“I’ll go up to the village and get us some breakfast,” Charles Calder said, in a voice she’d already come to loathe. “And I’ll see if I can locate the parson.”
“Dunnae make a stink about it, though, Charles; we don’t want anyone curious.”
“Just me appearing there’ll make them curious, Arnold,” Calder returned dryly. “I’ll tell them I’m with some drovers, just over the hill.” A moment later hoofbeats headed away from them and then faded behind the sound of birds and wind across the grass.
“How’s yer passenger, Dermid?” Haws’s voice came a moment later.
A hand came down sharply across her backside, and she winced before she could stop herself. “Alive,” the big brute said. “Dunnae ye worry, lass. We’re nearly there.”
So that was supposed to make her feel better? Rowena stifled a retort. They had no idea she’d chewed through her gag, and she meant to make the most of that when the opportunity came. Perhaps Dermid’s other cheek. Or Haws’s ear. It didn’t matter to her, as long as no one would be able to look at either man without knowing that something untoward had happened.
Briefly she wondered what would happen if Lachlan and her brothers never found her. Her breath caught. No. He would find her, because nothing else was acceptable. They’d been through too much to reach these last few days, and she would not allow anything to destroy what they’d finally and mutually realized—that they were in love, and they were supposed to be together. He would do everything he could to see that happen, and so would she. Dermid Gerdens wouldn’t stop them, and neither would Ranulf MacLawry.
As sore and uncomfortable as she was, her stomach rumbled, and she hoped that Charles Calder would be returning with breakfast for her, as well. It seemed like ages since she’d eaten, or had as much as a sip of water. In the torrid romance tales Jane favored, young ladies were always being kidnapped, and they never ate. They refused to eat until they were rescued. Evidently being dainty and helpless and fainting from hunger was the approved reaction to being taken against one’s will.
Pish on that.
The horses clattered onto what sounded like cobbles, then came to a stop. Before she could even take a deep, welcome breath, Dermid dropped her sideways, this time thankfully feet first. Even so she landed hard, her legs giving way. She collapsed in a sack-covered heap.
“The lass seems to have quieted doon some,” Dermid noted, and she could hear the amusement in his voice. “Shame, that.”
“I doubt she’s finished making trouble,” Arnold Haws returned dryly.
“I dunnae mind the wiggling. She bites me again, though, and I’ll break her jaw. Ye hear that, Lady Winnie? I’ll break yer bloody jaw.”
She was supposedly still gagged, so she kept silent. Instead she worked on flexing her leg muscles, trying to bring feeling back into them. Reaching out with her fingertips she did feel cobblestones, and they were broken and covered with dirt. Wherever they were, it wasn’t anywhere nice.
And now that they’d evidently reached their destination, the fact that these were no gentlemen who’d taken her began to make her even more uneasy. Several times during the long, bruising night they’d made crude comments about her. Then, it had been to keep her from fighting back—though that hadn’t worked. Now, she wasn’t so certain.
A hand under her arm dragged her to her feet. “Inside with ye, my lady MacLawry.”
“Aye,” Arnold put in. “We’ll get ye a feather bed and a nice hot bath.”
Dermid chuckled, a dull, cruel sound that made her shiver inside. “And roast mutton and mincemeat pie,” he added. “And … And fresh strawberries.” He laughed again.
Rowena tensed, waiting for him to untie her feet, but instead he grabbed her around the thighs and hefted her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Damnation. Once she was anywhere inside, she would be much harder to find. With her legs bound together, her hands tied behind her back, and a sack over her head, she had no idea how to stop them, though.
“Does the storage room still have a lock?” Haws asked, from directly behind them.
“Aye, last I saw.”
“Put her in there so we can eat in some damned peace.”
She straightened, raising up hard. The back of her head slammed into something. Haws whumphed.
“Damn it all!” he cursed. A hand slapped her shoulder and one ear, but it lacked any real force.
“Dunnae bruise her face,” Dermid complained. “I dunnae like a bruised face on a lass. And Parson Nicholas willnae like it, either, even if she is a MacLawry.”
He dumped her onto a hard floor. A moment later a door shut, and she heard a key turn. Then, silence. For a moment Rowena lay still anyway, listening. Her left shoulder was already sore from her fall last night, though, and so she turned onto her back and dug her heels into the floor. Then she scooted down, bending her legs, until the sack slipped off over her head.
Being able to see didn’t change her circumstances much, but it did make her feel better. The floor was stone, covered with dust and rat droppings. They’d called it a storage room, but other than a chair missing its seat and an overturned barrel—and her—it was empty.
No window gave her a view of the outside, though she wouldn’t have been able to reach it, anyway. The only light came from a horizontal crack high up on one wall—probably where the rats were coming from.
Turning onto her right side, she squirmed her way over to the broken chair. Where the seat had caved in a single iron nail had been exposed. Hopefully that would be enough. With her head and her feet she tipped the dirty old chair over, catching it across her thigh before it could hit the floor.
Charles Calder had gone for breakfast, but she had no idea how long that would take, or whether he would return with boiled eggs for her as well, or with a parson in tow. Not in a million years would she agree to marry anyone but Lachlan, and these men had to know she meant to make trouble. Evidently she only had to appear uninjured for the deed to be done. Therefore, she couldn’t be here when Calder returned.
It took some effort, but she managed to maneuver herself around so she could rub her wrist bindings against the end of the nail. She kept poking herself with the sharp point, but that didn’t matter. A thousand years ago, even a hundred years ago, rival clans kidnapping women to force alliances or secure power or begin wars wasn’t terribly uncommon. Dermid probably only wanted to get his hands on her dowry. He was likely to be killed before he could receive anything, but then someone would avenge him, and the Campbells and MacLawrys would be battling again.
And to think, yesterday she’d been about to surrender Lachlan because she couldn’t disobey Ranulf. If—when—she escaped this, nothing would part her from the man she loved. Because while she knew her brothers were in pursuit, it wasn’t them whose image she kept in her heart, comforting her and reminding her that this horror was only temporary.
She wanted him there, wanted to hear his voice and feel his touch. Everything else—the theater, dances in stuffy rooms, drinking tea with her pinkie lifted—it was all like a pretty dress. It looked nice, and she felt elegant while she wore it, but it didn’t make her happy. Lachlan made her happy. As for being proper and English, she didn’t think she would survive this if that were all she was.
The rope about her wrists parted. Rowena gasped, her hands shaking as she carefully sat up and rested them for a moment in her lap. Bruises, cuts, rope burns—her fingers were swollen and clumsy, but she didn’t have time to coddle herself. The second she could flex them again, she went to work on the bindings around her ankles.
She stood, grabbing onto the chair to steady herself, and hobbled to the door. Very carefully and slowly she pushed down on the rusted handle. It didn’t give. With a silent curse in Scottish Gaelic she let it go again. For a moment she leaned there, trying to will feeling and coordination back into her arms and legs.
Then she made her way to the cracked wall, reaching her fingers up into the narrow opening. She pushed, then p
ulled, shoving at it as hard as she could. The stone didn’t budge. Bloody, bloody hell. All the vulgar curses she ever heard her brothers utter wanted to spill out of her. She wanted to scream, to make Lachlan hear her.
Instead she had to wait in this tiny, filthy room, while some stupid man arrived to be bullied into marrying her to an even more stupid, cruel man, while two more intelligent, crueler men looked on. It was insufferable.
Rowena took a deep breath, trying to calm her wild thoughts down to something manageable and helpful. She might not have a weapon, but she had her wits. What could she do, then, to slow them down?
Taking another look around the room, she tiptoed back to the door. When she pressed her ear to it she could hear the muffled sound of men conversing, but she couldn’t tell if it was two, or three, or four—or twenty. The door opened in toward her, which would have been a good thing if she had something with which to block it.
They’d entered the building and walked down a corridor and a shallow set of stairs before they’d dumped her into this room. A sudden thought struck her, and her breath caught. They were still in the Highlands. And Highlanders in castles made prominent targets for the Sassenach and any rival clans. Glengask had an escape tunnel entrance in the kitchen pantry and another in the corner of the morning room. Gray House had a secret exit behind the kitchen pantry. The tunnels frequently originated in out-of-the-way rooms from where the home’s occupants could slip away undetected.
Still moving as quietly as she could, she went to the far corner of the room and started surveying the floor. A few wood planks remained, but the rest had either rotted away or been relocated to more public rooms. At the edge of the overturned barrel she found … something. She knocked on the floor with her knuckle, and it didn’t sound as solid. Her heart skittered. Oh, thank goodness. Finally some luck.
The barrel was empty, but still weighed a great deal. She flinched with every skid and bump of the old wood as she slowly pushed it sideways. Then, going onto her hands and knees, she cleared away dust and bits of wood until she found a slight gap in the mortar. Sending up a quick prayer, she dug her fingers in and lifted.
With far too loud a creak, a section of the floor pulled up on one side. The opening was only a foot or so square, but perhaps whoever had once lived here were small-boned. None of her brothers would have fit.
She shook herself. Yes, thinking of her family, and mostly of Lachlan, gave her courage, but she had no time to waste. The hole beneath her was black as pitch, but with a deep breath she hung her legs over, grabbed the small metal ring on the bottom of the trapdoor, and dropped.
Her feet hit the floor before she even had the door closed. For a second she held it up, using the scant amount of light to try to get her bearings. The tunnel was dirt and stone with a few wood braces here and there, crumbling and ancient-looking. It headed off to her left, but she could only see about four feet in. With a last look at the gloom, she pulled the door the rest of the way closed.
Once the Gerdenses came into the storage room and found her missing, Dermid wouldn’t be able to come after her. Both Haws and Calder would, and that troubled her. Best, then, not to be trapped in the tunnels. She began hunching her way forward, feeling with her hands, feeling the ground with one foot before she set her weight on it. If the tunnel was caved in anywhere, or if it ended in an oubliette meant to trap any strangers—and either was utterly likely—she would have to return to the trapdoor, or wait there in the dark to see if they came after her or simply put the barrel back over the door and left her there to rot.
That thought unsettled her more than the idea of crawling through the dark. She’d wanted to remain out in the open, somewhere Lachlan could find her. Now she was below ground, alone and in the dark. All she could give him was time, and all she could do now was pray that she’d given him enough.
Chapter Seventeen
“That’s Denune?” Lachlan stopped at the bend in the road to gaze at the tumbled old rock pile.
It must have been impressive once, up at the edge of a cliff and overlooking the entire valley. At the back the sheer wall fell for two hundred feet, eaten away by the river running fast at its base. The only way to approach was from the front, a gentle slope with only a few rocks and a low, stunted tree for cover.
“Aye,” George Gerdens-Daily returned, looking up at the old structure. “I remember it being more impressive.” He spat onto the rocky ground. “My father, and Dermid’s, was born here. It’s a shame Berling’s across the Atlantic. I’d nae mind having a word with him aboot how he keeps up his properties.”
Generally Lachlan would have been very interested in hearing about any tensions between the Gerdens cousins. Today he had only one concern. “Surprise seems to be oot,” he commented, as a pair of horses by the doors whinnied at them. “Ye lead us in. Dermid’ll nae shoot ye, I presume.”
“He’ll nae shoot me. But I’ll nae shoot him, either. Nae over a MacLawry lass. I’ve done what I said.”
“Aye,” Bear replied. “Ye’ve done what any hound on a scent could do. And now ye turn tail when ye have a chance to be someaught more.”
Gerdens-Daily gave a cynical smile. “I dunnae give a bloody damn what ye think, Munro MacLawry. I’m nae yer friend. But ye are welcome to come and find me if ye ever want to settle the matter of that hole in yer shoulder.” With a nod at Lachlan he turned his horse and trotted back down the road.
“I could encourage him to help us, I reckon,” Peter Gilling said, hefting his blunderbuss.
“Nae,” Lachlan returned. “We’d still be searching fer Denune if he hadnae led us here. And I’m nae inclined to debate with him today.” He kicked his heels into Beowulf’s ribs. “It’s Dermid I want,” he said, as they lurched into a gallop.
As soon as he came in range of the mostly intact upstairs windows he expected to be shot, but nothing stirred. Had the Campbell been wrong? Did the horses belong to some stray travelers? Had Gerdens-Daily led them to Denune because it was better than a day here and back to Glengask? At the front door he dismounted, not waiting for Bear to join him before he shoved at the sturdy oak.
It opened more easily than he expected, and he pushed inside, his pistol in his right hand. The entire north wing of the castle had collapsed, leaving the building exposed to the weather and the elements. Paint peeled in the main hallway, and any carpet had been removed, leaving behind an uneven stone floor.
“Calder!” a voice called from farther into the house. “We’re in the kitchen. Did ye find the parson?”
He and Bear exchanged a glance. “Aye,” Lachlan returned, muffling his voice behind the sleeve of his coat.
“Calder?” Munro whispered. “Charles Calder? Damnation.”
Charles Calder. That would be another of Dermid’s cousins. The one who’d shot Arran a few weeks ago. All the nice people were here, evidently. “Steady, Bear. We’re here for Rowena.”
“And if Calder’s had his hands on her, he’ll lose ’em both.”
If Charles Calder had touched her, he would lose more than his hands, as far as Lachlan was concerned. He’d been diplomatic with both the Campbell and with George Gerdens-Daily, because they’d had information he found useful. After nearly twenty-four hours of pursuit, his ability to be levelheaded had just expired. He motioned for Eòin to remain close by the front door. The last thing they needed was for Charles Calder to come up behind them.
Moving as swiftly as he dared, Lachlan eased his way to the rear of the castle’s main wing. Gaping holes showed in the ceiling where the roof had caved in, and as they passed, a dozen brown and tan whinchats took flight from what had once been the library. The men were expecting a parson. To Lachlan that meant one of them intended to marry Rowena—which for their sakes had best mean she was still alive and well.
This would be a temporary stop, then, he assumed. No man in his right mind would choose to live here, and even if Dermid was stupid enough to snatch Rowena MacLawry, he must have had a further destination in mind
.
The kitchen door stood open, and with a deep breath he straightened and stepped around the corner and into the room. “Good afternoon, lads,” he snarled, leveling his pistol.
A worn table scattered with boiled eggs and buttered bread wobbled in the center of the room. Two chairs stood back from it—and both of them were empty. That could only mean one thing.
Instinctively Lachlan ducked. As he did so a claymore swung over his head and bit into the doorframe. Still advancing, he slammed up on the wielder’s elbow, separating him from the weapon, then pressed the muzzle of his pistol against Dermid Gerdens’s temple before the big man could regain his balance. “Enough,” he growled.
Bear stepped around the two of them and shoved the second man backward into one of the chairs. “Well, well. All the rats have come north. I know ye, Arnold Haws. And I hope ye’ve said yer farewells to yer family, because ye’ll nae set eyes on ’em again.”
“Bear MacLawry,” the second man returned. “I’ve never done a thing to ye.”
“Except try to hunt doon and kill my brother Arran.”
“I was only doing as Lord Fendarrow ordered. If ye have a complaint, take it up with him.”
The Marquis of Fendarrow, Arran’s new father-in-law, hadn’t been invited to Ranulf’s wedding. But then, neither had Arnold Haws. “Ye’re a mite more convenient. Where’s my sister?”
“Did ye lose her?” Dermid took up with a loose grin.
“Where’s Rowena?” Lachlan demanded, his attention on Dermid as the big man’s gaze flicked toward the short hallway beyond. “Rowena!”
Edging around, he caught sight of a closed door—likely an old butler’s pantry. Not a sound came from within. His heart hammering, he called her name again. Still nothing. Motioning for Peter Gilling to take his place, Lachlan strode into the hallway and down to the doorway. He turned the key in the rusted lock and pushed it open.
Mad, Bad, and Dangerous in Plaid Page 26
