Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Sabrina felt Morgan’s grip tighten for an implacable instant as if even the threat of death weren’t enough to make him let her go.

Had she not been riveted by the smoky green of his eyes, she would have seen the desperate glances exchanged by his men. Ranald could take out Elizabeth Cameron with one shot, but if her finger so much as twitched on her own trigger, the MacDonnells would be less not only one blustering figurehead, but also the man who bound the remnants of their clan together. A costly price to pay even for a meal as hearty as the one the Cameron had provided.

Morgan made the decision for them.

Staring straight ahead, he surrendered Sabrina’s wrists and lifted his hands. He slowly rose, unfolding his large frame with measured grace. Sabrina remained sprawled on the floor, mesmerized by his arrogant stance and the unrepentant quirk of his lips. She was beginning to wonder if she was destined to spend her life at this man’s feet. She could now clearly see the pearl-plated pistol shoved against the side of his throat.

“Anythin’ to please a lady,” he drawled, daring a rueful smile.

Her father braced his palms on the table, looking as weary as Sabrina had ever seen him. The gray in his hair fanned out from his pallid temples in stark wings. “Brian, Alex, escort our guest to the dungeon before your mother kills him.” His voice trembled with suppressed fury. “I want the rest of you out of my home. Now!”

“Murdered our poor chieftain before dessert,” Ranald muttered, tucking his pistol down the front of his kilt. He pilfered a mutton leg from a table as he passed. “Bloody rude lot if ye ask me. No manners a-tall.”

“Aye,” another MacDonnell dared, scooping up a flagon of ale and a handful of silver spoons. “Angus was a fine man. He deserved to meet death face-to-face, not be stabbed in the back by some miserable Cameron coward.”

Grumbling like disgruntled children at being deprived of the anticipated bloodshed, the MacDonnells trailed out. The women of their acquaintance were as likely to shoot a man as bed him, and they had no reason to believe the Cameron’s wife was any different. They weren’t willing to risk Morgan’s life to salvage either pride or pudding.

One of the larger men heaved Angus’s corpse over his shoulder. Morgan didn’t even blink as his father’s body jostled past, although Sabrina would have sworn she saw a muscle twitch in his granite jaw. She shuddered to imagine her own papa’s body being bounced about with such lack of ceremony.

Brian and Alex caught Morgan’s wrists, twisting them behind him with more force than was necessary. Bronzed slabs of muscle rippled in his forearms, a harsh reminder that it was only by his grace and the pistol still trained on his head that they were being allowed to restrain him at all. Her brothers’ faces were taut with rage as they bound the hands of their former friend.

As they marched him from the hall, Morgan allowed himself one last sweet taste of rebellion. He twisted around and leveled a long, inscrutable look at Sabrina.

His eyes marked her more plainly than his blood ever could, promising plainly what his lips could not.

Later…

A dark shiver raked her. Brian gave Morgan a shove. Then they were gone and her father and mother were kneeling beside her, her father wrapping his frock coat around her shoulders, her mother enfolding her in a perfumed embrace.

“Did that wicked beast hurt you?” Elizabeth smoothed the hair from Sabrina’s face.

“Not yet,” she answered absently, still staring at the empty doorway.

Dougal lifted her wrists to the light as if searching for far more than just the circlet of bruises that should have branded them. They were unmarked, as smooth and creamy as they had been when she crept out of her bedchamber. A strange mixture of triumph and sorrow knitted his brow.

“So, my wee princess, have you had enough excitement for one night?” he asked.

She laughed shakily. “Enough for a lifetime, I do believe. Wherever did you get the pistol, Mama?”

Elizabeth frowned at the weapon as if seeing it for the first time. “A German clockmaker made it for my father in thanks for a generous donation to his Lutheran church.” She pointed it at the ceiling and pulled the trigger. A colorful shock of feathers burst from the muzzle.

An odd sound gurgled up in Sabrina’s throat, half sob, half giggle. “Bested by roses and feathers all in one night. Poor devil.”

Her parents exchanged a troubled look over her head. Dougal reached to stroke her cheek, but was stopped by the sight of the ugly bloodstains on his hands.

“Who would dare to work such wickedness?” Elizabeth asked.

Dougal’s hands closed into determined fists. “I don’t know. But I’ve every intention of finding out.”

“Perhaps some enemy of Angus’s, neither Cameron nor MacDonnell, slipped into the manor undetected,” Sabrina suggested.

Her parents both stared at her as if they’d forgotten her presence.

“Don’t you worry your comely wee head about it, princess,” Dougal commanded.

“Your papa’s right. We were thoughtless to discuss it in front of you. Come along, lamb,” her mother coaxed, helping her to her feet. “I’ll tuck you into your bed and brew you a nice hot cup of tea.”

Sabrina surprised both her parents and herself by pulling away and forcing her weak knees to support her. “Thank you, Mama, but I believe I shall take myself off to bed. If I’d have stayed there to begin with, I might have spared everyone a great deal of bother.”

Sabrina didn’t want to be coddled. She didn’t want to climb between her crisp linen sheets, sink into her warm down mattress, and think of Morgan, chained below the layers of stone and wood in the chill, damp dungeon.

Her parents watched her climb the stairs, her diminutive frame swallowed by her father’s knee-length coat. Dougal’s natural optimism prevailed. A thread of excitement twined through his dismay over Angus’s death. Perhaps the crusty old chieftain hadn’t died for naught. Perhaps the opportunity for Dougal to realize both his hopes for Clan Cameron and his dreams for his beloved daughter had just fallen into his lap along with Angus’s body.

He shook his head, marveling at the sweet irony of fate. “Not a mark on her. Extraordinary.”

Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed. She had seen that angelic expression on her husband’s face before and had every reason to distrust it. “Not a mark you can see,” she muttered.

Sabrina’s steps had already begun to drag before she reached the top of the stairs. She rounded the corner of the gallery only to stumble over Enid’s prostrate form.

Her cousin rolled to a sitting position, knuckling her reddened eyes. “Dear heavens, I must have dozed off. I didn’t miss anything, did I?”

It took Sabrina three days to muster up her courage. Three days of being ruthlessly cosseted by her mother. Three days of watching her father, brothers, and the elders of their clan stomp and swear about the manor in search of a solution to their dilemma. Three days of listening to the MacDonnell bagpipes keen in protest outside the manor walls. At least, she thought, the sunken earth of the dungeon would muffle their endless drone.

The tapered heel of her slipper caught in a crevice in the stone. She braced her palm against the damp wall to keep from pitching down the winding stairs into blackness. She could well imagine her parents’ horror to find her broken body crumpled at the foot of the stairs. Her breath rasped from her throat, echoing eerily in a silence broken only by the torturous drip of water on stone. A stale draft licked at the flame of her candle. She loosed her grasp on the wall to cup her hand around it. She would rather go tumbling headfirst than to be left alone in this stygian darkness.

Her teeth chattered as she inched her foot from one step to the next, thinking it a fine time to discover she was more cowardly than Enid.

She stepped off the last stair into the belly of a serpentine corridor. The air hung dank and chill. She slipped her hand into the pocket of her gown just long enough to squeeze a measure of valor from the warm, linen-wrapped package within.

The maze of passages twisted, digging Sabrina deeper into the earth with each bend. She passed empty cells layered in limp straw and refuse, iron doors hanging off rusted hinges, manacles dangling from domed ceilings, their tangled chains marred by a coppery stain she feared was not rust. The walls wept oily tears that trickled into dank pools at her feet, soaking the ruched silk of her slippers. Squeaks and rustles greeted each of her shy footfalls, and once a sinuous slither caused her to jerk up the hem of her skirt and stand paralyzed for a faltering heartbeat.

For decades the dungeon had slumbered vacant beneath the ancient tower of Cameron Keep. Remembering Morgan’s taunts, Sabrina wondered if another MacDonnell might have been its last occupant—perhaps his grandfather or his contentious great-great-great-uncle christened Horrid Halbert by both enemies and clansmen for his unfortunate habit of skinning his foes alive. A draft raked icy claws down her exposed nape, making her shiver.

She hurried around a curve she would have sworn she’d passed only moments before. She didn’t know how much time she had. She’d been able to steal away only because the men had rushed from the manor to keep a drunken MacDonnell from setting fire to the village kirk.

This gloomy cavern seemed a world away from the graceful wings of the manor house. The corridors narrowed. The skirts draped over her wide paniers brushed the walls. The weight of the stones pressed in on her until she could almost hear the ghosts of booted footsteps and hellish screams of torment. She fought panic, afraid to admit she was lost. Remembering the look of warning Morgan had given her in the hall, she realized she must be lost indeed to willingly seek him out.

Just as she was ready to succumb to the temptation of plopping down on the filthy stone and bawling like a baby, a tunnel sprang into her path. A blast of chill wind moaned through the yawning passageway. Her candle guttered, then winked out.

Sabrina slammed her eyes shut. Better a dark of her own making than the cloying murk of panic. But she quickly realized she couldn’t just stand there forever with her eyes closed. Not only was it futile, it was boring. She pried one eye open, then the other. The useless candlestick slid from her hands to clatter on the stones.

The faintest spark of light would have blinded her to the glow at the far end of the tunnel. Only utter darkness revealed it. The floor slanted beneath her feet. She crept forward, hugging the wall for comfort, afraid she might not ever find Morgan and more afraid she would.

The light revealed iron bars rooted between floor and ceiling and a man so still he might have been sculpted of the massive slabs of rock that entombed him. A fat candle sputtered in a wooden sconce, its spare light flirting with the shadows. Sabrina’s relief that her father had not been so cruel as to leave him in darkness was buried beneath a fierce surge of anger as she saw the thick chains that manacled his arms and legs to an iron stake embedded in the floor. No wonder her father hadn’t seen fit to post a guard.

Primitive outrage tore at her. Morgan shouldn’t be imprisoned in this miserable hole. He should be galloping across the glen, a breeze winnowing his wheaten hair. He should be sleeping beneath a crisp net of stars, his only shelter the rustling boughs of the pines.

He sat on a narrow shelf that jutted from the wall. Not even the greedy shadows could dull the sheen of the hair that veiled his face. He slowly tipped back his head, dispelling the image of beaten prisoner with one motion.

A bruise smudged the skin beneath his left eye. The decadent fullness of his lower lip was marred by a cut as if he’d been caught there by a blow from a heavy ring. Recalling the fiercely protective looks on her brothers’ faces as they’d led him away, Sabrina suspected they had sought their own private retribution after Morgan had been safely chained.

But instead of eliciting sympathy, his injuries only made him look more dangerous. Sabrina’s lips tightened. She’d do well to remember that this man neither warranted nor needed her pity.

He unfolded his heavy frame, transforming the confining space from cell to cage. His plaid was knotted around his waist. His bare chest gleamed like buttered steel. He padded toward her, leashed animal power in every movement. Had he charged her roaring and rattling his chains, he would have no more resembled a warrior spawned from some barbaric hell. As he approached the bars, Sabrina backed instinctively against the opposite wall.

At first Morgan thought captivity had driven him mad. He had paced every inch of the cell before sinking down on the bench to fight despair. Then into this dank, foul-smelling prison had come a whisper of roses and an even more incongruous aroma of ginger and spice. His groin and his stomach tightened with hunger, each vying for his attention.

He couldn’t believe Sabrina was really there, so prim and clean-smelling, her skin glowing like alabaster in the thin light. A coronet of braids graced her fair brow. Still playing the princess, he thought, and he might have grinned if his torn lip hadn’t hurt so damned much.

He closed his fingers around the bars, ignoring the abrading tug of the chains. “Come to gloat, have you? To gawk at the pretty beast and enjoy your revenge for all those nasty tricks he played upon you?”

The chains would never allow him to reach her, yet his very proximity robbed Sabrina of all her wit. Against her own best intentions she blurted out the truth. “I was afraid you might be hurting.”

“I am. My nose hurts like hell. You broke it, you know.”

She tilted her head to study him. Not even a broken nose could damage the ruggedly asymmetric magnetism of his features.

He shrugged off her scrutiny. “It’s been broke before. Probably will be again if I live long enough. Of course, your lovin’ da will see to it that I don’t.”

“I wasn’t talking about your nose. I was talking about your father.”

He shrugged again, although the lazy glitter of his eyes sharpened. “Nothin’ to talk about. The old rogue is dead.”

Sabrina had expected to find him wild with grief, roaring with rage. His icy calm was even more unsettling. She wondered if he kept all his emotions in such merciless check.

Breaking away from his gaze, she began to pace before the cell, still maintaining a wary arm’s length between them. “I don’t see how you can believe my father killed yours. If he had, don’t you think he would have armed his own clansmen? Why would he risk the lives of his family for such a petty, malicious trick?”

“You tell me.”

She stole a glance at him to gauge his reaction. He yawned, shaking his mane out of his eyes like a big, sleepy lion.

She paced faster, refusing to let him goad her. “Before Angus was murdered, I saw the tapestries ripple as if someone were hiding behind them. What was to stop the assassin from sneaking in by the side corridor, then fleeing the same way? You can’t deny your father had enemies enough. Why, it could have been anyone! Someone from the village. A passing Grant or Chisholm who would relish the idea of starting a fresh war between our clans.”

Or even one of your very own clansmen . Sabrina bit back the words, knowing he would see them only as a ruse to clear her father’s name.

He braced the back of his forearm against the bars above his head. “Anyone but you, my sweet. We all know where you were, don’t we?”

His mocking tone shamed her. She could almost feel the gentle stroke of his lips against hers and felt as if she’d been caught strolling naked through a regiment of MacDonnells. Tendrils of heat twined up her throat to her cheeks.

Morgan glared at the fragile incline of Sabrina’s neck, choking back a growl. The girl ought to be made to wear her hair loose, he thought, if only for his own self-preservation. The sight of her bare nape twisted something deep inside him, something best left untouched. He’d rather see her angry than vulnerable. Perhaps that was why he’d spent so many years teaching her to hate him.

“Where are my men?” he barked. “No one in this godforsaken hole will tell me.”

Sabrina wasn’t supposed to tell him either. She shot him a look from beneath her lashes, trying to decide how far she would go to earn even a crumb of his trust in the hope of averting further tragedy for both their clans.

“They’re camped on the hill across from the manor,” she finally said, sighing in defeat. “But no one can tell if they’re planning a siege or celebrating. They dance and swill whisky all day, then terrorize the village by night. Oh, and they play the bagpipes. Incessantly. If this were Jericho, the walls would have crumbled the first day.”

“That would be Ranald. He’s a bloody wretched pipe player.”

“At least we agree on something.”

Morgan paced away from the bars, dragging his chains behind him. He couldn’t afford to let Sabrina see the excitement flaring behind his eyes. If his men were still nearby, there might be a chance of escape. Perhaps even now they awaited some signal from him.

When he swung back around, Sabrina recoiled with fresh horror.

Morgan was smiling.

As if that weren’t enough to stun her, this was no ordinary smile. It held not even a trace of the mockery or maddening arrogance she had come to expect from him. This was a boyish grin, devastating in its openness. It crinkled his face in all the right places and cut to her heart faster than a blade. It was the smile Hades might have given Persephone before sweeping her off to the underworld. The smile Satan might have leveled on Christ to tempt him in the wilderness. Neither chains nor bars could contain it. A woman would do anything for a smile like that. Anything at all. He padded toward the bars and the fear that she was being stalked turned to terror.

His voice softened to a husky purr that stroked her staggering senses. “I thought I was dreamin’ when I looked up to see you standin’ there. Or that I’d died and gone to heaven.”

Sabrina couldn’t resist cocking a skeptical eyebrow. Had she not been blistered by the intensity of his charm, she would have burst into laughter at his sheer gall. But some mischievous part of her wanted to see just how far he’d take this charade.

She shuffled her feet modestly. “You more likely thought you’d been banished to hell to find such an ugly imp peering through the bars at you.”

His palm flew to his heart as if her words had wounded him. “Don’t dare to jest so, lass. Even the angels must weep with jealousy at your loveliness.”

Sabrina was tempted to peer behind him to see if Angus’s ghost was talking while Morgan moved his mouth. “The angels need have no fear of me. As a certain boy once took great delight in reminding me, I am far from lovely.” The lightness of her voice belied the pain of the memory as she counted off her faults on her fingers. “My lips are too puffy, my neck too scrawny. My ears point heavenward like the basest of elves, and my nose puts one in mind of Pugsley.”

His remorseful gaze never made it past her lips. “Ah, but those were the taunts of a foolish boy. I’m not a boy anymore, Sabrina. I’m a man.”

Her name rolled from his lips like song. She wasn’t sure what jolted her more—hearing him address her as something besides brat, or his blunt stating of the obvious. With the plaid draped low across his narrow hips and the taut knitting of bone and muscle in his chest exposed, the nature of his sex could have been no more evident had he let the plaid fall in a pool at his feet.

Her heart thudded into a traitorous rhythm at the vision. She lowered her eyes, hating that she wasn’t as immune to his cunning as she’d hoped. She wanted to end it. She didn’t want to know how far he’d go to achieve his mercenary ends. She feared she already knew.

Tilting her head, she affected a winsome smile and played her final card. “I didn’t come here to gawk or gloat, Morgan. I came to offer my help.”

He crooked a finger at her, luring her nearer the cell. She sidled toward him as if it were only maidenly shyness keeping her out of his reach. His hands closed over the bars, his fingers sliding up and down in a calculated stroke that made her skin dance.

“I’ll not ask much of you, lass. If you’ll just bring me the pistol I entrusted to your tender care, I’ll be out of your da’s hair in a trice.” His voice softened to a rough whisper. “Please, Sabrina. I need you.”

His words reverberated through her soul like the echo of a forgotten dream. How many times had she risked his scorn for the chance to hear them? And if she brought him his precious pistol, what would he do? Probably shoot her through her foolish heart with it. Wry anger spilled through her.

“I swear I’ll take care not to hurt any of your kin,” he continued, coaxing and seducing with that glib devil’s tongue of his. “I’ll just put the gun right here under my plaid—”

“May I suggest a better hiding place?” she inquired sweetly. “It won’t be quite as comfortable, but I can promise you the guards won’t think to look there.”

Morgan looked as shocked as if an angel had snapped her wings at him and started spewing profanity. His smile vanished. A black scowl split his brow. His fists clenched on the bars, looking more inclined to throttle than caress. Despite her trepidation, Sabrina wasn’t surprised to learn she liked this Morgan far better than his duplicitous twin.

She took a step backward, wary of the flex and ripple of his chest muscles. “It seems in your past perusal of my chubby lips and pointy ears, you forgot one thing—a brain. I have one. Tell me, does that oily pandering actually work on the ladies of your acquaintance?”

“Don’t know any ladies,” he admitted, managing to look sulky, sheepish, and thoroughly dangerous at the same time.

“Then with what tender phrases do you woo the lasses?”

“‘Bend over’ usually does it,” he snapped.

Sabrina’s hand fluttered to her throat as if it could stymie the disturbing images his words provoked. “I’m not playing games with you, Morgan. I came here to help you. But not to offer pistols or knives or even keys. Aren’t you sick of all the bloodshed? What’s going to happen when the rest of your clan marches out of the mountains and lays siege to Cameron? More fighting? More dying? If you’d only give my father time to prove his innocence, you’d be able to convince your clan of it as well. They’d listen to you. You’re their chieftain now. If you weren’t so blasted stubborn—”

A choked sound from the cell stopped her. Morgan had covered his head with his folded arms. His big shoulders quaked. He threw back his head and roared with a laughter so black and devoid of mirth that it raised the hairs at Sabrina’s nape. Tears streamed from his eyes, but when she saw the hopelessness reflected in their depths, she wondered if they weren’t tears of another kind altogether.

“The rest of my clan?” he echoed. “Oh, that’s rich, lass. It seems the Camerons will have the last laugh after all, because there are no more of us. Those prancin’, pipin’ fools on the hill are all that’s left. All died off, the others have, and now my own da’s gone to join them. He’s probably wenchin’ in hell right now and havin’ a good laugh at my expense. I’m the chieftain, all right. The chieftain of nothin’!”

Sabrina was stunned. She couldn’t even fathom the death of her clan. Clan Cameron numbered in the hundreds, each man farming his own plot in the glen, swearing fealty to her father, even taking his name as their own before God and man in a ceremony as quaint and timeless as that of the tenderest wedding.

To be clanless in the Highlands was to be no less than the basest of outcasts.

Morgan’s gaze met hers. “I believed I wouldn’t crawl, but I was wrong. I would have crawled for them. I would have died for them. They’re all I have. All I am.”

Would any man ever declare himself for her with such passion and fervency? she wondered. Her heart lurched to realize Morgan wanted peace even more than her father did. His very existence depended on it. And now all his hopes had died at the brutal, cunning hands of Angus’s murderer.

She started for the cell, wanting to offer him comfort even if it was only the press of her fingers through the bars.

“Don’t !” he roared.

Sabrina froze. Here at last were the grief and rage he’d kept leashed inside him, boiling from his eyes in molten warning. His chains rattled, the manacles no more than fragile iron bracelets as he flexed his mighty arms.

“Don’t,” he repeated. “Don’t come near the bars.” Then more softly, “Don’t you know what I could do to you?”

Sabrina thrust her hands into her pockets to hide their trembling. A faint warmth still emanated from one of them. She drew out the linen package she had wrapped with such care.

Morgan stood unmoving as she took one step toward the bars, then another, refusing to meet his eyes lest she lose her courage. Another step would put her within his reach.

She took it, bracing herself for the whip of the chain around her throat. When it didn’t come, she knelt and laid her offering just outside the bars, where he could reach it without straining. The angular flare of his calves and wide-boned feet filled her vision.

She smoothed back the edges of the crested napkin, freeing the spicy aroma of ginger and molasses. “I remembered how gingerbread was always your favorite. You used to drive the cook mad, stealing it from the kitchen before it cooled.”

Fearful of the scorn she might read on his face, she turned and started up the tunnel. A mouse was already creeping out of his nest to investigate. He stood up on his hind legs, whiskers twitching as he whiffed the air. At least someone would benefit from her folly, she thought, dashing away a stray tear before Morgan could see it.

Morgan’s fingers bit into the bars as he watched Sabrina go. His gaze dropped to the generous slab of cake at his feet, then shot back to the end of the tunnel, where Sabrina paused to peer both ways before plunging into the darkness. His gaze drifted to the cake again. His nostrils twitched at its pungent scent. His stomach contracted with hunger. The mouse inched toward the napkin, its tiny claws skittering on the stones.

Sabrina darted past the mouth of the tunnel again, flitting like a ghost through the oily blackness. Morgan watched her patter past three more times before growling an oath under his breath.

“Woman!” he barked.

Silence, then she reappeared, her face a pale oval against the darkness. Morgan wrenched his candle from its sconce, tearing loose its tallow moorings, and thrust it through the bars.

“Take it.”

“Oh, but I really couldn’t. You’d be left in the dark until the guards returned and—”

“Take it!” he repeated. “I want you the hell out of here. You’re ruinin’ my bloody appetite.”

Their fingers brushed as she took the candle from him. Neither of them paid any attention to the spatter of hot tallow against their skin. She cupped her palm around the flame, stubbornly refusing to let the draft seize it.

“Brat?” he whispered, wanting to give her something more for all she had given him. A grimy candle couldn’t compare to the courage it must have taken for her to creep into this damp hell and offer him comfort for his grief.

“Yes, Morgan?” she answered primly.

“Tell your mother the next time she points a gun at a MacDonnell, she’d best take care ’tis loaded with more than feathers. Alex ambushed me countless times with that toy when we were but lads.”

Sabrina blinked up at him, her eyes so wide and confounded, he was afraid he might kiss her. He reached through the bars and gave her a gentle shove toward the mouth of the tunnel.

Then she was gone, taking the light with her.

Morgan gripped the bars, haunted by the seeds of doubt she’d planted in his mind. Had his hatred of the Camerons blinded him more surely than the darkness? What if she were right? What if it was not a Cameron hand that had wielded the blade that killed his father, but the hand of a treacherous stranger? Even as he pondered her words, he cursed her beauty. If it hadn’t been for the distraction of her comely face, he would have been noting the comings and goings in the hall prior to his father’s death with his usual thoroughness for detail.

Part of him still could not believe Angus was dead. His grief was tinged with bitterness. In his mouth lay the ashes of a lifetime of words bitten back and left unspoken. Now that his father was gone, he had no choice but to swallow them.

Morgan crouched and groped through the bars until his fingers found the warm, crumbly mass of cake. A furry body brushed his hand and shied away, squeaking in protest.

“Hush now, wee fellow,” he murmured. “I’ll not rob you of your fair share.” He tore off a corner of the gingerbread, then smiled to hear the satisfied scrabbling that followed.

For the next few minutes Morgan hunched against the bars, cramming fingerfuls of gingerbread into his mouth. Long after it was gone, he found its taste still tempered the bitterness of his grief with sweetness.