Stella Cameron

by Fascination

  Very carefully she raised the light bundle to her face and touched her cheek to the baby’s downy head. He squirmed, and she felt his little fingers jerk against her chin.

  “I don’t want to give him up,” she said, going to Gael Mercer’s side. “But you’ll want to hold him. Mairi and I brought a few things. Some food. Blankets. And there’s a pretty nightrail for you, Mrs. Mercer.”

  “I’m Gael.”

  “Gael. May I come again to see ... Niall?”

  “We’d be proud. And we do thank ye. Ye’d best away back to your bed. We wouldna want his lordship t’be angry.”

  “The marquess isn’t a man to be angry over such things,” Grace said, careful not to look at Arran again. She started for the door.

  “Be careful how you go, my lady,” Arran said. “Did you ride?”

  “We came by cart,” she told him.

  “You were dutiful to come on your wedding day, but your husband will expect you to await his pleasure. Do not delay in returning to the castle.”

  A thrill of pleasure went through her at his words. “We won’t delay,” Grace said.

  Kirsty stood, sucking a thumb and swaying, near the door. Her cotton nightshirt showed signs of many washings, and her feet were bare.

  “You’re going to catch a cold,” Grace said, gathering her up and depositing her back on her bed. “You’ve had a busy night. Now it’s time for you to sleep. Here ...” She slipped the gold chain holding the little enameled bluebird over her head and put it on the child. “This is for you because you managed to have such a lovely baby brother.”

  Kirsty picked up the bird, and pure wonder filled her pale face. “Look.” She showed the necklace to her bear. “Pretty.”

  “Ye’re too good, m’lady,” Robert Mercer said. “And ye’re a spoiled one, Kirsty Mercer. A bear from Niall and a beautiful necklace from the lady, and all in a matter o’ weeks.”

  With Mairi, Grace took her leave of the company and felt Arran’s eyes on her back until the bedroom door closed behind her.

  They went out into the night and found the tenants about the door chuckling quietly and raising glasses whilst they toasted new life and the deliverance of a woman who was clearly very dear to them all.

  “I’ve heard o’ the man, Niall,” Mairi said when they were safely in the cart and making their slow way back to the castle. “The tenants talk about all his good works. He saved a man from drownin’ once. Another time, when there was a big snow, he carried two children out o’ the hills when everybody’d given them up for dead. And ... Well, there’s many a story about the good he’s done.”

  “A special man,” Grace said, hugging her knees against the chill. “How lucky we are to have him at Kirkcaldy.”

  “Indeed,” Mairi agreed. “But y’know, I’d never seen him for mysel’ before tonight. I don’t know, but ... but I could have sworn I’d seen him somewhere else. Ah, well, it’s probably because I’m so tired.”

  Chapter 26

  “Arran!”

  He whirled around. “Theodora?” Dressed in a voluminous white night robe and with her hair tangled about her face, she rushed toward him from the direction of his chambers.

  “Oh, Arran, we’ve been waiting for you. You’ve got to help us with Grace.”

  “Grace?” He dropped the bundle that was “Niall’s” garb and grasped her shoulders. “What about Grace?”

  “She went out somewhere.”

  He relaxed instantly. “Did she?”

  “Yes. Then she came back and ... Oh, please do hurry!”

  “Speak plainly,” Arran said, watching her narrowly. “She came back, and ...?”

  “And she was distraught. We think she was upset by the unfortunate mention of ... of, well, things from your past.”

  He caught her shoulders again. “Stop chattering, you fool.” They’d done something to Grace. “Where is she?”

  “Melony had one of her feelings. She has them, you know. She senses things and—”

  Arran shook her. “Where is Grace?”

  “Melony went to her room and found her gone. She waited until she returned, and then Grace insisted upon going into the vaults beneath Revelation. We tried to stop her.”

  The vaults? “There’s nothing down there.”

  “We know that. Nothing, but who knows how many miles of passageways? Grace said she had to find out if it was true that Isabel Dean could have gone down there to be with ... to be with Mr. Dean.”

  “Why would she do such a thing?”

  “I have no idea—unless her mind is unhinged because of your betrayal of her feelings for you.”

  He dropped his hands lest he shake the female again, and harder. “I will not discuss these matters with you, madam.”

  “Mortimer went out to search for you.”

  “Calum? Struan? You did not think to ask for their help?”

  Her hands went to her face. “No. Oh, we have not managed this well enough. Do go down and try to find her.”

  His stomach turned. “Try to find her? She can go no farther than the old wine cellar—if the key is in the trap. The door to the catacombs has always been locked.”

  “The key was in the trap.” Theodora shook her head. “I thought the catacombs were locked, too, but they were not. She climbed the rungs from the wine cellar and ran into the darkness. We dared not follow since we might not find a way back.”

  Slowly he understood what she was telling him. “Get out of my way, madam,” he said, pushing past. “I must go to her.”

  “I hope you can. But I fear she’s gone, Arran, gone into all those black places beneath Kirkcaldy.”

  Grace twisted and turned before the dressing table glass and smiled at the sparkle of firelight caught in silver lilies scattered over her white robe.

  When Arran got back from the Mercers’, he would come to her.

  Would he like the robe?

  Certainly very little skin showed, yet the effect was pleasing.

  Returning to find Melony waiting in her room had disturbed Grace. The other woman’s commiseration had annoyed her, and she’d been glad to be left alone. Melony’s doleful sympathy at Arran’s “betrayal” of Grace had not seemed sincere. There had been no question of mentioning what had happened at the Mercers’ cottage. No doubt all would be well once the marriage ... once whatever was supposed to happen in a marriage had happened.

  What could be taking Arran so long? Perhaps she should have waited longer to ensure Gael was indeed doing well enough.

  Shapes blurred in the glass ... until a square of white just barely shifted into sight. A note pushed beneath her door.

  Smiling, walking on tiptoe, Grace went to retrieve and unfold the paper. She saw at once that Arran’s name was boldly written at the bottom. How romantic. She had never received any written communication from him before.

  “Grace,” the note said. “We must put aside the past. Come to me at once and we shall forget all differences. I want to show you where Isabel betrayed me. The entrance to the vaults is beneath the wheel-stair. Remember? When you visited me at Revelation, you came that way. Arran.”

  What had changed after she left the Mercers?

  Careful to protect the flame of his candle, Arran strode past the bottom of the stairs to his rooms, crossed the lofty hall, ducked beneath a low archway, and took a downward flight several steps at a time. Almost no light penetrated the gloom, and the deeper he went, the less he could see outside the yellow arc the candle cast.

  He reached the bottom and paused for the instant it took to note that the door to the vaults was indeed open.

  Grace, why, in God’s name?

  Pressing on, he passed through the door and down a narrow passage to the storeroom. No one had been in here since ... since Isabel.

  “Grace?” He held the candle aloft, and shadows leapt over rough stone walls. Crates and trunks stood jumbled together, and buckets and implements and a heap of cushions.

  Grace wasn’t in the storeroom. H
e scarcely spared a glance for the cushions that had no doubt been useful to his former “wife.”

  More steps, these even narrower than the passageway into the storeroom, led deeper through the earth to a circular chamber few knew existed.

  “Grace! Grace, answer me!”

  He halted. A long-ago Stonehaven with a fear of being cut off by siege had designed the vaults and catacombs beneath Kirkcaldy. He had wanted assurance of a water supply from underground springs in the hills and, as a last resort, escape through an impossible warren of passageways no one, to Arran’s knowledge, had ever used.

  “Grace.” He scrubbed at his eyes. She was a brave little thing, but surely she wouldn’t venture here. And surely, if she got this far, she’d go no farther.

  There was not time to see if she’d returned to her rooms. Arran ran his eyes over the complicated system of chains and pulleys that operated the ancient water supply. A crank turned the pulleys to raise a metal plate that opened pipes beyond the chamber. Then, in theory, water would fill a shallow well in the next subterranean cavern—which lay beneath this one—and be readily available to the castle.

  He had to be certain she wasn’t hiding somewhere in this forsaken place.

  An open trapdoor and yet another short flight of steps took him down into his eccentric ancestor’s final circular cavern, where a hole in the floor covered by a grille was the only evidence of the well. Here the walls were lined with wine racks ... all empty. Arran’s father had insisted the stock be moved years ago.

  Then he saw what he’d most dreaded. A rack on the farthest side of the chamber had been swung away from its neighbors. Arran knew that hinges made it operate as a convenient screen for metal rungs that rose to the last door he would encounter: the door to the catacombs.

  Open.

  Theodora had not lied when she’d said they followed Grace this far only to watch her pull open the rack, scramble up the embedded rungs, and rush into the darkness.

  Arran quickly climbed the rungs. He’d thought to pack his pockets with candles, but they would not last forever. Bending, he moved into the low-roofed tunnel. Damn Theodora and Mortimer. They hoped Grace would die here.

  From somewhere in the distance came a tap-tapping. Arran stood still. “Grace?” His voice echoed back, “Grace, Grace, Grace,” and faded into silence.

  Then came the tapping, only not tapping. Running feet. Running feet in light shoes and pounding ... downward. Someone ran downward from above him. Someone was following the route he’d just taken.

  He turned around, keeping his head down, and climbed back to the cellar floor.

  The scuffling steps grew closer.

  Arran held his breath and drew behind the hinged rack.

  “I will not be afraid,” a very familiar voice said, and promptly cracked into a squeak. “I will not turn back. I am brave.”

  Glaring, he stepped from behind the rack.

  “I am very brave. Oh!” Grace barreled into his chest and dropped the guttering candle she carried. It rolled away and went out.

  Grace shrieked.

  “You are indeed brave, my lady,” Arran said, crushing her to him. “The bravest. Only an extremely brave ... and an extremely foolish woman would risk enraging a savage husband.”

  She giggled wildly.

  Arran gave her a single shake ... before he kissed her. He kissed her and his tension only swelled. She tasted so sweet, so druggingly, achingly sweet. “How did I pass you?” He breathed in the scent of spring flowers that hovered in her hair. “What possessed you to come down here?”

  “Don’t make fun,” she told him, burying her face in his chest. Beneath his fingers, fine, soft lawn slid over her skin.

  “My God, Grace. There’s no humor here. Theodora said you’d gone into the catacombs.”

  “Theodora?” She raised her face. “You sent for me. You told me to meet you here.”

  Arran framed her face. “You came down here because you were upset and wanted ... Theodora said you insisted upon coming here.”

  “But I didn’t. After I left you at the Mercers’, I returned to Kirkcaldy to wait for you.” She lifted a crumpled piece of paper into the candlelight. “You had this note put under my door. I thought it odd, but I came at once.”

  Arran took the note and read the words someone else had written in his name. “Oh, my God,” he said slowly. “Quickly, we’ve got to get out of here.”

  Grabbing Grace’s hand, he ran for the steps to the trap.

  It slammed and the key clicked in the lock ... on the other side.

  “You are certain this will work, Melony?”

  “Absolutely. Turn the crank.”

  Theodora’s hands shook so, that when she clasped the ancient, rusting crank handle, she could barely close her fingers. “Oh, Melony, listen. They’re banging on the trap.”

  “Let them bang. Here, I’ll help you.”

  Melony’s strong hands clamped Theodora’s to cold metal, and the sound of long-unused pulleys creaked, gathering speed. Chain began to rotate, link by link, clacking loudly.

  The banging on the trap to the lower chamber became a ceaseless thunder, and she could hear the muffled sounds of Arran shouting.

  “Hurry,” Melony said. “We have more work to do tonight.”

  “Persuading Mortimer to return to Edinburgh?”

  “It’s the best way. We’ll insist it is wise to lull Arran into thinking we’ve retreated peaceably. We’ll tell him that we’ll return later to make the best of things.”

  Theodora looked toward the steps leading down to the other chamber. “And by the time we come back, they’ll ...”

  “You are such a peagoose, Theodora. Push!”

  With a long, grating squeal, a handle attached to the pulleys rose from a slot in the floor, drawing a thick metal plate with it. Instantly the sound of rushing water followed.

  “There,” Melony said triumphantly. “It does still work. First the well will fill. Then the chamber will begin to flood.”

  “Oh, Melony!”

  “Don’t forget, Grace intended to have you killed,” Melony said. “Eventually there will be so much water that they’ll only be able to crouch beneath the trap. Then they’ll grow too tired and ... Yes. In time the water will rise to the level of the catacombs. When Arran and Grace slip away, they’ll be carried into those passageways, and that will be that.”

  “And you’re sure Mortimer won’t be angry?”

  Melony looked at her sister and wondered, as she had so often wondered, how it could be possible that they were related at all. “Mortimer won’t know, Theodora. Only you and I know. Arran and Grace will never be found. The story we make up will convince the world that they rode into the night and never came back.” What a stupid woman Theodora was.

  “How long will it take?”

  “Stop turning now,” Melony said, and when Theodora withdrew her hands and stood staring toward the lower cellar, she eased off the crank handle—just as she’d practiced doing earlier—and held it behind her back. “It won’t take too long, Theodora. Hear how fast the water pours in. Bend over a little and you’ll be able to tell where the pipe runs.”

  Theodora bent and put her ear close to the wall.

  Melony raised the heavy handle over her shoulder and brought it down on the back of Theodora’s head.

  Her sister flopped to the stone floor. Blood spread from her upturned ear onto ridiculously girlish white garments.

  Lady Theodora Cuthbert died without a sound.

  Chapter 27

  “No,” Arran told Grace. “No, it’s out of the question.” They stood on the steps to the upper chamber. Water pumped upward through the well grille with incredible power and grew closer with every second.

  “But the catacombs go somewhere, don’t they? Surely they must have been dug so that people could come and go from the castle that way if they had to.”

  She was calm, and he loved her for that. One of the many things he loved her for. “My sweet
, as far as we know, there was never any occasion for someone to find out if they went anywhere at all.”

  “In time the water will run away into the passages.” Grace held his coat with one hand. “But surely it could never flood them.”

  “Believe me when I say the catacombs are not the answer.” In darkness, with no idea which turn to take, they would grovel along until they died.

  “This chamber may fill entirely,” Grace said, voicing his own thoughts.”

  “I want to try the door again ... Just hold on to me!”

  With a mighty surge, the well grille was thrown upward, and Arran watched the level rise with nightmarish rapidity. He all but dragged Grace to the top of the steps.

  “Perhaps a sort of air bubble will form at the top,” she said, looking at the ceiling that sloped up a little from the trap. “We could hold our faces into that.”

  Lucid thoughts, but one as small and slender as Grace would not have enough strength to withstand the dragging pressure from below, or sufficient flesh to ward off the cold for long.

  He wanted to shout his rage, to punish ... He wanted his hands around his cousin’s throat.

  “Why do Mortimer and Theodora want us dead?”

  Fury took another grinding hold upon him. “They have everything to gain by ensuring that you and I never produce an heir.”

  “But—” Although they stood halfway up the steps, water had already risen over their feet. “Please, Arran, let’s go into the catacombs.”

  Go, and they would die. Stay, and they would die. But to die without audacity was out of the question.

  “You’re right, my lady. We’ll go together now.” He must not let himself picture her drifting, lifeless, into eternity.

  Keeping an arm around her, gripping the fresh candle he’d lighted in a curled finger, he worked his way along the racks, towing Grace beside him.

  Then the unthinkable happened. When they were only feet from the passageway, a rumble rolled toward them, and with it, a mass of earth and rock that burst from the catacombs and plunged into the water.