“Damn it!” Finn nearly fell when he tripped over the damned dog. He thought the dog had not meant to do it, but then the wee thing growled and clamped its teeth on the back of Finn’s boot.
“All right,” he said, turning around. “I’ll follow ye a bit farther.”
When the dog ran ahead, nose to the ground, excitement grew in Finn’s chest. Perhaps the dog had found Margaret’s scent after all.
Luckily, the dog sat and waited for him in front of a giant crevice that split the ground, or Finn might have not seen it in time and fallen into the dark chasm. If Margaret did come this way, she would have to walk around this crevice in one direction or the other.
“Which way did she go? Show me!” he said, but the dog just jumped up and down barking.
Finn’s blood ran cold when the thought struck him that Margaret could have fallen down there. Leaning forward, he held the lantern over the edge, but the light did not reach the bottom.
“Margaret!” he called, even while he prayed she was not down there but safe at Lachlan’s cottage. “Maggie! Maggie!”
He lay flat on his belly and held the lantern as low as he could reach. On a scrub growing out of the rock several feet below him, a torn piece of cloth fluttered in the wind. He squeezed his eyes shut. Mother, Mary of God, please help me. My Maggie is down there.
He would not let himself think she was dead. She was hurt, and he needed to get to her.
“Maggie,” he shouted again. “I’m coming down for ye!”
He retrieved his rope from Ceò’s saddle and, holding his lantern up, squinted into the driving rain, searching for a bolder or tree to tie it to. There was nothing nearby but clumps of brush.
“Ceò,” he said, rubbing his horse’s neck. “This will not be easy, but we need to save her.”
After he tied one end of the rope to Ceò’s saddle, Finn hooked the lantern’s handle over his arm so that his hands were free to hold the rope. Then he stepped backward over the edge and started down, letting the rope slide through his hands as he walked his feet down the rock wall.
“Steady, steady,” he called out to Ceò.
His foot slipped on the wet rock and he slammed against the wall, jerking the rope. If his horse had bolted and ripped the rope from his hands, Finn would have fallen straight to the bottom—with no rope—but Ceò barely shifted under the strain.
Finn wiped the rain from his eyes and continued down. When he was halfway down, he heard the sound of water sloshing against the rock walls.
God’s blood, this was a sea cave.
He scrambled the rest of the way down until he was just above the water. Holding the lantern high, he searched the dark surface, calling her name. He knew no one could survive long in this watery dungeon, but he could not give up. He tied the lantern to the rope and dropped into freezing seawater up to his chest.
On the far side of the cavern, he caught a glimpse of hair the color of moonlight floating on the water. His heart pounded in his ears as he splashed through the water to reach her.
He found her curled up on a ledge that was so close to being submerged that her hair and the skirt of her gown floated in the water. Praying hard, he gently lifted her in his arms and felt for a pulse.
Praise God, she was alive!
“I’ll get ye out of here, mo rùin,” my love, he said in a choked voice, and held her close.
“I was afraid you’d think I left ye,” she said in a weak voice.
“Don’t talk now, mo chridhe,” my heart. “Ye must save your strength.”
“I love ye, Finn,” she murmured as her head fell against his chest.
Racing against time, Finn climbed the rope up the slippery rock with Margaret’s limp body over his shoulder. He needed to get her out of this hellhole and warm. He had to leave the lantern to carry her, but he could gauge how much farther to the top by the dog’s frantic yaps above him.
Finally, he hauled her over the edge and crawled out of the abyss and onto solid ground. Margaret was shaking violently. He ran to fetch her cloak and blanket strapped to Ceò’s saddle, wrapped her in them, and rubbed her body, trying to warm her. But it was not enough. She needed a roaring fire.
The storm had blown over and the moon shone brightly, lighting Finn’s way as he galloped back to Helmsdale. Encircled in the heat of his body, Margaret seemed to revive somewhat on the short ride. When they reached Helmsdale, the guard saw him coming and opened the gate. He rode through and up to the steps of the keep, then slid off Ceò with Margaret in his arms.
“I’m all right now,” Margaret said. “I need to tell ye something.”
He ran up the steps without pausing. Though he was relieved to hear her speak, whatever she wanted to tell him could wait until he had her warm in front of the hearth and had checked her for injuries.
“Wait, Finn—” she said as he pushed open the door to the hall.
“Bring blankets and a hot drink!” he shouted as he carried her to the hearth. “We need more peat on that fire!”
“I must tell ye why I left,” she said.
In his urgency to bring her back, he had forgotten that she had left in fear. The hall and everyone in it had been a blur when he rushed in. As he took in the room now, he could see that their sudden entry had disrupted a brawl. A man with a bloodied face was struggling against two men who held him.
“He’s the traitor!” someone shouted. “The murderer!”
Finn recognized the man with the bloodied face now as the servant who went missing after his aunt and uncle were poisoned. So, they had caught the bastard.
“Kill him!” a woman shouted, and the others cheered.
“Finn!” Margaret gripped his arm. “Stop them. It wasn’t him.”
He thought at first she must still be out of her head, but she was sitting straight up and her eyes were alert.
“I’m telling ye,” she said. “It wasn’t him.”
He suddenly knew why she had left the castle so suddenly in the midst of a storm. She had discovered the killer.
“Hold on!” Finn stood and raised his arms. “Let’s hear what this man has to say.”
“We already know he’s guilty,” one of the men said, and punched the already-bloodied man in the gut.
“Cut his head off!” a woman shouted.
“If ye cut off his head, he can’t tell us who else was involved in the murders,” Finn said. “Now let him go.”
Finn stared them down until the men reluctantly released their captive.
“I came back to clear my name after I heard what was being said about me,” the injured man said as he wiped the blood from his nose. “I didn’t poison them. They were still well when I left.”
“Then why did ye leave that night?” Finn asked.
“I was told to slip away after I served the wine and deliver a message to Girnigoe Castle,” the man said. “I was given a gold coin to keep quiet about it.”
“Who gave ye the gold coin and sent ye to Girnigoe?” The blood pounded in Finn’s ears as he waited for the answer.
The man extended his arm, pointing. “She sent me.”
The force of the man’s accusation was like a lance clearing a path through the room in the direction he pointed until it landed on Isabel.
Isabel glared back at them with defiance in her eyes.
Finn should have known she would alert her cousin, George Sinclair, to the opportunity presented by the earl’s poisoning and likely death. But taking advantage of the tragedy, bad as that was, did not mean Isabel played a role in the actual murders.
“He lies to cover his own dark deeds,” Isabel said. “He admits to betraying his laird for a coin, but the gold he took was for poisoning him!”
“This man speaks the truth. Isabel is the murderer!” Margaret’s voice rang out from behind him. “After I found henbane in the chest in Isabel’s chamber, she tried to murder me as well.”
Finn spun around to find Margaret on her feet, clutching the blanket. Despite her wet, bedr
aggled gown and the blanket clutched around her shoulders, she looked like a breathtaking avenging angel.
“She poisoned the peat in my brazier,” Margaret said loudly enough for everyone to hear. “When I escaped before the fumes killed me, she followed me and pushed me into the enclosed sea cave where Finn found me.”
After she finished speaking, Margaret’s burst of strength was gone, and she seemed on the verge of collapsing. Finn wrapped his arms around her and stared at Isabel over the top of Margaret’s head. Despite Isabel’s past cruelties, constant barbs, and smoldering resentment, he never thought her capable of murder. By now, she would have removed the henbane from her chest and the poisoned peat from the brazier. With no proof, would the others take Margaret’s word over Isabel’s?
In the silence that followed, Gilbert emerged from the stairwell, leaning heavily on a cane. His face was deathly pale, and his hand shook, rattling the cane against the floor as he crossed the room to Isabel. Obviously shaken by the accusation against his wife, the ill man was coming to his wife’s defense. Or so Finn thought.
“What have ye done, woman?” Gilbert said, standing before her.
“I did what needed to be done,” Isabel said. “I did what you weren’t man enough to do.”
“Nay,” Gilbert said, shaking his head. “This cannot be.”
“I did it for our son. Bearach was meant to be an earl.” Her black eyes glowed as she spoke. “Only three stood between him and the great earldom of Sutherland. I was patient. I bided my time for years. And when the opportunity came, I struck.”
“My God, ye poisoned my brother and Helen?” Gilbert said, staggering backward.
“Ach, your high and mighty brother, always lording his wealth and status over us,” she said. “He thought he was so clever, having Duffus murdered to eliminate his claim. Never occurred to him that with Duffus dead, all I had to do to clear the way for Bearach was to rid us of him and Alex.”
Finn could not take it in. Isabel had murdered his aunt and uncle—and tried to kill Alex?
“I knew ye were spiteful, but I didn’t want to believe ye were capable of such evil,” Gilbert said. “God forgive me, I should have thrown ye out years ago instead of sending Finn away.”
“You disgust me. You’re a weak and pathetic man, not like my cousin George,” Isabel said. “We planned it all together. He promised the Sinclairs would fight to support Bearach’s claim once the deed was done.”
“And what did ye gain by it?” Gilbert said. “Our son is dead at your hands. Dead!”
His words transformed Isabel’s defiance to grief, and she sank to her knees.
“Bearach was supposed to be safe at Girnigoe,” she wailed, holding her head. “I did not mean to kill him. Not Bearach. Not him. Not my precious son.”
A horrified silence filled the room.
“An earl has been murdered. Only the Crown can decide her guilt,” Margaret whispered in Finn’s ear. “Without her as a witness, men who seek an advantage from the earl’s death are bound to make false accusations against their rivals.”
“And Isabel is the only one who can point a finger at George Sinclair,” Finn said.
“Death to her! Death to her!” men suddenly began shouting, and several of the Gordon guards surrounded Isabel, who was still slumped on her knees on the floor.
Finn leaped in front of Isabel.
“We shall have justice, but not like this,” he said. “She must be sent to Edinburgh and tried for her crimes.”
CHAPTER 32
While Isabel was taken away and locked in one of the storerooms, Finn sent someone to fetch Una and Ella. Margaret, the stubborn woman, refused to let him carry her upstairs to bed until Una and Ella arrived and she had held her daughter in her arms.
Una took over then, sending for hot water and checking Margaret for injuries over her objections that she was fine.
“Mind Ella while I clean up those nasty scratches and put her to bed,” Una said, and shooed him out of the bedchamber
Finn waited in the other chamber with the door open. Though it could not have been long, it seemed like hours passed before Una stuck her head out.
“All she needs is rest. I’ll send for ye when she wakes,” Una said. “And stop your fretting, or you’ll worry the poor bairn.”
Ella took his hand and looked up at him. Hoping to make her smile, he pulled her doll out of the tuck in his plaid and held it out to her. When her bottom lip trembled, he saw that the thing was soaking wet from the seawater in the crevice and even sadder looking than before.
“She just needs a wee cleaning up,” he said, then he remembered the dog he’d brought her. “I have a new friend for ye to meet.”
He suddenly realized that after the dog had helped him find Margaret, he’d ridden off and left him without a backward glance.
“Don’t want another horse,” she said. “I like Ceò.”
“Then let’s go visit Ceò,” he said.
When they stepped out of the keep, the wee dog was sitting at the bottom of the steps waiting. He was even more pathetic looking than her doll, with his raggedy fur and one eye.
Ella adored him. The bairn had a soft spot for broken things.
“This wee dog deserves a good meal after all he’s done,” Finn said, patting it on the head. “You two get acquainted while I go to the kitchen to get him some meat.”
When he went down into the undercroft, he decided he needed to talk to Isabel one last time. He nodded to the two guards watching the door and went in.
“George will rescue me,” she said as soon as he entered. “After I delivered Alex into his hands, he won’t forget me.”
“He doesn’t have Alex anymore,” Finn said.
Her eye twitched. She had not expected that.
“George doesn’t need ye now,” he said. “He’ll let you take all the blame for the murders.”
“I’m a Sinclair,” she said, staring ahead. “He’ll stand by me.”
She would find out in time. “Ye didn’t ask, but I thought you’d want to know that your husband isn’t doing well.”
“He never loved me,” Isabel snapped. “All these years, he mourned my dead sister.”
Finn wondered for a moment if she knew that her sister was his real mother.
“She ruined everything when she ran off with the man I was supposed to wed,” she said, jabbing her thumb to her bony chest. “’Twas all arranged. She was to wed Gilbert, and I, as the elder sister, was to marry Robin Sutherland and become Countess of Sutherland.”
“Ye would have become the widow of a rebel, not a countess,” he said.
“With me as his wife, Robin would have succeeded in taking the earldom,” she said. “Nothing and no one would have stood in our way.”
“He chose love instead,” Finn said. “They both did.”
“He died for making the wrong choice,” she said.
Finn was more than ready to leave, but she continued talking, as if he was not there.
“If I had to marry a Gordon, an enemy to my clan, it would not have been such an insult if he was the Earl of Huntly’s first or second son,” she said, bitterness oozing from her like black bile. “But nay, I was bound for life to the third son, a man of low stature and little property. And worst of all, a man my sister discarded.
“I needed to pay them back and take what should have been mine. When my sister came to me seeking forgiveness, I spat in her face and had her followed when she left. Then I told the Gordons where she and Robin were hiding.”
“How could you?” Finn asked. “She trusted you.”
“Robin was caught because of me,” she said. “And yet I wept when I saw his head over the gate at Dunrobin.”
Finn knew then that if she had found out his true parentage, she would have killed him in his cradle.
Later that day, he watched the Gordon warriors lead her in chains down to the boat that would carry her to Edinburgh for trial. Isabel had made his childhood a misery and never sh
own him a bit of affection. She murdered her husband’s kin, a couple who had done nothing against her, while a guest in their home.
And yet Finn felt nothing but sadness as he watched her go. Her evil design to murder her nephew and his parents had led her to kill her own son. Finn watched until long after the boat disappeared on the horizon.
###
It was late in the day before Una sent word that Margaret was awake and asking for him. The old woman was waiting for him outside the chamber door.
“She’s had no bleeding, God be praised,” Una said, patting his hand.
“No bleeding?” His pulse jumped. “What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s a strong lass,” Una said. “Stronger than she looks, for certain.”
Her words only made Finn more worried. What was Una hiding from him?
You’ve every reason to hope for a healthy babe.”
Margaret was with child? Finn suddenly felt lightheaded and had to rest his hand against the wall. He had known it was possible, but that was not the same as knowing for certain. The thought that she could suffer another miscarriage—and it was his fault—hit him like a punch in the gut.
Finn had not only left her at the mercy of a murderer, he did this to her.
When he went into the bedchamber, he found Margaret sitting up in the bed stitching. She set her needlework aside and gave him a warm smile.
“How are ye feeling?” he asked, taking her hands. It pained him to see the scratches on them.
“Remarkably well once Una brought me food,” she said. “Ye should have seen how much I ate.”
“Why did ye not tell me you’re with child?” he asked.
“I didn’t know for certain myself until Una told me,” Margaret said.
“I’m so sorry,” he said in a choked voice. “I know ye didn’t want to go through this again.”
“This time will be different, I know it,” she said, squeezing his hands. “If I didn’t lose the babe last night, I don’t believe I will.”
Despite the scratches and bruises, she did have a glow about her. Still, Finn could not forget the sadness in her eyes when she told him about her miscarriage.
Kidnapped by a Rogue, kindle Page 28