A Highland Folly

by Jo Ann Ferguson

  “But you have a tender spot in your heart for Neilli.”

  “She is quite resolved to make herself a match with MacFarlane.”

  “You know that?”

  He patted her hand, and she knew her wince must have been visible. “I know that is not something that pleases you, Anice.”

  “No, it doesn’t.” She did not say more because she wanted to keep from hurting his feelings when he was being so kind.

  “She is all atwitter in believing that he is the man she should wed. With her settled, it seems logical that you and I should—”

  “Stop saying that.”

  “What?”

  “Logical!” She jumped to her feet. “Sir Busby, there should be nothing logical about love. It should be a form of madness, a disease that steals all common sense, a fever that sears the mind of wisdom and dares a soul to try the impossible.”

  “Mayhap.” Again he sighed as he stood. Taking her hands, he said, “I am not so sure that is what a lifelong love is. I once thought I knew. Now I am not so sure.” He met her gaze steadily. “What I do know is that our families’ lands abut, and it would be good for this glen and our families for a match between us.”

  “And for us? Would it be good for us?”

  His voice wavered as he said, “I would like to think so.”

  “Sir Busby,” she answered, forcing a smile for this gentle-hearted man, “it may be that you are correct. It may be that love is simply a madness that does not last more than a short time.”

  “So you will agree to marry me?”

  “I will agree to consider your offer.”

  He nodded. “That is sensible.”

  Anice wanted to take him by the shoulders and shake him until he realized that sensible should never be part of a marriage proposal. As he kissed her on the cheek with no more passion than Parlan would have, she mumbled something she hoped he would assume was an excuse for her to leave. She gathered up the box and rushed down the hill to Ardkinloch. For the first time, she sought a haven within its walls, but she could not escape her pain of knowing that if she agreed to the sensible thing, it would be because Lucais had left her life forever.

  Sixteen

  Sound, as white hot as a fired brand, cut through Anice’s skull. It threatened to crush her before she was fully awake. Battling with the bedcovers that clung to her like a shroud, she fought to escape. She might have screamed, but her voice never reached her ears. The detonation continued on and on and endlessly on. Clamping her hands over her ears in a futile attempt to protect them, she struggled awkwardly to her knees.

  Another crescendo threatened to deafen her. She pulled the pillows over her head, but nothing would halt the cacophony as she quivered.

  Or mayhap the whole world quivered. Her bed shook with the concussion of the incredible tumult. Something sliced into the hand that held the pillows over her head. She shrieked again, but her cry vanished into the chaos of a world gone mad.

  Silence.

  It was as abrupt as the explosions.

  Shoving off the pillow and escaping the cloying blankets, Anice stared at the glass sparkling in the moonlight across her bed. Not moonlight, she realized, when the light flickered.

  Fire!

  She jumped down from her bed, taking care to avoid the shards of glass lying like heated ice on the floor. She found shoes and drew them on and rushed to the closest window. With a moan, she looked up to see flames above the walls of Dhùin Liath. Whatever had happened had happened there.

  The door was flung open. “Anice? Anice?”

  “I am all right.” She pulled the sash from her wrapper that was draped over the foot of her bed. Wrapping it around her bleeding hand, she edged around the glass that had erupted from the window to shatter all around her bed. Her ears rang so with the concussion of the explosions that she was unsure if she was shouting or whispering. “Is anyone hurt?”

  Aunt Coira wrapped her arms around herself and shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “We must check. Let me wake Neilli. She can help us.”

  Anice was rocked back against a chair as another detonation turned the night sky to a deathly white. Lurching toward Aunt Coira, she put her hand on her aunt’s arm. Aunt Coira stood in the middle of the doorway, blocking it.

  “Aunt Coira?” Anice asked. “Will you let me out?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Aunt Coira …” Taking her aunt by the shoulders, Anice shook her gently.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know what?”

  Tears rolled down her face. “Gone.”

  Anice’s breath caught in horror. “Who’s gone? Neilli? Parlan?”

  “Gone.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Pushing past her aunt, Anice ran along the corridor. She threw open the door to Neilli’s rooms and went into the bedchamber. As she had feared, the bed had not been slept in. She ran along the corridor to Parlan’s rooms. They were as empty.

  She shouted to Webber to check on the household and find out who was hurt. “Have you seen the twins?” she asked over the banister as she came down the stairs.

  “No. I have been looking for them, too.” He glanced toward the wall where the light from the fire was silhouetted. “They do not seem to be in Ardkinloch.”

  “Keep looking for them.” She rushed out of the house.

  Smoke burned in every breath she took as she raced to the barns and grabbed three buckets. The sheep in the fold were massed in one corner, huddled together in fear. Seeing Bonito among them, she hurried past. He could offer them as much comfort as she at this point.

  Pippy came running, yelping in excitement, as she went out through the gate. Behind her, shouts let her know others had seen the fire at the old castle and were following.

  Turning, she called, “Bring all the buckets you can.”

  The pails she carried banged against her legs as she leapt up the brae. She was knocked from her feet when a spiral of fire soared from within the tower. Rock crashed to the ground and rolled down the hill toward the river. Great pieces of stone bounced like a child’s ball.

  In horror, she stared at the road camp below the ridge. The motion of lights warned that Lucais’s men had already abandoned the camp and were farther along the river toward Chester Hills.

  The road on this side of the river had vanished. In its place, a mound of dirt and rocks, many the size of a full-grown sheep, divided Killiebige from the half-built supports of the bridge. She frowned when she realized that even the river had been altered, dammed by trees that had been uprooted, their branches groping helplessly across the ground.

  “Watch out!” came a bellow from behind her.

  “Pippy!” she cried, jumping into a stand of trees.

  The dog raced after her and leaned against her as she knelt behind a rock at the base of the trees. She clung to the dog and the buckets as a boulder rolled past, crashing into the cottage farther down the hill. Pippy whined fearfully, then sat up, his ears perked as his tail wagged.

  Anice looked up, knowing who she would see. Flinging her arms around Lucais, she said, “Thank heavens, you are alive.”

  His answer was sealed to her lips as his mouth captured hers. Her fingers swept up through his hair, holding him to her. She did not want to let him go again. She wanted to be in his arms, where she could make believe that there were no unspoken truths that seemed eager to doom this ecstasy. All the longing that had been denied for the past weeks burst to life, as hot and uncontrollable as the fire in the old castle.

  At the thought of Dhùin Liath, Anice drew back and gasped, “How did you get here? The road is gone between your camp and Killiebige.”

  “I climbed over those rocks.” He held up his scratched hands. “What are you doing up here?” He tugged her back to the ground as another hunk of stone rolled toward them and past. Shouts came from below as more people sought to get out of the way of the rocks falling down t
he brae. “I could not believe my eyes, Anice, when I came up to Ardkinloch to make certain everyone was safe and I saw a stream of people pouring out of its walls. Why aren’t you staying inside them, where you’ll be safe?”

  “Neilli and Parlan are missing.”

  “And you think they are up at the castle?” He glanced down the hill. “They could be in Killiebige.”

  She looked at the village. Peering through the darkness, for the smoke was swallowing the thin moonlight, she gasped, “There is the kirk! Reverend Dole must have lit a lantern in the steeple to let us know the village is still there.”

  “Except for its windows, when I passed it, the kirk seemed to be unscathed,” he said quietly. “Everything in the center of Killiebige escaped much damage. Some of the houses closer to the river may have to be torn down, because I doubt if they are steady any longer.”

  “The people?”

  His lips tightened in a caricature of a smile. “One would think they had been forewarned, because no one was in the houses by the Abhainn an Uruisg. Who do you think told them to get out? Your cousins?”

  “I don’t know!” Realizing her voice sounded as panicked as Aunt Coira’s, she added, “Someone has been up at the castle again in the past few nights. I have seen more lights up there.”

  Again he swore. “Why didn’t you tell me, Anice?”

  “You have given me no chance.” Coming to her feet, she picked up the buckets. “Come on, we need to get that fire out and find whoever’s up there.”

  He stood. “You know that whoever set those charges could be dead.”

  “Don’t say that!”

  “You must be prepared to face the truth.”

  “I will not stop until I have turned over every rock to be certain. I must help.”

  “How? You cannot move all these rocks.”

  With a pride that hid her terror, she raised her chin. “I will try. Dhùin Liath is my responsibility, and I will not sit cowering in Ardkinloch, wringing my hands and bemoaning the evil that has fallen upon us.”

  A slow smile spread from his lips to his eyes. His hand brushed her cheek as he tilted her mouth under his. “Sweetheart, not a soul in Killiebige will doubt that you deserve to be the guardian of Dhùin Liath.”

  She pressed to him, wanting the fire of his lips to heat her icy fear. Yet, even the eager caress of his mouth could not lessen her anxiety for Neilli and Parlan. Drawing away, she ran up the hill at the best pace she could manage. Her nightgown flapped against her legs, and she realized that her thin wrapper was unbound. What did it matter that she was dressed so scandalously? Her cousins might be caught in those flames.

  Pippy barked at her heels. Stopping, she bent down. “Pippy, we have to find Neilli and Parlan.”

  He cocked his head at her as if trying to puzzle out her words.

  “Neilli. Parlan. Go get Neilli. Go get Parlan.”

  The dog ran a few paces up the hill, then turned back to her, whining. She hurried to him, and he sat and looked up at her. With a sigh, she continued to climb.

  Her hand was grasped, and she realized Lucais had gone past her. She had not seen him in the thickening smoke. He helped her up the steepest section of the brae. She handed him two of the buckets and transferred the third one to her other hand. She silenced her moan as its rope handle cut into her lacerated hand.

  She faltered as she stared at what was left of the castle. The tower where she had taken Lucais was now smoking rubble, for the flames there were dying. Around the edges of what had been the inner courtyard, the ground was on fire.

  Quick orders sent her household toward the well at the near corner of the courtyard. In moments, a line of buckets was throwing water onto the fires, dousing them section by section before any of the trees could catch on fire.

  Anice drew her wrapper and nightgown close to her as she turned toward the fallen tower. Her arm was seized, and she was whirled back to face Lucais.

  “I know what you are thinking,” he growled, “and it is madness.”

  “If my cousins are in there, I must try to reach them.”

  “If they are in there, they are dead.”

  “Don’t say that!”

  “’Tis the truth!”

  “Why have you chosen now to tell me the truth?” She ripped her arm away from him and ran toward the smoking embers.

  Lucais followed, snarling a vicious oath under his breath. Anice had every right to be furious with him, but now was not the time to try to heal that wound. It would have to wait … if it was still possible to remedy it.

  The heat left by the explosions oozed through his boots. Sweeping Anice up into his arms, he walked back to cooler ground.

  “What are you doing?” she cried.

  “Keeping you safe from your own foolishness.” He set her on the ground. “You shall burn your feet there.”

  “But if Neilli and Parlan are—”

  “Stay here. I will look for them.” He strode toward the rubble, then turned. He cursed as he saw no sign of Anice among the swirling smoke. Blast that stubborn woman! She might have grown up far from here, but she was as jobbernowl as any Scot.

  He could not waste time looking for her. He walked back across the hot ground as if he were wading in a pool of hungry fish. Picking up a stick, he lit it from the fires still burning. He bent and peered among the rocks.

  “Kinloch? Kinloch, are you in there?” Either of them would react to their surname if they were here … or if they could.

  No answer came.

  “Over there to the left is closer to where the tower was,” Anice said, startling him, for she stood close beside him.

  “I told you that you could get hurt here.”

  She pointed to the too-large boots she had pulled up under her gown. “I borrowed these.” Grasping the elbow of his arm that was holding the brand, she led him toward the left. “This pile of rubble is what remains of the lower section of the old tower.”

  “Is there any chance they could have reached the hidden room beneath it?”

  “I hope not.” She shuddered. “The rafters down there were already riddled with rot.”

  Again he bent and held the torch close to the stones. “Kinloch? Are you in there?” He heard a groan.

  Standing, he chased after Anice, who must have heard it as well. It came from beneath the trees on the uphill side of the ancient curtain wall. When she let out a shriek and raced forward to a man with upraised hands, he was shocked to see Potter. What was his assistant doing here?

  Anice pulled a rock from Potter’s hands and threw it aside before kneeling by a prone form on the ground. “Stay away!” she cried.

  “You cannot tell me—” He choked as Lucais held up the torch to reveal that Parlan Kinloch was stretched out across the ground. “Mr. MacFarlane!”

  “You cannot tell her what?” Lucais asked.

  “She cannot believe that I was going to strike Mr. Kinloch with that rock. I had just pulled it off him.” He pointed to blood trickling down Kinloch’s cheek. “That is where it must have hit him.”

  “Or you hit him,” Anice said so softly that Lucais was unsure if she expected him to hear. She added nothing else as she tore a length off her nightgown and used it as a bandage around her cousin’s head.

  Lucais grasped her hand as she fumbled to tie the strip. Tipping it palm up, he saw the material wrapped around it. “You are hurt, Anice.”

  “There is broken glass all over my bedchamber. I was cut by one shard.” She shivered, but her voice remained strong. “Can you tie this for me while I find some men to carry Parlan back to the manor house?”

  As he nodded, she jumped to her feet and ran away into the smoke again. He tied the bandaging around Kinloch’s head before slowly turning the man over. Scratches and welts were visible across his face, and scorch marks revealed the truth that he had been close to the explosions.

  “Is he alive?” Potter asked.

  “Yes.” Lucais stood as a trio of men appeared out of th
e smoke. Motioning for Potter to help them, he asked, “Where is Lady Kinloch?”

  One man looked at him as if Lucais had lost any wits he might have possessed. “She is looking for Miss Kinloch.”

  “Where?”

  “Over there.”

  Lucais wanted to ask another question, but the man grunted as he knelt and helped lift Kinloch for the slow trip down the hill. Walking in the opposite direction, he asked anyone he saw where Anice might be. No one seemed to know, but he was not surprised. With the dousing of the flames, the smoke was thicker and heavier, clinging close to the ground. He waved it aside, but more took its place. Coughing, he walked back toward what remained of the old tower.

  Dawn was approaching, and he could see that the tower was not completely destroyed. One section remained standing and leaned back against the wall. It would have to be torn down if it did not fall soon. Taking a deep breath, he ran toward the opening in what once had been the great hall’s wall. He did not doubt that Anice was here looking for her cousin.

  “Be careful!” she called as he neared the hole.

  “Come out of there.”

  “In a minute.” She held up a shoe. “This is Neilli’s. She must be here somewhere.” Patting her dog on the head, she said, “Pippy found it.”

  “Lady Kinloch!”

  At the shout, Lucais turned to see a round form lumbering toward them. He started to ask Potter what he was doing here, then realized it was not his assistant. Waving his hands, he ordered, “Stay back, Sir Busby. The tower is not stable.”

  “Then get Lady Kinloch out of there!” Indignation bristled from every pudgy inch of the baronet.

  “She is looking for Miss Kinloch.”

  “In there?” With more agility than Lucais would have guessed Sir Busby was capable of, the baronet climbed over the rubble and into the remnants of the great hall. “You are damned lucky, MacFarlane. If the explosions had not come out in this direction, you and your crew would have been buried alive beneath an avalanche of rock.”

  Anice shivered at Sir Busby’s words. She had tried to ignore that, but the evidence was all around her. There had been no reason to set off gunpowder in this tower simply to destroy what was left of the old castle.