by Sondra Grey
Annis peered into the trees but couldn’t see anyone. Another whistler joined the first, the notes sharp and dancing in a practiced harmony, just slightly off-pitch. Annis blinked and straightened. The Macleans must be coming back from the river.
“Hello?” she called into the woods.
A third whistle joined the other, the tune sounded vaguely familiar. “Hello?” she called again. And again no one answered.
But just as suddenly, the whistle was ahead of her. Annis looked up and gasped, startled, as a man appeared in the road, lips pursed with his song. He was older than she, but not by much. Reed-thin with a pointed chin, his eyes sparkled as they beheld her.
“Excuse me…” she said, feeling a cold flash of fear streak through her.
Another whistler sounded behind her. She whirled. Two men were now standing on the path where she’d been walking just a moment before. They looked of an age with the other, only where the other was reed-thin, these two were a good deal larger. The one must be well over six feet tall, and was thick with muscle. He was the one whistling the flat notes.
The third man was also tall, but was leaner and better proportioned. Annis directed her irritation at him. “Can I help you gentlemen,” she said, trying to ignore the fear radiating through her. “These are private roads on private property. Are you lost? Are you looking for someone?” She had to pitch her voice to be heard over their rather ominous song.
The whistling stopped.
“Why yes, Lady Black,” said the third man, his accent educated, his smile wolfish. “We’re looking for you.”
“Well,” said Annis, fear threatening to choke her. “You’ve found me. What is it you wish?”
“For you to come with us, of course,” said the man, bowing slightly and gesturing towards the woods.
“I’m afraid I won’t be going anywhere with you,” said Annis, “seeing as how I don’t even know who you are.”
“Ah,” said the man, grinning. “I am Ewan Cameron. These are my associates, Ned,” he gestured towards the thin man blocking the lane ahead of her. “And Ervyn,” he gestured to the giant beside him.
Ewan Cameron: The man who’d scarred her husband’s face.
“If you are Ewan Cameron, I suggest you take yourself far away from here,” said Annis, hitching her skirts up. She’d have to run for it. If she was fast, she might be able to get past the thin man. “You’re no favorite of my husband’s, and he’ll be back shortly.”
Ewan’s smile widened. “I believe you are mistaken Lady Black. Your husband has ridden all the way to Argdour. In fact, we’re not expecting him back until midday tomorrow.”
Annis didn’t think. She ran. Her ankle screamed in pain as she pushed off on it and she stumbled, regaining her footing quickly. She lunged towards the woods, sensing the two men behind her give chase, but it was the man ahead who caught her. He moved lightning-quick, his hand reaching out and snagging the tail of her braid, yanking at her head so viciously that she howled and fell backwards, hitting the ground with a force that sent stars swimming through her vision.
“Help!” Annis shrieked, but a hand came down and slapped her across the cheek with such force that she nearly lost consciousness.
“None of that now,” said the thin man, mildly. Before she could blink she was on her stomach, her arms jerked behind with a force that made her shoulders scream in their sockets. A coarse rope bound her hands. As her senses came back to her, she began to struggle in earnest, but someone stuck a knee into her back and pressed her face into the dirt. Rough hands bound her ankles together.
She opened her mouth to scream again, praying her husband’s men were nearby, “He…” The cry was muffled as someone stuffed a rag between her teeth. She gagged at the sudden intrusion of the fabric, but another piece was being tied across her mouth, holding the fabric in place.
Tears of pain, fear, and humiliation streamed down Annis’ face. Gradually, the knee left her back and three pairs of boots planted themselves before her face.
“I dunno, Ewan,” murmured the deep bass of the large man, Ervyn. “I don’t find her unpleasant to look at.”
“I suppose you’re right,” said Ewan, thoughtfully. “Getting her pregnant won’t be such a chore. Not when a man can cushion himself in that plump backside.” She felt the toe of a boot nudge her bottom and she struggled to roll away.
“Lord, she looks like a landed fish,” Ewan laughed. “Come on then, gents. Let’s be off before someone notices she’s gone.”
Annis was unceremoniously hefted off the ground and thrown over Ervyn’s shoulder. She struggled and was rewarded with a vicious slap on her backside. “Quit that,” Ervyn warned. “Do it again and I’ll make you wish to hell you’d listened the first time.”
Annis subsided, staring intently at the edge of wood as it disappeared from view. Someone would come. They had to.
But after an hour of walking, the men found their horses, and then they were riding at full tilt, Annis slung across the back of the saddle like a sack of grain.
The Macleans had to stop to rest the horses, but Adam couldn’t sit still. Twenty men had ridden with them to Inveralt, with the promise of nearly thirty more arriving on the morrow. Too late. It was going to be too late.
They made it to Inveralt by early morning, and Adam was almost certain he would see his land in flames, but the manner still stood, there were no strange horse’s hooves in the dirt of the entry.
Relief washed over him a moment before he realized that not only where there no Camerons on the grounds of Inveralt, but there was no one at all.
Dismounting, Adam threw the reigns of his horse at one of his men and stormed towards the keep.
“Annis!” he bellowed, fear slicing through him. “Lachlan! Michael!” He threw open the doors, expecting to see his clansmen dead in the foyer. But no sight of blood greeted him anywhere. He ran upstairs. His bedroom was empty. So were the kitchens. No Annis, no Elise, or Cait or….
“Adam!” Duncan bellowed from the courtyard, and Adam rushed out in time to see Caleb and his wife Cait reaching the outer gate. Adam sprinted towards them. They looked unharmed, but Cait’s face was tear-streaked, Caleb looked like he wanted to do murder.
“What is it!?” he demanded of the couple.
“Your Lady,” said Caleb. “She’s been missing since yesterday afternoon. We’ve sent everyone out to search for her, to look for tracks. There’s no sign of her, no sign of anybody who might have taken her…”
“Where are the men we left here?” demanded Duncan, coming up behind Adam.
“Searching the woods. Riding north to see if anyone has seen or heard of her.”
“Why was no one dispatched to me?” Adam snapped.
“We dispatched a rider to you,” said Cait, tearfully. “Almost immediately after she went missing.”
Adam swore. “Alec,” he called over his shoulder to one of his men. “Take Ian, ride the hill road back. One of our men might be in trouble.” Two riders turned their horses abruptly and galloped back down the road they’d come from.
“It was a set up,” Adam said to Caleb. “We didn’t realize it until we arrived at Argdour. Take me through the day. When and where did she go missing?” He tried to stop his hammering heart, and he hoped he wasn’t too late.
Caleb took Adam out towards where Annis had been walking. But there was no sign of his wife’s footprints anywhere on the path, nor were there any prints in the woods.
“Camerons,” said Adam’s man, Simon, who’d walked with Adam to see the scene himself. “They know these lands; they know how to disappear into the woods.”
Adam cursed, whirled around, and planted his fist into a tree trunk, startling Simon and Caleb. He didn’t care. His head was full of Annis, compromised by Cameron men, or worse: dead.
“Why would they take Annis,” said Duncan. “Do they want ransom?”
“Perhaps,” said Adam, “Or perhaps it’s something else they want, entirely.”
; They’d ridden through the night and half of the day, moving slowly, covering their tracks as they went. Annis wasn’t sure she could get any more miserable. She ached everywhere, had lost feeling in her hands and feet, and wished she could lose feeling in her ribs. She lost consciousness a few times from all the blood rushing to her head. She had to relieve herself something terrible, and her stomach was snarling from hunger.
When they stopped before a small tower keep overlooking a body of water, Annis nearly wept. When they removed her from the horse she was boneless. They had to drag her into the keep, up the stairs of the tower and into a small, sparsely furnished room. There, they removed the ties from her hands, feet, and mouth.
Annis sucked in a deep breath, the rush of oxygen (which she’d been sucking in through her nose), made her dizzy. Her hands throbbed as blood pooled back onto them.
The Camerons didn’t stay to chat. They closed the door behind them and locked it.
For an hour, they left her to her own devices. Once the feeling came back into her hands, she relieved herself, and lay on the bed, willing the discomfort to stop. She wanted to sleep, but knew she needed to keep her wits about her. She’d been kidnapped, and based on the winding trail they took to this tower keep, she wasn’t all that sure her husband would be able to find her.
Finally, when she thought she might faint from hunger, the door opened and Ewan Cameron strode in with a plate of food.
It took all of Annis efforts not to fall onto the plate. While her ride had been uncomfortable, she’d been otherwise unmolested, and her fear was at a manageable level. She looked Ewan Cameron in the eye and tried her best to sound calm. “What am I doing here?”
“I should have thought that was obvious enough,” said Ewan, giving her that same obsequious smile he’d given her in the lane. “You’re a prisoner of clan Cameron.”
“Obviously,” said Annis. “But what are you going to do with me? Are you going to ransom me?”
“Good Lord, No!”
“Then what?”
“You’ll stay here until we’re certain you’re not with child. Then we’ll take you to Tor Castle.”
“What if I am with child?” asked Annis. And what did a baby have anything to do with her kidnapping.
“Then we’ll get rid of it,” said Ewan Cameron. “And take you to Torlundy.”
He was frightening her on purpose, but Annis had the terrible feeling that he was also quite serious.
“Any other questions, Mouse?” he asked.
“Why?”
“Because I want Inveralt, and Inveralt is deeded to your progeny. I’d hoped to woo you and marry you myself, but it appears the king had other plans.”
His lip curled, and he looked suddenly dangerous. “He married you to the Peacock Maclean. But no harm done.”
“What do you mean, no harm done,” said Annis.
“You’re a widow, so it’s not as if you lost your maidenhead. The only way Maclean can prove he consummated the marriage is if you provide him with a child. Now that you’re with us, you won’t. So we’ll have our priests annul your marriage. You’ll marry me, get my children, and Inveralt is ours.”
“Neither the King nor the Macleans will stand for it,” Annis gasped.
“But they’ll have to. His father’s written law will be on our side. The deed to Inveralt is written in King James the third’s hand. James IV will be too busy fighting his war in France to pay attention to what we do in the North. This is between the Camerons and the Macleans, and we are more than prepared to face the Macleans should it come to that.” He picked at a scrap of dirt beneath his nails.
“So, settle in,” said Ewan, rising. “I’ll not touch you till you’re monthlies come. After that, we wed.”
And with that, Ewan Cameron turned and strode out the door.
Annis learned several things about herself that evening, not the least was that not even fear could curb her appetite. She devoured the bread and chicken she’d been left.
But she also learned that she was no mouse. Though frightened, she was also angry, and her anger was far more powerful than her fear.
After a few hours of pacing her small room, and staring out the small window, she realized that they’d placed her at the topmost floor of the tower keep, and that only the three of them were in residence. She took Ewan at his word. They were going to wait until it was obvious that she was not with child before taking her to the seat of Clan Cameron to be wed before the clan.
Which meant she had at most a month here. She knew her flux would come in less than two weeks, but there was a good chance that she and Adam had already created a child together. Which meant she needed to get out of here. Fast.
The plan was to escape through the window. Though her room was several floors up, there were sheets on the bed. She had a feeling that her captors would be as fatigued as she. They would sleep. They wouldn’t be standing guard on the first night, would they?
She would have to take that chance.
Soon as the castle quieted, as the night deepened, Annis stripped her bed. It took a great deal of work to tear the sheets and she was grateful that the bed held a comforter.
But even that wasn’t going to be enough to get her to the ground. She disrobed, tearing her gown to add to the length.
An hour later, she had used up every available piece of fabric
In the end she guessed that her makeshift rope might end up leaving her a good ten feet off of the ground. She’d have to leap. And pray that her knots held.
Annis didn’t waste any more time. If she left quietly, if they didn’t catch her, then she’d have several hours to make her escape. She tied the makeshift rope to the bottom of the bedframe and draped it out the window. Taking a deep breath and refusing to look down, Annis gripped the rope and stepped out the window. She’d never been more frightened in her entire life, but the rope held.
For a moment, she dangled there, uncertain of how she was going to climb down. Her arms were sore from being tied and she was too afraid to let go one hand.
Perhaps she could walk? She tried, placing her feet against the stone and leaning backward. Her feet on the wall took some of the weight off her hands and slowly, so slowly, she began to inch her way down.
Her arms and shoulders ached, her back cried out, but she knew she couldn’t stop. She gritted her teeth and continued down, hand over hand, end over end, until was at the ropes end. Only then did she look down.
She nearly cried out in alarm. At least ten feet separated her from the ground. The landing wouldn’t be fun, though the grass beneath might soften it and mute the sound from alerting Ewan, Ned, and Ervyn. There was nothing for it. She had to let go. Closing her eyes, she willed her muscles to relax, willed her cramped hands to drop the rope. She fell.
She had to bite her lip to keep from making a sound. She hit the ground with a muted thud, her ankle screaming as it took the brunt of her weight. Her elbow crashed into the ground and, for a moment, she lay there stunned.
Move, Annis, you have to move.
She got, up slowly, realizing that, though her ankle was hurting something fierce, she hadn’t broken anything, and nobody had rushed out the tower after her. Standing, she stared around her and realized that, in her hurry to escape the locked door, she hadn’t fully contemplated her next move. Her mind was screaming at her to run as far and as fast as she could. Her body knew that wasn’t an option.
Trying to steal a horse might alert the others. She could walk, but how far would she get with her ankle hurting as it was.
The solution was to cross the loch. They wouldn’t expect her to be able to swim that far
Annis bit her lip and hobbled over to the loch’s edge. She wasn’t quite sure where she was, and she’d get desperately lost in the woods, but she had seen the other side of the loch from her window, she was a good swimmer and might make the distance. Taking a deep breath against the chill, she waded into the loch’s black waters, thanking God that it was still summe
r and that there was a moon and bright stars.
Behind her, not a sound was heard from the castle and her swimming sounded loud, even to her own ears.
Don’t think, just swim. She counseled herself. Her father had taught her to swim in the brisk waters of loch Linthe. Though she’d never swum far, she knew several different strokes.
Annis was not strong, and about five minutes after she started her swim her arms grew tired. She flipped onto her back, allowing the buoyancy of the water to keep her afloat. She moved her arms like her father had taught her. Her progress was slow, but she kept the moon just ahead of her and hoped she was going straight across.
It seemed as if she swam and hour, but it might have been less, when her fingers scraped the muddy bottom of the loch.
Nearly crying aloud with relief, Annis flipped over and clambered onto the other side of the shore. She sat for a moment on the beach, wondering where she was and how she was going to get back to Inveralt wearing nothing but her shift.
Chapter 10
T hough they scoured the woods, the roads, and had ridden all the way to the coast, in the end, the Macleans couldn’t pick up the Cameron’s trail, and Adam lost his patience. When the last of the scouts reported back late that afternoon, Adam had had enough. He leapt up from his seat in the hall and stormed out to the stables, where he saddled a fresh horse, vaulted upon its back, and headed towards the woods. Since he’d arrived back at Inveralt that morning, he’d been sick with worry, had been flooded with images of Annis: on her back with Ewan Cameron between her thighs or chained in a Cameron dungeon.
So, he’d be off to Castle Tor. If he had to confront Lochiel Cameron, he would.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Called Duncan, riding up beside him.
Adam told him.
“If it’s Camerons that took her, they wouldn’t bring her to Castle Tor.”
“Fine. Then I won’t go to Castle Tor.”
