Lucy wasn’t the only one relieved when they were outside of Carbonnel’s walls. The moment they’d ridden into the trees and were out of sight of the men on the wall, Tearlach sagged against her back with a long sigh that whistled past her ear. It seemed clear that he’d exerted a lot of strength to sit upright and suffer their passage through Carbonnel’s bailey, and in fact used up a good portion of what strength he had. Now, he grew heavier by the moment until Lucy began to realize that they wouldn’t be able to ride far. He needed to rest and regain his strength.
“I’ll not be able to stay in the saddle long,” Tearlach breathed apologetically by her ear.
Lucy refrained from stating that her thoughts had been running along the same lines, and instead began to wrack her mind, trying to think of somewhere safe for them to take shelter.
“Diya ken o’ any caves around here where we can shelter? We’ll need to be out o’ the sun come morn.”
Lucy didn’t ask why they’d need to be out of the sun. One of the rumors about his people was that they couldn’t stand sunlight and she supposed it must be true. The mention of caves sparked a memory for her.
“Aye, there is,” she admitted with a frown. “I know of one just on the edge of our property, but ‘tis a good two hours’ ride away. Can you last that long?”
“Aye,” he murmured and she felt him straighten slightly behind her with determination.
Lucy let a little sigh of relief slip from her lips. His weight against her hadn’t been a bother, in fact, it had helped to keep her warm. The night was cool and growing cooler by the minute. His straightening, however, told her he still had some reserves of strength and they might make it to the cave ere he collapsed completely and that was a relief. If he collapsed and tumbled off the horse ere they reached the cave, she didn’t think she could get him back on the mare on her own.
As it turned out, Lucy had underestimated the distance. Or perhaps—as was more likely—they weren’t traveling as quickly as she’d hoped, the weight of two people on the mare slowing the pace. Whatever the case it was closer to three hours before Lucy recognized that they’d crossed from Carbonnel land to Blytheswood. It took another few moments more for her to find the clearing near the cave she was searching for. The cave didn’t open onto the clearing itself, but rested a good half mile farther on along a path that was barely discernible in daylight. Fortunately, it was a clear night and the moon offered some aid, otherwise, she never would have found the cave.
With Tearlach barely conscious and his full weight bearing down on her back, Lucy didn’t stop, but urged the horse directly through the narrow opening of the cave. She grimaced as her legs scraped against either side of the entrance, just grateful that the horse had managed to fit through with them on. Tearlach was a large man and she didn’t think she could have managed to drag him in on her own.
Trinket stopped and refused to walk farther once they were several feet inside the cave. Lucy didn’t blame her. Without the moonlight to give it relief, the cave was pitch black after the first couple of feet. Lucy herself wasn’t too happy to be in such stygian darkness, but there wasn’t much choice. Aside from the fact that Tearlach needed to be out of sunlight come dawn, the dark cave would hide them from their pursuers...and there would definitely be pursuers. The moment their absence was noted, every last one of Carbonnel’s men would be on the hunt for them, she was sure. Wymon couldn’t risk her reaching anyone and telling them what had really happened at the inn, that he had murdered her brother...and lied when saying Tearlach had killed him and absconded with her. He would then be wanted for John’s murder. It made it doubly unfortunate that Tearlach was so weak at the moment. She really would have rather ridden on to Blytheswood and spread the true tale of the happenings at the inn, but that wasn’t possible now.
Lucy supposed she could leave Tearlach there and ride on by herself, but didn’t want to abandon him alone and defenseless in the cave. He would be lost if Wymon’s men found him, unable to defend himself. No, they would have to stay in the cave a day or so and let him regain his strength and then continue on to Blytheswood.
“Tearlach?” she whispered, releasing the reins and reaching back to touch him.
“Hmm?”
He stirred weakly against her and she let out a little breath of relief, and then said, “We are here. Can you dismount?”
His answer was to slide right off the mount and crash to the cave floor with a thud.
Four
A gasp of alarm slipping from her lips, Lucy hurried to dismount, nearly tripping over Tearlach where he lay. Kneeling at his side, she felt for his face, noting that his eyes were closed and he was breathing deeply. For a moment she feared he’d hit his head in the fall and knocked himself out, but a blind examination of his head revealed no wetness that might be blood. He was simply unconscious.
Sitting back on her heels, Lucy glanced around with a sigh. All she could see at first was the part of the cave close to the narrow entrance, but as her eyes adjusted she began to make out a little more. It was a cave—that was all—empty except for a few boulders and now herself, her mount, and Tearlach. There was nothing she could see to build a fire with or anything to add to their comfort and she was too tired at the moment to make the effort to go out and search out anything useful.
It had been a long few days for her, with first the stressful visit to Carbonnel, then her brother’s murder, followed by her being kidnapped and chained to a wall for days on end. The last had been physically wearing, she’d struggled and strained against her bindings as she listened to Tearlach being tortured in the next room...and then there had been the stress of their escape. Added to that, she hadn’t eaten in all that time except to pick at the meal that had been served her at the inn. Despite that, Lucy wasn’t hungry. She was too exhausted for hunger.
Blowing out a breath, she pushed herself to her feet and quickly unsaddled Trinket. The chore seemed to take the last of her reserves of energy and she was definitely dragging by the time she dropped the saddle to the ground. Deciding there was nothing else urgent enough to keep her from resting as well, Lucy moved carefully back to Tearlach, and lay down beside him. Her head barely hit the ground before she dropped off to sleep and into the nightmares waiting there.
Lucy was awakened by the sound of voices. For a moment, she was blissfully confused, unsure where she was or anything else, but as sleep slipped away memory reclaimed her. It had been a long night. Nightmares of her brother’s murder had pounced the moment she lost consciousness and disturbed her rest twice. The first time, she’d woken up screaming his name. Her shriek was enough to wake Tearlach as well, at least enough that he’d murmured soothingly in Gaelic, thrown his arm around her, and drawn her against his side, holding her there as they both drifted back to sleep. The second time she’d woken up weeping and Tearlach had pressed her face to his chest and rubbed her back soothingly as they both drifted back to sleep again.
Thinking about it now, Lucy suspected he hadn’t really been awake either time he’d offered her comfort. His words had been a sleepy slur rather than his usual strong voice, but she didn’t mind. In fact, she rather hoped he hadn’t been awake and wouldn’t recall either incident. She didn’t want him to think her weak.
A burst of laughter made her stiffen and blink her eyes back open. The sound seemed to come from right outside the cave entrance and she held her breath and stared at the spot where weak light crept into the cave, expecting men to come walking in any moment. When several moments passed without that happening, she began to breathe again and then wrinkled her nose in distaste at the scent she sniffed in. Dear God, something reeked!
Tearlach. She was sleeping curled in his arms, her head on his chest, and it was he who stunk. Or his clothes to be more exact, she thought and lifted her arm to give herself a sniff. Aye, their clothes.
Grimacing, she eased out of his embrace and sat up. There was little she could do about the clothes for now. They had nothing else to wear and it
wasn’t like she could find the river and wash them with Carbonnel’s men riding about looking for them.
Reminded of the men outside the cave, Lucy got carefully to her feet and moved to the entrance as quietly as she could lest a skittering rock draw attention to their hiding place and their presence in it.
Reaching the cave’s mouth, she eased up to peer cautiously out, relieved when there was no one about. She was just about to turn back to the interior of the cave when another laugh made her pause. After a hesitation, she eased farther out and peered to the left to see three men on horseback heading away from the cave. They’d obviously ridden right by without even noticing the entrance. She wasn’t surprised, the opening was slanted, narrow, and partially obscured by foliage. If you didn’t know it was there, it was easy to overlook.
“Aye, his expression when he walked into the dungeon and found it empty was funny,” one of the men conceded on a sigh as the laughter died. “But his anger was less amusing when it followed.”
There were subdued murmurs of agreement from the other two men and then one said, “Heads will roll if we don’t find the pair and quickly.”
This seemed to make them all solemn and the first speaker said, “‘Tis late and a long ride back to the castle. Mayhap we’d do better to camp out here tonight and continue the search first thing in the morning.”
The alacrity with which the other two men agreed suggested to Lucy that none of them were eager to return to Carbonnel and risk being one of those whose heads would roll. She watched them ride out of sight and then glanced to the sky, surprised to see that it was indeed growing late. The sun was low in the sky and would soon be gone. She and Tearlach had slept through the second half of last night and then through the day as well. She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised, they’d had little enough sleep in the dungeon these last days, staying up most of the time talking as they had. And they’d been through a lot. The sleep had probably done them good. Besides, they couldn’t travel in daylight, so it had saved them sitting in the cave twiddling their fingers until they could leave again.
A soft rustle drew her gaze back to Tearlach as he stirred in his sleep. She waited to see if he would wake up, but he didn’t, simply shifted in his sleep, his hand moving restlessly about as if in search of her.
Lucy smiled at the thought and almost moved back to rejoin him, but decided against it. She was wide awake now and wouldn’t go back to sleep. She was also tense now that she knew Wymon’s men were out searching for them. They would have to be very careful when they left.
If they left, she thought with a frown as she recalled how weak Tearlach had been the night before. The whipping and whatever other tortures Wymon had used on him had taken a heavy toll. She suspected any normal man would have died in the dungeon that day, but Tearlach wasn’t normal. He’d rallied a bit after taking blood from her, but it hadn’t seen him far. It was obvious he needed more...and more than he was willing to take from her.
Her gaze shifted back out of the cave and in the direction the three Carbonnel soldiers had ridden. It seemed to her that if they were going to leave the cave, Tearlach would need more blood...and he was in no shape to go out hunting for it.
Could his kind survive on animal blood? She wondered and glanced back to him, considering waking him to learn the answer, but he looked so peaceful she couldn’t bring herself to rouse him.
Blowing out a breath, Lucy peered out at the waning day. She would just wait until the sun set and it was a little darker and then she would risk going out to find them both something with which to break their fast.
The cave was silent and cold when Tearlach woke. Used to waking in dark cold places as he was, he shouldn’t have felt so bereft, but Lucy wasn’t there. She’d left him, he realized and sagged back against the cave wall, eyes closing as he pondered how odd it was that he’d got used to her presence so quickly. A couple nights together in chains and another asleep in a cave and he’d come to rely on her presence in his life and felt abandoned by her leaving.
He shouldn’t be, Tearlach told himself unhappily. And he shouldn’t be surprised either, or feel betrayed that she’d gone. He’d known from the moment that she said she couldn’t escape alone that her only purpose for him was to help her escape. He should have expected that she’d have fled at the first opportunity.
Scowling as his body cramped, Tearlach forced his eyes open and peered around the dim interior. He was hungry and weak and needed to feed. He wasn’t feeling much like moving, however. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much choice in the matter, he acknowledged. He needed to feed to survive and he needed to survive to get back to his people, gather some men, and go after his cousin. Wherever he was.
Tearlach had managed to shake off the drug he and his cousin had been given in the inn long before Lucy had woken from her head wound in the dungeon. Until she was conscious and aware enough for him to torment, Wymon Carbonnel had passed his time by taunting Tearlach. He’d told him with great relish how he and his cousin had been recognized at one of the earlier inns they’d stopped at, as far back as Scotland. How they’d been followed, their route noted, and their capture planned. They’d been heading south on a pretty straight path, stopping at each village and inn to gather information. Apparently, several men had followed them at a very discreet distance, while others had ridden ahead to pass on the news of where they were to those who had gathered at Carbonnel to plan and arrange their capture.
The plan had worked well and Tearlach could only curse their arrogance and stupidity in following a straight path, never concerned that they would be set upon. Wymon had told him that his chore was to torture him until he learned all he could about their home, its defenses, and the paths of the underground tunnels that ran below it. His cousin had been taken elsewhere to be subjected to different tortures, ones meant to discover how strong his people were, what they could withstand, and what their weaknesses were.
Tearlach felt his backbone stiffen at the very idea of what his cousin might be undergoing even as he himself lay there weak and hurting, but safe in the cave. Right that moment, Heming might be being tortured, burned, or what have you.
Mouth tightening with determination, Tearlach forced himself to sit up. He needed to get out of the cave, feed to regain his strength, find out who had taken his cousin and to where, and then, either rescue him himself if he could, or head home to gather men and return to save him.
Tearlach wasn’t sure which was the better alternative. If he went after him alone and failed, they would be worse off than before. However, if he went home to gather men and then returned, they might arrive too late to save Heming. He wasn’t sure what to do and was too weak and distracted with his body’s paining to sort out the matter at the moment. He needed to feed. His thoughts would be clearer then.
Tearlach repeated that thought to himself over and over as he slowly forced himself to his feet. While he’d fed a little from Lucy in that dungeon, it hadn’t been nearly enough. His body had been badly injured by Wymon. Had he been a normal mortal man, Tearlach had no doubt the torture and whipping he’d suffered would have killed him. As it was, he’d survived, but with great damage. His body had spent the hours since trying to heal itself, using up blood at an astronomical rate. To feed as much as he’d need to repair the damage done and replace the blood lost, though, would kill a single person. The amount he’d taken from Lucy the night before had barely been enough for him to get them out of that dungeon.
Not that he’d really done much, he realized suddenly. If anything, Lucy was the one who had gained them their freedom. She’d given up her blood to give him the strength to mostly carry his own weight, but she’d also helped in taking some of his weight as they’d made their way out of the dungeons. She was the one who had risked slipping into the barracks and stealing clothes for them. She’d then helped him out of the barracks and around to the stables and then gone in alone to get the horse they’d fled on.
Truth be told, while Lucy had claimed s
he couldn’t escape without him, she would have done better on her own. It was he who had needed her, not the other way around.
Tearlach had barely had that thought when he became aware of sounds coming from outside the cave. It was a shuffling and dragging punctuated by an occasional grunt and made him stiffen where he’d managed to get to his feet. He watched the mouth of the cave with narrowed eyes that widened incredulously when a behind backed through it, a behind he recognized as Lucy’s. She was bent at the waist, dragging something heavy into the cave. That was the shuffling and dragging. The grunting was a little sound of effort that kept slipping from her lips with each tug and drag she gave at the body she was pulling with her.
Staggering away from the wall, Tearlach hurried to her side, using a hand on the wall to help him stay upright.
“What happened?” he asked in a growl as he reached her side and peered down at the unconscious man she’d dragged in.
“Oh.” Forcing a smile, Lucy dropped the man’s hands and straightened, wiping one forearm across her sweaty forehead as she explained, “I caught you something with which to break your fast.”
“Ye caught me somethin’ with which to break me fast?” Tearlach echoed, staring at her with disbelief. His gaze dropped to the man on the ground. The something she’d caught. She’d said it as if she’d snared a rabbit for his meal.
“He’s one of Wymon’s men,” she explained and frowned at his expression before adding, “you need to rebuild your strength. I thought since you didn’t wish to take too much from me, you could...” Her voice trailed away and she frowned. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Highland Thirst Page 18
