by Jackie Ivie
“Your Lordship!” The voice was calling louder.
“Where is your key?” Lisle asked.
“Somewhere out in the bushes.”
She stared. He sighed heavily.
“Open the armoire. Get a cloak. Put it on and sit in one of those chairs, and try to be invisible.” He motioned with his head toward the same chair she’d already been in.
“They’re in the courtyard, my lord!”
Langston groaned, rolled to the side of his bed, and stood, watching her. He didn’t have much time, and he wasted it watching her? He had control of his arms again, because he had no trouble making a motion with his fingers for her to keep walking. She had the cloak wrapped about her, covering even her head, and then she was perched back in the chair.
“Come in, Etheridge. Assist me. I’ll be a moment.”
Lisle slipped open the cloak a bit and wished she hadn’t as Langston was already stepping into Sassenach attire, slapping a belt into place while his valet buttoned the shirt and started tying a cravat-thing about his neck, all without stopping for anything that looked like a bath. They were doing it in such silent efficiency it looked like something done often and without wasted effort. They were also being silent for a reason. Langston had put his finger to his lips to guarantee it.
The valet was combing his hair and handing him a walking stick thing, and then they were both gone, Langston looking dapper and cool, and just like a Sassenach-leaning laird should.
Lisle let out her breath. She hadn’t even realized she was holding it. She’d given away her knowledge. She only hoped he’d been so caught up in the same emotion her body was still suffering through that he hadn’t caught it. She’d heard the horn and knew it meant trouble, because it had come in three blasts. One blast might mean the opposite. She’d never heard two. She wondered what that meant. The long, lone tone she heard throughout the morning could mean anything, but today it had meant rescue was needed in the chapel.
That certainty she’d be willing to bargain with anything over.
Chapter Seventeen
If he expected her to go back to her room, he was sadly mistaken. She wasn’t letting an opportunity like this go. She already assumed the horn meant trouble was arriving, and that could only mean the Highland Rangers, although if that was the case, then everything Langston had portrayed with the captain had to be false. She was going to find out, and she only had the cloak to cover her, but it would have to do.
She was going to sneak out, get to the top of the steps, and look down. She was going to find out the truth; just as soon as her legs would support her sufficiently, and she had her breathing under control. Whatever emotion Langston had started within her, her body wasn’t willing to let it go. She felt like her legs had the consistency of a sapling atop a bog, her belly was pulsing with heat, followed by cold, and the tulips weren’t doing anything except chafing and rubbing and making her wonder why women had to be cursed with breasts before they had a child, anyway.
Lisle paused at the door to the antechamber and watched her own hand shaking on the handle. She didn’t know if anything like this was affecting Langston, but if it was, and he still managed to look calm, cool, and perfectly in control, then he was a much better actor than she already suspected.
The antechamber didn’t have anything in it except the same chair and table and painting. Lisle’s legs were still a bit shaky, and she had to wait another span of time before she thought they might support her enough for stealth, all of which was stupid, and feeling more so the longer she tarried. She shook her head as she rubbed at her own knees, and even that felt erotic and sensitizing. How had Langston managed to look so diffident and cool? It didn’t make sense.
She stopped her own questions, her eyes wide. Maybe he didn’t suffer anything like this. Maybe it really was all a bargain, and he was just paying it. What had he said…something about how he used it, and then paid the penalty easily, without regret and remorse?
She was going to make herself ill with thoughts such as these, but they were helping with one thing. Her legs were gaining strength, and her belly had decided to settle back into one place. She couldn’t do a thing about her breasts. They still felt heavier, and enlarged and sensitive to the brush of the cloak across the tulip cups. There must be something wrong with her.
She opened the door handle, dropped to her knees, and crawled over to the banister, all of which probably looked as ridiculous as it felt, except there wasn’t anyone or anything in the main foyer to see.
Lisle went to her feet and took the steps at a pace that resembled a run by the time she reached the bottom, all of which made her painfully aware of her chemise’s shortcoming as bosom support. She wrapped the cloak more securely about herself. This was worse than the first morning, when everyone had disappeared.
She knew the horn meant change, or hide, or run, or any number of other maneuvers, but to find no proof made her grit her teeth and approach the main, massive door to shove one side open herself, since there wasn’t a servant, in Highland kilt or not, in sight to assist her.
The door was just as well oiled and maintained as she suspected it would be, and despite being more than two stories in height, it opened easily. Too easily, as Lisle stumbled out onto the front steps, gaining her feet in time to see the last of a column of men on horseback going over the rise leading to Langston’s big lion-statue-guarded gate. The glee that sight gave her was tempered by the realization that the door had latched when it closed behind her, it was darker than before, and she was outside in a chemise, with only a Monteith cloak to shield her. She didn’t even have on socks.
Lisle picked her way around the right side of his keep, thanking her luck that Monteith kept his property as well groomed as he did, and that his stone walks were as smooth and perfectly fitted as they were. Her bare feet were very aware of how it felt more like a cool, stone-lined bog than castle grounds. She didn’t stay on the stones, although they were the easiest to see. The path they made meandered back and forth, and she had to take the closest route to another entrance.
Lisle shivered, wrapped the cloak closer about her, and wondered whether anyone saw her running about outside they’d let her in…assuming, of course, that there was someone in the castle to see her. They had all disappeared the other morning. What if they’d all done the same thing now? She could be wandering about all night. She shivered again. She could always try to find the access way that the army of men had used. They’d all appeared in the hall outside the chapel yesterday, and they probably hadn’t gone through the front doors to do so. That gave her hope. She was going east. She’d be at the chapel soon. She could even climb the beam and see what he really had hidden in there, too.
Lisle shook her head at her own nonsense. She wasn’t dressed for such an adventure. She didn’t think her legs would support her climbing to a beam that appeared to be three stories high, either, and she certainly wasn’t in the mood to do anything so adventurous.
Lisle stubbed her toe, went to her knees, and while she rubbed at both her toe and her knee, she wondered how she could get so soft in such a short time. She was used to running about the MacHugh estate, bathing in the loch, and walking leagues around the properties in search of something edible that might still be growing in the ground.
This softness was ridiculous. She patted the ground in front of her toe for the offending object, and when her hands closed on it, she gasped. It was a key; a very large key. She instinctively knew where it went. She looked up, guessing by the windows that were three and four stories high that she was directly below his rooms. She knew she was right. It was the key to the connecting door between their chambers. He really had tossed it out into the shrubbery.
“Well!” She spoke it aloud and slid the key into an inner cloak pocket. Such a thing might come in handy later.
Lisle got back to her feet. She was probably in luck that she was wearing a dark green cloak, and that it was a soft-black kind of night, with mist starting
to creep about, and the moon still not making an appearance. If it was anything other, she’d probably end up hearing tales about a castle waif, or banshee, or any number of other creatures roaming about the grounds, and that, only if there was anyone watching.
Lisle shivered again, rubbed at her arms, wrapped the cloak more securely, and started walking again. This time it was her nose, and then her forehead, smacking into a wall that shouldn’t be there. Lisle had been walking, running the tips of her fingers along the golden-cast stone for lack of other guidance, and there was this wall. She rubbed at her face and looked up, although in what light there was, it was impossible to see the full height of the obstruction.
She wasn’t at the chapel yet, or if she was, it was connected to the old castle walls at some point. That made sense. Mist was swirling about with each step, coating her feet and ankles and chilling everything it touched. The moon came out, finally starting to assist, and making it very easy to see that the wall belonged to a stairwell, and that there were stairs snaking about the outside of the keep to join up with the wall at some point. Lisle checked it with her eyes, and then she was climbing it, although with the slight rise of the steps, it wasn’t much of a climb.
The stone here was slick, smooth, and had a buffed quality that had her wondering if he paid craftsmen to polish his stairs, too. It was also slick with damp that the night was causing. Lisle counted more than three hundred steps, all flat and long and with a rise of less than a finger-length between them. That was odd. Everything was.
The stairwell turned into the top of the outer wall, right beside one of the towers. Lisle stood, framed in one of the crenellations, and looked out over the countryside, bathed with a soft hue of moonlight; long, disjointed fingers of mist that looked to belong to a banshee hand; and spikes of foliage that was the forest all about his grounds. She caught her breath. She had never seen anything so darkly beautiful, nor so frightening…just like its master.
Lisle shook her head to stop the images. It didn’t help to rail about her imagination. It had gotten her in enough trouble back in school, when everything was unimaginative and dull and coated over with lecture and punishment. Lisle had always had a following of other girls, under the covers, at night. The tales she’d told had them all giggling, shivering and begging for more. All of which did absolutely no good out on a castle wall in the middle of a moon-filled night, when she was supposed to be in her own chamber sleeping.
Lisle sighed and turned, and barely caught the scream from sounding as a shape loomed out at her from beside the tower. She couldn’t do a thing about the way her heart froze and her legs wavered, sending her to the stone walkway before she could stop any of it. She didn’t even feel the bruising as she landed and started to scramble backward until she was stopped by a stone side.
It took a few moments to get her breathing under control, blink away the instant moisture she’d die before she admitted to, and calm her heartbeat enough to listen. The thing wasn’t moving. It was just a thing, covered over with something in order to make it less noticeable to the casual eye.
She got to her feet, although everything on her legs was weak and shaky and complaining over the use, and walked over to it. Perhaps it was an extension of the tower, although that didn’t make much sense. Perhaps Langston had his craftsmen sculpt great lion statues for up here, too, to give them employment, so they could feed and clothe their families. Perhaps it was any number of things, except what it was: a heavy woolen blanket, in the same colors as the walls.
Lisle ran her hands over the weave, done so tightly she couldn’t get a fingernail beneath it, and attached with something to the stone at her feet, so that it couldn’t be removed…or couldn’t be removed easily. They’d used the heaviest of wool strands to weave this blanket. Her hands knew that. There was little give to the fabric, no nap, little more than strength and durability. Such a textile was useless as anything except a floor covering. She had even seen it used as walls.
Her fingers smoothed across what felt like wire, and that’s exactly what it proved to be, once she put her tongue to it to be sure. No man ordered a blanket woven with wire in it, and if he did, what would such a thing be good for?
Lisle knelt, forcing the cloak to do its job as a covering for her knees, and tried to pry part of the blanket up from where it was attached. It was nearly impossible, although there was a gap of a foot or so between the spikes that were driven into the stone to secure it.
She ran her fingers along the rounded top of a spike. It would take a man with great strength, using an implement with a hook, to pull these spikes out and expose whatever was hidden. And since there was no dearth of strong men about, posing as everything from servants to groomsmen, that meant there was probably a lot of these hook things hidden in the chapel…unless, of course, it was normal for a laird to put a carpet-covered thing atop his castle wall.
Lisle stood, still running her hands along it, although the covering didn’t move enough to define anything except a massive object the size of a horse belly. She sighed. Even if she possessed the strength to get one of the spikes out, she hadn’t anything to do it with, and there was nothing she could use to put the spike back in.
All of which was moot next to the fact that the moon was out fully now, the ground had misted to the point that any number of things could be hiding far below her, and she wasn’t getting any nearer her own chamber. She looked that way and could see her pathway, although it looked like she might have to climb over a closed portcullis on the way. Lisle started walking, and she hadn’t gone twelve steps before another thing loomed out from the far side of the walkway, stopping her and making her run her hands over it, and then go to her knees, with exactly the same results as the first time.
She stood slowly, looked up, and narrowed her eyes. There was another one twelve paces off, and past that, another, and then another. She still didn’t know for certain what they were, but excitement was growing as she suspected it. They might be cannons. That meant he had lots of cannons. She didn’t know much about what they looked like, but the tentlike drape of the thing could easily conceal not only a cannon, but cannon balls beneath it, as well. The only thing he’d need was the gunpowder. Cannons required powder, and to make such a thing required buildings and fires and workers, and all kinds of things that probably looked a lot like dye sheds for producing blue dye. Her heart was pounding, and it had nothing to do with any drumbeat. It was the excitement. It was the discovery. It was the shock.
The ability to get such a thing done, and do it beneath Sassenach noses, was staggering. He’d had to do it over time. He’d had to make it look like he was importing any number of other objects; things like chunks of marble for carving lion statues, or enormous spans of wood to make church doors, hyacinth plants for dye, or any number of other foreign-looking objects that a free-spending, notoriously foolish, English-leaning laird wanted to own. That way, none would have noted or checked closely what he was bringing in, or if they did check, they’d see nothing other than what they were supposed to see.
What did he tell her? Beachdaich. Observe. See beyond her eyes and ears and what she thought was knowledge. Lisle couldn’t stop her own mind, and she ran from cannon to cannon, pushing on one to see if there was any give to the thing, and finding it just as substantial and sturdy as a cannon should be. She was laughing before she got to the portcullis, after counting more than fifty of them. She knew it was the truth, and she didn’t have to check with anything other than her instinct. That’s what he’d told her to do, too. Neart aithnich. The power of knowing. That’s what it was.
The laird of Monteith was outfitting and supplying an army…a Highland army, and he was doing it right beneath the nose of Captain Robert Barton. And the very best way to guarantee that no one looked closely enough to discover it was to make certain Barton never looked closely.
Lisle’s hands shook with the excitement…and something else, something that wasn’t going to get her over the portcullis easi
ly. She didn’t want to look at it too closely. It was enough to know what he was doing and that he was no traitor. He was too late, but that didn’t seem to matter. Langston Monteith was a fool.
No man could change history. But he was a Scot fool, and that meant the strange, fluttery kind of feeling in her belly that was transferring to her breasts and showing the tulip’s failure at their job again had a reason and a rightness to it, making it impossible to temper. She used neart aithnich for that, too.
Lisle looked up the iron bars of the portcullis, saw there wasn’t much to use for a grip, even if her arms supported the effort, and then she had to see if she could squeeze beneath it. That proved easily done, and she knew she was going to have to alert him to this. A slim lad could easily shimmy between the spikes at the bottom of his gate. He needed to put up wire of some kind to make it impregnable.
Lisle stood on the opposite side of the gate, looked back where she’d just been, and if she didn’t know where the things were, she’d have trouble seeing them. What was she thinking? She never would have seen them…just as Langston wanted.
Langston sat atop Saladin and watched without one expression on his face as the prisoners were cinched together and counted. When Barton had first greeted him with the news, his stomach had roiled with it. That was his fault. He’d put himself through too many lunges and squats, and too much swordplay, and too many push-ups, and too lengthy of a run over muddy bogs of ground. All of it to temper and hold in check the male reaction he was afraid he was going to sufer the moment he’d seen her. And all of it had failed…miserably.
He sat atop Saladin and willed strength into his arms to continue holding the reins, and his legs to stay sealed to the stallion’s heaving sides. The ground mist helped. It was cooling horses flecked with foam, and helping him stay alert when he most needed to. Captain Barton hadn’t had to ride this viciously. The little band of men didn’t look capable of running, and the rangers already had them under heavy guard. He knew Barton rode like he did because there was something about the man that heightened his enjoyment if there was torment and torture involved, and this little, ragged group of MacDonalds was going to do exactly that for him.