After everything, this. She cared nothing for what he’d been through or how he’d fought for her. To protect her. To care for her when she was wounded.
She cared nothing for him.
He was mere moments from telling Richard he ought to throw her out and lock the doors behind when Richard’s expression shifted. He went from angered—no, enraged—to stony. The flush of his cheeks cooled. His eyes hardened.
Did she know the mistake she’d made? How she had crossed a line she could never cross again?
“All right, then,” Richard murmured. “We shall have it your way. Ye dinna have to tell me anything ye dinna wish to reveal.”
She merely raised an eyebrow in response. She was far too clever to believe for an instant this was anything offered in friendship.
William’s resentful heart was heavy as he joined his friend on the other side of the table, opposite the lass. She raised the other eyebrow but again offered nothing more.
Even now, there was no hint of human feeling in her. It mattered not at all that her protector had taken the side of the man glowering at her, that he now stood across from her rather than beside her.
She’d more than likely expected him to do just this.
“Captain Blackheath, see to it that this woman is taken to the cells beneath the keep.”
William’s throat closed, cutting off his air. He did not dare show surprise, however, as this type of announcement ought to appear as though they’d discussed it first.
A glance at Richard from the corner of his eye show that the man he’d known his entire life was completely serious. This was not a threat meant to frighten her into a confession.
Her face went slack. “You mean this?”
Richard’s reply was curt. To the point. “I do.”
“And you would allow it?” she demanded, glaring at William.
“I dinna think ye understand,” he grunted. “I owe ye nothing. We owe ye nothing. If ye wish for protection and ease, ye have to offer something in return. Ye will not offer what the laird requests.”
“Demands, more like, and you are a fine pair if ye believe otherwise.” She stood, chin high, eyes blazing, teeth bared in a snarl. “This has gone on long enough. I thank you for rescuing me, and I shall go on my way now. I want nothing more to do with this place or anyone in it.”
The fact that she stared at William after announcing this made it clear to whom she directed it.
“Och, but it’s too late for that. Ye might have left before now, or ye might have worked with me to see we were both satisfied. Now, there will be no leaving. Not until the truth of who ye are and just why ye are so important to Jacob Stuart is settled.” Richard nodded to William then, a signal which he’d used countless times. His orders were to be carried out.
By William.
“Come,” he ordered, the word sharp, clipped. He couldn’t look at her and certainly could not touch her. Not when the memory of being close to her was still clear in his head, as clear as if she’d only just been in his arms.
When she did not so much as move a muscle, William whistled for the guards outside to enter the room. “Take the prisoner to the cells,” he ordered, and this time he forced himself to watch as the men took her by the arms.
They weren’t rough or abusive, but they left little room for argument. Compared to her, nothing but a wee slip of a thing, they were giants.
He had to watch. He had to hold her gaze as she glared spitefully his way. He knew what she was thinking and could all but hear her nasty, vile words in his head, but this was not the time to look away.
She’d had her chance. He’d all but begged her to bend under Richard’s commands.
This was not his doing.
He led the way out of the study, down the corridor, to the wide, stone stairs leading to the dark chamber carved from the very earth on which the keep stood. It was cold enough to make his arms erupt in gooseflesh. This was where she would stay. In the cold, in the dark.
He might at least see to it the torches were kept lit.
“This way.” He led the trio between the cells which lined both walls, iron bars revealing what was inside. They were empty at the time—all they normally held were the occasional guard who’d had too much to drink and needed a reminder of the virtues of practicing self-control.
Self-control meant not having to spend the night sleeping atop a pile of straw in a cold, lonely cell.
She made not a sound as she walked behind him. Even her breathing was silent. But her stare, och, the way she stared at the back of his head.
“See to it the torches are lit and changed regularly,” he ordered, pretending he did not feel the weight of her accusatory glare. “See to it the straw is changed as well.”
They reached the cell furthest from the stairs, in the deepest corner. Why had he chosen this particular cell? Was it because she might cry out for help and he did not wish to hear her cries?
He turned around after unlocking and opening the door. “And see to it she’s shackled to the wall.”
“What’s that now?” she bellowed, and her voice echoed back at him again and again in the otherwise empty space.
The guards appeared just as surprised as she. They had never used the shackles—to his knowledge, there had not been any need to do so since the former laird lived. In those days it was more common to take prisoners, as there was much greater unrest in and around Munro land.
He would hear none of it, and pointedly looked over her head to those of the men still holding onto her. “She’ll be shackled to the wall and fed twice per day, but no more than the normal rations given to prisoners. She is not to be spoken to by anyone but myself or the laird. Understood?”
“Aye,” they both agreed.
“Wait. Wait, William. Please.” She strained to break free of them, to be nearer to him. He took a deliberate step back, away from her. Telling her without using words how unlikely it was for them to ever come to an understanding.
This was out of his hands, and he’d done neither of them any favors by allowing her a place in his esteem. Or his heart.
The closing and locking of the shackles tore at him. It was a sentence on them both. They’d both been in the wrong.
“You cannot do this.” Her voice was no more than a whisper, or the buzzing of a gnat close to his ear. He could not swat a hand to free himself of the incessant, droning buzz.
It would continue to buzz in his ear so long as she remained locked away. And there was nothing he could do about it.
23
Shana managed to wait until she was alone before the tears began to flow.
Once they began, she couldn’t stop them.
Foolish lass. She should’ve known better. How many times had the opportunity to escape presented itself? How many times had she been no more than a moment from running away? While she was alone, outside Inverness. The perfect chance to ride away. Or before they’d crossed the last bridge, on the other side of the river. He’d fallen asleep. She could have run and kept running, but she had instead listened to…
To what? To the soft heart her family had always made such a laughing matter of? Rightly so. She’d deserved nothing less.
Would that she’d hardened over time. Would that she had seen William as the enemy all along, for he was nothing less.
Her enemy. Someone she’d been a fool to ever trust or feel for.
Now, she was back where she’d started. In a cell. Alone. It was colder now, without even the small window to allow a shaft of light into the stone room.
The floor might as well have been ice, and the wall to her back as well. The chains attached to the iron cuffs on her wrists were long, but heavy. She could drag them across the floor if she wished to move, but where was there to go? The other side of the cell?
How had she traveled so far, only to end in the same situation?
The squeaking of rats replaced the steady dripping of water. She watched as a pair of them—fat, sleek—scurried acro
ss the floor just outside her cell, paying her no mind.
Yet. They would in time. At least she had a torch by which to see them. Listening to them going about their business in the darkness would be too much for her already strained mind to bear.
She walked a short distance back and forth, the chains grinding against the stone and setting her teeth on edge. This could not continue. She would go mad.
She was already well on her way.
After all, had she not allowed him to kiss her? Had she not longed to kiss him outside the door to her chambers? Had her already soft, easily wounded heart not already opened fully to him?
Only to have him throw her in a cell, where rats would be her only companions.
In the end, he had taken up Richard’s side. He’d lied to her so many times, and she had believed because she’d wanted to believe. She’d needed to, because she’d needed an excuse to stay with William when she should have run at the first chance.
He’d lied when he told her Richard would understand and wish to help. He’d lied when he said he would pretend he knew not who she was—now, it was clear he’d told his friend everything, which was why there was so much resentment on the laird’s face and in his voice when they met.
Because he knew who she was, who her family was, and he hated her for it. Just as she had predicted.
To what end had he lied, however? What was the meaning of bringing her all this way only to shackle her to a wall? If it was gold he’d wished for, he might have returned her to Jacob from the very start. Why put himself through such tribulation for it to only end this way?
These were questions she would likely take to her grave, as she would never have the chance to ask him and he would never answer even if she did.
The coward would just as likely never step foot near her cell again. He would follow the orders of his laird and nod and scrape and bow as he’d been doing all along.
She’d never meant anything to him.
The realization and everything it entailed sent her sliding down the wall, no longer feeling the icy stone at her back, until she landed in a heap on the floor. She was nothing to him.
Once the bitter sting of this certainty faded until it was not quite so painful, Shana took one deep breath after another in an effort to calm herself. She had to think clearly if there was any hope of escape.
She had to escape. It was time to begin thinking about herself again.
The shackles were not tight enough to prevent her working her hands out of them, though it would be a painful process and would like as not tear her skin. She would do this only if truly desperate.
The chains were attached to the wall with iron plates through which thick bolts had been driven. No chance of pulling them from the stone—she wrapped one chain about her wrist several times and leaned back with her feet braced against the wall, grimacing from the strain as iron links bit into her flesh.
Finally, she gave up with a frustrated groan.
What of the bars? Little good would it do to free her wrists if she could not free herself from the cell. The length of the chains allowed her to reach them, where she studied the lock on the other side of the door. It was old, but was it old enough for her to break it? What other chance was there of escape?
Unless another old, sympathetic man brought her meals, there was little other option.
She would continue thinking about this, as there was little else for her to think about at the time which did not involve William.
And he was the last thing she wished to dwell on, for her heart was already in pieces. No need to grind them down further.
24
William burst into Richard’s study upon returning from the cells. “What was the meaning of that?”
Richard did not look up from his work. “The meaning of what? And once again, I would appreciate ye taking an easier tone with me. Dinna forget yourself.”
He looked up now, his eyes hard. “I am willing to forgive the way ye came here with her, knowing who she was, what she’d done. Knowing I would have qualms about keeping her here with us when she is not to be trusted.”
“She was not the one doing the raiding.”
“Perhaps not the last raid, during which she was captured. But she did. She must have. Even a small thing such as herself might have been quite valuable to the others.”
“Ye dinna know it.”
“I dinna need anyone to tell me. This is my home, my land, and I will deal with her as I see fit.” Richard rose, leaning over his table. “Ye told me last night that ye dinna wish for this to come between us, yet ye burst in here, full of anger. Daring to tell me how I ought to conduct my affairs.”
“She is not your affair.”
“She is, now that ye have brought her here.”
“Can ye not see she’s frightened? Can ye not try to understand how difficult her life has been?” It took a great deal of fortitude not to strike his best friend when he scoffed at this. “Tis true! Try to imagine, even for a moment, what it would mean to be born as she was. Not as the heir to these lands and the castle, but as nothing. No one. Without a home. With no chance of ever having one, as those ye might settle near dinna want anything to do with your kind.”
“What does that have to do with what goes on now?”
Was he truly so dense? Or did he merely not wish to sympathize? “It means she does not trust us. She trusts no one who does not share her blood. She has been ill-used her entire life and does not wish to be so ill-used again. Can ye fault her for this?”
Richard was silent, staring at the wall behind William.
“Please. I have never begged ye for anything in all the years we’ve lived under this roof together. Can ye not see how important this is to me?”
“I can see how important she is to ye.” Richard sat back down, rubbing his temples. “Och, you’ve gotten yourself into quite a bit of trouble over her.”
“That isn’t what I came here to talk with ye about.”
“Ye didna come in here to talk with me. Ye came to bully me into giving in to ye, and I have to say I dinna much like it.” Richard tapped a stack of papers with one finger. “Do ye know what this is?”
“Ye know I dinna.”
“A group of reports which I’ve received over the past month regarding these gypsy raiders. Aye, I’ve been quite aware of their activity. More than ye have, I would wager, and rightly so.”
“Ye never told me anything of them before I left.”
“Nay, because they were so far to the south. I thought little of it but wished to be kept abreast. As a matter of fact, I allowed several of these reports to pass unnoticed until now. I never imagined one of them would find her way to my land, hence my never having brought it to your attention.” His face screwed up in a rather sour expression as he began going through them, withdrawing one of the pages. “Ye may wish to read this.”
William was suddenly certain he had no desire to read it. There was something in his friend’s voice and his troubled expression which made the page he held out seem much more ominous than it would have otherwise.
He took it nonetheless. “A band of raiders were captured near Fort William,” he read aloud, his brow furrowed. “When captured, they spoke of one of their numbers having gone missing over a fortnight ago.”
He looked up at Richard, who nodded. “I’ve heard nothing more of them since that report, but now ye see. I had not read it until this very morning, before I saw the pair of ye, and I wished to speak of it.”
“Now ye know.” William thrust the page back toward Richard. “Ye know they will not come for her. Ye know she is no threat to ye. Yet ye insist on locking her away?”
“Because she refused to answer my questions, and she needs to know where she is and who makes the rules here. I dinna care that she has not known civilized company her entire life. It makes no difference to me. What I care about is knowing I’ve brought someone under my roof who understands the sacrifice that could entail for myself and my men, s
hould Jacob Stuart decide to come for her.”
“He does not know we’re here.”
“Oh, does he not?” Once again, Richard tapped the stack of paper. “What leads ye to believe he does not receive the same reports I do? I would wager he has eyes and ears everywhere, and if he put a bounty on the lass’s head ye know there are plenty of men eager to tell him everything they saw, anything they heard. About the pair of ye.”
Was he right? William could not say. There was not even a guarantee that the raiders captured were of her clan, though it would be an astounding coincidence if they were not.
“Do ye believe he’ll come here for her? Is that what ye mean to say?”
“If he does not, he shall send someone. Mark my words, my friend.” Richard’s tone softened. “And ye are still my friend, even if I question whether ye ought to be at times. Perhaps I ought not be so close with the captain of my guard. He takes it into his head that he has the right to burst in here unannounced and challenge my decisions.”
“When ye order a defenseless woman shackled to a wall?”
“Defenseless?” Richard chuckled. “Och, I pity the man who believes her to be truly defenseless. Anyone who’s lived the life you’ve described to me has ways of defending herself. Mark my words.”
“Just the same. Ye know what I mean.”
“Dinna be so stubborn. Ye sound like her now. You’ve spent too much time with her. I shall keep her where I wish to keep her for the time being, and I’ll hear nothing else about it.” Richard shook his head when William opened his mouth to protest. “Nothing else. I mean it. I still make the rules on this land, and that is my final decision. I shall sleep better tonight knowing she canna run away and cause more trouble than she might already have done.”
“What do ye mean?” So he expected her to attempt an escape, just as William had also feared. Perhaps he understood her better than William had anticipated.
Highland Temptations: Boxed Set: Books 1-3 Page 34
