Frederick grunted before his head went limp against Peter’s back. It took some careful maneuvering on Peter’s part in order to begin his ascension. When he realized that Ian was pulling on the rope in order to help lift the two men up, Peter wrapped it around one wrist twice. He did his best to keep his feet from scraping against the stone wall.
Aggie held her breath as she watched Peter and her husband being lifted upward. Occasionally, she would glance about the bailey looking for any sign of trouble. She swore she wouldn’t be able to breathe again until they were miles away from this place.
Her nerves were a jumbled knot of worry and fright by the time the rope was lowered again, this time for her ascension. Without waiting for an invitation, she grabbed the rope and began to carefully climb hand over hand, foot over foot up the wall.
Once she made it to the top, out of breath and covered in sweat, she pulled herself through the small crenel. Quickly, she started for the other side of the walkway to make her way down to the moat. The excitement at being this close to freedom brought a tingling sensation to her fingers and toes.
She was just reaching for the rope attached to the other merlon, when she heard the scrape of a boot against the floor. Aggie wasn’t about to take the time to see who it might be and began scurrying over the wall.
A moment later, two large hands grabbed her around her waist, lifted her up and away from freedom.
Thirty-Six
“WHAT THE BLOODY hell do ye mean he’s escaped?” Eduard stood in the middle of his bedchamber, tugging on a tunic. His face was red with fury at hearing that Frederick Mackintosh had somehow managed to escape the dungeon.
A young man stood near the door, looking fearful and reluctant. “I dunnae how it happened, but he be gone. All we ken is that a young lad took a trencher down to the guards last eve. The ale was tainted with a sleeping draught. They didn’t realize what had happened until they woke a short while ago.” The man swallowed as he wiped nervous sweat from his brow.
Eduard had pulled on a pair of trews and was stuffing his feet into his boots. “And no one saw anythin’?” he demanded.
“Nay,” the young man said with a shake of his head. “Half our men grew quite sick late last eve. They’ve spent most of the night shittin’ their guts out and throwin’ up.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
Eduard shook his head and stood. “What lad was it that took them the food?”
The young man took a deep breath and shook his head. “The lad said his name was Robby and he was Mrs. MacGavin’s grandson.”
Eduard’s brow knotted into a deep line. “Who the bloody hell is Mrs. MacGavin?”
“We dunnae. The boy said she worked in the kitchens. The guards didna ken that we have no woman here by that name. They assumed the lad spoke the truth.” He shifted his weight again and waited for the reality to sink into his chief’s mind.
“Ye mean to tell me that a wee lad snuck into my keep last night, slipped me guards a sleeping draught, and somehow managed to drag Frederick Mackintosh to freedom?” His voice echoed off the walls.
“We think we have one of his accomplices,” the man offered, hoping it would ease his chief’s anger.
“Accomplices?” Eduard asked as he took a step forward.
“Aye,” the man said with a nod of his head. “The guards on the wall caught one of ‘em. They didna ken at the time that the Mackintosh was gone. They caught him goin’ over the north wall, but thought it was just a young lad tryin’ to make his way out. They kept him tied up on the wall until this morn. He wouldna talk or tell them nothin’. When their relief came this morn, they took the lad down to the dungeon and that’s when they discovered the sleeping guards and that the Mackintosh was missin’.”
Eduard began pacing, trying his best to sort through the information. Anger boiled from deep within his belly. Who on earth could have known that he had the Mackintosh? There was no way it was the man’s family, for it would take weeks for his messengers to reach Mackintosh lands with his ransom demand. Had the men he dispatched days ago been captured? Had someone come in to steal the Mackintosh away in order that they could ransom him? None of it made a damned bit of sense.
He pushed the young man out of his way and stormed out of his bedchamber. There was only one person in this entire keep with any answers. His men might not have been able to gain any useful information from their prisoner, but Eduard knew he would succeed where they had failed. He took a good deal of pride in knowing that he could get even the most unwilling person to divulge their secrets.
FREDERICK SEETHED WITH barely controllable rage. He had woken not long ago and found himself surrounded by his brother, Peter, Ailrig and some one hundred men from Rowan Graham’s clan. “What on earth possessed ye to allow her to do such a thing?” he said through gritted teeth.
Ian rolled his eyes and expelled a breath through his nostrils in frustration. “Aside from tyin’ her to a tree, there was no hope at stoppin’ her. Either we went with her and did our best to keep her safe, or she would have found a way to go alone.”
“But ye didna keep her safe, did ye? The Bowie men have her, don’t they?” Frederick reminded him angrily.
There was a grand battle between guilt and anger rattling around in Ian’s heart. “Ye would be dead if we hadna done somethin’ to get ye out of there.”
True or not, the fact remained that his wife was now in the hands of Eduard Bowie. The thought of what the man might be doing, or might already have done, to his sweet innocent wife consumed him with rage. He had been tortured by Eduard Bowie for three days and would not have survived much longer had it not been for his wife. Frederick could only pray that he could get her out of there before Eduard did anything further to harm her.
“Bring me a horse,” he ground out.
“But Frederick, yer feet,” Ian protested. “How will ye keep yer seat? How will ye fight with one hand broken?”
Frederick called out for Peter. The man came rushing to him and knelt on the ground beside him. “Set the broken bones in me hand, Peter. Then wrap it and have a horse brought to me.”
Peter cast a look at Ian before turning back to Frederick who was lying propped against a tree. “But, Frederick, ye’ll no’ be able to keep yer seat long with broken feet.”
Frederick had reached the limits of his patience. “Rose!” he hollered loudly. “Ailrig!”
Rose and Ailrig came rushing to his side. Both looked as confused as they did worried.
“Rose, set the bones in me hands and then me feet. I need to get to Aggie before Eduard Bowie brings more harm to her.”
Rose was not about to argue with him. She knew what Eduard had done to Aggie more than ten years ago. She was not ready to take any chances with her friend’s safety.
She sat on the ground at his feet and began a careful and tender inspection. His feet were an ugly shade of blue and purple and very swollen. He winced and cursed as she lifted his left foot and began pressing here and there. “I do no’ think yer feet be broken, Frederick. But they be deeply bruised. But I’m a seamstress, no’ a healer.” Gently, she returned his foot to the folded blanket before coming to his side to inspect his hand.
Any fool could see that his hand was broken. Three of his fingers were misshapen and as she pressed the top of his hand, she could feel a broken bone between his index finger and wrist. “Ye have several broken bones, Frederick.”
“I can tell that by lookin’,” he ground out, trying hard not the curse. His feet hurt far worse than his hand, but he knew the moment she began to set the bones, his opinion would quickly change.
“Frederick, have ye lost yer mind?” Ian asked as he began pacing back and forth.
“Nay, I have no’ lost me mind!” Frederick grunted. “Me wife is behind those walls,” he said as he motioned in the direction of the Bowie keep. “I ken from firsthand experience how sadistic Eduard Bowie is. If ye think I’ll leave me wife to him, ye are the one who has lost his mind. Wit
h or without ye, I’m going after Aggie.”
AGGIE SAT IN the far corner of the cell, keeping herself hidden in a tight ball. Thus far, the guards had not discovered she was a woman. Her disguise was working, but she knew it would not be long before they figured things out.
They had put her in the cell next to the one her husband had occupied only hours ago. Her heart ached with missing him and worrying over how he fared. She trusted Rose to tend to his broken bones, but what if a fever set in? Where would they go? They no longer had a home to call their own. She prayed that they could make it to Rowan Graham’s keep before Eduard’s men found them. There, Aggie was certain Frederick would get the care that he needed.
Huddled in the protective ball, she prayed. Not for herself, but for her husband and son. Last night, Frederick had floated in and out of awareness the entire time they had slunk through the passages and corridors of the keep. The last she had seen him, he was unconscious, tossed over Peter’s shoulder. She did feel some amount of relief knowing that at least her husband, son and friends had made it to freedom.
She had overheard the guards talking last night. Eduard had sent half of his men to the McLaren keep, to hold it until Eduard arrived in a few weeks. Apparently, he was in no hurry to get to her keep. His men had laid claim to it, in his name, and for now, that was sufficient in Eduard’s mind.
Wiping away a tear, she wondered if Frederick had thought of her at all while he was here. Deciding perhaps he had, but not in a manner she would have liked, another silent tear fell. With a certainty, her husband had probably cursed the very ground she walked on and regretted ever having married her. Nay, ‘twasn’t her fault that her father was a wretched, greedy man. But had Frederick not offered for her that day those many weeks ago, he would not have been captured and subsequently tortured by Eduard Bowie.
Aggie could not rightly blame him for being angry with her or regretting his decision to take her as his wife. How could she? She was, after all, Aggie McLaren, the scarred, stuttering daughter of Mermadak McLaren. Frederick and his men were used to having plenty of food to eat and warm roofs over their heads. They were used to honorable and just leaders. And what did they have with Mermadak and her people? A severe lack of even the most basic of needs. A keep that listed to one side with leaky roofs, cold and drafty rooms, barely enough firewood to cook meals let alone keep out the chilly air. And her people? Miscreants and ne’er-do-wells were all that were left of a once proud, strong clan.
And a wife so fearful of her own shadow that, until a few weeks ago, couldn’t step foot outside the walls of her keep without turning into a numb mess. A wife who had been raped and bore a child out of wedlock.
None of it, least of all her was worth fighting for. None of it was worth his own life.
Nay, he had to live and move on without her. Aggie felt he should go back to the Mackintosh Clan and build a life there. He could marry again and she hoped that whoever took her place was as kind as she was beautiful. Frederick deserved no less than that. A wife who didn’t keep him awake at night fighting old demons and nightmares. A wife who could speak clearly and one who didn’t shake in her boots at the mere sound of her own father’s voice. A woman who would give him many, many children. A wife who could make him happy.
She wiped away her tears with the palms of her hands and took a deep breath. There was no sense in crying over any of it now. ’Twas all in the past. Crying over what never had been or what never could be was pointless.
She felt some measure of peace in knowing that she had done what she had set out to do; she had freed her husband from a madman. He was now free as was her son.
With those thoughts in mind, she took another deep breath and began to mentally prepare herself for her inevitable death. If Eduard Bowie did not kill her, she would take her own life before she allowed him to rape her again.
THERE WAS NO way to keep track of time in the dark, smelly dungeon. With her mind going back and forth between guilt and regret and wishing things had been different, she had no idea just how long she had been here. In the end, she decided it didn’t matter. As long as Frederick, Ailrig and the others were safely away, that was all that mattered.
Aggie wished the guards had not taken her pouch, for inside it remained enough of the sleeping draught that she could have easily taken her own life. That would have been the easiest way out of this mess. If she were taller she could have fastened her own noose out of the trews she wore and hung herself from the high beams that lined the ceiling of her cell. With nothing sharper than her own fingernails, there was no way to cut her wrists.
Mayhap if she was released from the cell, she could grab a dirk from one of the guards and plunge it into her heart. She had no use for it now for she would never have another opportunity to give it to anyone. Figuratively speaking, her heart would always belong to Frederick, even if she never had the chance to tell him that.
The sound of heavy boots stomping across the stone floor drew her attention. The footfalls sounded angry and rushed. Though there was no way of hiding, reflexively, she drew herself into a tight ball and covered her head with her hands. Mayhap she would be lucky and they would kill her now and save her from having to do it herself.
Large hands grabbed her arms and lifted her to her feet. Her eyes grew wide with fear and horror when she saw who had grabbed her.
Eduard.
She’d never forget his less than handsome appearance, his crooked nose and chinless face. It was his eyes though, that had the most profound effect on her. Such a dark brown they were nearly black and matched his dark soul perfectly.
He stared at her for some time and Aggie could see his expression change from anger to surprise once recognition set in. Roughly, he set her on her feet and shoved back the cowl. His lips drew into a hard, thin line as he tossed angry words over his shoulder. “Ye bloody fools! This be no lad!”
Murmurs floated into the cell as Eduard Bowie looked her up and down. His expression changed from fury to something far more sinister and terrifying.
His voice was low and dripped with venom, belying the words he spoke. “Ye’ve grown into a woman, a fine lookin’ woman Aggie McLaren.”
Suddenly her stomach felt as if she had swallowed huge chunks of ice from the loch. Heavy and cold and ready to retch.
“Do ye remember the last time we were together?” he asked sardonically.
Fear kept her from speaking.
“I do. ’Twas a beautiful spring day. What was it? Nine, ten years ago?” he asked as he brushed away a loose strand of her hair.
Aggie angrily withdrew from his touch, doing nothing to hide the disgust she felt toward this man. Her contempt had no outward effect on Eduard. He continued to look at her as if she were a dear, old friend.
“Do ye remember what I told ye that day, Aggie? How that someday, I’d make ye me wife?”
How could she have forgotten? Not a day went by that something didn’t remind her of that horrid day. For years afterward, her skin would crawl if anyone got within arm’s reach of her. A decade had passed and having him so near, she wavered between being a strong woman of nearly four and twenty and the terrified young girl she had been.
Her stomach turned at the thought of being this man’s wife. Her resolve began to return and she became quite determined to see that one of them would die before that happened. Preferably the cold, calculating and wretched man standing before her.
“I’ve men searchin’ fer yer husband, Aggie. Make no mistake, they will find him. And when they do, they’ve orders to kill him.” He paused and looked directly into her eyes, leaning in close enough that she could feel his breath on her face. “As soon as ye become a widow—which shan’t be long now—I’ll take ye as me wife. And I’ll make good on me promise. I’ll take ye again, and again, and again. Day after day, night after night until I tire of ye. And there will no’ be a bloody thing ye can do about it. Yer mum is no here to stop it and yer dad will no’ care.”
Whether it was
the revulsion she felt toward him or some deep-seated courage, she was not certain, but she managed to find the strength to finally speak. “I’ll kill ye before ye so much as lay a filthy finger on me Eduard Bowie. I’ll see ye in hell first.” Her words were pointed, firm, and not once did she stutter. For good measure, she spat in his face, not caring how he would react or what he might do.
Fury erupted across his face and he raised his hand high in the air. For the first time in her life that she could remember, Aggie did not recoil. She did not flinch or shy away. She didn’t cower or scurry away. She stood firm, albeit on shaky legs, but still, she stood firm and stared him directly in his cold eyes.
He was about to bring his hand down across her face when someone came rushing into the cell and sounding quite out of breath. “Eduard!” the man called out as he slid into the tiny confines.
Eduard stopped his hand in mid-air, cast a hateful glare at Aggie before turning to face the man who had just interrupted them. “What the bloody hell do ye want,” he ground out.
The man looked confoundedly confused. “Ye need to come quick!”
Eduard rolled his eyes before speaking. “What are ye goin’ on about? Go with ye where? And fer what purpose?”
“There be someone at the gate demandin’ to speak with ye,” the man said.
Eduard studied him closely. “Who?”
“Frederick Mackintosh.”
IT WAS DIFFICULT to ascertain from the confused expressions who was more surprised at this sudden turn of events; Eduard Bowie or Aggie McLaren. Neither of them had expected Frederick to return, let alone to be standing at the gate demanding an audience with Eduard.
Aggie could not believe that he had returned, and until she found out why he was here and what he wanted, she would not breathe any sigh of relief. Nor would she allow her heart to believe that he was here for her.
Frederick's Queen: The Clan Graham Series Page 37
