by Sara Bennett
The duke’s dungeons were far more extensive, and far grimmer, than the single cell at Glen Dhui Castle. There was no light here, apart from a single flaring torch in a wall sconce outside the door, and that barely penetrated the corners of this damp, slimy place, where Gregor and his men were being held.
Above them, far above, was Abercauldy Castle. Gregor remembered his first sight of it. All crenelated towers and pink granite stone walls, it had loomed upon the hill before them, looking as if it were the creation of a madman. Gregor had ridden forward, at the head of his troop, ignoring his niggle of doubt.
“Bloody hell,” Malcolm Bain had muttered at his side.
At least Abercauldy was at home, Gregor had thought, seeing the flag flying atop one of the towers. He remembered wondering if that was the tower from which the duke’s wife, Isabella Mackenzie, had fallen to her death. Fallen with Abercauldy’s help, according to Shona. Gregor remembered hoping that he would find the duke in a more reasonable mood.
The gates of the castle had opened, and as he expected, a couple of dozen men with uncompromising expressions had ridden out to meet them. Gregor and his troop were subsequently accompanied into the castle yard. It had seemed very quiet for such a large place, no servants bustling about, no blacksmiths or carpenters at work, not even the ubiquitous castle hounds barking at their entry.
That had been odd, but Gregor did not have a chance to give it much thought. For at that moment, Lorenzo had appeared, seated upon a pretty white horse, directly in his path. And so their fateful conversation had taken place.
“You are very brave to come here, Captain Grant,” Lorenzo had said, smiling, his eyes spitting hatred.
“You have taken something that does not belong to you, Lorenzo. I want it back.”
“The fair-haired one?” Lorenzo had retorted. “She does not belong to you, either. She does not even want to return to Glen Dhui. She is happy here with His Grace. Ask her!”
Gregor had felt a slow anger ignite inside him. Had he come all this way on a wild goose chase? It would be just like Barbara Campbell to land on her feet and make herself at home in a duke’s castle. But he must make certain. Lorenzo was a cunning liar, and he could be lying now.
“Let me speak with her.”
“Oh, you will speak to her,” Lorenzo had said, still with his sneering smile. “In a little while. She is not ready for you yet, Captain. You will have to wait.”
He had jerked his head at the duke’s men, and they had promptly drawn their swords, although the sergeant in charge had looked a little apologetic. The slither of steel had been loud in the quiet of the yard. Gregor’s men had moved swiftly to retaliate, but Gregor called for them to hold. They were already outnumbered, and there were probably many more armed men close by.
“We have not come here to fight,” Gregor had said evenly. “We have come to talk sense.”
“Very wise,” Lorenzo had said mockingly, when Gregor didn’t resist. “I would not wish to kill you before you have ‘talked sense’ to His Grace. If he decides to see you. Now come, this way. I have some very comfortable quarters for you to wait in. I’m sure you will find them just as comfortable as I did, when I stayed at your little house.”
“I need to see the Duke of Abercauldy,” Gregor had said, a little desperately now.
“All in good time,” Lorenzo had replied, with an airy wave as he turned away. “All in good time, Captain Grant.”
Now Gregor looked about him at the cramped, pungent cell. This was Lorenzo’s revenge, the revenge he had promised. But Lorenzo had been locked up under far different conditions than this, and he had been promptly released following the wedding. Gregor was beginning to lose track of how long they had been down here.
Did Lorenzo intend to take them to see the duke? And, of more concern, did the duke even know they were here? Lorenzo was quite capable of keeping this as his own little secret for weeks. Or even months…
“That wee man isna from Italy,” Malcolm Bain mumbled from the shadows. “Who does he think to fool with that monstrous accent?”
“The Duke of Abercauldy,” Gregor replied. “No one else’s opinion matters to Lorenzo.”
Malcolm Bain grumbled more insults, but Gregor didn’t pay much heed. Instead, he leaned his head back against the wall, uncaring of what might be creeping upon it, and closed his eyes. He was weary of prisons, they were all the same: Dark, dank, and evil-smelling.
Why couldn’t he and Abercauldy sit down like sensible men and talk this thing through? Why did everything have to come down to a bloody fight? He had asked his father that, when they were riding toward Preston during the 1715 Rebellion. His father had looked at him as if he wasn’t quite sure what he meant. Gregor had realized then that, to his father, there was glory in battle, in shedding blood for one’s cause, in dying for futility.
Gregor had never understood the point of dying for a lost cause.
Fighting for those in one’s care, for those one loved, that was different. He would fight to the death for Meg and Glen Dhui.
How he longed for Meg now. What was she doing at this moment? Was she thinking of him? He tried to imagine her, to put himself there with her, as he had once imagined himself home in Glen Dhui when he had been imprisoned after the Battle of Preston.
The ability had not left him.
He could see himself, walking up the stairs from the Great Hall, hear the ring of his boots. And there she was, smiling as she looked up from her desk, surrounded by her books and papers and pens.
“Gregor!” she would cry, her mouth curling up in a smile of pure joy. Her blue eyes, so blue they hurt him sometimes, and her flame hair loose about her creamy shoulders. She would smile at him, so that he could see that little gap in her teeth that pleased him so much, and he would lift her into his arms, and kiss that lush mouth, and lose himself in her.
He groaned, softly, and covered his face with his hands. “Meg, oh, Meg, I love ye,” he murmured. “Let me only be free of this place, and I will come home to tell ye so. I have had enough of prisons and pain.”
She was there, in his head. He smelled her, heard her voice, touched her skin. And suddenly the cell could no longer hold him—he felt his spirit soar. Out of the darkness and up into the light.
Airdy wasn’t cooperating.
“I am not here on my uncle’s business,” he said for the third time, “so why should I say I am?”
“Because if you say you are come on your uncle’s orders to fetch Barbara home, the duke will be obliged to let her go,” Meg answered him for the third time. “Your uncle, the Duke of Argyll, is an important man here in Scotland. The Duke of Abercauldy will not want to displease him, will he? So he will release Barbara, and then Gregor can come home, too.”
Where was Gregor? Was he being looked after properly by Abercauldy? Meg feared it was not the case. She feared he might be locked up or hurt. Not dead, though. She was certain that if he were dead, she would feel the loss of him, in her heart.
Last night she had heard him call her name. His voice on the wind, soft with longing. And then he was gone again, and she was left, sitting up in the darkness, gazing at the stars, more alone than she had ever been.
“Gregor Grant is nothing to me,” Airdy was saying. “He can rot in the dungeons for all I care. Aye, I’d like him to rot. He deserves to rot.”
“Then your wife will rot, too,” Meg said sharply, losing patience with him. “Do you want Barbara to rot?”
Airdy shook his head, slowly, frowning. “I love Barbara,” he said, and to Meg’s horror his eyes filled with tears. “Why does she no’ love me?”
Meg could have given him several good reasons, but thought it prudent not to. “Fetch her home,” she said instead, “and then maybe she will love you, Airdy.”
He sniffed and wiped his hands over his face. “Och, verra well! You go on and on, woman, until a man can take no more. I dinna know how Gregor puts up with you.”
Meg bit her lip on a smile. Grego
r found her sharp tongue a delight, and that was another reason why she loved him. And then all urge to laugh was taken from her, as they reached the top of the hill and looked across at Abercauldy Castle.
She had never been here before in her life, and although she had known it to be large, this seemed even bigger than her imaginings. As for the castle’s appearance…it looked grotesque, like a madman’s nightmare.
Please, she thought, let Abercauldy be sensible for once. Let him listen to reason, and agree to leave us be.
“Come on then, woman!” Airdy called impatiently, pushing ahead. “What are you waiting for?”
Meg stabbed him with her eyes, and, with a kick of her heels, she followed him down.
“Captain Grant?”
The voice was lowered, but clear enough in the silence of the dungeon. Most of his men were sleeping, although Malcolm Bain stirred and half sat up. Gregor shook the sleep from himself and stood—or stooped beneath the low ceiling—to move toward the heavy wooden door, with its single, barred window.
The face that peered through, in the half-light of the torch, was one he found vaguely familiar.
“Captain Grant, I am Sergeant Calum Anderson. I am in the duke’s private army.”
Gregor wondered what Sergeant Calum Anderson was doing here at the dungeon door, but he forbore to ask him. He remembered him now. He was the soldier who had thrown Gregor an apologetic look as he drew his sword on him.
“Things are no’ right here at the castle,” Calum Anderson went on. “I dinna like the way Lorenzo is giving us orders in the duke’s name. We havena even seen the duke himself for three weeks now. Lorenzo has sent off most of the servants and the castlefolk; there are hardly any left. It just dinna feel right.”
Three weeks. Gregor tried to clear his head, rubbing a hand over his eyes. Three weeks? It sounded ominous, but maybe the duke was simply sulking over the fact that Meg had wed someone else. Though why send away his household to sulk? Apart from Lorenzo…
“Lorenzo gives you all your orders?” he demanded.
“Aye, all of them. We are used to that, but usually the duke will make an appearance, off and on. This is the longest we have ever gone without seeing him.”
“So when you locked me and my men in this place…?”
“Lorenzo told us he was following the duke’s orders. But it was only on his say so, we never heard anything from the duke himsel’.”
Sergeant Anderson leaned in closer, and Gregor smelled the whiskey on his breath. The question was, had the man drunk a dram to gain the courage to come down here, or was he simply a drunkard with an axe to grind against the duke’s favorite servant?
“That is very strange, Sergeant.”
“Aye, sir. We all think so. We dinna like taking our orders from Lorenzo, but he says he speaks for the duke, and what if he does? What if it’s true? And yet…it has come to the point where there is talk of us going up to the Duke’s rooms ourselves, and taking a wee peek. If ye ken?”
“I ken, Sergeant.” He fixed the man with a straight look. “What do you want me to do?”
Calum Anderson shifted his feet, uncertain in his mind, and then took a deep breath. “We’ve been talking, sir, me and the others. We want to let ye out. The duke would never have left ye here so long. He’d have wanted to see ye straightaway, talk with ye, play a game or two of chess with ye and beat ye soundly. It is his way. This,” he waved his hand at the cell, “is more like Lorenzo. So we want to let ye out, so that ye can go and talk with the duke yersel’. Then we’ll all know.”
And my going will save you from being reprimanded, if what Lorenzo says is the truth, Gregor thought to himself. But he held his tongue. This was their chance to be free. And if it meant solving the mystery of the duke and Lorenzo at the same time, so be it. Gregor wasn’t at all adverse to a wee confrontation with Lorenzo.
“I would be verra happy to speak with His Grace for you, Sergeant. Have you a key?”
Calum gave him a grin, and held up the ancient dungeon key with a flourish.
“Then let us out, ye daft bugger!” Malcolm Bain growled from behind Gregor. “Let us out, and we’ll do the rest.”
Calum eyed Malcolm Bain askance, but Gregor reassured him: “If there is something amiss, Sergeant, ’tis best if we waste no more time.”
A moment later, Gregor heard the metal key in the lock. It was the sweetest sound he had heard in a long time, but he remained calm and steady. There was much to be done yet—no time to celebrate. If what Calum said was true, there was a mystery to be solved, and Lorenzo to be dealt with, before Gregor could go home.
The door swung open. It felt as if a cool breeze swept in, though in reality they were far underground. Time to move. Gregor took a deep breath of that imaginary air and turned to his men, calling for them to wake, while Malcolm Bain went about rousing the laggards. Calum, helpful man that he was, showed them to the armory, and they were able to reclaim their weapons.
“Do any of your men favor Lorenzo?” Gregor asked, tucking his pistols back into his belt.
Calum gave him a scornful look. “He isna even an Italian, sir. We reckon he’s from the south, Hawick or somewhere close. One o’my men was in Rome for a time, and he set him some traps—questions, do ye ken? Lorenzo, as he calls himsel’, couldna answer a single one.”
“Gregor?” Malcolm Bain was back at his side, questions in his eyes.
“We find the duke,” Gregor said. “We find Barbara Campbell. Then we find Lorenzo. And after that, we go home.”
Malcolm grinned. “That sounds bonny to me, lad. Let’s do’t.”
Chapter 28
Outside it was day. Why had Gregor thought it was night? He supposed he had become disorientated in the dungeons, where it was always night. How many hours had passed, how many days and nights? He did not know. Not many, he thought, for though he was hungry, it was not the gut-clenching sort of hunger he had felt in the gaol after Preston.
Meg would be worrying.
“There, sir.” Calum pointed up a huge staircase, where wood gleamed and gold leaf glowed and silver fittings shone. Candelabra were heavy with candle stubs—no one had thought to replace them. There was no sound from above, no laughter, no shouts of merriment. Only a thick, unbroken silence.
Gregor frowned. The whole castle was silent, empty. Calum was telling the truth when he said Lorenzo had dismissed most of the servants. But how could a place like this run without sufficient staff? And, from all Gregor had heard, the Duke of Abercauldy liked his luxury. He certainly would never live in an empty, echoing castle with only Lorenzo as company. Not if he had a choice.
He began to climb the grand staircase, and then paused with his boot on the bottom step, turning to Calum. “Are you coming?”
Calum looked uneasy, glancing up into the still shadows as if he expected to see the duke peering down at him. “I shall wait here,” he said firmly.
Gregor nodded at Malcolm Bain, and then they and their men, began to climb, attempting to be as quick and quiet as possible. At the top of the stairs an open door led into a flamboyant room, its ceiling painted in rich, jeweled colors, and its grand silver chandelier reflected in the numerous mirrors. Several doors opened on this room, and Gregor went first to one and then another, but the rooms were empty. When he reached the last door, he found it led into a small sitting room, made comfortable with damask-covered chairs and burning candles, and a fire alight in the hearth.
A man sat in one of the chairs.
He was before the fire, staring into it. He did not look up as Gregor stepped into the room, nor did he speak. His gaze was fixed upon the flames, and either he was lost in his own thoughts or he had no intention of acknowledging his unwelcome guests.
“Your Grace!” Calum Anderson had followed them after all. He stood staring at the silent, still shape in the chair as if he expected it to stand up and order him away. But the duke did nothing.
“Your Grace?” Gregor said, loud enough to be heard, and e
ntered the room cautiously.
But the man in the chair did not turn. He wore a brocade coat with a stiffened skirt, the cloth weighed down with decoration. There was a sparkle of jewels at his throat and on his fingers, and his shoe buckles were sprinkled with diamonds. His curled wig was a little crooked upon his head, but other than that he looked normal.
Gregor took a step to one side, examining the duke’s face, although Abercauldy never once looked at him. The man’s eyes were dreamy, as if his mind had long ago left the confines of his body. In his hands he held a decorated silver locket, which he stroked and ran between his fingers lovingly, as if it were a living thing rather than made of cold metal.
“What has that devil done to him?” Calum whispered, shocked. “Can he hear us?”
“I dinna know.” Gregor bent and, very gently, took the locket from the duke’s hands. The man whimpered and clutched at it, like a child who has been deprived of a favorite toy. But Gregor was firm, straightening with the locket in his own hands. He clicked it open.
Meg! But no…it was a face like Meg’s. A woman with a cloud of auburn hair, creamy skin and blue eyes. She even had a sprinkling of golden freckles. When Gregor’s heartbeat had slowed again, he realized it wasn’t Meg at all. The face was narrower, the nose longer, the eyes harder. Clearly this must be the Duke’s first wife, the famous Isabella Mackenzie.
Shona had been correct when she said Isabella and Meg could have been sisters. No wonder Abercauldy, when he saw her, had determined to marry Meg. Isabella, according to Shona, had died when she fell from the north tower. He had lost her forever.
But then he saw Meg.
Malcolm Bain came up to Gregor’s shoulder and also looked down at the portrait. “Did he murder her, do ye think?” he whispered loudly.
“I dinna know. Mabbe. Whatever happened in that tower, though, it sowed the seeds of his destruction.”