No Other Woman (No Other Series)

by Shannon Drake

  Yet Shawna evidently thought that she could find Sabrina. And she didn't want anyone other than Hawk or David to know where she intended to look. Maybe she was afraid of someone's realizing that they were about to find Sabrina.

  And maybe she was afraid of what might happen to Sabrina if someone else reached her before they did.

  Two minutes, Skylar decided. She'd give Brother Damian exactly two minutes, then she'd find some excuse to go after Shawna.

  Taking the kettle from the fire, Anne-Marie deftly brewed and strained tea, saying, "We've all manner of contests as well, a caber throw, traditional dance, archery—ah! And imagine! Laird Douglas is part Sioux, can ye imagine such a thing here, Brother Damian? But think on it—archery, with an Indian in the family!" She laughed delightedly. "Our Laird Douglas will surely take the prize this year!"

  "I imagine he will," Brother Damian said, smiling to Skylar as he lifted his cup of tea.

  She smiled uneasily, lifting her cup of tea in return. Something about Brother Damian was vaguely unnerving, but she couldn't tell quite what. He was clean and neat enough, but his whiskers were so rich and his hair so long and bushy that they all but consumed his face. Still...

  "So, there's great feasting—and a great deal of sinning as well, I've heard!" Brother Damian said.

  He didn't say the words much like a friar. He seemed amused by the rumors of what went on.

  "Now, such a complaint did not come from these parts!" Anne-Marie said in protest. She set a hand on Skylar's. "Lady Douglas, you must not fear for your sister. We'll find her, I know it in my heart. The Night of the Moon Maiden is a night of joy, and we celebrate the harvest, and all that is rich and wonderful and plentiful—"

  "And fertile?" Brother Damian suggested lightly.

  "Well, then," Anne-Marie admitted, "we need a fertile harvest to keep us all in food!"

  "And a night of abandon here and then to maintain a population in the Highlands as well," he said with a smile.

  "Well, the night, it brings about a share of marriages, Brother Damian, but for the most part, the births that result from the Night of the Moon Maiden are legitimate by the time they occur!"

  "What do you think of these festivities, Lady Douglas?" Brother Damian asked.

  "I've yet to experience the night. I'm sure it will be interesting," Skylar said. Brother Damian, she noted, though ostensibly paying attention to her and Anne-Marie, was now watching the lads turn meat at the hearth.

  "They're young," he commented.

  "Aye," Skylar agreed. "But Anne-Marie takes great care with her kitchen help. The lads have been taken from the mines, where their own parents sent them. Lady MacGinnis, who tends all of our interests as my husband is most often in America, no longer allows the young children to work in our mines. Our dear Anne-Marie runs the kitchen as if it were a school," Skylar said, and smiled at the plump woman who was, as always, bustling about, working upon her dough once again. "The lads work with her an hour or so—and then rot their poor little teeth on the pastries she makes for them."

  "It's good that they're out of the mines," he agreed.

  "That's the lad who was lost in the mines just a bit ago, isn't it?"

  "Danny? Aye, that's him."

  "May I talk with him for a moment? I can give the boys a hand with their work, if I may...?" he inquired.

  He stood, striding to the fire where little Danny and another boy, perhaps three or four years older, turned a spit. "If you twist so," Damian explained, hunkering down by the lads to show them how to roll the spit rather than lifting it, "it will be much easier work."

  "Thank you, Brother," said the older lad.

  "Aye," Brother Damian said, nodding to him.

  He tousled Danny's hair, looking at the boy, his expression oddly intent. "You've been fine since the day you were stuck in the mine shaft, eh, lad?"

  Danny nodded. "Aye." His eyes were wide, solemn. "The beastie saved me."

  Brother Damian smiled. "Well, you were saved. That's what matters."

  Danny looked at Brother Damian and said something very softly. He smiled, obviously happy and comfortable in Damian's presence.

  She thought that she heard the boy say something more about a beastie.

  Damian replied, but Skylar couldn't hear as he lowered his voice, talking to the boy. Damian studied the lad's face, laughed, and curiously, turned the lad about, studying him. Then lifted the boy's hair from his neck once again, studying the hairline at his nape with great intensity.

  Unnerved, Skylar stood, afraid that, despite his easy way and gentleness, the friar had some evil designs upon the poor lad.

  "Brother Damian, what is it? If something is wrong—" she began.

  The old man said something gently to the boy, then stood, turning back to Skylar.

  His expression, beneath his thick whiskers, was livid. She noted that his hands were tensed, rolled into tight fists at his sides. Once again, looking at him, she found something quite unnerving about the man, but she couldn't quite put her finger on what it was.

  Maybe it was his hands. They were very strong, very powerful hands. Long-fingered, his nails clipped and cleaned.

  She should know something about this man, she was certain, she saw something in him, in his face. There was something about him that was familiar.

  "Brother Damian?"

  Where in God's name was Hawk when she needed him?

  Damian didn't seem to see Skylar. He didn't seem to see anyone or anything at all, other than whatever vision it was that played in his mind.

  "I shall kill her!" he said furiously. "I shall very nearly do the damned deed myself!"

  Then, before Skylar could reply, he grabbed both of her hands, his eyes focused on her now. "Skylar," he snapped, dispensing with all formality, "keep the lad here, keep an eye on him, don't let him go off anywhere with anyone, none of the Andersons or the MacGinnises or anyone, do you understand?"

  "Brother Damian, I would hardly let a child this age go off alone—"

  "Nay, you're not listening! Don't let the boy go anywhere until arrangements have been made for him, do you understand? Don't let his—his father come for him, or any of his sisters, any of the Andersons. Or—or the MacGinnises. It will all make sense, just watch him closely! Swear it!"

  The man was a madman, and still—

  "Swear it to me, for the love of God!"

  "I—I swear!" Skylar said, frightened by the friar's passion yet somehow compelled to give him her promise.

  "I will watch the lad, I swear it to you," she said.

  He squeezed her hands, then released them.

  With a speed and agility most amazing for a man of his age, he turned and left the castle.

  She was going to have to find Hawk, that was all there was to it. She would take the boy with her, and find her husband down in the crypts.

  Chapter 19

  Alistair MacGinnis seemed exceptionally uneasy in the crypts.

  "I can't quite imagine what you're looking for down here," he told Hawk.

  "I don't know myself," Hawk said. He hesitated. "But there was some commotion down here last night—and I'm certain there's a connection between what happened last night and Sabrina's kidnapping. Besides, on the day that Sabrina disappeared there was talk of my brother's corpse rising out of its coffin, I've been told. I'm considering having the body exhumed."

  "Exhume the body?" Alistair repeated.

  "You don't think that doing so might put to rest some of the strange happenings here?" Hawk queried.

  Without answering, Alistair pushed open the iron gate to the crypt. He set the lantern upon a hook, then walked to the coffin that bore David Douglas's name. Nervously, he set his hands to the lid. The nails screeched, but gave.

  Hawk watched him curiously for a moment, then hurried over and helped him. Together, they lifted the lid from the coffin.

  "It's..." Alistair began.

  "Gone," Hawk concluded flatly. He closed the lid. "Someone has stolen the
corpse."

  "Hawk!" came a cry as the two men stared at one another. "Hawk!"

  Hawk glanced at Alistair. Shawna was coming. They quickly re-covered the coffin.

  Shawna burst into the vault.

  "Hawk!" she acknowledged, then looked at her cousin, attempting to conceal her surprise to find the two of them together in the crypts. "Alistair!" she said. "What—what are you doing down here—both of you, together?"

  "Shawna, you were supposed to be in your room, or with Skylar in the kitchen," Hawk said.

  "I had to see you," Shawna explained. "I've an idea. About Sabrina."

  "What is that?" Hawk queried.

  "We've—" She hesitated, glancing at her cousin again. "We've got to look through the cemetery. The Douglas crypts are down here, but the cemetery has many vaults belonging to the individual families. Burial has been very important here in the last hundred years or so. Even the poor families vie to have the most beautiful vaults built. There's a McCloud vault above us, which is exactly where we must start, since it seems that Edwina McCloud and her Wicca practitioners are being blamed for events."

  "Shawna—" Hawk began, frowning.

  "Hawk, what better place to hide someone than a vault?"

  "Dead or alive," Alistair murmured.

  "All right. Let's go," Hawk said. He started back for the corridor, then turned to Shawna. "Keys?"

  "There's a set in the chapel," she said.

  "Let's get them," Hawk said.

  As they reached the chapel, Skylar was just coming into it, leading Danny Anderson. The boy was clean, well fed, his ink-dark hair groomed. His wide blue eyes were grave, however, and made him look far older than his few tender years.

  "Hawk, I must speak with you," Skylar said.

  "Daniel," Shawna said, stooping down to the child's level. "You look very well indeed. Tell me, how is the castle? Are you glad to be here? Is everyone being very good to you?"

  He nodded gravely. "I like it very much here. Anne-Marie makes good things to eat."

  Shawna laughed. "She does, doesn't she?" She picked up the boy, smiling as she rose. But the others weren't smiling at all.

  Skylar was concerned as she talked to her husband.

  "There was a very strange old man here who calls himself Brother Damian. He suddenly became overwrought with worry about Daniel. He told me I wasn't to leave the boy for a minute, and then he dashed out of the castle. Hawk, I must admit that my encounter with that unnerving man really frightened me."

  "Brother Damian said to watch the boy?" Hawk asked, frowning.

  "Brother Damian was there, in the tavern, just before Sabrina disappeared," Shawna said worriedly. "I don't think that the man is what he pretends to be at all. He's always about when there's some trouble. We've forgotten Sabrina! Please, let's hurry and look into the McCloud vault."

  "But what about Danny?" Skylar asked.

  "Daniel, you don't mind coming on a bit of a hunt with us, do you?" Shawna asked.

  "Shawna," Alistair said, "we're going to a mausoleum, and not just that, but how do we know what we're going to find?"

  "You're right; the boy shouldn't come," Shawna said.

  "I have to look for my sister!" Skylar whispered, pained.

  Hawk took Daniel from Shawna's arms. "I'll tell Anne-Marie that she must forget her scones for the evening and take the boy up to her room and lock herself in. Don't start without me," he told the others, "But be ready when I get back."

  Hawk took Danny from the chapel and, though he returned quickly, each minute he was gone seemed like an hour.

  Alistair slipped a ring of slightly rusting keys from a peg near the altar when he saw Hawk returning. "These should do it," he said.

  "Let's go then."

  "Wait!" Shawna said.

  Hawk, Skylar, and Alistair waited, staring at her expectantly.

  "We should go back through the crypt. We'll run into fewer people that way."

  "Shawna, it's dusk, nearly completely dark. How many people are you expecting to find in the cemetery?" Skylar asked.

  She shook her head. "I don't know, I just think that it's safer if fewer people know what we're up to."

  Alistair stared at her hard. She returned the stare. Had Hawk Douglas decided to trust Alistair—or had Alistair just happened upon them?

  Shawna didn't know which, but Alistair was, it seemed, a member of their search party now.

  "We'll go back through the crypt," Hawk said. He took a lantern and his wife's hand and led the way back down the stairs and through the corridor of the crypt to the stairway leading to the cemetery. Shawna glanced nervously at Alistair as they walked. She was glad that her cousin was with her...

  And still slightly afraid.

  She should trust Alistair, she taunted herself. She had claimed him innocent often enough to David.

  Yet...

  She prayed he was innocent. Because she loved him.

  Darkness was falling, but the moon, which was very nearly full, rode high in the heavens, casting eerie shadows upon the faces of cherubs and seraphs that had been carved into the gravestones. Sculpted angels cast strange forms upon the earth. Larger, bulkier, even more mysterious shadows were created by the vaults of the dead. The vaults themselves, though eerie in the moonlight, were handsome exhibits of architecture, many of them built in Greek or Roman fashion, with fine white columns and meticulous scrollwork.

  The cemetery faced the northwest, toward the dense forest there. As it happened, or perhaps by some ancient design, it was tucked away in the corner of the property, and here now in the moonlight, it was difficult to believe that not more than several hundred yards around the stone base of Castle Rock was the grand entrance to the great hall of the castle.

  The air was crisp and cool; a ground fog was rising, adding to the ghostly feel of the shadows that fell upon the ground from angels and archangels. Their footsteps, even against the grass, seemed loud in the night; no sounds from elsewhere seemed to penetrate into the moonlit haze of the cemetery.

  "McCloud, there it is, just ahead," Shawna advised, seeing the family name in large sculpted letters atop one of the mausoleums that stood before them. Her voice seemed loud in the night.

  Hawk strode ahead to the vault, walking up the three steps that led to the heavy door at the entry. The others followed just slightly behind him, watching as he went through the keys. "Is there any way to identify the proper key?" he queried, looking back at Shawna.

  "Rainor—the undertaker from the village—knows them all. I'm afraid I don't."

  "We are at a Douglas holding," Alistair reminded him. He shrugged. "I've no idea which key."

  "It's trial and error," Shawna apologized.

  Hawk nodded, and tried a key in the lock. He went on to a second key, and a third. The hardwood door to the vault groaned open.

  Yet, even as it did so, Hawk suddenly spun around, hearing something Shawna had not heard. He cried out a sharp warning to them all.

  "Down!" he thundered.

  He fell atop his own wife, pressing them both to the earth. Shawna heard Alistair swear; then, to his credit, her cousin cast his own body atop hers, bearing them both to the earth. A clump of mud flew up against her just as a hail of bullets went crashing through the cemetery, ricocheting off stone tombs, angels, and death's-heads.

  "Sweet Jesu!" Hawk muttered, his head just -above a tombstone.

  "Someone is shooting at us—in the cemetery!" Alistair said incredulously.

  "Do you see anyone?" Hawk called.

  It seemed that the fog had rolled in more thickly the very second Hawk spoke. A field of clouds seemed to lie on the ground where they had fallen for protection.

  It surely did offer them protection from the bullets. But it blinded them as well.

  "Shawna, Alistair... creep this way. Down on the ground, snakelike. Get into the vault!" Hawk commanded.

  "Go!" Alistair urged Shawna.

  "But you—"

  "I'm right behind you. Go!"r />
  Shawna instantly obeyed. Old, broken headstones clawed at her clothing; blades of grass tickled her nose. She all but tasted the mud of the earth. She heard Alistair inching along right behind her.

  She stopped, cringing, as the sound of a bullet bouncing off stone just beside her rang loudly in the night. A shadow loomed huge above her as Hawk stood—just long enough to return a barrage of fire from a gun he had apparently been carrying discreetly.

  "Get in the vault, all of you!" Hawk commanded, falling back to the earth again, behind a large headstone.

  Shawna saw Skylar rise to a crouching position and run up the three steps and slip into the vault just ahead of another round of bullets that came crashing into the masonry and shrubs that surrounded them. Shawna lifted her head just in time to see a creature in a cowled cloak slip behind the vault far to their left.

  "My God!" she breathed, incredulous. "To our left!" she cried to Hawk.

  "Will both of you get in there!" he cried back. She realized that he was reloading his gun. "Now!" he said,

  and she saw him rise, now firing with rapid precision in the direction she had pointed him.

  "Shawna, go, get in the vault," Alistair hissed.

  "Alistair, did you see—"

  "I saw."

  "Who—"

  "Up, cousin, now, quick!" Alistair urged her. He drew her to her feet. A bullet crashed into stone right by her head as she dashed into the McCloud burial vault, Alistair right at her back, pressing her forward all the way.

  "Down here!" Skylar whispered, slipping her arms around Shawna and bringing her down to hunch low just behind the heavy wooden door.

  Hawk fired rapidly then, rising as he did so, backing his way toward the vault. He slipped through the doorway which they'd kept ajar for his entry. He leaned against the cold stone of the vault then, inhaling deeply. "There are at least three of them."

  "Them—who?" Shawna gasped.

  "Your cloaked figures." Hawk looked down at them in the shadowy darkness. "There's no other way in here—and no way out—other than this door?"

  Shawna shook her head. "There's another room to our left, but no other way in, no other way out."

  On the ground, she crept closer to where he stood just inside the doorway, carefully trying to look out. She covered her ears and leaned flat against the stone as the firing started up from outside once again, bullet after bullet grazing off or plowing into the mausoleum.