David was looking back down at the screen. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Heather. I just thought he’d make a better fit.”
“Oh, I get it. You want to work for him but you couldn’t work for me. What’s wrong? Can’t let the little lady get above her station?”
He sighed, glancing up at her, his lips thinning. “You want the truth? I don’t think you should be here at all. You want a relationship with me. Fine. But what happens if you get that promotion and then we get married? You can’t look after kids and be an executive here sixty hours a week. They’d get neglected.”
“Wow.”
“What? Am I wrong?”
“You seriously just said all that? What do you think this is, 1952?”
“Look, I’m just as much a feminist as you but you’ve got to admit you can’t bring up children and work a job like this.”
“So you sabotaged my chance at promotion?”
He leaned a hand across the table. “I did it for you. You’ll thank me when you think about it.”
She leaned her hand across, squeezing his. “Thank you.”
“I knew you’d see it my way.”
She scraped back her chair, standing up and folding her arms across her chest. “Thank you for showing me the kind of man you really are. We’re done here.”
“What?”
“This relationship is over.”
“But-“
She walked away, pulling out her cellphone. She sent Donna a message. “Drink. Tonight?”
“Of course,” the reply came back at once. “As long as I can bring the invitations for you to look at.”
“As long as I can tell you about how I didn’t get the promotion and I’ve just dumped David.”
“OMG. Tell me more.”
“Six-thirty, Hamish’s.”
Hamish’s Tavern was Scottish themed. The tartans of various clans lined the walls. The Frazer tartan was the only one missing. Behind the bar a huge Claymore sword took pride of place above the bottles of whisky.
Donna already had a bottle of Merlot and two glasses ready when Heather walked in. “Tell me everything,” she said, pouring the wine.
Heather told her about her day, finishing by saying, “So now I’m single and Scotland bound.”
“I say huzzah to that. How do you feel?”
Heather shrugged. “I don’t feel much of anything. No doubt it’ll hit me at some point.”
“Numb it with wine and looking at these. What do you think?” She slid a red folder across the table.
Heather opened it and glanced inside. “I think they look like wedding invitations. I’m not sure what you want me to say.”
“What about the paper?”
“It looks very nice.”
“You’re right. They’re awful. I’ll get new ones done.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“It’s fine. Just know that one day I’ll be helping plan your wedding and then you’ll be all about the invitations.”
“I’m not likely to be getting married anytime soon so it doesn’t really matter.”
“Nor am I if I don’t get the invitations sent out. Now drink more and tell me about this Scotland thing. When are you meant to be going?”
“I don’t know. He was going to email me about it but I’ve not had anything yet.”
“Check now.”
Heather looked at her cellphone. “It’s here. I go tomorrow apparently. For a month, blah, blah. Guesthouse room booked for me. They’ll be waiting to meet me at the Cromarty office on Thursday morning.”
“Anything else?”
“Nope, that’s it. Apparently I find out the rest when I get there.”
Donna smiled, leaning back in her chair, wine glass in hand. “This could be perfect, you know? You go to Scotland and clear your head. Maybe meet some handsome hunky highlander and find out what we all want to know.”
“Which is?”
“What Scotsmen keep under their kilts.”
“You already know the answer to that.”
“Their-”
Heather interrupted quickly. “You don’t need to shout it out loud in the middle of a bar.”
“Sure, sure I don’t. Say, how about we finish the wine and get some cock-tails.”
“I see what you did there.”
“What? All I said was cock-tail.” Her face was a picture of innocence.
Heather managed a smile.“I tell you what, if I find a cocktail under a highlander’s kilt, I’ll be very surprised.”
“As long as you don’t find a couple of olives down there too.”
Heather couldn’t resist. “Or a cherry.”
“Or pickled onions and a slice of lemon.”
“Or one of those little paper umbrellas.”
“What will you do if there’s salt around the rim?”
Heather nearly spat out her wine she was laughing so hard. “All right, stop.”
“Aw, we were just starting to have fun. It’s the first time I’ve seen you laughing in ages.”
“Really?”
“Yep. David’s been making you miserable and now he can’t. Drink up. Cocktails are on me.”
“Really? It looks like a dress.”
“Oh, very good. With wit like that, you’ll have the highlanders falling at your feet. I’m going to the bar, finish that wine.”
Heather smiled as her friend walked away. At least she could rely on Donna to be honest with her.
She was right. Why not go to Scotland and see what happened? And if it didn’t work out? Well, she could just come home again, right?
2
“You looking forward to your execution?”
Gavin didn’t bother to look up. The gaoler had made the same joke every day for six months and it wasn’t getting any funnier.
“I’m talking to you, great laird of the MacGregors, nought but laird of the pit now. You hear me?”
Gavin grunted as the gaoler kicked his leg. “I hear you.”
“You get a journey before the hanging, do you ken that?”
Gavin waited for the inevitable punchline.
The gaoler grinned a black-toothed grin. “A short trip to the end of the hangman’s rope.”
“Good one,” Gavin said, running his hand through his hair. “You make me laugh as much as my father’s jongleur. He’s been dead twenty years. In fact, I reckon if you dig his corpse up, the only way to tell the difference would be smell. You stink more than any corpse ever did.”
Some of the other prisoners laughed, the sound dying away when the gaoler pointed his ax at Gavin. “You think it’s sport to mock me? I might just kill you now. Tell Mungo I caught you trying to escape.”
“Now, that’s funny,” Gavin replied, reaching down slowly, scooping a handful of dirt from the dungeon floor into his palm. “You ken why?”
“Why?”
“Come closer and I’ll tell you.”
The gaoler leaned in, ax in hand, his stench enough to make Gavin grimace as he pressed the weapon toward Gavin’s chest. “Go on then, great laird. Your last words before I separate your head from your shoulders. Why’s that funny?”
“You said you’d tell your laird you caught me trying to escape. You ken why that’s funny?”
“Why?”
“Because I am trying to escape.” He tossed the handful of dirt upward into the gaoler’s eyes. The man howled and staggered back as Gavin stuck a foot out behind his ankle.
The gaoler stumbled over the foot, falling heavily to the ground. Before he could rise, Gavin was up, yanking his arms apart and snapping the manacles from his wrists. The other men cheered as he picked up the ax and tossed it away from the gaoler.
“Six months I’ve been in here,” Gavin said, rubbing his wrists where the manacles had dug into his skin. “Every day wearing away the cheap metal Mungo bought. I told him it wouldnae hold prisoners long but he wouldnae listen and look at me now. Six months of listening to your jokes and taking your kicks and your
blows and you ken what you deserve in return?”
“Kill him,” someone shouted out. “Snap his neck.”
“No,” the gaoler said, hands outstretched above his face as he scrambled away from Gavin. “Please, don’t. I beg you.”
Gavin smiled. “I’m not going to kill you.”
“You’re not?” The man looked confused, as if Gavin had told him he’d grown a second head. “Why not?”
“Because MacGregors dinnae seek out bloodshed from those weaker than ourselves. We want peace and if your laird had accepted our last offer we would have peace. Here’s what’s going to happen.” He reached down, taking the gaoler’s ring of keys from his belt. “You’re going to sit in that corner and I’m going to put these manacles on you. Then I’m going to leave with my men and go back to my castle. In about six months if you work hard, you’ll wear away the metal and be free.”
“You’ll never get out of here alive.” The gaoler said. “They’ll catch you before you get out of the keep.” He leaped up, swinging a punch at the laird.
“You forget,” Gavin said, ducking easily back, grabbing the gaoler and then tossing him effortlessly into the corner. “My father’s master mason designed this castle. I watched it being built. I ken every single secret passage in these walls and I will be home before Mungo kens what has happened down here.”
He grabbed the gaoler’s arm, clamping the first manacle around it. “And when he does come down here and finds you in my place, you’re going to tell him something.”
“What?”
“Tell him next time I come to talk peace, he should listen. Together we can unite the highlands. Divided we are easy prey for the English.”
Gavin worked his way around the dungeon, freeing each of his men in turn.
“One day before the execution,” Bruce said as the men gathered together. “I ken I taught you to work to deadlines but by God you cut it fine this time.”
“I didnae see you bursting out of your chains to free us all.”
“Aye, well, I wanted to test you, my laird.”
“Course you did. Now come on, let’s get moving before Mungo gets wind of our escape and we’re back where we started.”
Mungo Frazer had taken them hostage to try and extract a ransom from his clan. They refused to hand over a groat. Mungo had set a six month deadline for the ransom to be sent else the laird and his men would be executed.
Gavin had marked every day on the wall of the dungeon, keeping count while spending every spare moment wearing away the iron manacles, rubbing them on the rough sandstone that served as his seat and bed for the duration of his stay in the Frazer Castle dungeon.
“Come on,” he said to his men. “This way.”
He knew which key unlocked the dungeon. He’d seen the gaoler use it often enough. The long black one with the curved end.
With the door wedged open he looked back as his men passed through. He closed the door on the sound of the gaoler’s insults, locking it once more.
His men were standing in the gaoler’s quarters waiting to be told what to do next. He pointed at the wall. “Bruce, to your left is a red stone that juts out too far. You see it?”
“Aye, my laird.”
The stone below it, pull that.”
Bruce did as he was told, tugging out the stone to reveal a dark space behind. “What now?”
“Reach in and pull the handle.”
While he was doing that, Gavin knelt down and pulled the threadbare rug toward him to reveal underneath a trapdoor that swung open when the handle was pulled.
“Where does that go?” Bruce asked, nodding toward the trapdoor.
“Leads into the sewer and out by Bracken Wood. We’ll have to go one at a time. Bruce you take the lead, the rest of you follow and watch your footing. No noise until we’re well out of earshot of the castle.”
The men nodded, ducking through the trapdoor one after another. When they were all gone, Gavin took one last look around him, hoping he would never see the inside of Frazer Castle again.
He jumped down through the hole, pausing for long enough to pull the trapdoor shut. He couldn’t replace the rug but hopefully no one would notice too soon. The gaoler didn’t tend to get many social calls so by the time anyone realized he was missing they should be far from Frazer Castle.
“What you going to do when we get back?” someone whispered, the sound echoing back to him.
Another voice replied. “I haven’t seen my wife for six months. I think you ken exactly what I’m going to do.”
“Shake hands with her new husband?”
There was a smacking sound and then a sudden exhalation. Someone had just been punched in the gut. “Enough horseplay,” Bruce snapped from the front. “Unless you want to end up back in that dungeon.”
“What about you Bruce?” someone else called out. “Going to ask Mary to wed you?”
“Jings,” Bruce said. “You still care about that. She’ll have long forgotten me.”
“Not you,” another voice said. “Not Bruce the sword master, the barefist fighter, the chivalrous nobleman who lent her his finest cloak that stormy winter’s night.”
“You all saw that then?”
Murmurs of assent.
Gavin smiled to himself. Bruce had been slowly courting the barmaid of the Frog and Whistle for ten years. The safest bet was on him popping the question some time in the next decade.
“Six months away,” someone else said. “What if she has forgotten you?”
“Then he’ll just have to jog her memory,” a voice replied.
“Quiet,” Gavin hissed. “We should be near where the tunnel comes out. Listen.”
Ahead of them the sound of trickling water was growing louder. A gray light in the blackness was just visible in the distance. “Watch your step,” he said. “It falls away pretty - ” There was a splash as one of the men fell from the sewer into the pond outside, “ - steeply,” he finished. “Is he all right?”
“Will’s just having a wee night swim,” Bruce called back. “Me next, I need to get the dungeon stink off me”
There followed one splash after another as the men leaped out of the end of the tunnel, landing in the deep pond below. By the time Gavin jumped most of his men were on the far shore, talking quietly among the trees that shielded the pond from any curious gaze.
He swam over to join them, pulling himself out of the water to lay back on the grass, looking up at the clear night sky above. “I’ve missed that sky,” he said out loud, taking deep breaths of clean air. “And the feel of the grass. And that smell.”
There was no doubting the rumbling sound that followed. “That was me,” one of the men called across. “Sorry.”
They all laughed, the sound music to Gavin’s ears. He looked from one face to another. All men he had known for years. He was responsible for them all. The entire time they’d been held captive not one of them had complained or blamed him. They had trusted him to get them out of there and he had, though it had been a little too close for comfort.
“What about you, my laird?” Bruce asked, leaning over the pond, splashing water on his face. “What are you going to do when we get back?”
“Find himself a wife,” someone shouted. “If Mary’s not taken by then.”
“I will resume my duties,” Gavin replied. “You may have time for courting but I intend to resolve the peace negotiations with Mungo.”
“How can you even say that?” Bruce asked, coming to sit beside him. “What peace can there be with the man who took us captive.”
“I will do whatever it takes to avoid war.”
The men muttered.
“Crivens,” John said, punching the nearest tree trunk. “Do you no ken what happened? Did you leave your memory behind in the dungeon? We told him to come with a dozen unarmed men and we would do the same and what did he bring?”
“I ken what he brought.”
“He brought an army. A man like that cannae be reasoned with. We
must mass our forces and take him while he’s off guard. We could take his castle in a day. Avenge your parents at the same time. You said yourself, you ken all the ways in and out of that place.” John had marched over and was pointing at Gavin, his eyes bulging. “We must fight.”
“And then what? Say we take the castle. We could not hold it. You say I forget but have you forgotten Mungo’s fealty to the King? He gave two of his sons to the last crusade. The King would slaughter all our kin while we were holed up in there.”
“Are you afraid to fight, my laird? Afraid to be a man? Too much of a coward?”
“Slaughter only leads to more slaughter. You will not get a rise out of me talking to me that way. It is not enough to simply fight like brutes. You must fight well and wisely only when all other options have been exhausted.”
Bruce scoffed. “Where did you hear that nonsense?”
“You taught it to me.”
“Well, why listen to me? I dinnae have a clue what I’m talking about.”
Gavin got to his feet. “We will continue this discussion once we are at home. Or perhaps we shall stop on the way for an ale at the Frog and Whistle.”
“Dinnae you start,” Bruce replied, waving angrily at the laughing men. “Not a word from any of you about Mary. Understood?”
Gavin led the way out of the trees. He had much to think about during their march. The castle had been without its laird for six months. Anything was possible in that time. Another clan might have besieged it, burned it, slaughtered his kin. He might be walking into a trap.
He shook his head. They were safe. Mungo wouldn’t have been able to resist gloating if something had happened to the MacGregor Clan while their laird was captured.
With that resolved, a new thought arose. What was he going to do when he got back? Recommencing peace negotiations was the obvious answer. It would be a long and arduous task but one he had no choice about. It was that or more years of warfare while the English kept trying to divide the highlands.
He would have to deal with the outlaws too. They had been plaguing the highlands for years and he was finally making some headway at bringing them to justice when he was captured.
In the six months he’d been away they might be everywhere again. It was all such a waste, just so Mungo could try and get a few coins ransom from the MacGregors. It didn’t make any sense. Why would Mungo do something so out of character?
The Key to His Castle: A Clean Time Travel Romance (Clan MacGregor Book 5) Page 2
