by Sondra Grey
“And when will you be back?”
“When it is done.”
They didn’t speak for a while, but eventually Adam lay back down. Only he did not reach for her. He didn’t take her into his arms, kiss her deeply, and slide inside her. After a moment, he rose, and left the room.
It was as Annis feared. Adam spent the rest of the night sleeping in the Laird’s chambers. He’d forgone sleeping there. He’d started a renovation project on the room only a week after arriving at Inveralt, and they were still waiting for stained glass to arrive from Edinburgh.
But last night, the same thing happened with Adam that had happened with David. He foreswore her bed.
In the morning, he did not join her for breakfast. Rather he rode out into the fields and didn’t return until well after dinner. That night, he slept in the laird’s chambers again. Annis lay awake in her bed, hands trembling. And when the soft sounds of his snoring echoed down the hall, she understood: she’d lost him.
But Annis didn’t understand. After the first month Adam failed to get Annis with child, he had sat down and counted out his paramours. He was a man of healthy sexual appetites and while he’d been careful over the years, he hadn’t always managed to control himself. And yet not one of his paramours ever quickened with his child. Not a single one.
He felt unmanned. Not only had the Camerons come onto his land and kidnapped his wife – not only had he not been able to save her (for she had rescued herself), but he couldn’t even grant her that one assurance of her safety: A child. And a child would absolutely secure her safety. The minute their child was born, she was safe from the machinations of Lochiel Cameron and his spawn.
While he had not thought to fall in love with his wife, he found that it was quite impossible to avoid the sentiment when it came his small songbird. When he’d first met her, she’d been all bravado and bluster. A small thing who seemed content to go unnoticed. And yet she’d changed so completely in the time he’d known her. He realized just how terrible her first marriage had been. He’d only to speak to the tenants, or the tailors, or the village healer to learn that David MacDonnell had not been a generous or kind man. No wonder Annis had been content to go overlooked.
All Annis needed was kindness. He’d seen how she laughed with his men, how at ease she was with his brother. He reveled in her body’s response to his, looked forward to sitting beside her at dinner with their thighs touching. Lord, there’s been so much work to do at Inveralt that he hadn’t been able to even woo her properly. He might not be able to get her with child, but he could take care of Ewan Cameron for her. He could make her safe in her own home again.
That she begged him not to made it all the worse. It unmanned him. How could anyone – Annis, his father, his brother – expect him to let a cur like Cameron get away with abduction.
Two days after Adam left Annis’ bed, he rallied the Macleans, and rode off.
Annis knew the Macleans were leaving. Duncan had left the day before, saying only that he could not be a part of Adam’s plan to oppose their father’s edict. Adam left ten men behind with plans in place should the Camerons surprise them while Adam was gone. He left explicit instructions for Annis not to leave the keep.
And she didn’t.
The day indoors was a long one. There was little for Annis to do, especially now that the keep was mostly empty. Four Maclean men stood guard at the Manor itself, while six others patrolled the perimeter. Annis found herself incredibly anxious and spent most of the morning pacing the keep.
“You’ll wear a hole in your husband’s carpet if you keep that up,” muttered Lachlan, watching her from Adam’s study, where he was rewriting the rent system into a new book that had just arrived from Edinburgh last week.
So Annis left his side and went to pace upstairs. When she was tired of pacing, she sat down and felt sorry for herself.
“You look terrible,” Elise told her that evening. Annis had decided to forgo a formal dinner in the hall and was, instead, dining in the kitchens with Elise and Cait.
“It’s happening as I thought it would,” said Annis, sighing heavily. “I saw the same behavior from David, when I wouldn’t bear him a child. He left my bed and took up with that woman in the village…”
“I hope you’re not comparing Adam to David,” said Elise.
“And why shouldn’t she,” muttered Cait. “Do you know his reputation extends as far as Mackenzie land? Morganna, one of the serving women, has a cousin who, apparently, shared Adam’s bed several times in Edinburgh…”
“That’s enough Cait,” said Elise, sharply.
“No, let her speak.” Annis was glum. “I should know what’s coming. Now that he’s forsaken my bed, I have to steal myself.”
Cait sniffed. “You weren’t bothered by David and his mistress – why should Adam Maclean’s bother you more?”
“Because she never loved David, Cait,” said Elise, angrily.
“And you love Adam?” asked Cait, staring at Annis with a pair of sharp, grey eyes.
Annis bit her lip, afraid to answer that question. Did she love Adam? She longed for him during the day when he was away. Her favorite time was at night, when she was wrapped in his arms, pressed against his chest, when he was whispering nonsense words into her ear, lulling her to sleep…
“Of course she does,” said Elise. “Adam’s a good man, Cait. And he’s not strayed from Annis yet. You should give him the benefit of the doubt, Annis.”
Cait shrugged. “I don’t think she’s wrong, Elise. At least David left her to her own devices. I’ve never seen you as blatantly miserable as you’ve been in the past week,” said Cait, objectively. “Did you know, Elise, that she asked him not to go? And off he went…”
Elise said nothing, but stared at her stew, looking troubled.
“It’s all right,” said Annis. “It’s foolish of me to want more, to expect more. But I did. I wanted a marriage of respect, of love. It should be enough that my husband cares about the land, about his clan, about his new tenants. I should be content with that.”
Elise reached over and patted Annis’ hand. “It’s okay to want more,” she said.
“It’s foolish to want more,” argued Annis, and Cait looked as if she agreed.
“As your friend, Annis, I can’t help but want you to be happy,” said Elise. “It seemed, for a while, as if you were.”
Annis bit her lip.
“Enough talk of this,” said Cait, brusquely. “There’s not she can do about it. She married a lothario, a skirt chaser. It was only natural for him to chase her for a bit, and it will be natural when he turns towards someone else. You’ll steal yourself against it, Annis.”
“I will,” said Annis, more of a promise to herself than to Cait.
Chapter 3
T hat night, the Keep was quiet. The only sounds were from the outside, the owls, crickets, and bullfrogs singing their loud, long, lonely calls. Annis sat on her window’s sill looking out, praying to god that, wherever Adam was now, he was safe.
“Baaaaaaa.” A different sound split the night and Annis blinked, vision straining to make out a small lamb toddling out by the barn. Annis looked around to see if one of the Macleans would come after it, but nobody did. The poor thing continued to bleat, its lost call echoing the feeling that seemed to saturate Annis’ being.
She shook her head. The least she could do was return the poor lamb to its mother. Her rooms were on the second floor of the keep and there were vines growing up the side of the house. Rather than take the time to go down the stairs and out through the back – and risk the lamb running away – she used the trellis alongside her window, the one that Connor had installed so that the vines could grow up along the house.
She reached the ground in minutes, scooping up the lamb, which bleated in surprise at being so handled. She headed into the barn, returning the lamb to its pen. The mother stared at her, dumb, seemingly unaware she was missing one of her brood.
“There you are
,” she said, rubbing a hand across the lamb’s soft wool. “Now let’s see if we can figure out how you got out, so that it won’t happen again.”
She checked the latch on the gate first, but that was sound. Squatting down, she checked the wood of the stall, but that, too, was unmarred.
Pursing her lips, she wondered if the lamb had never been put back into its pen in the first place. Behind her, soft footsteps sounded. Perhaps it was Caleb, come to check on the livestock.
She began to turn her head when something struck her, forcefully, on the side of the temple. Blackness overwhelmed her. The last thing she saw was the cat-and-cream smile of Ewan Cameron.
Perhaps it was the violent rocking of the boat that woke her, her tender head bouncing against the wooden seat. Annis came to with a groan, nausea following quickly on the heels of pain. Her head ached as if it were going to fall off. Not wanting to draw the attention of her captors, she bit her lip. She was facing the bow of the boat; her captors were seated behind her. She could sense them.
“How much further,” this was Ewan Cameron’s voice and it made Annis’ heart pound in fear.
“A while yet. We’re going against the tides at the moment. Don’t suppose you’d like to help row?”
The large man. Ervyn. She couldn’t see him, but recognized his deep bass.
“Thank you, I’m fine here.”
“Are you at all concerned that she hasn’t woken up yet?” Ned’s high tenor sounded.
“Not particularly. I knocked her solidly,” said Ewan, sounding unconcerned.
“I still can’t believe the lamb trick worked,” muttered Ned.
“You owe him a full month’s pay,” said Ervyn, grunting against the weight of the waves. The boat rolled beneath them, and Annis’ stomach heaved. She clamped her lips shut and closed her eyes, fighting against the nausea.
“You should never have bet against me,” said Ewan. “Women are all the same. Had I been confident I could knock her out and climb down the trellis with her, I wouldn’t have tried it in the first place.”
“I could have,” said Ervyn.
“And you would have awoken the entire keep doing so,” said Ewan, lightly. “Whereas I was able to knock her out, climb into her room and pack her belongings, and steal the horse without anyone being any the wiser.”
“I’m sure it helped that the horse was already saddled and waiting out front of the paddock,” said Ned, sourly. Adam had planned that. If the Camerons came en mass, he wanted Annis to be able to escape quickly.
Why had they taken her horse? And what had they done with it? And where were they going? The smell of the water suggested that they were on the sea. And the lingering blackness behind her lids suggested it was still night, or perhaps early morning, and the sun had not yet risen.
“There it is,” grunted Ervyn. “You see.”
“We all see,” said Ewan, dryly. “Which means that word got to my dear brother and he’s expecting us.
Annis inhaled through her nose, trying her best to not throw up all over the bench. It seemed like an hour before the boat hit something, bumping Annis nearly from her perch.
“Well,” snapped a voice. It was surprisingly warm, the accents educated. “That’s it. You’re here then. Let’s get this over with.”
“Good to see you too, brother. It’s been a while,” drawled Ewan. Annis felt him stand, as the boat rocked beneath her. Her gorge rose.
Without any warning, she was upended and tossed over someone’s shoulder. She choked and promptly threw up.
“Christ!” a deep oath split the air. Annis’ eyes cracked open, pain slicing through her head. It was Ervyn she’d thrown up on, she realized. But at least he hadn’t dropped her.
“Christ’s sake,” snapped the stranger. “What have you done to her?”
“Knocked her on the head,” said Ervyn, sounding enraged.
“She’s fine,” said Ewan, curtly. “Are you prepared to hold her?”
“Yes.” The answer was just as curt.
“Then she’s yours.” Annis felt Ervyn’s hand come under her as though to lift her off.
“Oh no you don’t. She’s covered in vomit. You can deliver her inside yourself.”
For a moment no one moved, and then Ervyn started to walk. The walk seemed interminable. Annis groaned against Ervyn’s back and was roundly ignored by the men holding her captive.
She knew she was inside because the air shifted, and the sound of waves and the wind was muted. Then they proceeded to climb. Annis was miserable. Another tower. Another tower cell. And this time she was certain that it wouldn’t be as easy to escape. Wherever they were, it wasn’t on a mainland. And she was willing to bet it wasn’t Sky, or Mull, or one of the larger, more populated islands. She strove to remember if the Camerons had claim of any islands but came up blank. Where was she?
Abruptly, Ervyn stopped walking and she was dropped, like a sack of grain, onto a small but surprisingly soft mattress. She couldn’t stop the groan that left her throat at the suddenness of the movement. Her head ached as if it were going to fall off her neck.
“Now,” said the voice of the stranger. “Get out of my home.”
“How quaint,” said Ewan, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “The bastard now thinks of his banishment as his home. Have you really been gone that long?”
Silence greeted the mocking question. And Ewan followed it up with laughter. “Suit yourself, brother. I’m off before anyone misses me.”
Annis barely dared to breathe as the door slammed shut and footsteps receded.
Biting back yet another groan, she shifted herself on the bed, not daring to open her eyes, but relaxing only when her head hit a pillow.
She wasn’t sure how much time had passed before the door opened again and that stranger’s voice returned.
“What have they done to you?” it mused, sounding more curious than concerned. A cool cloth was placed on her head and she nearly moaned at the relief it brought. She felt the ends of the cloth dabbing at her mouth and neck. “There’s a nice lump right here,” the voice informed her, light fingers touching just above her temple. Annis hissed.
“My brother was not happy to have been thwarted the first time, I think. Can you open your eyes, pet?”
Annis tried, eyes cracking open. The face before her blurred for a startling moment before resolving into something more solid. Black eyes stared out of a deeply tanned face. Dark brows were pulled low with concern. The nose had been broken, once, but beyond that, the face was a handsome one. She closed her eyes again as the cloth returned to her head.
“What a mess,” said the man, lightly. “Do you think you’ll live?”
Annis nodded, but even that small motion sent daggers through her skull.
“Good,” said the man.
“Where am I?” she asked, but the words came out barely a whisper. She licked her lips and tried again. “Where am I?” At least it came out audible this time.
“You’re on Ruim, pet. A block of rock, mostly hidden by mist. It’s an Old Norse fortress that was once a prison: a perfect place for hiding stolen wives and disloyal, bastard sons. There are bars on the windows, and locks on the doors. And even if you managed to escape the tower, there are no boats to take you to the mainland, and a little thing like you would struggle to make it against the tides. Do you understand?”
His face was resolved. She could see no malice in it, but no softness either.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Adam’s face was white with shock. “I refuse to believe it,” he whispered.
Elise wrung her hands and Cait stared resolutely at the floor. Only Lachlan met Adam’s gaze. “I don’t want to believe it, myself,” said the steward. “But your patrols were in place, nobody heard a thing. Several of her more serviceable gowns were missing as well as food from the pantry. The horse that was saddled is gone and we tracked the hooves to the South road and lost them there. But they were alone, there were no other riders with her…”
“I refuse to believe that she left,” said Adam, voice breaking.
“Why is it so hard to believe?” Cait snapped.
“Hush,” said Caleb, who was standing beside his wife. He put a warning hand on her shoulder.
“I will not,” said Cait, indignantly. “Why shouldn’t she leave? It was clear enough that you were through with her.”
Adam’s rage threatened to blacken his vision. He must have taken a step towards Cait, for Caleb was there, standing before his wife, looking anxious. Adam stopped himself and flexed his hands.
“She wouldn’t leave,” he said, thinking of his wife’s eyes on him, her body bending beneath his. He knew Annis, she would not leave.
“She might have,” said Elise, softly. “You did not see her when you left. She was distraught.”
“Where would she have gone?” said Adam, nearly shouting. “She would not have gone to the MacDonnells.”
“She might have gone back to her father’s manor,” said Elise, her voice soft, as if trying to soothe him.
“Why would she have gone there? There are no more Blacks in Glenfinnan.”
“Perhaps she went to see the King, her guardian.” This was Cait, looking almost triumphant at the thought.
“If she went to see James, he’d only send her back here,” said Simon, helpfully.
Adam swore, almost too emotional to think straight. His wife had left him. No. His wife would never leave him.
“She did not leave. She was taken.”
“If that’s the case,” said Simon. “Then we will look for her. Where is it we’ll go?”
The two women looked unconvinced. Lachlan stepped forward and said, helpfully. “Either way we must find her. You’ve enough men to send out a search…so, send them out. Someone will have word of her.”
Or someone would have her.
“Out,” he ordered. “Except for you Lachlan, and you, Simon. And someone go fetch me Blaire. He’s to take a letter to the King.”
“Do you truly wish James to know that you’ve lost your own wife?” said Simon and Adam gave him a look so black that the squire shut his mouth instantly. The room emptied, but for the men Adam had bid stay, and Adam collapsed into his desk chair.
