“An intriguing skill,” murmured Simon.
“I suppose it is.” She looked at the MacLarens who crouched in the thick shadows several feet away and asked softly, “Are ye certain ’tis wise to let the MacLarens see the way inside Dunncraig? They have a grievance against Dunncraig, aye?”
“They have a grievance against your cousin,” said Simon. “If, when this is all over, James worries about the MacLarens’ kenning where this bolt-hole is, he can easily block the entrance.”
“True enough.” She straightened up and took a few deep, slow breaths. For she knew there would be a lot of pain to deal with when she stood up. “’Tis best if we get moving along again.”
The way Simon and Tormand helped her to her feet eased some of her pain, but it still took another round of slow, deep breaths to regain her balance enough to get moving along again. With Tormand remaining close by her side, his strong arm around her waist to steady her, Annora led them through the woods until they reached the opening to the passageways that roamed throughout the underbelly of the keep. The doorway that led to the tunnels was cleverly hidden within the thick roots of an old tree, but Annora had no trouble leading the men right to it.
Tormand entered the tunnel first and then Simon gently lowered her down to him. It still hurt but she found she was getting very good at hiding her pain. Annora simply kept promising herself the comfort of a soft bed, a potion to ease her pain, and a few moments alone to weep and cry out all the hurt she had kept hidden for so long. A few times she even imagined herself tucked up in bed with a handsomely concerned James gently bathing her forehead with cool lavender water. The image was enough to keep her moving even when all she wanted to do was lie down and cry like a bairn.
As she slumped against the rocky wall of the tunnel, slumping being something else she was getting very good at, she mused, Tormand lit a torch. Annora blinked as the sudden light hurt her eyes. Leaving Edmund to assist the others into the tunnel and hand out the occasional torch, Tormand escorted her along the tunnel. She steadily led them past several turnings and then turned down the next one. She had only gone a few steps when Simon stopped her.
“Where does this lead to?” he asked.
“The dungeons,” she replied, recalling very clearly how James had paused to point it out to her. “The passage we have just left goes to the kitchens. Ye just keep going straight, watching carefully for a set of wide, uneven steps. Go up the steps and at the top is a door. It leads into the pantry, the one that is always unlocked.”
“Wait here.”
She rested against Tormand’s strong body and muttered, Just where does he think I will go?” She smiled faintly when Tormand laughed so softly that it was little more than a mere whisper of a sound. “What do ye think he is doing?”
“Sending some of the men into the keep through the kitchens.”
“I hope he warns them to be wary of Big Marta.”
“She is expecting something to happen so I dinnae think she will hurt them. How far down this passage are the dungeons?”
“James said it was a straight walk, taking no turnings off it, and it would take about ten minutes if ye were making your way there cautiously, much less if ye had no fear of being seen or heard. I wasnae particularly interested in how far, just where it went to and how I got there. I am only interested in returning to the place I came from.”
“Because ye were left places? Deserted?”
The man had too quick a mind, Annora decided. “Aye. Some of my kin would take me to another kinsmon without making sure that kinsmon was home first or able to take me in. My aunt Agnes did that three times ere a cousin accepted me into her household.”
He said nothing, but she felt his arm tighten round her shoulders ever so slightly in a silent gesture of sympathy. Annora expected to find such sympathy humiliating but she did not. The sense of outrage she felt in Tormand and the feeling of comfort he offered made his feeling of sympathy acceptable. It was not pity, something she would have been repelled by.
When Simon returned they continued on their way. The soft sound of voices alerted them that they were rapidly nearing their destination. Tormand doused his torch and Annora waited for the fear she always felt when caught in the dark to overcome her, but it only flickered to life for a moment and faded away. She decided she was simply too occupied with her pain and James’ safety to care about the dark. It held nothing as frightening as the possibility that she could not help James get free of her cousin’s cruelty. Even as she started to slide down the wall, Tormand returned to her side and pulled her up against him.
“Steady, lass,” he whispered against her ear. “I have found ye a safe place to rest as we rescue James,” he said even as he began to move her farther down the passageway.
She could feel his growing excitement and decided men were strange creatures. She could not understand how men could find this sort of attack exciting. Tormand and the others were actually anticipating a battle. Annora felt certain that, if there was not a satisfactorily bloody battle, all these men would be disappointed.
A faint glow of light inched into the dark just as Tormand settled her into a niche in the wall of the passageway. Annora could hear voices clearly now and knew she was only feet away from where Donnell had imprisoned James. The sudden sharp crack of a whip nearly made her gasp. Tormand had anticipated the reaction and had gently covered her bruised mouth with his hand.
“Be at ease, lass. Ye have shown great courage to come this far,” he whispered against her ear again as he removed his hand. “Dinnae falter now.”
“He is hurting James,” she whispered back, afraid that she was about to burst into tears.
“He willnae be doing so much longer.”
Even though he was still whispering, Annora could hear the cold, hard resolve in his attractive voice. There was also a fierce anger bubbling up inside the man. Anger such as that usually made her very uneasy, but this time she found comfort in it. Tormand Murray would make her cousin pay dearly for every twinge of pain he had inflicted upon James. She nodded and he slipped away. Annora sat with her back pressed hard against the cool, damp stone hoping the chill that entered her body from the stone would keep her alert. She listened to Tormand’s men slip past her one by one. The silent way they moved and the grim resolve she felt in each man eased her fear for James. Donnell’s cruel reign at Dunncraig was about to come to a bloody end.
James feared he would have no teeth left if he was not saved from this torture soon as they would all be ground to dust. He could do little to stop himself from sweating, however, but MacKay could think that was caused by many things other than fear. James wished he did not have any fear, but knowing this man would stop at nothing in order to inflict the most pain he could made it difficult to hold fear back.
“Ye are a stubborn mon, James Drummond,” MacKay said calmly.
That calm was one of the things that made MacKay seem far more intimidating than he actually was. James doubted the man would be standing there bravely, all calmness and soft, cold smiles, if he was faced with a man freed of his chains. Most brutal men of MacKay’s ilk were actually cowards beneath the skin. Once his own life was threatened MacKay would be running for his life. James was sure of it.
“And ye are a cowardly swine who struts before a chained mon acting brave and in command. Release me to fight ye fair and we shall see how brave ye are.” He was not surprised when those words earned him another lash of the whip.
“Ye dinnae rule here anymore, Drummond,” MacKay hissed, revealing the anger and envy that hid behind his cold ruthlessness. “I rule now.”
“Your rule here is based on lies and treachery. How long do ye think it can last?”
“As long as I wish. The only ones with any legal claim to this place are either dead, like your wee wife, Mary, or on the run.”
“I suppose ye got some great joy out of cuckolding me.”
“Mary was mine first.”
“Then why didnae ye keep he
r?”
“Because she had a verra large dowry and her felt she could find a match better than me. But I wanted it. I had earned it.”
“Earned it, how so?”
MacKay stood up very straight, a posture that thrust his rounded chest out until he looked very much like a strutting cock. James decided that he wanted to hear this man tell the truth of his crimes. If he was going to die, then James wanted to do so with all of his questions answered and all of his suppositions confirmed or replaced with the full ugly truth.
“By making the stupid cow fall in love with me.” MacKay shook his head as if amazed all over again at how easy it had been to win Mary’s affections. “Do ye ken why she hated you? Why she did anything I wanted and betrayed ye again and again?”
“Weel, I will admit that I am curious as to why she would want a brutal wee swine like ye and nay a laird with a full purse, one nay too ugly or too old.” He gritted his teeth again as MacKay struck him with the whip but inches from his groin.
“Fool. Ye ne’er really kenned the woman ye had married. She wasnae the sweet shy maid she let everyone, e’en her parents, believe she was. She was a whore. I wager ye thought she was a virgin but that was just some trick she learned from a woman in a tavern whilst she was on a pilgrimage with her mother.”
James had wondered how he had been so fooled. The fact that he had never bedded a virgin had probably aided Mary in her deceit. Since bedding Annora, he had occasionally pondered the mysteries of his wedding night with Mary. The confessions in her journal that revealed she had been a well-experienced woman had not come as a complete surprise.
“Yet ye were willing to murder the woman ye had cared about for so verra long.”
“Wheesht, who said I cared for the cow? She was a lover who enjoyed the rougher side of passion and when she was chosen as your bride I saw the chance of gaining something. But ye didnae offer me any position or e’en to help me find one worthy of my wit and guile.” The tone of outrage in MacKay’s voice told James that that insult still stung. “So, I decided I would have your position. I had learned of a mon who had gained all another mon possessed by proving that the mon had murdered one of his kinswomen. He claimed it all as reparations for the loss of the woman. That is when I realized Mary might be useful. I urged her to marry you and swore to her that she would be a widow verra soon.”
“Ye took your sweet time executing your plan.”
A shadow moved in the far corner of the dungeons near where the guards sat drinking and listening to their laird confess all his crimes. Even as James wondered why the men did not leave, did not seem to understand that it was mortally dangerous to hear any of MacKay’s secrets, he saw another slight movement in the shadows. His heart pounding with the hope that what he saw was not just some trick of the light or a false vision brought on by pain, James tried to keep his gaze fixed upon MacKay. If there was something happening in the far corner of the dungeon, he did not want to alert MacKay to it.
“A good plan takes time to perfect,” MacKay said a little pompously. “I needed to collect up allies, men in power who could see to it that I got the reparations when ye were convicted of the crime of murdering your wife—my kinswoman. Then Mary bad Margaret and I saw that as even more opportunity. I had witnesses to the fact that she and I were lovers and could claim the child was mine by blood if nay by law. That would help and it would present a verra good reason for why ye murdered her.”
“But she wasnae murdered, was she? It wasnae Mary’s body we found in that burned-out cottage.”
“Nay, it was a maid from the next village. She and I were lovers and Mary found us. She joined in our play for a while but then grew jealous and killed the woman. Since I had all I needed to get ye charged, convicted, and grab hold of Dunncraig, I decided we would just let the world think it was Mary and set my plan into motion.”
Resting his chin against his chest for a moment, James peeked over at the guards and nearly cursed aloud in surprise. They were gone. Since he was sure no one but him and Annora knew the secrets of Dunncraig, he knew they had not slipped away down one of the passages. Just as he was about to return to making MacKay confess all of his clever plans, the whip struck him across his belly and he gasped, surprise making it impossible to hide all signs of the pain he felt.
“Growing weary of listening to my triumphs?” sneered MacKay.
“Mayhap ye shouldnae be telling him so much,” said Egan.
“Why not? Who is he going to tell? He will be feeding the worms verra soon and dead men can tell no tales, eh?”
Egan grimaced. “I have always felt that the fewer who ken one’s secrets the better.”
“The fewer living, breathing people, Egan. This fool is a dead mon; he just hasnae had the sense to stop breathing.”
“Just where did Mary hide, then?” James asked as soon as he felt he could talk in a calm voice that revealed none of his pain.
“Here and there,” replied MacKay. “I made her move from place to place so that no one would discover her. But she wouldnae do as she was told. She kept coming round and then she began to demand I marry her. The stupid woman did not seem to understand that she could ne’er come back to Dunncraig. She had gotten it into her foolish head that once I held Dunncraig, she could be the lady of it again, be my wife. I tried to get her to leave the area for months and then she told me she carried my child. Weel, ye dinnae need to ken why I was sure it wasnae mine, but it wasnae. It was then verra obvious to me that she was taking lovers and running the risk of being recognized. If she was e’er caught I kenned full weel that she wouldnae protect me. That is when I killed her, nearly a year after ye had run away accused of her murder.”
“Where is she buried, MacKay?”
“Why do ye care where her bones are?”
“I am nay sure I care but Mary was Meggie’s mother and thus she deserves the respect of a proper burial. And I am surprised that ye didnae make sure she had a proper grave so that ye could visit her now and then.”
“Why should I wish to do that?”
“Because if she hadnae been such a foolish, blind woman, ye would ne’er have gotten your fat arse into my great hall.”
“Ye just dinnae have the sense to be quiet, do ye?” MacKay hit him with the whip across his right hip.
James ignored the sting and the feel of warm blood running down his thigh and kept his gaze fixed upon MacKay. “Where is she buried?”
“Why do ye care?” demanded MacKay again.
“Someday Meggie might ask and I would like to show her where her blood mother is buried.”
“Show Margaret? Are ye sure ye arenae mad? How can ye show the child anything when ye will be dead? I ought to bury ye right next to Mary and let her whine ye into hell. Ye are a dead mon, fool. Ye. Are. A. Dead. Mon.”
A fleeting glimpse of his brother Tormand told James that the loss of the guards was only the beginning. He wondered if it was Annora who had brought someone to get him out of the dungeons. Knowing that any moment the attack would begin, James looked at MacKay and smiled.
“Nay, actually, I believe ye are.”
Chapter Twenty
The attack began so quickly, Annora nearly missed it. She had been sitting right where Tormand had put her, feeling stunned by all the confessions pouring out of Donnell. As the truth had rolled out of the man, pauses in his ramblings coming only when he felt James needed to be humiliated a little more, she had tried to find Simon in the shadows. The moment she saw him crouched against the opposite wall of the passage and closer to James than she was, he briefly turned his head and winked at her as if he had felt her looking for him. Relieved that the king’s man was hearing every foul word Donnell said, she returned to listening to her cousin dig his own grave.
Even though she had a fierce greed for the answers Donnell was so blithely giving her, Annora soon found it difficult to stay awake. Her body was demanding that she rest so that it could begin to heal. Annora snapped herself out of one of those half slee
ps just in time to see Edmund carrying away the body of one of the guards. Wide-awake again, she looked toward where the guards had been sitting and realized that Edmund had been taking away the last one.
She watched as Simon, Tormand, and the other men began to inch closer to Donnell and Egan. Her cousin was so busy showing James how thoroughly he had fooled him that he did not notice six of his men had been killed and a group of armed men was slowly advancing on him. Yet again she had to wonder how Donnell had accomplished all he had thus far. She then heard an odd note in James’ voice and eased herself around the corner to get a better look at him.
It was difficult to bite back a cry of outrage. James was chained to the wall and almost naked. His fine, strong body was covered in welts from Donnell’s whip. From what she could see, James was not yet seriously injured. The pain of those whip slashes was undoubtedly great and hard to bear, but he would heal quickly if he was freed before Donnell could inflict any real harm.
Then suddenly Egan looked her way. Annora was certain she could not be seen, but some of the men creeping toward Donnell were no longer hidden in the shadows. Egan abruptly drew his sword and Tormand’s men rose up with a battle cry. The noise filled the passageway she was in and she lightly placed her hands over her ears in an attempt to dim it. As the yelling and the running continued, she kept her gaze fixed upon James, praying that nothing happened to him when his rescue was so close at hand.
James watched the shock on Donnell’s face as Tormand, Simon, and half a dozen armed men ran into the dungeon a heartbeat after Egan’s warning cry. The man was no doubt thinking of all he had confessed in his orgy of gloating. James tensed, wondering how he could defend himself, when Donnell drew his sword and glared at him. But then he simply shoved Egan toward the men and raced up the steps into the keep. A cursing Egan did not wait to see if he could defend himself or surrender; he chased his cowardly laird up the stairs.
“God’s tears, get me out of these chains,” James bellowed when it looked as if everyone was about to race up the stairs after Donnell and Egan and just leave him hanging there.
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