"Think that's smart? Last time I saw her, she was angry enough to lock you in."
Gillian sighed. "I know. I hate to admit this, but you may be right. Meddling in the Macleans' marriage might not have been a good idea."
He hated seeing her blue. "Oh, don't listen to me. It'll all work out. I have a feeling that by sunup, Annabelle and her husband will be minus one meddling mother-in-law and well on their way toward reconciliation."
"You honestly think so?"
"Princess, I'm of a mind to be a damned convincing ghost, and as far as the reconciliation goes, well... if you taught that girl how to handle a feather half as good as you, then ol' David doesn't stand a chance."
* * *
Gillian carried a lantern as she hurried down to the dungeon. After the rough start to her plan, she wanted to be certain this next part went as smoothly as possible. She had grown to care about Annabelle and she'd always have a soft spot in her heart for David. She truly hoped that tonight's events would guide their marriage back on course. In fact, the success of the plan had become rather important to her. She couldn't put her finger on why, exactly, except that she thought it somehow involved the notion of leaving Scotland on a positive note.
"You're as crazy as Jake claims," she muttered to herself, making her way down the dungeon stairs.
David wasn't due for another hour, but she expected to find Annabelle already in place. From the first, the idea of a dalliance in the dungeon had been Annabelle's favorite part of the plan. They'd spent quite a bit of time choosing a gown for her to wear—or not wear, as the case may be. They'd collected rose petals to spread across the bed, stashed champagne and scented candles and a fresh batch of chocolate icing—Chrissy Morgan's contribution to the proceedings.
Gillian had half a mind to swipe that last supply for her own use tonight. After all, Annabelle wouldn't want to overwhelm the man. From Gillian's experience, the feather trick would certainly get the job done.
With such sensual delights on her mind, Gillian was understandably shocked to walk into the dungeon chamber and discover supplies of another type entirely on display and ready for use.
David's wife sat in a bedside chair, polishing a torture device with a cloth. "Annabelle? What are you doing with that Cat's Paw?"
"Cleaning it. Really, Gillian, the housekeeping in your dungeon is appalling. I had to clean spider webs off the branks and oil the thumbscrews. The headcrusher is rusted in two and completely useless."
Gillian closed her eyes and massaged the bridge of her nose. "What happened to champagne and rose petals? What happened to chocolate icing?"
Annabelle paused and looked up. "I won't be needing them."
"Oh, Annabelle," Gillian said with a sigh.
The young wife threw down her polishing cloth and tossed the Cat's Paw onto the bed. "I'm done with him, Gillian. He's gone too far. I'm missing and in danger, and all he can think about is resuming his love affair with you. Well, I won't stand for it. He's going to pay for hurting me. I have the thumbscrews warmed up and ready for him, only it won't be his thumb that I'm putting the screw to."
"Now, calm down. I think I've figured out what's happening here. It's something he said tonight about how you liked to play games. I think he knows you're not missing. I think he's playing games just like you. That's part of what's wrong with your marriage, Annabelle. Too much game-playing and not enough truth."
"Well, the games are just beginning." Annabelle folded her arms, angled her head, and studied Gillian for a moment.
"What? What is it?"
"I've an idea. Perhaps I won't need to torture him after all?"
Oh, no. It was Gillian's experience that whenever Annabelle started thinking on her own, trouble threatened.
Standing, Annabelle walked over to one wall and lifted an iron manacle. "I'll use the shackles. It won't hurt him one bit. Come see how I fixed it, Gillian. I want to show you."
"No. You canna do this. I won't—"
"Oh, come on. I want you to see how smart I was. I fixed it so David won't even feel it." She held the manacle out. "See?"
Gillian indulged her, mainly because she was trying to come up with an argument to cool the young woman's temper. "How did you fix it?"
"I'll show you."
Before Gillian quite knew what had happened, Annabelle slapped the cuff around Gillian's wrist and snapped it shut. Gillian pulled on her arm, not believing what had happened. She expected the bolt to pull loose from the wall. It didn't.
"Annabelle!"
The young woman actually laughed. "I was right, wasn't I? It won't hurt David a bit because I'm using the irons on you instead."
She grabbed for Gillian's other arm and wrestled it toward the wall and the iron cuff. Gillian struggled, but Annabelle had an advantage in both height and weight. Soon both of Gillian's arms were chained to the dungeon wall. "What in heaven's name is going on here?"
"Give me your feet." Gillian started kicking when Annabelle went for her leg, but the blows failed to deter the younger woman. Moments later, Gillian found herself completely shackled to the wall. She was breathing heavy as a result of her struggles, but her tone nonetheless reflected bewilderment as she said, "Annabelle?"
David Maclean's wife looked at her, tears swimming in her big brown eyes. "I want him to choose me, Gillian. Not you. One time, I want him to choose me."
She started sobbing, then, her tears flowing like whisky at the foy. Gillian rolled her eyes and sighed. "There's a handkerchief in my pocket."
"Th-th-thank you."
Gillian waited for a few moments for the waterworks to subside, then asked, "Honey, I understand what you want of your husband, but explain this, please? How does chaining me to the wall present David with a choice?"
"I don't exactly know. It's just they were there and you were here and it seemed like the thing to do."
"It's uncomfortable, Annabelle. My arms are beginning to ache a bit. Please, fetch the key and let me loose."
"No. I'm sorry. I'm not going to do that. I'm going to find some way to restrain myself so that we're both in trouble. There's a rack in one of the other rooms. I wonder if I could somehow fasten myself to it. We'll both wait for him, Gillian, and then he must choose. He must choose between us, and he must choose me. I must know once and for all that he truly does want me and not you. Otherwise... well... I just might use the thumbscrew after all!" With that, Annabelle sailed out of the chamber room.
Gillian leaned back against the cold rock wall, she raided her chains, then exhaled a tired sigh. "They were here. I was here. A simple plan. To borrow a phrase from Jake, 'Sometimes, Gillian, you don't have the sense God gave a goat.'"
Chapter 16
Jake waited in the passageway outside Henrietta Lehrman's room for half an hour, but Gillian never arrived. It made him grumpy. He was doing this for her, after all. The least she could do was show up to watch. He'd been practicing his accent too. He'd wanted to impress her.
She was probably down in the dungeon holding Annabelle's hand. Ol' Maclean had his hands full with that one. The girl was pretty and fun to be around, but her mind traveled different paths than most folks'. Though he'd never say so to Gillian, the more time he spent with Annabelle, the more he wondered if helping the Macleans' marriage was more a vengeance instead of friendship.
He waited ten more minutes, then decided he'd waited long enough. The black face paint was beginning to itch and besides, he was worried a bit about Gillian.
Without an audience to play to, he wasn't much for dragging this haunting out. Still, he wanted to do a good job and redeem himself for his poor showing at haunting Harrington. He marched over to the bed and moaned, "Woo... woo... woo."
When she opened her eyes, he grinned evilly and said, "I'm the Headless Warrior of Rowanclere and you are my chosen one."
Damned if she didn't pull a gun. "Get away! Get away! I'll shoot you!"
Idiot woman. "Why the hell would you do something dumb like that?" he said, gra
bbing the revolver away from her. "I'm a ghost. I'm already dead!"
"Oh. That's right. It's just that I'm frightened."
"You should be frightened. That's why I'm here. That's what ghosts do. We frighten people."
"M-m-mr. Delaney said you k-k-kill people."
"Aye, I scare them to death. I haunt viper-tongued harridans who cause trouble in their daughters' marriages. I'm a fine ghost, Henrietta Lehrman. You will look forward to dying by the time I'm through with you."
"Now that's an awful thing to say. Why I..."
Jake quit listening. In deference to her gender, he had intended to keep his haunting as tame as possible and still get the job done. Judging from the unending stream of complaints emerging from her mouth, he'd need to step up the threats or he'd be here all night.
Besides, he was worried about Gillian and he wanted this job done.
"Enough!" he yelled at the same time he secretly pulled a trio of strings at the ready. A vase flew off the mantel. A chair tipped over and one of the bed curtains came loose from its mooring and floated down on top of Henrietta Lehrman. "Consider this your only warning, madam. In order to save your life, you must leave Rowanclere at first light, and Scotland within the fortnight. Otherwise, I'll haunt you daily until you give up the ghost, so to speak."
Cowering beneath the bed-hanging, she cried, "But I can't leave. My daughter is missing."
"No she's not. She's meeting her husband for a tupping even as we speak. Nothing's keeping you here, Henrietta. Can I count on your going or should I pack my bags to tag along?"
"I'm gone. First light, I'm headed for home. We don't have ghosts in Boston."
"No? But I hear y'all make a good baked bean."
In the musty passageway, he paused long enough to grab the towel from his pile of supplies and wipe the paint from his face before making his way downstairs. Ten minutes later, he entered the dungeon and immediately heard Gillian's voice and he breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Damn, but he'd been worried.
Now that he wasn't worried any longer, he remembered he was angry at her.
Pasting on a scowl, he followed the sound of her voice toward the infamous dungeon bedchamber. As he drew closer, he started listening to the words she sputtered. "The girl was not spanked enough as a child. That mother of hers needs more than a haunting, she needs a tongue lashing. And Annabelle, that girl needs a—"
"What?" he asked, sauntering into the room.
The second he saw her he stopped cold. His heart went tha-thump. "Gillian? What is going on here?"
"That pest Annabelle chained me to the wall, that's what's going on. She's gone to sift through the torture devices."
"She thinks to torture you?"
"No, they're for herself. She's looking for one she can strap herself into that won't hurt too much."
Jake pursed his lips and nodded. "Of course. We wouldn't want a torture device to hurt."
Gillian scowled at him. "It's a test for David. After she chose not to use the breast-ripper on him, she decided to see who he would choose to rescue first—her or me."
"Breast-ripper?" he repeated, wincing at the thought.
"Just get me out of here, Jake. I think the keys for these chains are in the small wooden box just inside the door of the chamber next to this one."
Now that he knew the situation here, Jake took a minute to take stock. "Are you hurt, Gillian? In any pain?"
"No, not really."
"Good." My oh my, princess.
"My arms are going to sleep, though."
Every part of him was wide awake.
"Jake, get the key."
"The key. In a minute, honey." Jake was distracted. He was very distracted. He sucked in a breath past his teeth. "I guess it would be crass of me to admit that I'm having an erotic moment here."
"You need not admit anything. Your feileadh mor is tenting."
"I know. Believe me, I know." He was hard enough to drive a railroad spike.
"I thought you said this sort of thing wasn't a preference of yours."
"It's not. Hasn't been, anyway. But we keep finding ourselves in these... circumstances." His feet scuffed the floor as he walked toward her. He'd have pulled at his collar if he'd had one. "Damn, princess. This is making me hot. If you didn't have so many clothes on...."
"Go get the key, Jake."
His blood hadn't boiled this hot since... well... this morning, anyway. "But—"
"Now."
"Oh, all right." He started to turn, but stopped mid-pivot. "Gillian, just one...." Before she could voice the word to stop him, he knelt on one knee at her feet.
"Jake?"
"Just let me? Just a little?" Reverently, he removed her slipper, then slipping his hand beneath her skirt, untied her stocking. He caressed her soft skin as he tugged the stocking down, through the iron cuff around her ankle, and off.
"Oh God, princess." Bare toes and bondage. He thought he just might explode.
Her voice sounded thready as she repeated. "Get. The. Key."
"But—"
"Now, Jake. Annabelle could return any second. David is due soon."
"Oh, man." He grimaced and groaned. "What if I shut the door? It probably locks. I could be quick. Hell, wouldn't even have to take time to drop my pants since I'm wearing a skirt."
"Jake, you're begging."
"Yes. Oh, yes."
The witch wiggled her toes then, and laughed when he moaned with pain. "You are so pitiful. Listen, Texas, I'll promise to come back here with you another time if you'll go get the key and let me loose now. Right now."
"Oh, all right. This really is a torture chamber, isn't it."
He found the key following a brief search, then he made quick work of the manacles. He kissed her wrists, now chafed and red. "Why, you were hurting. You should have told me. I wouldn't have played around with you like that."
She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him toward her for a quick, hard kiss on the lips. "I like you playing around with me."
He shook his head. "Don't do this to me, Gillian. I'm hurting, too, and I don't think you want to be kissing it better right here and now, no matter how much I like the thought."
Chuckling, she released him and started for the door. "We'd better find Annabelle. No telling what trouble she's managed to get herself into."
They located her in a storeroom farther into the dungeons. She had moved a Chair of Spikes away from the wall and was attempting to push it out into the hall. Jake looked from the chair to his wife. "Princess, I'm beginning to wonder about your ancestors." Addressing Annabelle, he said. "Darlin', what do you think you're gonna do with that?"
"Sit in it," she said, wiping away her tears with the sleeve of her dress. "I'm going to move it next to Gillian and sit in it and see who he rescues first."
"Makes a person pucker just to think about it," Jake said, testing a spike with his finger. "Darlin, I understand your desire to test your husband's love—it's a female fault—but you have to realize that matters of the heart aren't always so black and white. I'm new to the in-love state myself, but I've known a lot of loving couples in my days, and one thing I've figured out is that love isn't proven in big, flashy rescues from a torture chair in a Scottish dungeon. It's those little rescues and rewards that accumulate day in, day out, year after year, that truly show what is in a person's heart."
"But I don't have years," she wailed. "I have tonight. Gillian said she's leaving and I must know before she goes. I can't wonder about this the rest of my life. If we somehow work out our problems but he's never been forced to choose, I'll always have that doubt. I need to know. I need to know if he loves me or Gillian."
"Oh, Annabelle, you don't need—"
He broke off at the sound of a man's voice railing. "Gillian? Are you down here?"
"It's David," Gillian said.
"Oh, no," Annabelle sobbed. "She's loose. I'm not stuck to the chair. We don't need rescuing. There's no test. Now I'll never know."
&nb
sp; Jake raked his fingers through his hair. Well, hell. The poor thing is purely pitiful.
Gillian said, "Hush now, it's all right. We'll figure out another way."
The hell we will. I'm done with plans. We're takin' care of this right here, right now. He pushed Gillian into the storeroom whispering, "I'll take care of it. It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it. The sacrifices a man makes for the women in his life...."
So saying, he took Annabelle into his arms and commenced to kissing her just as David moved to within sight.
"Gillian?"
Jake broke the kiss, despite the resistance Annabelle gave him at doing so. Little thing's got the suction of on octopus. Acting as if he meant to shield her from Maclean's gaze, but in reality calling the other man's attention to her, he shoved Annabelle behind him. "I'll protect you, honey."
"Annabelle? Is that you?"
The boy is sharp as a marble.
Maclean rushed to meet them in the lantern-lit gloom. "Annabelle, my God! What are you doing down here?"
She stuck her head out from around Jake's shoulder. "I was kissing my lover, Jake."
Oh, shit.
Maclean's eyes flashed. "No. This is one of your dramas. One of your games. You are always say—" He broke off abruptly as if a thought had occurred to him. His gaze flicked down to Jake's skirt, then back up. He looked mad enough to chew nails. "You Texan bastard, you keep your filthy hands off my wife."
"Why should I? You're sure as hell anxious enough to get your paws on my wife. You're down here looking for her, aren't you? You had a rendezvous planned?"
"Yes. No." He waved his arm in dismissal. "I knew Gillian wouldn't be here. I know her better than that. She said what she did to keep me from going home which I took to mean that Annabelle put her up to it. I expected to find my wife in this dungeon, but I never expected to find her with the likes of you."
Annabelle stepped out from behind Jake, then threaded her arm through his and cuddled up against him. "It doesn't matter what you expected. You don't matter to me anymore. Jake and I are together now. Gillian just married him for his money, you know. Just like you married me for mine. Now Jake owns Rowanclere, I'm moving in, and Gillian is moving away. If you want her, you're welcome to her."
Sizzle All Day, Bad Luck Wedding #4 (Bad Luck Abroad) Page 27