Dreamer (Highland Treasure Trilogy) (24 page)

She halted when she heard a noise
behind her. Ceasing to breathe, she tried to look back, but could see only
darkness. Catherine looked forward again, certain that whatever lay ahead,
Susan was there. And then she heard the noise again. A small scrape--the sound
of metal against stone somewhere behind her. A man’s grunt. Catherine’s hand
slowly reached down, wrapping around the handle of the dirk at her belt.

Could someone have followed her in
the same way she had followed Susan? she wondered. 

All of a sudden, the vulnerability
of her situation hit her hard, and hastily Catherine scrambled forward in the
tunnel. How could she protect herself in such a confined space? As far as she
knew, she had no enemy. But it wasn’t very long ago that Roy Sykes had
disappeared from Balvenie Castle. Some had said that he’d feared the earl’s
wrath and had left before he could be punished for helping Catherine and Brother Bartholomew depart for Elgin. Others said that he’d always been a suspicious fellow and
most likely had left to join the ranks of outlaws who had banded together under
Adam of the Glen.

Either way, as far as Catherine was
concerned, facing an opponent in this narrow tunnel presented real danger, and she
pressed forward with little concern about the sounds of her own progress.

Catherine could feel a breath of
cool air on her face, and soon realized that the passage was again becoming
smaller. She paused for a moment, listening. She could hear nothing behind her,
but that did little to make her feel safe. Again crawling forward on her belly,
she pushed on until her hands suddenly met with solid rock. Panic seized her
for a moment, but her hands--searching for some opening--found a small hole by
her shoulder, and she crawled through. 

In a moment, the tight sides of the
passage opened up and she knew she was in a larger space. Standing up
carefully, she had the sense of being in a cave of some sort, and listened for
any sign of Susan. There was nothing.

It was not difficult deciding which
way to go. Turning her face in the direction of the fresh air, Catherine
started forward carefully through the darkness.

She didn’t see what was coming
until she was already entangled in the tough thorny briars covering the
entrance to the cave. Swallowing her scream of surprise and then her cry of
pain, she struggled wildly for a moment before realizing the futility of such
an act.

The long thorns were already
embedded in her cloak and her dress, and she could feel the sharp barbs digging
into her face. Taking a calming breath, Catherine tried to minimize the damage
and extricate herself from the tangle.

 The briars were thick and
treacherous, but she soon freed herself from the sharp barbs. Stepping back,
she tried to feel for some opening, but the passage again appeared blocked. She
listened again for some sound, either ahead or behind her, but she could hear
nothing.

When they were children, Catherine
and her sisters had once had a secret place where they had played. It too was a
place surrounded by briars, the long thorns protecting them. There, within the
confines of the intricate web of branches, they had built an imaginary home
where Laura could constantly engage in plans of improvement while Adrianne had
swung a stick sword about, chafing for the opportunity to conquer distant
lands. Catherine still recalled the way they had needed to crawl along the
ground beneath the thorns...

She dropped to her knees. Sure
enough, there was an opening, and the cool night air swept back her hair as she
crawled through.

Emerging on the other side,
Catherine stood and looked about her. There was a damp chill in the air, and
she pulled the cloak tightly around her. She was standing in a wide, rocky
ditch, and the briars behind her formed a kind of hedge.  There was no sign of
Susan. Cautiously, Catherine crossed to the far side of the trench and climbed
the steep wall until her face was even with the top.

Not far down the hillside from the
ditch, a cluster of small cottages huddled against the slope. The few windows
were dark, though wisps of smoke could be seen coming from the smoke holes in
the sod roofs. The glen lay below, and she turned to look back up the hill. The
castle loomed black and ominous in the distance, and she was surprised at how
far the tunnel had taken her from the curtain walls. Not far from the trench,
clumps of scraggly young trees pointed toward the dark forest groves that
covered the top of the east ridge of the glen, and Catherine decided that Susan
must have gone that way.

As she crossed the ground toward
the trees, the sounds of restless sheep and the sporadic lowing of a cow
drifted up the hill. She was not far from the first stand of trees when the
clouds covered the half moon and the going became nearly impossible.

“I can’t believe I’ve done this,”
she muttered under her breath, looking up at where the moon had been. “You
can’t see a thi...”

The hand clamped roughly over her
mouth, and Catherine never had even a chance to cry out. The attacker was big,
and she grabbed for the dagger at her belt as he threw her violently onto the
heather-covered hillside. He shoved her face into the earth, and she could feel
his weight on her and her dirk pinned beneath her. A second assailant yanked at
her hair, and as she opened her mouth to scream, the villain stuffed a filthy
rag in her mouth. They were strong, and Catherine panicked as she felt a
leather thong bind her hands behind her.

“Well, Jock,” one growled as he
jerked her to her feet, “won’t the master be pleased to have this bonny bird.”

*****

At the sounds of some distant
commotion, John Stewart was out of bed and at the door of his chamber in an
instant. Pulling his shirt over his head and yanking open the door into his
outer chamber, he was immediately confronted by Tosh.

“There was a fire in the keep,
m’lord. But ‘tis already under control. With the exception of a singed blanket
or two, and some smoke, it appears that everything was spared.”

Athol quickly wrapped his kilt
around his waist. “Do you know how it started?”

“Nay, m’lord. There’s no telling. But my guess is that one of the servants dropped a taper going through the old section of the
keep. The whole thing was under control before I even got there.”

  “Wait for me, I want to see it.”
Having so many of his crofters’ buildings burned by Adam of the Glen was making
Athol very suspicious when it came to fire. Turning back to his bedchamber,
though, he wanted first to put Catherine’s mind at ease regarding the
incident. 

Pushing the door shut in his warrior’s
face, Athol came to an abrupt stop at the sight of his empty bed.

“By the devil,” he muttered,
throwing his hands in the air in frustration. “Why am I not surprised?”

No matter what he said--no matter
how passionate their lovemaking had been--he always found her gone in the
morning, having stolen off at some time during the night to her own drafty
little chamber. This seemed to be a last shred of the independence that she
appeared so stubborn about relinquishing. Well, he thought, considering how agreeable
she’d become, perhaps it was foolishness to allow something so little to rile
him so much.

Turning around and stalking past
Tosh in the outer chamber, Athol grumbled over his shoulder. “So where exactly
was the fire?”

“‘Twas in the upstairs corridor of
the old section, m’lord. Just outside of the chamber given to Lady Catherine
when she arrived.”

Athol turned sharply to his man.
“The fire was near her chamber? Are you certain no one was hurt?”

“No one, m’lord! In fact, the
English monk who got there first managed to put out most of the flames while
shouting for help.”

Breaking into a run, John Stewart
raced up the stairwell and along the corridors into the old section of the
keep, cursing himself for being such a fool. How could he let her remain there,
when she could have been sleeping safely in his arms? And because of the
recklessness of some sleepy servant, she could have been hurt!

There was a pall of smoke hanging
as low as his head in the corridor outside Catherine’s door, and Athol pushed
through the crowd of warriors and serving folk. They had already begun to clean
up the mess, and burned rushes lay in a pile beside a badly scorched blanket.
Nodding to his old steward and the servants who were carefully sweeping the
blackened cinders from the oak floor, the earl pushed open the door and walked
in. But the room lay vacant.  The bed untouched. Her belongings hung on pegs in
the same orderly fashion as always. The smell of smoke was comparatively faint
in here.

Stepping immediately out, Athol turned
to Jean, who stood eyeing the rushes with a perplexed look on her face.

“Where is Lady Catherine, Jean?”

“Not here, m’lord.” The serving
woman looked suddenly concerned. “We thought--beg your pardon--we thought she
was with you.”

“Was she here when the fire broke
out?”

Jean bit her lip and then shook her
head. “In fact, after the monk, I was the first to arrive here. Though I didn’t
need to be told, he made sure I knocked at the mistress’s door. By then the fire was out, but he wanted to be sure that Lady Catherine knew everything was fine
and she was in no danger. But she wasn’t there, m’lord. Are ye telling me...?”

Athol couldn’t keep the worry from
his voice as he turned to Auld Mab, who had just pushed through the throng. “Is
Lady Catherine with the dowager, Mab?”

The ancient woman shook her head.
“Nay, m’lord. Your mother sent me to check on the commotion. I’ve not seen hide
nor hair of your wife.”

The crowd opened a path for him as the earl of Athol moved quickly down the corridor. Tosh was at his heels. His
commands were sharp, though he himself could hear the note of concern in his
voice.

“Gather every one of the men. I
want this place turned upside down until you find Lady Catherine. Make sure no
one opened the gates for her. And if anyone gave her a mule and sent her on her
merry way, I want his tongue nailed to the stable wall.” He whirled and glared
at his man. “I do not care what it takes, I want her found. And I want you to send the English monks to me in the Great Hall. I want to make sure there is
nothing else that I should know.”

With a curt nod, Tosh ran ahead as
Athol moved to the long thin window. With a sharp curse, he smashed a fist
against the wall. He was so worried about her that he couldn’t even think. His
mind...and his heart...were no more than a jumble of fears. Never in his whole
life had he ever felt so vulnerable to the outside world. 

By St. Andrew, he vowed, after he’d
found her, he would chain her to his bed if that was the only way he could keep
her safe. Whatever it took, he would convince her. He would even pour out his
heart to make her understand what worrying about her did to him.

When he’d taken Catherine Percy as
a wife, Athol had never imagined he could be plagued with such thoughts. How
could he ever have known that loving her could become an obsession--that
keeping her safe would become the greatest challenge of his life!

Although the auburn-haired Adam of
the Glen was broader in build than her husband, he was not as tall as Athol,
and he was not even close to being as handsome. Still, though, the resemblance
was stunning. To Catherine’s thinking, there could be no doubt that they were
indeed brothers.

After being captured by the two
brutes, she’d been blindfolded and walked a long way. Not long after beginning
the trek, she been able to work the gag out of her mouth, but whether her
captors noticed it or not, she had no idea. Either way, she made no attempt to
cry out, and thankfully they made no effort to replace it.

They’d climbed into the hills that
she guessed lay to the east of the castle, and then the smell of pine and the
feel of needles beneath her feet told her that they were traveling through a
thick wood. Up hills and down they’d walked, until suddenly the ground became
jagged with rock, and they’d started down a tortuously steep path filled with loose gravel. As they’d passed again into some woods, the air took on a smell
that created in Catherine’s mind a vision of the abandoned, water-filled stone
quarry where she and her sisters had played and learned to swim as children.
The sound of falling water reached her ear from somewhere nearby. 

In a few moments she was startled
at the sensation of being lifted up as the three of them splashed across a
small brook. Woods again, and then the smell of a campfire, and then the voices
of more rough men, surprised and questioning as she was led past a crackling
fire and shoved without ceremony onto the ground.

It wasn’t long until the leader had
returned to the encampment, and when he’d yanked the blindfold from her eyes,
Catherine had stared into the face of a man clearly weighing his options. She
even sensed a hint of puzzlement in his eyes as he frowned at her. Two men,
obviously the ones who brought her, stood nearby, gloating until one ventured
to speak.

“‘Twas a good night’s work, master,
wouldn’t ye say?”

“Aye, Ren,” the leader replied
vaguely, rubbing his chin with a huge hand. He waved Ren off when the outlaw
began to speak again. “Let me think a moment.”

Without another word, Adam of the
Glen began to pace back and forth between Catherine and the fire. But Catherine, soon tiring of the man’s brooding silence and his dizzying march, turned her
attention to the sorry-looking group gathered about. Despite their Highland dress and their rough handling of her, most of them looked no different than the
many farmers she’d known in her life. Clearly, from their curious stares, they
saw her as a great prize, and all of them were expectantly awaiting their
leader’s next move.