by Aileen Adams
He would know, would he not? Every time he closed his eyes, she would either haunt his dreams or she wouldn’t.
For the first time, he prayed to see her that night.
Help me. Please, Mother, help me. Spare me this…
His heart pounded at the sound of her voice in the darkness, the air around him still as a shroud. He moved through it with caution, unable to see even where he was about to place his foot. Not so much as a pinpoint of light shone through that impenetrable darkness. When he raised his hand, nothing appeared before his face.
Help me!
“Where are ye?” he called out, but his voice fell flat. Not a breath of air moved. He may as well have screamed a pillow. “Where can I find ye?”
Help… please… hurry…
He woke covered in sweat, sitting halfway up, his chest heaving as he struggled to take a breath. The room was as dark as it had been when he first laid head to pillow. How long ago had it been? Not long enough.
There had been no staying in that dream. That airless, lightless place. Was that where she was, whoever she was? In some dark, lifeless cell or room with no windows? No air?
No, she had not been there.
He sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, knowing that lying back down would be a waste of time by then, and not only because the linens were hopelessly tangled and soaked in sweat which would rapidly cool in the chill night air.
There would be no sleep after hearing her pleas. They tore at him even now, when he was awake and aware and could feel the wooden floor beneath his bare feet and the water in the basin as it splashed his cheeks.
She was still out there somewhere. And she needed him more than ever.
He had only to reach her before it was too late.
4
Shana knew this was coming, didn’t she?
He would not be satisfied with her living in that cell forever. These weeks had been an effort to wear her down, to make her weak and willing to go along with nearly anything so long as she could be free. Clean. Fed.
To a point, her captor’s efforts had worked. Her body ached terribly from so much time spent curled up on a stone floor. She needed movement, she needed fresh air. Even the act of walking from her cell to wherever it was this Stuart man waited for her was tiring.
She was weak, too, having eaten nothing but bread for the duration of her ordeal. The belted dress of which she had once been so fond—it had shown off her womanly curves quite nicely—now hung on her in great folds and could hardly be mistaken for the lovely, flattering garment it had once been.
Her body was so thin now. Her hair was one great matted mass when once it had shone in lustrous curls of the blackest black, and she had swung her hair from side to side as she’d danced to her brother’s fiddle. How her feet had flown, hands clapping along to the frantic rhythm of Manfri’s playing.
No one would want to see her dance now. No one would even come near enough without shrinking back in revulsion. She did not need a looking glass to know how dreadful she appeared.
Even so, she walked with her head high, as though she were a queen on her way to court.
The pair of guards who’d come to fetch her—she thought she recognized them as the men who’d taken her prisoner, and their knowing smirks only made her more certain—led her up a short flight of stone stairs into a bright courtyard. She cringed, eyes closing against the brightness of the late-day sun.
“A bit bright for ye, eh?” one of the two who led her forward chuckled, tugging the rope which bound her hands. The end of the rope sat in his clenched fist, and he gave her no slack that she might bend her arms and shield her eyes.
She gave no answer, for it did not matter. They knew her eyes hurt and it pleased them, as it would surely please the man to whom she was about to speak. She hadn’t yet met him, but she knew this as well as she knew her own name.
He would take delight in her discomfort, for it would make her more likely to give in to whatever he wanted. He thought she was that easily broken.
He had never met her, or any of her kind, if he believed this.
His home was a castle, or at least it seemed that way to her unskilled eyes. Endless hallways, tapestries and paintings on the walls, vaulted archways. There was no time to see it all, not that she would have had any desire to do so even if she wasn’t being led around by a rope.
They soon came to an open door and walked through without pausing, and she stumbled when the guard holding the rope gave it a jerk—likely for the approval of his master, who sat in a large, wooden chair before a fire.
She was not overly impressed at the first sight of him. He appeared tall, rugged, with broad shoulders and large hands which he busied in toying with a dirk. Threatening her without words, it appeared.
His eyes were the bluest blue and would have been quite striking were it not for their hardness. If they looked upon her with warmth, with tenderness, they might well have taken her breath away. She wondered how many women had fallen under their spell.
His full mouth curved into a smile whose sincerity she nearly believed as the guards pulled her before him. “Here she is,” he murmured. “Our guest.”
“Do you treat all guests as you treat me?” she replied, her tone icy, imperious.
His smile did not falter. “Better or worse, as the case may be. Ye have not found your cell welcoming, I take it?”
“I hardly expect you wished me to.”
“Tis true, I must admit.” He chuckled, and the sound was like warm honey pouring over her. How could he be so cruel yet sound so friendly and kind? “Ye are just as sharp as Alec told me. The old man is a good judge of character, but I thought ye might have worked your charms on him somehow. I was wrong.”
She lifted a shoulder in a shrug and almost wished he would get on with the business of whatever it was he planned to do with her. Waiting and wondering were enough to drive her nearly mad.
“Ye should know ye aren’t the one I’m interested in, and I’m sorry to have reduced ye to such a state.” He leaned on one bent arm, chin in his hand, while he still toyed with the dirk in the other. “They tell me ye were quite a bonny sight when they first found ye. I canna say I see it now.”
“You should have seen me days ago, then.” She smirked, and was rewarded by a sharp tug on her rope.
Jacob glanced at the guard holding the rope and gave a quick shake of his head in admonishment. “Ye ought not be so smart with me,” he muttered. “Or have ye forgotten whose cell you’ve lived in all these weeks?”
“How could I forget?”
“It could get much worse for ye down there. I’ve managed to keep the men away from ye until now, but there’s no telling how long I shall be able to so do.”
“What is it you want from me?” she blurted. “Come on with it, now. We’ve spent enough time staring at one another. Let us get on with it.”
In a flash, he was out of his chair and standing face-to-face with her, making her tilt her head back at an alarming angle to look up into his eyes.
His nose wrinkled. “Ye have a quick tongue, but that tongue might get ye into a great deal of trouble. For no one ever told ye to take care with who ye use that tongue against. I’m the man who holds your life in his hands, and ye dare speak sharply to me? To make demands?”
She couldn’t help shrinking beneath the weight of his rage. He was no longer the honey-voiced serpent waiting to strike. He’d become a bear, a wolf, claws bared and jaws snapping at the thought of tearing her apart.
“How would ye like it if I took that tongue from your filthy mouth?” He held the blade before her, moving it back and forth in a teasing motion. “What would ye think of that?”
She only shook her head while fighting back her tears. There would be no letting him see her cry. She would not allow it.
“I didna think ye would like it much, and it would go against my purposes,” he admitted with a shrug. “I need your tongue in place if you’re to tell me what I wis
h to know. So I’ll have to think of other places to cut ye, places you’ll wish I hadna cut.” He trailed the blade down the front of her dress, lingering near her breasts before moving lower and coming to a stop below her navel.
Their eyes met again.
He smiled.
Terror chilled her.
“What is your name?”
She stared at him as though she’d lost the ability to hear or speak.
He raised an eyebrow. “Where are your kinsmen?” The question might well have come from a lover, so softly was it spoken. Like a caress. An intimacy.
“I do not know. It’s the truth. How could I know now, that you’ve taken me from them? They might have moved on anywhere.”
“Without ye? Ye mean that little to them?” An edge of distrust and disbelief in his voice. “I doubt it. When more of my men returned to the place where you were found, the camp was gone without a trace. Where were ye planning on moving?”
While she was glad to know they’d escaped so neatly, her heart sank at the thought of them moving on so quickly without her. They had no choice, of course… but they had not come for her, either. Or even tried to. “They never told me of their plans.”
“I dinna believe ye.”
She shrugged. “I have nothing else to say.”
“Nothing?” He tapped the dirk against her stomach. The urge to make water all over the floor and his shoes was almost impossible to fight. How could he inspire such terror with only a simple motion?
In spite of this, she shook her head, her lips pressed together in a thin line.
“We’ll see how ye feel when a few of my men come to visit ye tonight,” Jacob Stuart suggested with a nasty sneer. “They have a way of convincing people to tell me what I wish to know.” He nodded to his men, who jerked Shana away from him and out the door.
Her blood ran cold, and now tears swam in her eyes as they led her back to her cell. When would they come for her, these men he spoke of?
What would they do?
Her imagination spun terrible images—painful, humiliating. Each was worse than the one before. They would mark her, shame her worse than she’d already been shamed, and they would take pleasure in her pain.
Only when she was alone again did she cry weak, pitiful tears, curled in a ball with her knees against her forehead. Mother Tara, please, help me. Help me.
It felt like ages before the familiar shuffling steps rang out in the otherwise silent dungeon. Alec. She knew his name now.
“Yer supper tray,” he slurred when he reached the cell.
“You must help me.” She struggled to her feet and pressed her face to the wooden stakes. “Please. They’re going to come for me tonight, and I know not what they shall do, but I know they’re going to hurt me. I have nothing to offer them. I know nothing.”
This was not really true, but it may as well have been. She would never tell them what they wished to know, not ever. Not her name, not the names of her family nor where they had intended to move on to after raiding Stuart lands.
She stared at the old man, willing him to believe her.
“Tis none of my affair,” he decided after a long pause—though his hesitation told a different story, and Shana latched onto this slim bit of hope.
“Please, Alec. You must help me.”
His eyes met hers, searching. “How could I help ye?”
“You could let me go. Tell them I pushed you down as you delivered my meal.”
“They’d never believe it.”
“I’ll hit you. Not hard, but enough to make you bleed. Oh, please, please, this is my last chance. At least give me the chance to try. I beg you. Before they hurt me.” Tears streamed down her cheeks now, her voice all but choked with emotion.
He looked around, his tongue darting over his chapped lips. “When ye run, go straight through the courtyard. The door leading out into the woods is direct in front of ye. Just run straight.”
“You’ll let me go?” It seemed too good to be true, but there he was, opening the door and leaving it that way.
“Aye. I’ll regret it, I’m certain, but you’ve been through enough. Ye seem like a nice enough sort.” He raised an arm, pointing. “Go straight out and up. The door will still be open, but not for much longer. Most of the men are in the keep, eatin’ their supper. Now is the time.”
“Thank you, Alec.” She grasped the man’s hand for a moment, squeezing hard, before sheer panic gave her strength she should not have otherwise possessed.
She darted through the dark dungeon, bare feet making not a sound as she ran up the stairs. It was full dark by then, the night air crisp and chill. She’d always loved this time of year best, even if it meant less time spent moving thanks to the shorter days.
Now, the long night would—she prayed—be her salvation. Darkness was all she had working in her favor as she took Alec’s advice and ran straight through the quiet courtyard and through the open door leading out to the woods.
She was already moving among the trees when she heard shouts from the towers. She’d been spotted. Terror ran through her veins like fire, propelling her forward, urging her to move faster, faster, to ignore the pain in her bare feet and simply run.
Shana stumbled, her skirts catching here and there on low brush and brambles. Like phantom hands clutching at her, pulling her back, slowing her progress. She whimpered and gasped for air, her lungs burning, tears streaming down her cheeks. Panicked tears, frantic, desperate.
They were coming, oh, she heard them even over the pounding of her heart. Like a rabbit in a snare, she was, knowing every moment might be its last and moving as fast as its legs could carry it.
She would never hunt again without remembering this. If she lived through this and managed to hunt again.
A half-buried log tripped her, and only the fear of being heard kept her from crying out in surprise. She sprawled on the ground, catching herself on her palms and cutting them in a dozen places. The shock ran up her arms and through her shoulders, into her back, yet some inner force which drove her—fear, pure fear—pushed her back up onto her feet and kept her moving.
The clouds parted overhead, and the moon gave her at least a bit of light by which to see. Her head moved back and forth, her eyes searching the woods, her throat and lungs on fire as she fought for every breath. Was that the Stuart men behind her? Beside her?
She had to keep moving. There would be a road somewhere close enough to be reached on foot. Feet which bled, feet which couldn’t seem to carry her fast enough, no matter how she struggled. Like a nightmare in which the harder she fought, the slower she moved.
“Ye canna run!” A voice reminded her. A voice far too close to where she was.
Once again, her eyes darted to and fro as now she searched for a place to hide. They were too close, they would find her, they would catch her and do terrible things before killing her, yes, they would kill her if they found her.
A horse approached just beyond where she’d stopped.
A road.
She had to take a chance. If it carried a Stuart man, she would keep running. Or wrestle his dirk away and kill herself. Anything would be better than allowing them to punish her for escaping.
She threw herself into the road, in the path of the horse and its rider. He was not of the Stuarts—he did not wear their colors, nor did he look as though he’d expected to come across her.
“Whoa!” he cried out when his ink-black horse reared.
She held up her hands, sobbing and breathless. “Help me! Please!”
5
William managed to keep control of the horse, and to turn it about that it might not trample the lass who’d just thrown herself into his path.
The lass begging him for help.
There was no time to waste or even to ask why she needed him or from whom she ran. He threw a hand down. “Come on!”
To his surprise, she somehow propelled herself onto the back of the saddle with what seemed like no effort.
/> “Go! Go!” she gasped as she linked her arms about his waist.
He drove his heels into the horse’s sides, and they tore down the road at breakneck speed. This was it. This was her.
And oh, God in Heaven above, she stank like a cesspool. No wonder she’d needed him.
The horse galloped through the night, the moon’s light guiding the way down the winding road. It was a narrow road, with trees thick on both sides. That would provide cover, but it would also provide cover to anyone in the woods. Anyone who might be watching.
“Keep lookout for anyone around us,” he called back to her as he urged the horse to greater speed. The fall of hooves on hard-packed ground drowned out the pounding of his heart, but just barely.
He’d waited so long to find her, and now he had to make her safe. Everything was happening so fast.
“Hurry, please! Hurry!” Her words were sobs in his ear, sobs which told him of the horror she had just barely escaped.
He pushed all thoughts of that aside in favor of guiding the horse down the road, riding hard until they were out of the thickest wood. Now they could be more easily seen if they stayed on the road, out in the open, and so he directed the horse to the left and through the tree line.
“What are you doing?”
“Giving us cover.” It was slower going now, the horse picking its way through brush and over roots, but this was better than being spotted from afar. The sound of running water drew William’s attention, and he let the panting beast find its way to a wide, rushing stream before pulling it to a stop at water’s edge.
“Why did we stop?” she demanded.
“The horse canna take much more of this. It needs to breathe and have a drink, as do I.” And a breath of fresh air, since now they’d stopped, and the stench coming from her made his stomach clench.
She slid from the horse, and he followed. Now he could look upon her. She wore little better than rags, and her hair was a mass of knots and snarls. It was no wonder she smelled as she did. How long had she been locked away?
