The moment they entered the kirk, his two cloaked companions stopped and Lucas joined them in taking a moment to catch his breath. His leg throbbed with pain but he forced himself to ignore it. Glancing around, Lucas realized the kirk was an ancient one and built to last for a very long time even without a roof. The stone walls had been decorated with a vast array of carvings that were obviously Christian yet carried a lingering flavor of paganism. Lucas watched as the larger of the two men moved to a shadowed corner and pressed his palm against the face of what looked to be one of the twelve apostles and pushed hard. A grating sound assaulted his ears and Lucas nearly gaped as the carving began to move, opening inward like a door. There was no room behind it, however, just what appeared to be a large black hole in the floor.
“Catacombs?” he asked softly as he edged closer.
“Aye,” the small reiver replied, almost grunting out the reply as he lit a torch. “A veritable maze of them.”
“Is this the only way in or out of them?” Lucas felt compelled to ask.
“Nay, there are two other routes.”
That was good news but did not fully soothe the unease Lucas felt. He hated small, enclosed spaces. He suspected he was about to discover that large enclosed spaces with no fast route of escape would disturb him almost as much. Stiffening his spine he followed his short savior into the dark, struggling to climb down a wooden ladder without displaying too much awkwardness. When the larger man shut the door and followed him, Lucas smothered the urge to run back up that ladder and out into the open air.
The torch the small raider carried did not do much to cut the oppressive dark that enfolded them all. Lucas breathed a silent prayer of gratitude when the larger man lit a second torch and handed it to his small companion. He inwardly cursed when he looked around to find himself in a large burial chamber. Although not a particularly superstitious man he hoped this was not where they were going to be staying. Despite his distaste for small dark places Lucas was almost relieved when yet another hidden door was revealed and they started down some steep, narrow stone steps.
At the bottom of the steps they traveled several yards along a narrow tunnel before coming to yet another chamber. Here were tables and benches, a central hearth, and bedding. Glancing up as his companions lit several wall torches, Lucas saw two holes in the solid rock ceiling that allowed smoke out and air in. Either these people had worked very hard to make themselves a comfortable lair or the ancient holy men who had once occupied the kirk had done so.
Lucas looked at his companions and immediately forgot about asking where the other ways out of this tomb were located. They had removed their cloaks and the cloth masking their faces. The smaller one was no youth. He recognized that long, thick, honey-gold hair all too well. For a moment he felt choked with joy as he looked upon Katerina’s sweet face and saw her smile, her wide dark blue eyes alight with welcome and happiness. Memories of their time together, the warmth of her kisses, and the softness of her skin swept over him. And it was all a lie, he thought, abruptly banishing every trace of pleasure he felt over the sight of her standing there alive and well and pretending she was glad to see him.
“They told me ye were dead,” he said.
Something cold and hard in his voice halted Katerina’s rush to hold him in her arms. For just a moment she had seen joy, wonder, and heated welcome in his beautiful silvery-blue eyes, but that was all gone now, Now Lucas looked distant, cold, and even angry. She began to feel increasingly uneasy. This reunion was not going as she had imagined it would.
“Aye, but those bastards didnae succeed in killing me, either,” she said.
“And why would they e’en want to? Ye refused to pay them for a job weel done, did ye?”
“A job weel done? Ye think I ordered them to beat ye?”
Lucas shrugged. “Ye certainly seemed to be enjoying the show.”
“They caught me as they caught you. They told me that if I stood there and said naught, did naught, they wouldnae kill you.” The scornful noise he made cut her deeply.
“Ye made nary a whisper of protest e’en as they threw me o’er the cliff.”
“I was too shocked! By the time I realized they truly meant to kill ye, it was too late to do anything, e’en protest. Ye were gone.”
There was a catch in her husky voice that sliced through his fury and that made Lucas even angrier. He would not weaken again, would not allow the tears welling in her beautiful eyes to soften his heart and make him a fool. The important thing to find out now was just why she had saved him this time when a year ago she had tried to kill him.
“I cannae believe ye would think I had anything to do with that attack upon you. What reason could I have had to do such a thing?”
“The usual—jealousy.”
“Jealousy? Ye think I would have a mon killed for that?”
“Ye had made it verra clear but a few hours earlier that ye were furious about the way Agnes wouldnae leave me be, that ye believed I was welcoming her fawning attentions.”
“I would ne’er have ye beaten and killed for that!”
“Then what was your reason?”
Katerina just stared at him, unable to understand how he could believe such things about her. Then the pain she felt over his suspicions turned to anger. She had grieved for this man. All the time she had wept until she was weak and ill, he had thought her the cause of his pain and near death, judgments reached without any proof.
“Ye dinnae deserve this, but I will tell ye the truth this once. I had naught to do with what happened to you. ’Twas Agnes’s order the men followed. They told me that if I stood silent, did not plead or weep or try anything to help you, they wouldnae kill ye. I did exactly as they asked because I wanted ye alive. Then they tossed ye over the cliff. Ere I had fully accepted the truth, that they had ne’er intended to let ye live, they threw me o’er after ye. Agnes didnae just want ye dead for spurning her, but me as weel.”
“It appears ye recovered weel enough.”
The way Katerina stared at him as if he was a complete stranger to her made Lucas uneasy. He had the unsettling feeling that he had just dealt her a heart-deep wound, but that made no sense. He had seen her, seen her standing there silent, dry-eyed, and unprotesting as he had been beaten and cut.
“Mayhap it just went further than ye had planned for,” he began, abruptly silenced by the slashing movement she made with her hand.
“And mayhap ye ne’er kenned me at all. Mayhap I have spent all these months grieving o’er the loss of something that ne’er truly existed.”
Before he could respond and hurt her even more, Katerina walked out of the chamber, leaving him alone with the other man, who watched him as if he was a complete lunatic.
Chapter Three
Lucas scowled at the man who sat across the fire from him. The only thing the man had said since Katerina had walked out was I am William and I think ye may be too witless to live. Although the insult stung, Lucas could only admire loyalty. This unrelenting silence, however, was becoming unendurable. Lucas had questions that needed answering and it was becoming obvious that Katerina was not soon to return to answer them.
“Where did she go?” Lucas finally asked.
“Away from ye,” William answered, not even glancing up from his carving.
“I ken that weel enough, but where did that take her? Are there more rooms like this one?”
“There are a lot of rooms down here. Some are a goodly size, some nay more than a niche in the rock. There are passages and hollows running throughout this hill, right up to the back of Dunlochan keep itself.”
“’Tis one great bolt-hole.”
“Aye, for the holy men who used to abide here and for those within the keep. I am thinking ’tis a mixture of what has always been here, what was natural, and hundreds of years of hard work. This land certainly gives a mon many a reason to want a secure place to hide for a wee while.”
“True. So, why are ye hiding here now?”
“Ye didnae see her that day, didnae see how still and calm she was as Ranald and his dogs beat, kicked, and cut me. They told me she had ordered it done. Ranald himself whispered it in my ear as he cut my face. Said it was Katerina’s plan to make sure I wasnae so bonnie any more and wouldnae find it so easy to play with a lassie’s heart.”
“And ye would believe a mon like Ranald o’er Lady Katerina? Wheesht, I think the bastards kicked ye in the head one too many times for ’tis certain that your wits are sadly scattered.”
“If Katerina was so innocent why didnae she send word to my clan about what had happened to me?”
“And bring their wrath down upon the people of Dunlochan, most of whom had naught to do with it? She thought ye were dead and kenned that the Murray clan might seek blood to pay for the killing of ye. M’lady was fair surprised when nary a one of them came looking for ye.” William paused in his carving to look at Lucas more closely. “Just how did ye survive and get away?”
“I can swim.”
“Ah, the lass was that sure your leg had been broken.”
“It was, but a mon can abide almost any pain if it means he doesnae drown. I crawled out of the water and kept right on crawling. Stopped only long enough to tend my wounds as best as I could and then headed home. There were good people along the way to give me aid.” Lucas shrugged, loath to think much about pain-filled days and nights, the terror of feeling so helpless, and all the travails of traveling unarmed and unable to even hunt for food. He also did not want to explain how his twin had found him because of a dream because too many people found that bond between twins a little hard to believe or tolerate. “I didnae notice Katerina looking for me either, and I would have been easy enough to track down and catch.”
William shook his head. “She is right to say that ye ne’er truly kenned her. Did ye nay hear her say that they threw her in the loch as weel? Ah, I can see ye doubt the truth of it, but I will tell ye the tale anyway. They threw her in right after ye. Being that she is such a wee lass they were able to throw her farther than they did ye and she landed in the water, hitting only a few rocks when she went under. She nearly drowned. Kenning that she couldnae let the bastards see that she could swim and mayhap save herself, she swam beneath the water as much as she could and made her way to a sheltered cove. Poor lass was fair battered to death upon the rocks there ere she could get to shore. We found her two days later, weak and feverish. Calling for ye, she was, but, of course, that must have been her just wanting to make certain ye were dead.”
Lucas just cocked one eyebrow, ignoring the man’s sarcasm and silently urging him to continue with his tale.
“She sent us all out to look for ye,” William continued, “but we couldnae find ye. It was nigh on two months ere she was healed of her wounds and the fever that nearly killed her. S’truth, for three weeks nearly the only sensible things she uttered were orders to find ye and let everyone believe she was dead.”
“Why play that game?”
“Mayhap because someone obviously wants her dead?”
The man’s continuing sarcasm truly grated on Lucas’s temper, but he fought to endure it. He was finally getting some answers. They might not be the right ones or even the truth, but he could decide on all that later. Right now he needed to know just what he had stumbled into.
“Who does she think wants her dead?” Lucas asked William.
“That bitch of a half-sister she was cursed with, Agnes. She wants it all, ye ken.”
“All what?”
“Did Lady Katerina nay tell ye about her father’s will, his dying wishes and commands?”
“Nay, she didnae.”
William sighed and shook his head. “Mayhap if she had ye wouldnae be so quick to think her guilty. The old laird, Katerina’s father, chose five men to act as a council after he died, to hold final approval of any mon chosen by her or her half-sister. If the men dinnae approve of the mon and the lass chooses to wed him anyway, she loses. All she gets is a wee bothy and a bit of land on the far western edges of Dunlochan lands, and a verra wee dowry. The other lass gets all the rest. There is nary a doubt that the council would have approved of ye as a husband for our lady so Agnes had to be rid of ye. Can ye nay see now that our lady had no cause to do ye harm, that ’twas only to her benefit to keep ye alive so that ye might choose her as your wife?”
“Aye, but I can also see that, if Katerina thought I was turning to Agnes, it would be to her benefit to see me dead and gone.”
A sharp curse escaped William, but then he shrugged and turned all of his attention back to his carving. “As I said, I begin to think ye too daft to live. After all, if the lass truly wished ye dead, all she had to do today was leave ye to Ranald and his dogs and just let the bastard finish what he had started a year ago. Mayhap ye ought to think on that for a wee while.”
Lucas was thinking on it, but he would never admit it to William. It was the one thing that kept his doubts about Katerina’s guilt alive and pestering him. What she had done for him today did not change what had happened that long ago night, he told himself firmly. Perhaps she had been tormented by guilt and regret while they had been apart and could no longer condone his murder. Lucas knew he would be staying with Katerina and her men for now and intended to use the time to find the answers he needed to uncover all the truth.
Wearied from weeping, Katerina slowly dragged herself off her bed and bathed her face in cold water. The very last thing she wanted was for Lucas to see that she had been weeping. She still felt stunned by his accusations, but she refused to let him know how deeply they had hurt her.
Her stomach rumbled, demanding food, and she knew she would have to return to the hall to get something to eat. That meant facing Lucas again and she dreaded it. The pain was still too fresh. So, too, she realized, was the anger his accusations had stirred within her. It was clear that all his sweet kisses, his passion, had been false or he never would have condemned her so. A little doubt she could understand and forgive, but not this cold condemnation. He did not even give her denials a moment of consideration. Katerina doubted that even showing him the many scars she had gathered that day would sway him. She would have trusted him with her very life, but it was now clear that he had never trusted her at all.
The problem was what to do now, she mused as she poured herself some wine. Sipping the wine, Katerina paced her small bedchamber and thought about the best way to handle Lucas. Her first inclination was to just ignore the man, to cut him from her heart and treat him as a complete stranger. It was a good plan, if only because she knew it would annoy him to be completely ignored, but Katerina decided she would not be able to hold to that plan for very long. She had never even been able to ignore Agnes for long and no one angered her as her half-sister did.
That left her with the choices of spitting his anger and mistrust right back at him or trying to convince him that he was utterly wrong in his suspicions. The former might relieve her of any bile stirred up by being thought so poorly of by the man she had given her heart and innocence to, but it would make life very difficult for her men. The latter sharply stung her pride. Why should she have to convince him of the truth just because he was too witless to see it? Of course, when he did finally see the truth, she would have the pleasure of gloating. Men did so hate to be wrong, she thought, and suspected Lucas would suffer even more because of what they had once meant to each other.
“And that is something it would be wise to forget,” she muttered.
Especially since she may well have been utterly deceived in what she believed they had shared, she thought, and felt like weeping all over again. She ruthlessly buried the pain and tried to face the truth. The love she had thought she and Lucas shared may well have been a lie. Katerina knew she had loved him, and still did, fool dial she was. However, what she had
thought she had seen in Lucas may well have been no more than passion and they had certainly given in to that, short and glorious as it had been. Yet, even if she had discovered that Lucas did not love her and would soon leave her, she still would never have had him murdered and Lucas should know that The fact that he could know her so little after what they had shared hurt, if only because it put all of his soft words and heated kisses into doubt, the memories of which she had treasured in the vain hope of easing her grief.
“Curse it, I but go round and round and make no decision,” she snapped and abruptly finished off her wine.
Before she faced Lucas again she definitely needed a plan, however. Proving him wrong and having him have to apologize was a good plan but it was realty not enough. After all, that left her with no plan for what to do after he had groveled in abject remorse. The battle against Agnes, Ranald, and their minions might not be over and she and Lucas might still have to deal with each other as well as the lust they had shared.
She still loved the fool, still wanted him, and she could not ignore that or try to lie to herself about it Although she could no longer trust in her judgment about what Lucas felt for her, Katerina was certain that the hurt he had dealt her had not killed her love or desire for him. She had the chilling feeling that she was incurable. Even now a part of her hoped it was all some horrible mistake and when she met with Lucas again he would apologize and take her into his arms to kiss away the pain.
“Fool,” she muttered and glared in the direction of the hall.
Then again, in his arms was where she truly wanted to be, she admitted to herself. If he finally saw the truth and gave her a pretty apology, there was no reason why she could not enjoy the passion they had shared so briefly once again. After all, she was no longer a maiden.
Highland Savage Page 3