No Other Woman (No Other Series)

by Shannon Drake

  She wrenched free from him with an energy born of pure fury, somehow maintaining complete dignity as she did so. "I'll get rope, because I'd do anything in my power to save Hawk."

  She squared her shoulders, plucking up the lantern and hurrying down the tunnel as fast as she could go. As she hurried along she heard David say, "I'll have her yet, I swear it! She'd best get back—"

  "I can swim," Hawk reminded his brother. "If the currents don't sweep me from the opening."

  He probably could rescue himself, Shawna thought, hurrying down the mine shaft. He was strong, and resourceful, and now, David was with him. Whether she did or didn't find rope, Hawk would escape. But she remembered passing a heavy coil of rope when they had entered the outer tunnel, and as she ran through the shafts, she could picture it exactly in her mind's eye.

  She paused at a fork in the tunnel. The main entrance to the mine was just to her left, yet she had to pause to catch her breath. She leaned a hand against the stone wall of the tunnel, inhaling deeply. Skylar was at the entrance to the main shaft and Shawna wondered if she should tell her quickly what was happening.

  But as she paused, she heard a tap.

  Tap.

  Then, in a deep, low, unearthly tone...

  Her name.

  "Shawna..."

  A whisper she might have imagined. She started to spin around.

  But she smelled something before she could turn. Before she could look.

  Something cold and wet and clammy landed over her face before she could see anything.

  A sickly, sweet smell seemed to overpower everything else and she felt herself falling, and falling, and falling...

  And once again, the darkness was absolute.

  * * *

  A knife flashed in lantern light in the tunnel. But before it could touch Shawna's flesh, the hand that wielded it was drawn back.

  "Fool! What are you doing?"

  "She is to die—"

  "Not here, not now! Take her."

  Arms reached out for Shawna, but the tunnel shaft was suddenly flooded with light from the entrance to the main shaft. "Hawk, Shawna! Hawk, Shawna!"

  "Someone is coming! Hurry!"

  "Leave her!"

  "We must have—"

  "We'll find another opportunity. Come on, we cannot be caught! We've got the other lass, but he wanted M'lady MacGinnis very especially. We'll take her when the opportunity is better! We must not be found here!"

  The two figures hurried down the shaft of the tunnel.

  Just outside the main entrance, Skylar anxiously played her lantern around in circles.

  She prayed that her husband and Shawna would quickly emerge.

  * * *

  "What in God's name can be taking her so long?" David demanded irritably. He had come to know the mine shafts very well. He was very familiar with the tunnels that led from the caves by the loch, bordering the cliffs where the miners dug; he'd been in them often enough, and still, with the lantern gone, the darkness was almost overpowering.

  And he could hear the water as the tide filled the tunnels. Hear it rising.

  As if reading his mind in the darkness, Hawk spoke from the void at his side.

  "She didn't lead me here. I was the one determined to get into the shafts before day broke."

  David leaned against the wall of the cave. "You said you saw her moving."

  "I thought I saw her moving."

  "If we both die, this property all reverts to the MacGinnises."

  "But you're alive, and Shawna knows it."

  "Aye, but since no one else is aware that I do live, my death a second time around would not be much of a bother."

  "She's innocent; I swear it."

  "Knowing full well that she duped me the night that I did 'die'?"

  "Ah, well, now, there's the crux of the matter, eh? Lady MacGinnis duped you—so perhaps forgiveness is difficult? David, do you really believe that Shawna intended to lure me to injury or death now?" Hawk queried his brother.

  "Sweet Jesu! I don't want to believe such a thing. My God, every time I see her..." He paused, inhaling harshly. "She was involved, Hawk. She was involved in what happened. And until I know exactly who else was involved and how, I have to keep up a certain guard against her."

  "She is a part of you, David. You can't deny it."

  "Aye, she is a part of me," he said softly, but then added with angry passion, "Yet, I will deny it if I discover that she is lying to me now in any way, or keeping any secret from me whatsoever regarding her kin." David frowned and leaned over the hole, ready to argue with his brother. But in the darkness, he could see shadows, and the shadow of the water rising was not pleasant.

  "I'm going to reach down for you," David told Hawk.

  "Wait 'til it rises a bit more," Hawk said quietly. "I'll have a better chance of reaching you."

  "In a few minutes, the current may be too strong."

  "All right. One minute then."

  "One minute..."

  David twisted around, bracing his legs around the rocky edge of the gap, then falling forward with his length, reaching out his arms like an acrobat. He could barely make out his brother's form, but he trusted that Hawk could see shadow the same as he did himself. He could hear the water now, for the strength of the tide was causing it to rush by in bubbles and whispers. He heard movement as Hawk jumped within the water, using it to make himself as light and buoyant as possible, then jumping with all his strength and energy.

  At his first attempt, their fingers met and slipped. He heard Hawk swearing as the force of the water carried him northward, and out of reach.

  "Hawk!"

  "Coming back, coming back..."

  "Hawk!"

  "Ready."

  Again, David heard the sloshing movement, saw the shadow of his brother beneath him. Again, Hawk leapt.

  Their hands met, grasped. Their palms were slick from the water. He swore. Grasped harder.

  Their grip became firmer. With all his strength, he lifted. Gritting his teeth, he inched back against the stone, levering his brother's body upward. As soon as humanly possible, Hawk released his grasp on David, caught hold of the stone ledge, and propelled himself upward and out of the void. He landed beside David. For a moment, they lay together, panting, breathing.

  "Son of a bitch!" Hawk muttered, then said in the darkness, "Brother, you are one competent white man."

  David smiled to himself with vast relief. "Thank you. You're quite an acceptable American heathen yourself."

  "Which part is worse, the American or the heathen?"

  "I shouldn't have had you come here," David said.

  "Because of this?" Hawk queried.

  "Someone is determined to rid the world—or Craig Rock, at the very least—of Douglases."

  "Umm," Hawk mused. "I should have stayed home in the middle of the Sioux conflict."

  "You'll go back to it anyway, and you know it."

  "Maybe it will all work itself out while I'm here abroad."

  "Aye, and maybe the Scots will awaken one day and love all things English." He sat up suddenly, realizing that Shawna had not come back.

  "Lady MacGinnis left us."

  Hawk leapt to his feet, reaching for his brother's hand. "Something has happened to her," he said worriedly.

  "Aye, the greed of her kin," David said, but he was up as well. He was glad of the darkness then, hiding the worry that surely played upon his features. She had come here with Hawk and he had nearly been killed. She had gone for the rope to save him; she had never returned.

  "No, David, I don't believe that—" Hawk began, then broke off with a shrug.

  David was condemning her for what had happened here today. But it didn't matter. He was already hurrying along through the tunnel, moving swiftly and easily despite the darkness.

  * * *

  "Get up."

  Shawna blinked, aware of the voice nearby, and overwhelmingly aware of feeling ill. She swallowed, praying that she wasn't go
ing to vomit.

  "Shawna, get up."

  "I can't."

  Her head was spinning. The more it spun, the more afraid she was that she was going to be sick.

  "Shawna—"

  Light flooded into her eyes. She blinked and cringed against it. Who had come, who was talking to her? Someone who intended to kill her?

  Death seemed a mercy at this moment.

  "Shawna!"

  Her name was spoken harshly. David. He was kneeling before her, holding the lantern above her face. She couldn't see his features. The light was all but blinding her.

  "What happened?"

  It was another voice. A kinder, gentler voice.

  The kinder, gentler voice of a savage. Hawk.

  He was hunkered down on her other side, and she could see without being blinded by the glare of the lantern.

  "I—I don't know. I paused to catch my breath... oh, God! You're—you're all right."

  "Aye, my brother lives."

  It was all that he said, yet she was aware that he believed his brother was fine despite her efforts to harm him. Angered, she leapt to her feet. She instantly wavered, feeling again the dizziness and the nausea. She nearly fell—and would have, had Hawk not caught her.

  "Shawna, what is the matter with you?" David demanded skeptically.

  "Shawna?" Hawk inquired.

  "I..."

  "Shawna, talk to us!" David warned. "We'll not play games here as we did five years ago!"

  "You must... you must leave me be," Shawna whispered to Hawk. "I'm... sick."

  She pushed away from him, staggering along the tunnel. When she burst out of the main shaft, Skylar, who had been waiting and watching from the very edge of the entrance, came hurrying after her. "Oh, my God! What's happened, are you all right—"

  She broke off as her husband emerged, followed by David. She spun around nervously, trying to assure herself that they remained alone by the mine's entrance. "David, you can be seen here. Hawk, what's going on? Shawna, tell me! What has happened?" she demanded, her voice rising anxiously at the sight of them, Shawna gray, Hawk soaked and muddied, David disheveled and caked with coal dust.

  Without waiting to hear the men's answer, Shawna hurried to the nearest bushes. Her stomach constricted in vicious torment, and she was violently sick, so much so that she fell into the long, cool grass once her retching had stopped.

  "Poor thing!" she heard. She tried to sit up. The effort was too much. She fell back as Skylar knelt down beside her. She'd had the presence of mind to bring a bucket of water from the mine entrance and dipped her handkerchief in it to bathe Shawna's face. "There..." she murmured. "You're not... well, you're not..."

  "Not what?"

  "Expecting?"

  "Expecting what?" Shawna inquired, then realized just what Skylar Douglas thought she was expecting.

  "No, oh, no! I was attacked, drugged!"

  "Drugged?" Skylar demanded, alarmed, and Shawna realized that neither Hawk nor David had really told Skylar anything.

  "We were tricked in the tunnel. Led toward a gap in the flooring that led to the caverns below that fill with high tide from the loch. When I ran for help... someone drugged me."

  "With wine?" came a sardonic voice.

  David stood behind her. She knew it. She made it to her feet, though she had to pray that she would maintain the strength to stand. And to move.

  "Pray, Skylar, tell your brother-in-law how terribly sorry I am that he does not reside in hell!" she said furiously, and started for her horse.

  She was going to make it. She was still trying to move too fast. She heard a cry, though it seemed distant. Skylar, she thought.

  She started to fall again.

  She was swept up. She tried to open her eyes.

  David. David was carrying her.

  And for a brief moment, his green eyes seemed forest deep with concern.

  "Bastard," she mouthed to him.

  Then her eyes closed again.

  When she awoke next, she was in the tower room at Castle Rock.

  Sunlight was shining through the window and Skylar was seated by her side, reading as she kept watch.

  Thinking they were alone, Shawna groaned. She tried to smile at Skylar, who instantly looked at her with concerned eyes.

  "Are you all right?"

  "Better. Very thirsty."

  "I'll get you some water—"

  "Here."

  Skylar didn't need to go for water. David was in the room as well. Bathed and changed, he wore a handsomely loose-fitting white shirt and form-hugging breeches along with black boots. A stray lock of his dark auburn hair had formed a wild, rakish wave down the center of his forehead and he impatiently thrust it from his eyes as he pressed a glass of water into her fingers.

  Skylar rose. "Well, Shawna, you're looking much better. I guess I had best leave the two of you... er, alone," she finished flatly, looking from one of them to the other.

  She didn't flee uncomfortably. Skylar wasn't the type to do so. She turned, and seemed to gracefully float from the room.

  Shawna sat up, instantly wary.

  But she groaned then, burying her face in her hands. "Don't you ever go away anymore?" she whispered painfully.

  He sat by her side on the bed, and she felt his eyes on her. She felt his stare. It seemed to be piercing her, stripping her in a manner quite unlike anything she'd ever felt, even from him, before.

  "Tell me exactly what happened."

  "I should not tell you the time of day."

  "I don't give a damn about the time of day. What happened?"

  "Your brother came to me to see the mines—"

  "So he says. But he is a gallant heathen, and would protect you."

  "He is gallant—and honest."

  "Indeed. Go on."

  "We heard a tapping. And followed it. And a gust of air doused the light. I heard him calling to me—" she began, then broke off flatly, crossing her arms over her chest.

  "Go on."

  She shook her head vehemently. "I'll not."

  "You will."

  "Go plague someone you believe in, Laird Douglas."

  "I shall plague you mercilessly until I get my answers. My brother was nearly killed today. That would have made a fine and fitting end to the Douglas clan."

  "I never sought to harm your brother. He knows it well. And you know it."

  "Maybe I'm afraid I'm finding it far too easy to believe in your innocence, and knowing you, I don't dare allow myself that luxury. What happened to you when you went for the rope to save his life?"

  "Someone... drugged me."

  He stood, walking to the window. Then he turned back to stare at her.

  "How odd."

  "What is odd?"

  "I found a handkerchief very early this morning in the chapel."

  "What has this to do—"

  "It still smelled of chloroform."

  Shawna gasped. "Chloroform? But whose—"

  She broke off, wide-eyed, because he was walking back toward her and he leaned over her, his arms like a pair of bars on either side of her.

  "Yours," he said, before she could voice the question.

  "What?" she gasped. "You're trying to tell me that you found one of my handkerchiefs in the chapel—and it still carried a scent of chloroform."

  "Indeed. I did, however, search the chapel from top to bottom. And I found nothing more."

  "So you're implying that I drugged myself to keep from saving your brother—then managed to run back here, drop my handkerchief in the chapel, and go running back to the mine to fall flat on my face?"

  "I'm implying no such thing."

  "Then—"

  "I'm saying that it's quite curious that you are drugged by a mystery creature in the mine—and a handkerchief with your initials upon it is found in the cemetery bearing the scent of chloroform."

  She pushed his arm aside, trying to rise. She wasn't nearly as dizzy as she had been, but she wavered for a minute before g
aining strength by leaning on him. "I have had it! I won't keep secret the fact that you live anymore—I will not betray my own family. How could my kin possibly be guilty when I am master of so much mischief? And you, Laird Douglas, you may have many rights, but you've got no right to me—"

  She was suddenly no longer leaning on him, he was holding her, his hands cupping her elbows as he kept her firmly close, his head somewhat lowered to hers.

  "You are sure it is a drug that made you ill?"

  "Aye, of course!"

  "You're quite certain that you're not with child?"

  "Oh, sweet Jesu!" she murmured. "It was a drug, I am not with child!"

  "How do you know?"

  "I know, believe me, I know."

  "You can't—"

  "Oh, God, stop!" she hissed. She was feeling weak again. She couldn't tell him that she knew full well that this was not a pregnancy sickness! "I was ill from the sickly sweet scent of the drug, and that is all! Damn you, go! If you cannot believe in me, I insist that you leave me be. Your brother is here—darken his door by night! If you must guard someone by night, find your way to Sabrina's door—"

  "That would not be likely."

  "She's an exceptionally beautiful young woman."

  "Exceptionally so."

  She tried to wrench free from him. "Go—"

  "M'lady MacGinnis, I think not."

  "If—"

  "I rather imagine that Sabrina Connor is involved with the father of her child."

  Shawna gasped, horrified, trying to remember if she had given Sabrina away with any word or action. Surely, she had not done so!

  "So you know—"

  "Aye, that I do."

  "But, I didn't—"

  "You did not."

  "But she has told no one, she doesn't want her sister or your brother to know—"

  "They do not. Not to my knowledge."

  A warm wave of uneasiness swept over Shawna. He heard too much, knew too much! She backed against the wall, watching him, wondering what else he might know.

  She never gave away the past, she assured herself. Never.

  Not even in her dreams.

  There were things she could not bear to remember.

  "Ah, so, Laird Douglas, were it not for Sabrina Connor's delicate secret, you might be slipping through her door."