by Diana Lloyd
“They are coming back at nightfall,” she explained to him. “I’m not sure where they plan to take me then. But I cannot wait. Quin might already be in danger. We have to escape now.”
“Go,” Angus urged her. “Window.”
“I can’t leave you.”
“Must. Get away. Warn Graham. Send back help.” The effort of being bandaged had sapped even more of the man’s strength.
“I’m not sure if I can.” Elsinore blinked away tears of fear and frustration as she rolled her spencer into a pillow and placed it gently under Angus’s head.
“Save him.” Of all the words Angus might have muttered, those were the ones most likely to spur her into action.
Elsinore stacked the two crates underneath the window and looped the reticule ribbons around her elbow. Climbing atop the crates, she used the bent nail to begin loosening the boards. It was slow work and she stopped more than once to glance nervously back at the doorway. Fingers splintered and raw from pulling at the wood, she reached down and slipped off one of her shoes. Tapping the heel against the bent nail, she used it as a lever to pry the boards away. She didn’t know what lay outside the window, but she had to risk it.
One by one the boards came free and with one last look to the now resting Angus, Elsinore crawled out the window onto the roof.
Chapter Twenty-One
“A mad dog must be put down forthwith. If taken unawares by such a beast, concentrate your efforts to nose, snout, and eyes. Use distraction, size, and intellect to your advantage. Never turn your back.” Oglethorpe’s Treatise on the Obedient Canine
It was late in the afternoon before Quin dared to return to his home. All traces of Elsinore should be gone by now. She was safer away from him and his heart, most likely, safer away from her. She’d played him the fool, and didn’t even try to deny it. He couldn’t say he hadn’t been warned. Wallingford’s words, however, belayed his belief that, despite her penchant for mischief, Elsinore was pure of heart.
The household was strangely quiet as he rode up. There was no one in the yard, and no stable boy or footman ran to greet him. He pulled his watch from his pocket and checked the time. Half past three. Too late for lunch, too early for supper. He unsaddled Archie himself and brushed the horse down before finally hearing approaching footfalls.
“Psst,” someone whispered for his attention. “Psst.”
What the devil?
Spinning around, he caught sight of young Charlie standing in the shadows just inside the stable doors. The child was bent over, hands on knees and sucking air. He was damp and dirty.
“What trouble have you gotten yourself into, young man?” Quin teased. “Afraid Granny will find you and tan your hide?”
“Please,” the boy wheezed out. “Don’t tell Granny. They have your lady, milord. Something bad, something very bad is about to happen.”
“Who has her?” As Quin approached the boy he swung the door closed, affording them a measure of privacy. Dropping to one knee, he asked again. “Who has Lady Graham?”
“One of Granny’s cousins. I’ve seen him afore.” Quin frowned in frustration. To the old cook, Brigit, everyone of Scottish birth was referred to as a cousin, niece, or nephew, and nearly everyone under the age of forty referred to her as Granny.
“Lady Graham is safely away to Stirling.” He reached out to pat the boy’s head to assure him, but the boy pushed his hand away, grabbed his wrist, and hung on.
“She’s in the Port. I took her there meself. Me and Angus and Peg. She wanted to go to the dress shop and fetch her gloves. Only now, Peg’s done a runner and Angus is hurt bad.”
“Are you all right?” Quin took the boy by the shoulders and spun him around looking for injury. The child was whole, but he was nearly beyond consolation. “Where did they take Lady Graham?”
“I don’t know exact. Angus told me to run home and find you. I jumped in the water, but I stayed and watched a bit ’cause I was askeert.”
“That’s okay, Charlie. Tell me what you saw.” Quin stood and began gathering up the tack he’d need to saddle up his stallion, Twist.
“Granny’s cousin, one of the ginger-haired ones, Padraig, I think. He coshed Angus right in the heid, and then Angus’s arm was bleeding awful. I swum over to the reeds and waited a bit, but I didn’t see Angus again after that. He wasn’t in the boat no more. I ran to town for Peg, but I seen her with the ginger, so I hid in the alley behind the dress shop. But then Peg walked by with your lady. Granny’s cousin was right behind them, and he had blood on his boots and a big sack in his hand. I run all the way back here, I did.”
“You’re a good lad, Charlie. Do you feel up to riding with me back to the Port?” He’d managed to bridle and saddle Twist while the boy talked. Twist was his swiftest option, but the horse was unaccustomed to riding double. Luckily, the boy’s weight would hardly signify, and they should make good time back to Port Menteith. At the last moment, almost as an afterthought, he grabbed one of the postilion’s pistols from the wooden case and hid it under his coat tucked in the back of his trousers.
Even as he tried to convince himself that he was overreacting, that this was all just another manipulation, the muscles in his neck and shoulders tensed with dread. There was nothing in Elsinore’s silly books that would save her now. If he arrived in the Port to find this all just a ruse to keep him from sending her back to London, he just might kill her himself.
Twist’s long strides ate up the road between Lochwode and the Port. Young Charlie, riding affront, had grabbed on to the horse’s mane and was hanging on for all he was worth. Leaning forward, Quin gave the horse another nudge with his heels, and Twist stretched out his neck and settled into a full gallop.
The dread he’d been dampening down now roiled in his stomach with a growing sense of urgency. If anything happened to her… He couldn’t allow himself to complete the thought. It was one thing to want to live separate from her, quite another to imagine her not being out there somewhere. He’d pulled her into this mess by marrying her and now it was his duty to save her.
Scanning every carriage they passed on the road, his urgency was met with nothing more than curious glances. None of them had her. Port Menteith was a gateway to anywhere and everywhere. North to the Highlands, West to Ireland, and South to Wales—he’d never find her. If her abductor’s intent was evil and their thinking clever, they’d wait until darkness of night to get her out of town. That’s what he’d do.
Taking the road into town, he plowed straight down High Street to the water’s edge. The boat was still there, plain enough; no effort had been made to hide it. Either they didn’t care, they hadn’t expected to be caught, or, and this probability stopped him cold, it was all just a manipulation. Could he take that chance? He dismounted and handed the reins to Charlie, hoping Twist was too knackered to give the boy much trouble.
“Ride to the magistrate’s house, Charlie. Tell him what you told me. Tell him to gather some men and come back here as fast as they can. Can you do that for me?”
“Aye, milord.”
“Do it then. And thank you, you’re a good boy, Charlie. You’ll always have a place at Lochwode.” Charlie’s reply was lost as his vigorous kicking at Twist’s flanks finally produced the desired effect, and the horse shot off down the street with its rider.
Quin walked to where the boat was still tied up and there, dried ruddy in the sun, was the unmistakable stain of bloodshed. Following the drops along the ancient planks of the old dock all the way to shore, Quin scanned the ground for more blood or signs of a scuffle. But the docks served all the local fishermen and would have seen much foot traffic that day. Signs of something being dragged across the sandy soil were not uncommon. Maybe he was starting in the wrong place.
He’d backtrack to the dress shop and then follow the trail back here. Charlie had said he saw Elsinore and Peg in the alley behind the shop. Playing a hunch, he ran inside first and confronted the owner.
“Madam, I am Lord G
raham from Lochwode, and I am looking for my wife. Lady Lochwode. She’s about this tall”—he held up his hand to midchest—“and she has blonde hair. Not yellow-blond, more like pale honey and…”
“I know who she is, Lord Graham,” Muireal replied. “She was here earlier but only for a minute or two. She retrieved her gloves and went on her way. I haven’t seen her since.”
“Gloves?”
“Gray kid. She left them here on her first visit just the other day. I had them in my basket. You would hardly believe the sort of things people leave behind here. I save them all and…” She reached under her desk and pulled out a large basket.
“Madam, please, this is a matter of some urgency. Did she have a maid with her? Was she alone? After you returned the gloves exactly what did she do?”
“Quite alone.” Muireal dropped the basket. “You’re not upset that I gave her the green bag are you? I hardly knew what to do with it, considering. I figured it mostly belonged to her now anyway.”
“What green bag?”
“The one left here by Lady Graham…the first one, that is. I’ve had it since…well, just afore she died.” Muireal crossed herself before she continued. “She was in such a hurry that day she left it right here on the counter. Didn’t pin down that it was hers until it was a bit too late.”
“So you gave my wife her gray gloves and an empty green bag, and she just walked out this door and disappeared? Did you see which direction she turned?” Damn and bollocks, this had been a waste of time.
“No, I didn’t. But I never said the bag was empty.”
“What was in it?” He gritted his teeth and tried not to shout at the woman.
“I don’t pry.”
“Balderdash. The magistrate is on his way, madam. If you don’t tell me might right this minute, I’ll…I’ll tear this shop to bloody bits to look for her. I’ll have you charged with murder.”
“Murder? By the saints, there’s been no murder here. There was nothing in the purse but a scrap of paper and a nail. No coin, nothing valuable at all.”
A scrap of paper. His bloody life had been turned upside down by scraps of paper.
Quin turned and charged out the door, swiveling his head to look up and down the street. No Elsinore. No Peg. Nothing looked out of order. Charlie had said they walked down the alley, so he ran between the buildings to the alley that ran behind the shops and separated them from the shacks and sheds used by both the merchants and penniless drifters looking for a place to sleep. This was nowhere Elsinore should have been walking, and Peg would have known it.
Like a hunting hound, he kept his eyes to the ground and his ears open as he made his way down the alley. It was a busy walkway, and no tracks stood out from all the others. Until an impression in the ground caught his attention. Someone fell here, and look, there’s a handprint in the dirt where they steadied themselves before rising. Could be anyone. Could be nothing. Reaching back to feel the pistol, Quin drew a fortifying breath and walked on, knowing he would find her or die trying.
When the alley forked, one side leading back to the water, the other to the wood, he had a tough decision to make. Water. Liquid had never been their friend, so he chose the path that led back to the lakeside. At first, with the long shadows reminding him that time was running out, Quin feared he’d chosen poorly. When the magistrate’s men arrived, they could cover more ground, but he wasn’t certain she had that long.
Keeping his eyes to the ground, he took a dozen more paces until the alley opened up upon more buildings. Fishermen’s shacks, boathouses, fish-smoking shanties, and a direct path to the docks. If they got her on a boat, she could be anywhere by now. Still, awfully risky to move a captive in daylight. Elsinore would scream and carry on—she’d not go quietly. Unless she went willingly. His hands fisted involuntarily at the thought. There he stood, white knuckled and blood boiling, trying to decide what to do next when something bright and shiny caught his eye.
Damn. He opened his fists and reached down into the dirt. Elsinore’s necklace. His engagement gift. Or, rather, the one her father purchased. He’d not seen it since, until this morning. She’d worn it when he’d kissed her goodbye. What that was supposed to signify he was no longer sure. For a moment it had given him hope, but hadn’t life taught him how foolish hope could be?
The clasp was broken. She hadn’t dropped it; it hadn’t fallen of its own accord. Something had happened here. He looked up for the first time since starting his journey down the alley and his mouth fell open. Hardly able to believe what he saw, his breath caught in his throat.
There, on top of the old boat warehouse, picking her way with careful, dainty steps across the mossy slate roof, was Elsinore. In her underclothes. Afraid to call out and startle her, lest she slip and fall, Quin ran to the side of the building waving his hands to get her attention.
She nodded, put her finger to her lips begging his silence, and then pointed back to the building, shaking her head. He wasn’t to go charging in, that much he understood. Every small step on slippery tiles squeezed at his heart. It was too far for her to fall without grave injury and too tall for him to climb up without help.
But there was logic to her flight he now saw. At the far end of the building, an old wych elm spread its branches wide. She was making her way to the tree. It had been many years since he’d climbed a tree, but Quin jumped at the branches and began hauling himself up to her. He couldn’t allow himself to wonder where her clothes had gone. She was alive.
The branch nearest the roof didn’t look sturdy enough for his weight, so Quin leaped for the roof from his perch nearer the trunk. He hit the roof with a teeth-jarring thud but slid down the slate to the very edge. Scrambling, grabbing at the stone tiles for fingerholds, he was able to swing around and stop his descent before falling off the edge. Carefully, on hands and knees, he began making his way to her.
“Come,” he whispered motioning her closer. It was only then that he noticed, in addition to her dress, she was also missing a shoe. Whatever had been done to her? The logic of it hit him as he struggled to his feet, the soles of his boots slip-sliding against the tiles. Bare feet afforded better purchase against the slate.
“Angus is hurt,” she whispered, pointing back to the lone dormer window. “He needs help.”
“So do you.” Quin took a few cautious steps away from the edge and reached out his hand to her. “Come.” But her attention had turned back to the window where Quin saw another figure emerging. A figure with a pistol. Quin reached back for his own firearm and found it missing. The pistol must have fallen out as he scrambled onto the rooftop. There was no time to go back for it.
As she closed the distance between them, Quin calculated the odds of surviving a fall to the ground. Maybe if he held her tightly in his arms and took the brunt of the fall she’d be unharmed. Maybe if he pushed her behind himself, she’d make it to the tree while he dealt with the pistol. Or—his brain scrambled for the third option—he could… Quin’s brain stuttered with shock and his mouth fell open as the figure came closer. He was looking into the face of a dead man.
Conall MacGregor, the coachman who Quin believed had died with his parents on Ben Lomond stood not twenty feet away from him on the roof of a dockside warehouse looking very much alive. “It was you. You broke the axle and killed my parents. Why?”
“You dare ask why?” The man turned his head and spit. “You, the bloody golden child of traitors, you who have done nothing but profit from the blood of loyal Scotsmen—you dare ask why? Every week, another boatload of Highlanders is sent to the Americas, another regiment of braw Scots is sent to the front lines to die for England, and another family is forced from land they’ve worked for centuries to make room for sheep. Fecking sheep, Graham! People are put out for the sake of foreign sheep to fill English bellies and weave red coats.”
“My father and my grandfather saved lives. There was no reason, is no reason, for more Scottish blood to be spilt.” Conall ignored him and waved t
he pistol back and forth for emphasis as he spoke again. All the while, Quin inched himself closer and closer to Elsinore. He’d run out of options. There was naught to do but face the pistol.
“We failed to take Edinburgh in ’94, but we’ve learned much since then. Edinburgh was too big a target, too hard to defend. We take Lochwode and we control the gateway to the Highlands. No one gets in or out without our say so. You got rid of Sorcha before she could carry out her part, but when we heard you got yourself a rich English wife—well, we figured she’d bring enough gold in ransom to set us up. They’ll have to reckon with us then; they’ll have to bargain.”
“You’re reaching backward for a time that will never again exist. This plot will only succeed in killing more Scotsmen.”
“Your family turned its back on Scotland when it mattered most. You’re the last of the line, and it’s time to pay the piper, Graham.” MacGregor raised the pistol and took aim as he spoke.
“Then take me, and let my wife go. She had nothing to do with this.” Finally close enough, Quin grabbed a handful of Elsinore’s chemise and swung her behind him.
“She’s a sassenach whure just like your mother was. Her family will pay a fortune for her. I believe we’ll keep her a while.” Conall leveled the gun at Quin’s chest and cocked the pistol.
“No!” Quin heard Elsinore scream out behind him. In the next second, he was thrown to his knees as she kicked his legs out from under him. “No. No. No.” She continued to yell as she crawled over him making her way to the gunman.
“Stop.” Damn his bloody boots. The harder he tried to rise the more he slipped. Quin grabbed another handful of her chemise and pulled her back just as a shot rang out. The lone report echoed over the lake like a thunderclap.
“Let me go,” she growled back at him as she beat at MacGregor’s face with her fists and her reticule. His shot wasted, MacGregor now wielded the weapon like a club, and the sound of it connecting with the side of her head made Quin see red.
