The Knight's Temptress (Lairds of the Loch) (7 page)

Having lost his right foothold as well as the left and now swinging free, Ian grabbed wildly for the rope with both hands at eye level. Had he not caught it so, he knew he’d likely have found himself upside down in the simple rope harness that he and Gorry had fashioned for his hips and thighs.

He might even have fallen headfirst to his death.

As it was, his position was damned precarious. Dangling as he was, the rope had to bear his full weight. Also, although he had crashed against the rock’s face, he had not yet found a handhold or purchase for either foot.

Trying to steady his nerves, he realized that the rope he held was vibrating. Letting go with his right hand, he felt along the rock face for a crack, crevice, or solid outcrop that would hold him if the rope broke.

Gripping the rope with his left hand and steadying
himself against the rock with his right, he had just found a place to put his right foot when he felt a stronger twitch. Then came a second, more violent one.

He nearly shouted up to ask Gorry what the devil he was doing before he remembered the man’s warning that he would signal when he could let down no more rope without detaching his end from one of its anchors. Ian acknowledged receiving that message with two tugs of his own and remembered that two more would tell Gorry he could retrieve the rope.

Ian suspected that if he took too long, Gorry might fling the rope after him to avoid being caught. He wouldn’t blame him if he did.

Accordingly, and finding a cleft into which he could jam his free hand, he tried to discern a way down from where he was.

Rough calculation told him that he was past the midway point. The rest, Gorry had assured him, would be no challenge for a man of his skills.

“Looks a devilish long way down to me,” Ian muttered.

However, the cleft he had found appeared to be part of a vertical crack between two massive slabs of granite. Below his feet, the crack widened to a crevice and continued downward, angling northward. It was deep enough for his fingers, even for his feet if he could get to the portion that slanted. He would have liked to know that it continued to the ground. But one worked with what one had, and Gorry was waiting.

With a slight shift of position, he found that he could stand with his back to the shallow angle formed by the protruding slab. Feeling more secure, he decided to try using both hands to loosen the rope harness.

He focused on the knots, not on the distance to the ground, and by the time the harness was undone, he could see more cracks and fissures below him.

The moon was peeping over the eastern horizon.

Although clouds occluded all but a dim glow at its edge, stars gleamed above, so the clouds were thinning. Moonlight would make the rest of his descent safer.

Keeping a firm grip on the edge of the crack he’d found, he gave two hard tugs on the rope and let go.

It dangled.

Looking up, he saw torchlight and moving shadows atop the rock.

Fearing that Gorry had fallen captive, Ian wondered if anyone up there could see him where he stood now. Tensely listening for shouts, he heard nothing.

The next time he looked, the torches were gone. Moments later, the rope slithered away upward like a long snake and vanished in the darkness.

Praying that Gorry was safe, Ian waited, scanning the panorama before him.

Eastward along the river Clyde, he saw pinpricks of light on the north bank that he knew were those of Dunglass. The sight gave him fervently to hope that his parents had retired for the night.

He would have to tell Colquhoun what he had done and knew he would not enjoy that discussion. His father would disapprove of his taking such a risk.

However, if Patrick Galbraith could not protect Lizzie and Lina, Galbraith and Colquhoun would want to know that, and fast. Soon after Mag had set out for Ayrshire, Galbraith had left Dunglass for Bannachra Tower, but Colquhoun would send a running gillie to him with a message.

Ian could at least assure both men that Gorry would get word to him if any more danger threatened the lady Lachina and Lizzie.

“Lina, are you still awake?”

Lina had been lying on a hard pallet, thinking about Sir Ian’s recklessness and the folly of his having dared to blow her a kiss. She wondered, too, how much of her predicament her sisters had sensed and what her mother and Lady Margaret must have thought when she and Lizzie failed to return from their ride.

It was therefore with relief that she murmured, “I’m awake, Liz.”

“I can’t sleep, either. This pallet is too thin and the floor is too hard.”

“Then think about something else,” Lina said, adjusting her cloak to block the icy draft that kept slipping under it.

Lizzie made a rude sound. “
All
I can think about is what a fool I was to ride off as I did. Or else I think about Dougal MacPharlain and how strange he seems. I do still think he is the handsomest man I’ve ever seen, though.”

“Put that thought out of your head,” Lina advised her. Hoping to change the subject, she added, “I could tell you one of Muriella’s tales, if you like.”

“Perhaps later,” Lizzie said. “She knows many stories, does she not?”

“She has a good memory,” Lina said. “I know some of them, too, though. I can tell you about the hero Tam Lin if you like.”

“First, I want to ask you something. Do you not agree
now that if we are kind and speak politely to Dougal, he will like us better and may agree to help us?”

“No, Lizzie, I don’t.”

“But you saw what happened when you spoke to him quietly. He listened to every word. And he had been ready to strike you, Lina. Even I could see that. But then, after you explained why you would not suit him as a wife, he left.”

“Aye, he did, but we have still had naught to eat, Liz. If he liked us or had truly taken responsibility for us, would he not at least have ordered some supper?”

“Men don’t think of such things,” Lizzie said. “Most of them think food just appears on the table when it is time to eat. I think Dougal is like that.”

“Perhaps you are right,” Lina said, yawning.

“I am. I also think he will order food for us if you just tell him we require some. You did influence him before, after all.”

“If he heeded aught I said, it was because you told him who I am. Or mayhap because his father had suggested that Dougal should marry a MacFarlan.”

“I didn’t mean to do that. He made me mad. But I do think you might—”

“Lizzie, forgive me, but you would do better to think of Dougal as an ill-bred horse. The sort who might respond briefly to kindness but who is just itching for a chance to bite or kick you.”

“We don’t keep ill-bred horses.”

“Exactly,” Lina murmured.

“Very well, then. Tell me about Tam Lin.”

Although she would rather have slept, Lina complied. To her relief, Lizzie’s soft, even breathing soon told her that she slept. Letting her voice trail to silence,
Lina also slept until sunlight crept in through their window Thursday morning and woke her. Getting up quietly, she relieved herself in the pail and went to look out the window.

Clouds still drifted above, but the river looked blue instead of gray as it had the day before. Ahead in the distance, she could see just the top of a tower that she suspected was Dunglass Castle. When her mother had taken her and her sisters to visit kinsmen, they had sometimes stayed overnight there and ridden Colquhoun ponies to Glasgow or Stirlingshire.

With a sigh, she shifted her view to the flatter, thickly forested land between Dumbarton’s great rock and Dunglass. She wondered if Ian was home and asleep.

A rattle at the door made her turn sharply to see that Lizzie had wakened and was eyeing the door with trepidation.

To Lina’s surprise, the same man entered who had come with Sir Ian the previous evening. Today he carried a pail. Beckoning behind him, he held the door open to let a rather grubby-looking boy enter, carrying a tray.

“It be nae more than bread and dried meat wi’ a jug o’ ale, m’lady,” the man said. “MacPharlain tellt me tae bring up summat tae break your fast. Having small choice, I told the kitchen lad just tae put summat together.”

“Thank you,” Lizzie said fervently. “We don’t care what it is as long as it is edible. I’m ravenous!”

The man smiled, and the boy put the tray on the room’s only table, saying, “Ye can put the dried beef on yon bread, mistress. I do that m’self.”

Lizzie rose and began to examine the tray’s contents with the lad’s aid.

Taking advantage of the diversion, Lina said to the man, “I do not know your name, but we are truly grateful to you. We have not eaten since yestermorn.”

Clicking his tongue in disapproval, the man said, “Ye can call me Gorry, m’lady. But if ye mention me tae MacPharlain, I’d liefer ye call me MacCowan. Sithee, he…” Pausing, he shook his head and added diffidently, “MacCowan’s enough for him, an it please ye.”

“I’ll remember, Gorry. May I ask”—she glanced at Lizzie, still enrapt with the food—“did the… um… the peat man get home safely last night?”

“Aye, sure,” he said. “Did he fail tae get there, we’d ha’ heard a hue and cry by now. Sithee, the laird be at Dun—” Breaking off, he shook his head at himself. “I’m a rattlepate and nae mistake. I had best be off, too, or someone will come tae fetch us, but we’ll bring your midday meal, too. MacPharlain said I was tae look after ye. I’m tae see that nae one else troubles ye like that Patrick Galbraith did.” To the boy, he added, “Take this pail now, lad, and exchange it for the used one. Be there aught else ye need, m’lady?”

“Can you find us some tasks to occupy our time? I can sew,” Lina said. “We would also be grateful for blankets.”

“I’ll see tae that,” he said, nodding as he shooed the lad out the door.

“Why did you ask him about the peat man?” Lizzie asked when they had gone. “You might have asked him to bring more peat for a fire tonight.”

“I’d rather have asked why Dougal sent him,” Lina said, having no wish to answer questions from Lizzie about the peat man.

Lizzie sighed and said, “I’m telling you, Lina, Dougal
likes you. And we would be daft not to take advantage of that.”

Having reached Dunglass only an hour or so before sunrise, Ian had fallen onto his bed in the clothes he wore to Dumbarton and then into deep sleep. So he strongly resented the sudden, violent shaking a few hours later.

“Stop it,” he grumbled.

When the shaking continued, he sat bolt upright, ready to pulverize whoever had dared to disturb him.

That worthy, however, having enjoyed long experience with his charge, had been ready to leap back at the first twitch of his eyelashes.

“What the devil ails you, Hak?” Ian growled.

Christened Hercules but never having lived up to the name, Hak was slight of build but quick of wit. Barely three years older than Ian, he had acted as his body servant from the age of thirteen and for some years now as his equerry.

“It be nigh midday, sir,” Hak said. “The laird said that did ye no come down tae eat wi’ him and her ladyship, he’d roust ye hisself.”

Suppressing an impulse to curse the laird and order the laird’s messenger to perdition, Ian satisfied himself with another growl.

“I brung ale, sir.”

“I don’t want ale.”

“By the look o’ ye, ye must ha’ been in your cups,” Hak said. “Wherever else would ye come by such a pile o’ rags as them ye wore tae bed?”

“I got them in exchange for my old breeks and one of
your
sarks,” Ian said, eyeing his man to see how he’d react to that news.

He wasn’t disappointed.

“
My
sark!”

“Aye, so you are well paid for waking me betimes.”

“Aye, then, I’ll go and tell the laird ye dinna want your dinner. Likely, he’ll just say good on ye and ha’ done wi’ it. But if ye’ve been up tae mischief again, as I’d warrant ye have, a-wearing o’ them rags—”

“Enough about the rags,” Ian said, sitting up and sniffing. “Is that
me
?”

“Aye, sure it is. Heaven kens it isna me, and there be only the two of us in here. Ye smell like a midden.”

“Shout for a bath then. It’s these damned rags that reek. When you’ve shouted for the bath, help me get out of them. I’ll see that you get a new shirt.”