by Aileen Adams
She was beginning to see the truth of her situation. Why had she not seen it before? It had all been too good to be true, had it not? When her father had taken such pains to leave her a small parcel of land, how could even a powerful nobleman leave everything he owned to a mere unmarried girl?
The Marquis raised an eyebrow. “Did you know your mother was betrothed before she took the ship to Scotland?”
“She was?”
“Oh, yes,” he whispered, his voice dropping to something like a snake’s hiss. “Yes, she was. She was to wed someone more worthy of her. Someone who would offer her everything she deserved, who would allow her to shine like the jewel she was. For she was the most beautiful, the cleverest, the most sparklingly witty young woman in all of Cherbourg.”
And all Ysmaine could do was hold back tears of pity for her poor mother, for she now understood what had sent Louise to Scotland. She had been on the run from an arranged marriage and had happened to meet the man she’d been destined for along the way.
Otherwise, she might have married the Marquis d’Orsay.
The very thought was an abomination in Ysmaine’s opinion. To think of her beautiful, gentle, delicate mother marrying this disgusting animal of a man, and he thought Connor Fraser was beneath Louise? It was nearly amusing in light of the slovenly manner of the man before her.
“She refused you, and you intend to right that wrong,” Ysmaine whispered, eyes locked with his.
A slow smile spread across his thick lips. “I had heard you were a clever girl. If you intend to claim your inheritance, you must marry me. Otherwise, any claim you stake is considered null and void. Your grandfather wished for the family line to be brought back to France, to have the Highlander blood bred out. And it will be, my girl.”
“I do not have to do this,” she insisted.
“Oh, but you do. You have no say in the matter,” he reminded her. “You, a woman? Who are you to stand up to what’s been set forth and agreed upon? You will marry me, and you will inherit the estate. Those are the terms of your grandfather’s will.”
He leaned in again, his wine-soaked breath hitting her like a sour cloud. “And I intend to see to it that you abide by those terms.”
25
“You do not understand! This is outrageous!” Quinn struggled against the grip of the two guards, only for them to respond by pulling him all the harder. He fell to his knees at one point, but they did not stop. Instead, they pulled him along on his knees until his trousers tore and the skin broke.
One of the three guards walking in front of him grunted. “We understand, all right. You do not belong in the uniform, which means you stole it. Which means you likely killed our kinsmen, which means we may very well kill you.”
“The Marquis will wish for us to wait until he’s finished with this piece of filth,” another guard snarled. “It will be a stroke of good fortune if there is anything left of him by then.”
Quinn held his tongue, knowing it was useless to fight back. They wanted him to. Anything to give them an excuse to use violence.
Even after he fought his way to his feet, the nearly dark tunnels made it all but impossible for him to find his footing. Water dripped from invisible sources, collecting in puddles which reeked of filth and slime. They were sure to drag him through it until it soaked his garments.
There were cries coming from somewhere far away, cries of loneliness and pain. Was it merely his imagination? Were there others in those tunnels, in the cells carved from the very rock the castle was built upon? Was he merely one of many?
Or was it Lennox’s prison he thought of? His guilty conscience crying out, punishing him for his failure? His failure as a brother, his failure as a man. It was all for nothing, every last day spent making the slow, arduous journey to France.
He had taken a chance. He had failed miserably.
Perhaps it would be better for him to die. Perhaps he ought to allow the Marquis to have his way, if the guards were to be believed, he would kill Quinn or at least beat him until he stood within an inch of the end of his life.
And they would do the rest.
Perhaps that would better than living with himself.
They threw him into a windowless cell, the far corner of which reeked of untold amounts of human waste. So he was not the only one who had called the cell his home at one time. What did the Marquis do with his prisoners?
Why did he keep prisoners at all?
A heavy, wooden door slammed shut, offering a sense of finality. He was going to stay there forever. There would be no escape.
This did not stop him from trying the door, but it was no use. It locked from the other side, and he recalled the sound of jingling from the belt of one of the guards. If only he had been able to reach the keys…
What good would it have done? They’d like as not have broken his fingers for it. There would be no chance of his escape with broken fingers.
He pounded on the door with the side of one fist. “When will I see the Marquis?” he bellowed with his mouth close to the small, square window cut into the door. “Ye cannot leave me in here with nothing to eat or drink and no telling when I will see the Marquis!”
But they could, and they would.
He leaned against the door, fighting for breath. The rough handling from the guards had left him winded, with every muscle in his body aching. His knees smarted, blood trickled down his shins.
It would hardly be the first blood shed in that cell, he wagered to himself. A sobering thought, to be sure, but likely correct.
There was little noise in the tunnel, nothing but the sound of footsteps made at a distance. The guards believed he had killed their kinsmen, nothing he could say would change their beliefs on this point, he knew. Men did not easily forgive those who killed their friends.
Many was the time he’d reacted out of rage and vengeance on the field of battle. He would again if anyone dared threaten the lives of Rodric, Brice, Fergus. Yes, he knew all too well.
How long would they be able to contain themselves? For they would desire blood. His blood.
And this Marquis, who the men had claimed would want to exact first justice. Who was he that he behaved so? While Quinn had little experience with nobility, he’d always felt fairly certain that they were above petty violence and vengeance.
Perhaps he had a lot to learn.
A pity that it would have to come at the cost of his health and perhaps his life.
His eyes had adjusted to the darkness, allowing him to make sense of his surroundings. Not that there was much to see. Coarse, uneven walls which still bore the mark of the tools which had carved them. A low ceiling, close enough to his head that he could press his palms to its surface without fully extending his arms.
He did not wish to pace off the cell’s dimensions, still unwilling to look at or go near whatever sat in that rank corner, but the walls could not be more than five or six paces apart in both directions.
Never had he so been reminded of a rat in a trap. He was the rat, breathing in the stench of another’s excrement, wondering vaguely about infection in the wounds he had sustained on his way to the cell. The manner in which they’d dragged him across the floor, through puddles of water which might have been standing there for years.
Had it not been for his recent experience with infection and what it could do to a body, he would not have thought twice about it. Now, he asked himself how long he had before illness set in.
Would it be a mercy? Preferable to living out his days in a cramped, wretched cell?
Would Ysmaine be aware of what happened to him?
Sharp, heavy footsteps marked the approach of a visitor. Not one of the guards, the person walking through the tunnel wore fine shoes with heavy soles, unlike those of the guards who had dragged Quinn from the carriage.
He backed away from the door just before it opened. Immediately, two guards entered and seized his arms to keep him in place.
“We’ll have no fighting from yo
u,” one of them grunted, his breath reeking nearly as much as the inside of the cell. What Quinn would have given for a breath of fresh air.
He did not reply, nor was there anything to say. He simply waited for what was to come.
The man who stepped into the cell was at least a head shorter than Quinn and nearly twice as large from side-to-side. It amazed Quinn that the man did not need to turn to the side in order to fit through the door.
One step into the room and this stranger recoiled in disgust. “Not in here,” he groaned through the hand he’d clamped over his nose and mouth, quickly backing out into the tunnel. “This place is not fit for man or beast.”
Quinn could agree with him on that point, and he wondered exactly how often the Marquis visited the dungeon which sat beneath his home. For this had to be the Marquis. Only a member of the nobility would wear such fine velvet, a cape held closed with a chain of wrought gold and trimmed in fur he was careful to hold over one arm.
One would not wish to allow such finery to trail through the muck all around, after all. It was enough to make Quinn’s stomach turn even more violently than it had inside the cell—the difference between the nobleman himself and the conditions he forced his prisoners to exist in.
Only a nobleman would have the luxury of growing so rotund, another reason for Quinn to believe he stood in the presence of the Marquis. Rich food, and so much of it, would be in short supply otherwise. This brought to mind the image of thin, careworn peasants who’d watched his progress from inside the doorways of their homes along the way from the village.
Quinn would have wagered the food the man threw away alone would have provided handsomely for those half-starved peasants, to say nothing of the food he ingested, which must have been a great deal. Every meal a feast, for certain.
“Light the torches,” the Marquis ordered in an offhand tone. “I wish to look at our visitor. I would like to know exactly who makes his home in my dungeon. Exactly who thought it a prudent decision to kill my guards.”
He held up one fleshy hand, as though in an effort to stop Quinn from speaking. “I warn you, do not lie to me. A man would not go to such trouble, escorting a young woman from Scotland, if there were not something to gain. And my guards would not make it easy for him to take her, either. I implore you to speak with care.”
Quinn held his tongue for the time being, allowing the guards to light the wall torches nearest them before he offered a reply. When light flickered along the walls, casting the tunnel into even more distressing clarity—it was a cesspool, plain and simple—he voiced his defense.
What little there was of one.
“I did not kill either of your men,” he insisted, standing tall, his head high. The stance of a man secure in the truth. “One of the guards had already fallen to a thief along the road when I came upon Ysmaine and the second guard.”
The Marquis’s eyes narrowed before shifting to one of the guards who stood idle, off to the side. That small movement—one which Quinn might not have noticed had he not been glaring at the Marquis—spurred the man to bury his fist in Quinn’s stomach.
He doubled over, coughing, both surprised and pained.
“You will not speak her name,” the Marquis warned in his thin, high voice, his words clipped and precise. “I care not in the least for any familiarity you believe has grown between you. You are not worthy to speak the lady’s name.”
It was a struggle to regain an upright position, the muscles of his abdomen cramping in reaction to the mighty blow, but he managed it. “Just the same,” he insisted, “I did not kill either man. I merely tied your second man to a tree.”
“And stole his clothing,” the Marquis noted, eyeing up the red tunic which Quinn still wore. It was a wonder none of them had stripped it from him, he realized. One final bit of humiliation to make things perfect.
“Aye, I did that,” he admitted. “A disguise, if ye will.”
“Clever, as was tying my man to a tree. Did it occur to you that he might easily freeze, or die from exposure?” This was posed almost as a matter of curiosity rather than an accusation. As though the man truly wished to understand Quinn’s mind.
“It was not cold enough that night, and he was near enough to the road that he might call out for assistance. I made certain to alert him to the presence of a horse, too, that he might ride it into the nearest village.”
The Marquis stroked the first of several chins, pursing his generous lips. They reminded Quinn of nothing so much as those of a fish. He might have laughed in different circumstances.
“You were quite thoughtful to behave in such a manner, and it might please you to know that my guard returned two days ago. It seems he did call out for help, and the man who came to his aid provided passage fare and clothing.”
It had all been for nothing. The Marquis had been prepared for them.
What else could he have done? Killing the guard had hardly seemed necessary at the time, but that was before Ysmaine’s infection, and the three days they’d spent at the healer’s home. Were it not for that, they would have beaten him to Cherbourg.
“What did you steal?” the Marquis demanded.
“I took nothing from the carriage,” Quinn swore. “I merely took… the lass.” It would better not to use her name, if only to keep his ribs in their proper location.
“Ah, yes. You took Ysmaine Fraser.” With that, the entire direction of the interrogation shifted, and Quinn knew this was what the man truly wished to hear of. Not that he cared so little for his guard, but that he cared much more for Ysmaine.
The Marquis took a step closer, his eyes blazing. “You took what belonged to me. You dared place your filthy hands upon her.”
Quinn would have reeled back in surprise were it not for the hands holding him in place. As it was, he scrambled to make sense of the Marquis’s words.
“Belongs to ye?” he whispered.
A slow, triumphant smile spread over the man’s wide face. “Yes. She is mine—or, rather, she is to be mine.”
26
Ysmaine looked out the window in the center of the stone wall, the view of the estate both breathtaking and disheartening.
If she were to escape, she would have to find a way off the estate without the guards sending word to the Marquis. What were the chances that none of them would bar the way? Pitifully small, she supposed.
There was no use in looking out there. It only upset her more. She paced the room, wringing her hands, her stomach in knots as it had been for nearly the entire evening. Ever since they’d been captured at the inn.
What was she to do?
Quinn was likely in a cell somewhere in the castle. Could she find him? Even if she found him, what hope was there of freeing him? How could they get past the guards?
There was one thing she felt certain of, every passing minute moved Quinn one minute closer to death. For why would the Marquis allow him to live? She now knew he was a terrible man, one capable of holding a grudge.
Quinn had tried to steal from him.
He would not forgive such a transgression.
She held her head in her hands, a scream of frustration and terror bubbling up in her chest which she wasn’t certain she could hold back.
If Quinn died, what reason would she have to continue living?
When had she fallen in love with him? It mattered not when the thing had occurred, she supposed, only that it had.
She loved him with the entirety of her heart, and he was going to die.
“I cannot allow that to happen,” she whispered to the empty bedchamber. “I will not.”
It was quite late by then, with the moon on the descent, and she hoped this meant there would be less activity in the keep. An ear pressed to the door told of the lack of movement in the corridor, she opened it slowly, holding her breath, praying most fervently for silence.
She prayed to her mother. Oh, please, you know what I suffer now. Please, help me. Do not turn away from me when I need you most.
The door opened without a sound, and without alerting anyone to her presence in the corridor. She let out the breath she’d held and tried to get her head about her.
Where would a dungeon be? Underground, of course, but how would she reach it? exploring the first floor would be the best chance of finding a door leading down, she supposed, so she dashed down the corridor and down the stairs, careful all the while to stay in the shadows.
Only a few distant footsteps echoed from somewhere far away by the time she reached the first floor, where a wide corridor stretched out to her right and left. She traced the route from the entry in her mind, remembering the way Madame Jean had led her through the place, and knew that if she turned left and stayed the course, she would reach that door.
Did she want to? What if there were people in the courtyard? Not to mention the guard tower, where someone might look down and see her.
If they did, what excuse could she offer? That she was merely taking the night air?
But the guards had overtaken Quinn in the courtyard and had taken him somewhere after that. There had to be a door somewhere close by, then. She merely had to find it.
And should a guard demand to know what business she had out of doors, well, she would remind them of her status as the future Marquise. While the notion brought nothing but disdain to her heart, she might still use it to her advantage.
The night air was cool and damp, heavy with the promise of rain. Sure enough, clouds rolled in overhead, blocking out what light the moon may have provided. It enabled her to move swiftly through the courtyard with little worry, though she still kept close to the inside of the castle walls in the hope of concealing herself.
All the while, she looked for a door.
The sound of approaching footsteps froze her in place, her back pressed to the cold stone wall. Images of the punishment she would endure flashed through her mind all at once, which reminded her of the need for confidence, for bravery she did not truly feel.