Amanda Scott (52 page)

“I still don’t understand,” Mary said, wholly bewildered now. “What can the Sight have to do with your wish to marry me?”

“Everything,” he said flatly. “A seer told me that the only way to find a certain thing that’s been lost to the MacCrichtons is through a seventh daughter.”

“But the Sight cannot find lost articles,” she protested. “Truly, sir, you do not understand. All it has ever shown me is the face of a dear one who died suddenly.”

He made a dismissive gesture. “Don’t argue. You have the gift of healing, for I’ve heard many speak of it. Men ask you to wash your hands in the water you use to clean their wounds. People with the Sight can find lost bodies, too, for I’ve heard of such myself, so why should you not find lost treasure?”

“Treasure?”

He spread his hands. “Just a manner of speaking, lass. Once I’ve explained the whole, you will understand right enough. First, though, we’ll be man and wife.”

“I am not going to be your wife, Ewan.”

“Aye, then, you are, for another law I’ve looked into makes it necessary.”

“What law is that?”

“So long as you are my wife, what you find belongs to me. Otherwise, if you find what I seek, the Crown may claim it instead. I cannot have that. We’ve no need to talk more about it tonight, however,” he added. “The hour grows late, and you must be longing for your bed. I’ll take you upstairs now.”

He signed to the boy squatting by the wall near the stairs. “Bring a torch, lad, and look lively unless you want to feel my whip across your back.”

The boy leapt to take a torch from one of the men, holding it aloft with difficulty. Watching him stagger seemed to amuse Ewan, for he chuckled.

With nowhere else to go at that hour, Mary could see nothing to gain by arguing, and despite that chuckle, her stinging cheek reminded her of what the likely outcome of an argument would be. Therefore, she allowed Ewan to urge her in the wake of the child up the twisting stone stairway.

“Bar the gates and set a good watch,” he said in passing to a man near the doorway. “I think we’ve flummoxed the lot of them, but it’s as well to take care.”

“Aye, master.”

The stair went up and up, around and around, past other chambers in which Mary saw carpets and elegant, albeit shabby, furniture. At the top of the stairway they came to a stout oak door. Ewan pushed it open, revealing a room that boasted a once-bright Turkey carpet, but Mary saw that the carpet was threadbare and old. The furniture needed polish.

“This is your bedchamber, lass. Light candles, Chuff. Then be off with you.”

The room was spacious enough. A tall, curtained bed stood against the center of the wall opposite the door. One corner opened into a round turret space, apparently arranged as a powder closet. A small fire crackled on the hearth at Mary’s right, and thanks to the little boy, light from four tallow candles in plain brass sconces soon augmented the firelight. Her bundles already lay on the floor.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, turning to Ewan. “It seems a pleasant room.”

“Get out now, Chuff,” he said. The boy fled, and the intent look that leapt to Ewan’s eyes as the door shut warned her a split second before he reached for her.

Skipping nimbly away, she said grimly, “If you are thinking of beginning that cohabitation tonight, my lord, you had better think again.”

“Why is that, lass?” Grinning, he took another step toward her.

“Because if you lay one more hand on me tonight, I’ll cast a spell over the source of your male seed, sir, that will cause it to shrivel up and fall off.”

He stared at her in dismay for a long moment, then turned on his heel and strode angrily from the room. The door crashed behind him, but just as Mary was congratulating herself on being rid of him, she heard a key turn in the lock.

Across the loch, at the much larger, far more formidable Castle Dunraven, Black Duncan Campbell looked across the huge desk in his favorite sitting room at the messenger whose late arrival had drawn him wearily from his bed.

“You’re certain of this news, Bannatyne?”

“Aye, master. Allan Breck has been seen in Rannoch and also in Lochaber.”

“Over the past year men have reported seeing him in any number of places,” Duncan said harshly. “He never seems to linger in any of them, however.”

“Aye, that’s a fact, that is,” the shaggy-haired Bannatyne agreed. “No one claims to ha’ seen him more than once, but the landlord at the Swan on Rannoch Moor kens him fine, sir, or so he says, and he said Allan Breck drank a dram o’ whisky there not a sennight ago. Said he’s here to collect more money for the exiled lairds, same as always, only this time rumor speaks of a substantial sum available to him. The name MacCrichton were spoken more than once, the landlord said.”

“Not the first time, either,” Duncan said, absently patting the collie that had followed him in from his bedchamber and now pushed its head into his lap. “The MacCrichtons have long run with the Stewarts of Appin. What’s more, they seem to have taken advantage of the Earl of Balcardane’s long absence from Creran to increase their power hereabouts.”

“Only on the Appin side o’ the loch,” Bannatyne said loyally. “The Campbells still control this side.”

Duncan grunted. “That devil MacCrichton seems resistant to the notion of letting lost causes lie, however. It’s time that I had a word with him.”

“They say he is nay a man to be trusted,” Bannatyne said diffidently.

“Never fear. I don’t trust any man.” Duncan took a small pouch from the drawer of the desk and tossed it, jingling, to the man. “You’ve done well, Bannatyne. I’m sorry you had to trudge so far to find me. I came to Dunraven meaning only to move some of my horses from here to Balcardane, but it’s as well now, I think, that I
am
here. Shian Towers lies just across the loch, so we’ll take boats tomorrow, and I’ll pay Ewan, Lord Bloody MacCrichton, a friendly visit.”

“You’ll nay go alone, sir!”

“I am not a fool,” Duncan said. He spoke quietly, but his tone was such that Bannatyne flushed to the roots of his hair. “Though my worthy sire decries the cost of my entourage, I am thought to have sufficient men for my needs. But surely you don’t think MacCrichton will be foolish enough to take up arms against me, Bannatyne. That would be against the law, would it not?”

Apparently laboring under the misconception that Duncan required an answer, Bannatyne said, “Aye, sir. It’s gey unlawful for any Highlander to bear weapons, and has been since the Disarming Act nigh onto six years ago.”

“Do you truly suppose that no Highlander carries a weapon, Bannatyne?”

Looking at the sword belt draped over one corner of Duncan’s desk, then down at the
skean dhu
shoved into his own boot top, Bannatyne said with a frown, “Nay, sir. I’d nay put my trust in that.”

“Then you are not such a gowk as I thought. Pray, when you seek your pallet, send one of the lads sleeping in the hall here to me. I’ve instructions to give him.”

When the man had gone, Duncan got up and put another log on the fire. As he straightened, his dark gaze lighted on the portrait dominating the chimneypiece.

A fair-haired youth attired in the blue, green, and yellow Campbell plaid sat proudly astride a sleek bay horse. The artist had painted the lad laughing, with an unhooded falcon perched tamely on his shoulder atop bunched folds of the plaid. At the horse’s hooves a brown and white spotted spaniel romped gaily, bearing a bright red ball in its mouth, clearly inviting the rider to play.

Duncan’s lips hardened into a straight line, and he felt the surge of anger he always felt when his thoughts turned to his younger brother, Ian.

Solemnly now, speaking directly to the portrait, he said, “I will not rest, lad, until the murderous Allan Breck is dead. And may heaven help Ewan MacCrichton if he knows aught of the scoundrel and attempts to keep that knowledge from me.”

M
ARY WASTED NO TIME
feeling sorry for herself, knowing she would manage everything better after a good night’s sleep. Stripping to her chemise, she snuffed all the candles except for one on the table near the bed, then moved to climb under the covers, intending to say her prayers when she could do so without shivering. With one leg up on the high bed, she glanced back at the door.

Ewan had locked it from the outside, but that would do her no good if he decided to test her nonexistent ability to cast spells. A small wooden side-chair stood against the wall opposite the end of the bed.

Remembering a trick that her cousin Allan Breck had once shown her, she ran barefoot over the cold floor and dragged the chair to the door, tilting it so that its back caught beneath the latch hook and its back legs rested firmly in a crack between two of the dark wooden floorboards. Testing it and finding it steady, she hurried back to bed and slipped beneath the covers, leaving the bed curtains open.

Pale moonlight glowed from the turret room, almost like fairy light, and it made the bedchamber seem friendlier and more secure than it had earlier. Staring up at the tester above her, she said her prayers, taking care to remember her aunt and her cousins, the many deceased members of her family, and Ian. Then, deciding she had done her duty by her loved ones, she added a postscript on her own behalf.

“Dear Lord,” she murmured, “I don’t know what you can do about my predicament, but I pray you will do something to keep Ewan from succeeding in his plan. You may perhaps decide that, having made the mistake of trusting him, I must suffer the consequences, and if that is your will, I must abide by it. However, I did have reason to think him a kind man, and it is plain now that he is nothing of the sort. He wants only to benefit from the fearsome gift you bestowed on me. Surely, you cannot want that gift employed in such a cause by such a man. I am willing to do my part if you will but show me the way. Thy will be done. Amen.”

Hoping He would not think her impertinent for making such a request, especially in view of the fact that a promise to marry—even an informal one like the one she had made to Ewan—was a sacred act. Turning toward the turret chamber, she found comfort in the pale silvery glow, which seemed to have grown stronger.

As that thought crossed her mind, she slept, and although the sun poured in through that small chamber the following morning, she did not waken until she heard a rattling at the door. The rattle was followed by a clanking sound and then what sounded like a curse uttered in a very youthful voice.

“Who is there?” she called.

“Chuff’s here, that’s who’s here, but the master give me a key that willna open this cursed door, so I’ll ha’ tae gae doon again and tell ’im, and he’s as like tae give me a clout on me lug as tae give me another key.”

“Wait,” Mary called. “Don’t go!”

Scrambling from the bed, snatching up one of the coverlets to drape around herself for modesty’s sake, she hurried to move the chair away from the door.

“Try it now,” she urged.

The key rattled again in the lock, and the latch lifted. She pulled the door open herself and looked down at the little boy, who stared back at her curiously from singularly light-colored eyes fringed with thick dark lashes. He wore a shabby saffron-colored shirt and baggy threadworn breeches held up by a belt of rawhide cords twisted around an oddly shaped piece of metal that served as a buckle. On his feet he wore shapeless leather boots, tied round his ankles with more rawhide strips.

“I brung yer breakfast,” he said with a vague gesture toward a tray sitting on the top step behind him. “What did ye do tae the door?”

She hesitated to tell him, but she saw a glint of mischief in his eyes that told her instantly he would not side with Ewan against her. “If you will bring that tray in and put it down on that table by the hearth, I will show you what I did,” she said.

With a crooked grin, showing that one of his permanent eye teeth was still growing in, he did as she had asked, then turned expectantly. “Now, show me.”

She put the chair back where it had been. “See, the back fits under the latch hook, and the feet stick between the floorboards there, so the door cannot open.”

He nodded. “That’s clever, that is. I’ll keep that in me mind, I will.”

“I believe you will, Chuff. Thank you for bringing my breakfast.”

“It isna much,” he said. “Just porridge and a wee mug o’ ale.”

“Well, I’m hungry, so it will suit me just fine.”

The boy eyed her curiously. “The master said he means tae marry ye.”

“I know he did, and I did agree to marry him, but I have changed my mind, Chuff. A lady is allowed to do that, you know.”

“Is she then?”

“She is. That is why your master locked the door.”

He shot her an oblique look. “I’m tae lock it again, ye ken, when I leave ye.”

Sorely tempted though she was to beg him to leave it unlocked or to give her the key, she could not do it. She had heard Ewan threaten to whip him, and she did not doubt that Chuff would suffer if he helped her, so she said instead, “Will you come back again to visit me, Chuff?”

His grin flashed. “I’m tae collect the tray when ye’re done, so I can do that.” With that, he moved the chair and took himself off, locking the door behind him.

Mary examined the tray and seeing nothing on it that encouraged her to make haste with her meal, she decided to dress first. She had no way to know how long Ewan would grant her privacy, and she knew she would feel much more capable of facing him with her clothes on.

Since the amenities provided for her consisted only of a chamber pot and a pitcher of cold water, attending to her ablutions required but a few moments, after which she put on a fresh gown from her baggage, and brushed her hair. Then, taking the bowl of porridge to the little turret chamber, where she found a dressing stool and a semicircular table, she sat down to break her fast.

Cheerful, warm sunlight streamed in through a casement window, the glass and frame of which were rounded to fit the curve of the turret. When she finished, she stood and unlatched the window, pushing it open to find that despite the sunlight and the consequent warmth of the little chamber, the air outside was brisk and chilly, and the sky not entirely clear. Puffy gray clouds scudded overhead.