“Slide it back…” Adeline gasped, feeling her own strength start to ebb. They had to hurry. He was yelling at the top of his lungs and it was only a minute, only a moment, before somebody loyal to him in the manor would hear his cries.
“Got it!”
Alexander ran to the door. Adeline heard the key slide into the lock. At that moment, the baron flexed his arm and threw her off. She hit the wall and slid a little, then nipped through the door. Alexander slammed it, just as the man reached the entrance.
“Let me out!” he yelled, beating the door with such force, Adeline wondered if the door could bear up to it.
Alexander quickly locked the door, then, together, they ran down the stairs. At that moment, the sound of running feet echoed up the corridor.
“We have to hide!” Alexander yelled, heading along the hallway.
“Here!”
Adeline dragged at the door, half concealed, of the servant’s corridor and slammed it behind them. They ran.
“He’s locked in,” Adeline said, as they shot off up the hallway, breath heaving, lungs burning. The servant’s corridor was a riot of running feet and shouts, as two or three of the baron’s men filled it, running after them.
“I know!” Alexander shouted. “But somebody else must have a key to let him out.”
“McInnes,” Adeline yelled back.
They ran.
“This way!” Adeline heard a man shout. He was dangerously close and she almost screamed as she felt him grab for her. She was wearing only her petticoats, luckily – the skirts were quite narrow, and afforded less to grab than the wide skirt of her riding habit.
“What can we do?” she whispered to Alexander.
“The hidden door!” Alexander yelled back.
Adeline frowned. “Which door?”
“The one that goes to the garden!” Alexander called. “This way.”
They ran down the stairs. Adeline, almost slipping, yelled again and slid down the last few steps to the bottom. Alexander was waiting for her at the corner of the winding passage, face a picture of terror.
“There you are!” he called. “Quick! This way.”
They ran around the bend and then Alexander opened a door.
Adeline fell through it into bright sunlight. They leaned against the door, panting, the bright sunshine painful to their eyes, the fresh air delicious and sweet on their faces.
Alexander was leaning on the door, but already somebody was hitting hard against it, the door buckling under the blows, pushing sharply outwards.
“We need to stall them,” he said. “You run.”
“Not yet,” Adeline said fiercely. Go, and leave him there? She would never.
Looking around the garden, she struck on an idea.
“That stone,” she said, indicating a stone bench under the tree. “You think you could get it? If I hold the door?”
“I can try,” Alexander said quickly. “If you think you can…” He gestured at the door, where people were pounding, the wood buckling as they yelled.
“Yes!” she yelled, hearing, as she had feared, the sound of two men shouting, coming from the main, more distant, entrance to the gardens.
They had almost no time.
Alexander nodded. “Stay here?” he said.
She leaned against the door, feeling her whole body fighting against the pounding on the door. It was taking all her strength, to keep it shut.
Alexander ran to the bench and heaved the top section off. A big, heavy stone, he half-carried, half-dragged it the eight paces back to the door.
“Now!” he yelled.
He dumped it against the door, face white with the strain of carrying it. Higher than his waist, it leaned against the door at a wide angle, pushing against it.
“It will hold only a few seconds!” he warned. “Let’s go!”
“Run!” Adeline agreed, though her chest was aching, her legs so weary she thought she’d never run again.
“Where’s Tam?” Alexander yelled, as they sprinted across the field towards the back of the vast grounds.
“Tam!” Adeline yelled. Her son knew nothing of their presence here! If he knew, he’d have the baron thrown out at once. Even her uncle Alec would never be able to excuse such conduct. “Tam!”
“He can’t hear us,” Alexander choked. He was running beside her, but she could see how tired he was. His face was white, his breath labored. He was injured, and she glanced down, seeing dark blood against the wound. It had bled the day before, and was likely still seeping. She had no time to change the bandage.
“Tam!” she screamed, as Alexander stopped running, hands on his knees. “Son! We’re here!”
“He’s not…near…” Alexander panted. His face was gray, and Adeline wondered, terrified, if he might not die right now of the injury and strain.
“Tam!” She screamed, as the men, kilted in the green and blue of McGuide, appeared. One of them had a rifle. He pointed it at her.
“Stop! Hands up.”
Adeline tensed, but Alexander, on the ground, nodded. “Do as they say,” he said. “We’ll go out together, eh?”
Boldly, smiling up at her, he took her hand.
Adeline felt her eyes fill with tears as, nodding, she smiled back.
“Aye, lad,” she grinned. “We’ll face it together.”
She gripped his hand, a handshake of solidarity, like the one when they’d met, like the feeling of his hand clutching hers in the dark, safe and assuring.
“You have until the count of five to surrender!” the man yelled. “One, two…”
Adeline and Alexander looked at each other. In that moment, she felt a reckless wildness inside her. Why should she surrender to a life of silent misery, married to a man who treated her like an object? She was here with a wild, wonderful soldier. She would rather be shot now, in a blaze of gunpowder, than live her life in padded servitude.
“I don’t surrender!” she screamed, as a shot fired.
She gripped Alexander’s hand, looked into his eyes, and waited for the searing impact of the bullet.
It never came.
Instead, to her astonishment, the man opposite her dropped to his knees. The other two men turned around, their faces pictures of shock.
“Get away from my mother.”
“Tam?” Adeline stared, amazement making her go weak, as her son, dressed in dark velvet, back straight and face stark pale, walked across the lawns.
“Drop your weapons!” Tam said levelly.
He held a pistol, Adeline noticed, and the thin strand of smoke that issued from it suggested that he was the one who had fired the shot – a warning fire.
The men dropped their guns.
“Step back,” Tam snarled.
Adeline stared at him, as if she’d never seen him before. Was this her small, gentle hearted son? He had a face as hard as granite.
I’ve never seen him like this before.
The men looked at each other, stepping obediently back. Adeline felt her body start to soften, tension leaving it. At her side, Alexander stopped coughing. Looking up, he gasped.
“What do you think you’re doing?” a voice rang out.
Adeline tensed, recognizing it.
Uncle Alec. Oh, no.
She caught sight of her uncle by marriage. Striding across the grass, white hair brighter in contrast with his black velvet suit, his face was stiff with authority.
Tam turned around to face him. The pistol still in his hand, the barrel still smoking from recent firing, he raised a brow.
“That’s a question I’d like to ask you, too, Uncle,” he said.
His voice was very soft, almost a whisper. His eyes were like stone. Adeline tensed, looking from the hard, authoritarian older face to her son’s gentle one.
The older man snorted, as if he thought the younger was of little consequence. “You have no business here, son,” he said dismissively. “You don’t run this estate. Go back upstairs to your book learning.”
Behind Uncle Alec, the baron stood. His face white, two spots of red on his cheeks from exertion, he looked at Adeline with rage.
Adeline felt the cool dismissal in her uncle’s calm voice as a slap. She saw her son raise a brow. He was trembling, but she could see it was rage, not fear. She fought the urge to stand beside him. At her side, she felt Alexander stiffen. He, too, was watching Tam.
“That’s true,” Tam acknowledged, keeping his voice low. “But this is my mother, and her companion. And I ask by what right you held them here, without informing anybody of their presence? This is my home, and hers.”
“And I oversee it until you’re eighteen, boy,” Uncle Alec said levelly. “You have no idea how to run things.”
Adeline saw, out of the corner of her eye, Alexander get to his feet. She could see he was pale, and she recognized how full of rage he was. She instinctively rested a hand on his forearm.
Not yet, sweetling.
He looked at her, eyes fond. Tam was replying.
“We managed perfectly well, before you came, uncle. And brought with you guests who have no concept of manners.”
Tam made the words a threat. Adeline felt her heart soar in pride for him, even as she felt desperate for him.
Uncle Alec laughed. Adeline saw the baron produce his own pistol, and her heart stopped.
“You insult my guest, eh?” Uncle Alec was laughing. “And yet you and your mother ran this place so foolishly that it is five hundred pounds in debt?”
Adeline gasped. Beside her, Alexander stepped forward.
“That is a lie. You and your scunner, that calls himself Lady Adeline’s helper. McInnes. You were in it from the first, weren’t you?”
Adeline saw Uncle Alec’s eyes widen.
“What are you saying?” he said. His voice was dangerous.
“You planned it, aye?” Alexander said, continuing blithely. “You, and that jackanapes beside you. You did it together.”
The baron growled.
Adeline saw Uncle Alec take a step forward. His face was dark and angry.
“You’d better explain,” he said.
“You and he,” Alexander said, gesturing towards the baron, then the house. “You stole from Lady Adeline, funneling her money into a business that wasn’t hers. You ruined her on purpose. The estate is wealthy – you know that as well as anyone here! Yet, it suited you to bankrupt it, didn’t it? And that’d put the baron in your debt.”
“What?” McGuire rounded on Uncle Alec, face white. “You mean…you were stealing from Dunrade?”
Adeline stared at Alexander, amazed by what he had unraveled. The more he said, the more it made a terrible sense. He was right!
“You watch your tongue,” Uncle Alec hissed, startling her. “You speak slanderous words! There’s no way you can show anyone that.”
“The ledgers!” Tam spoke up, as Adeline’s own brain followed the same route to the same conclusion. “There’s one in Mama’s office, that shows the real figures, and you have the other. You and McInnes, together. You used the money to buy those things – silk, velvet…you bought them yourself! And then pretended Mama made mistakes.”
“Yes!” Adeline was amazed now. The whole thing made sense, and her mind filled in a terrible realization, slowly, of her own. “You must have bought them, and sold them, charging them to me. You and McInnes. You were enriching yourselves! I never saw one whit of those goods.”
“You’re lying,” Uncle Alec said. “There are no ledgers like that. The accounts you have are all there are.”
“Oh?” Adeline stared at him. How could he lie, so blatantly? “I saw them, because you showed them to me.”
Uncle Alec went white.
“You…” He took a step towards Adeline.
Alexander stepped forward, and suddenly a long, thin knife was in his hand.
“I think you should stay back,” he said.
Uncle Alec stopped.
Looking left and right, he glared at the baron, who was still looking at him as though he wanted to strangle him, himself.
“Fine,” he snarled. “You all want to believe a foolish widow, her daft son and some nobody? You are free to do so. But you will know the weight of the law, for this. I have connections…”
“And we have these!” a voice rang out.
Adeline turned to see Barra, who was dragging somebody forward slowly. Astonished, she saw that it was McInnes. In his hand was a leather-bound volume.
“Barra?” she said. She and Alexander spoke together. They stared in astonishment. Opposite her, Tam was grinning as if Barra was the starlight on the snow.
“He was hiding them, when I caught him,” Barra declared. “But I got him and now he has to show you, and everybody else.”
“Barra!” Adeline shook her head in wonderment. She was smiling, laughing. “I can’t believe it!”
“It’s nothing, milady.”
Adeline looked from Barra to Tam and back and thought that, no matter the difference in their classes, if they loved each other, she would agree to the match right there. It was not so very different, after all, to herself and Alexander.
“Uncle?” Tam said, looking at Uncle Alec, as if he’d just noticed his arrival. “Do you have anything to add?”
“I’ll see you all thrown out. Pack of devils!” Uncle Alec cursed them. He looked left and right, but the baron was looking at him as if he wanted to finish him then and there, and the three men in the McGuide livery were strangely silent.
Uncle Alec cast one last vengeful look around the group, and then walked toward the manor, black cloak swaying.
When he had gone, Tam turned to Adeline.
“Should we go, Mama?”
Adeline raised a brow. “What about them?” She gestured at the baron and his men. The baron was still looking vengefully after Alec. The men watched Adeline and Alexander with the focused patience of hunting creatures. Adeline shivered.
Beside her, Alexander took her arm, reassuring.
Adeline smiled at him, and in that moment the danger disappeared. She could have been standing in a green field with him, safe and sound.
Opposite them, Tam turned toward the baron.
“I would like to hear your explanation of why my mother was held here without my knowledge.”
“She was here willingly,” the baron began, but Adeline cut across him.
“He had us captive, son,” she said quickly “I don’t know what he planned to do to us.”
Tam looked at the baron. He said nothing, but the man would have been a fool had he not seen the naked murder in his eyes.
The baron, seemingly, was not that foolish. Swallowing, he stepped back.
“I’ll pack my things,” he said.
“Do it quickly,” Tam advised. “You and your men have an hour to get off my land before I have you routed from it.”
The baron walked towards the house, glancing backwards at Tam and Adeline with murder in his eyes. Adeline stood, back stiff, and watched him go. His men followed, walking behind him as if in formation on the parade ground.
“Whew,” Tam said, when they disappeared around the corner.
Adeline leaned against him. Suddenly, now that the danger was over, she realized how exhausted she was. She felt her knees give way.
Beside her, Alexander gripped her arm, holding her upright, as she collapsed.
“Tam?” he said, wrapping his arms around her and cradling her against his chest, lifting her as if she weighed scarce more than a handful of leaves. “Ask Barra to have a bed made up for Lady Adeline? And mayhap bring her some tea from the kitchens?”
“I will,” Tam agreed. “Barra, would you please fetch Mama some tea?”
“Gladly,” Barra said.
As Adeline closed her eyes, letting her body sink, finally, into weary restfulness, the last thing she heard was Tam and Barra’s giggles. Her heart smiled.
RESTORED
Adeline woke up, feeling a warm presence behind her. She wa
s sleepy and her body felt impossibly wearied. She stretched and rolled over, then smiled as a hand touched her shoulder and, with it, memory returned.
“Good morning, Adeline.”
Adeline rolled over and breathed in, smelling the warm skin scent of Alexander. She moved closer, nestling her head against his neck. She breathed in, feeling peaceful.
“Good morning, Alexander.”
He smiled and his arms tightened around her. She felt her body melt as his embrace held her, feeling safe and warm. She pressed her body closer and kissed him.
Alexander kissed her tenderly, and she felt his hand slowly stroke her hair.
She kept her eyes closed, gently stroking his hair, his face.
“My sweetling,” Alexander whispered, kissing her hair.
Adeline lay there, feeling her body slowly relax. She was bruised and she could feel her leg ache where she had, most likely, pulled a muscle in the run. As her consciousness slowly returned, she opened her eyes.
The bright whiteness of her own bedroom ceiling showed above, flowers and leaf shapes smoothed into the corners where the walls met the plaster. She lay back, feeling a satiny pillow under her head, the linen so fine that it felt as smooth as silk. Her feet slipped over the same smoothed linen and the coverlet over her was cushioning and warm. Beside her, Alexander tightened his grip, drawing her even closer in.
She let her lips touch his, and suck gently, making a slow, meaningful kiss. His tongue slipped into her mouth and she felt her body slowly throb with longing.
“Alexander,” she said, rolling over so that she could see him.
“What?”
“I do love you.”
“I love you, too.”
She squeezed his hand. They lay silent for a moment or two longer.
“And,” she whispered, feeling her body ache for his, sweetly familiar. “I want you, too.”
She heard his cheeks lift in a smile. “I want you.”
She felt his words, more intimate than a touch. Slowly, she rolled over so that she looked down at him, reaching for his lips with her own. Her hand stroked that muscled body, her other arm supporting her.
The Highlander's Brave Baroness (Blood 0f Duncliffe Series Book 10) Page 20
