the main door, where she pulled her boots back on, tucking the turned-up legs of Fiona’s jeans into them, and set off at a cracking pace.