Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

T he bath was duly ordered, but Minna was long gone by the time it arrived. She had changed into her breeches and shirt, added an old, patched sweater and a workman's woolen bonnet into which she tucked her hair. Then she sneaked down one of the secret passages with which the castle was riddled, and out into the fresh air. She crept under the shadow of the few trees that grew around the castle and headed for the village.

The quickest way to get there measured no more than quarter of a mile away from the castle, and once the path had passed through the few trees that grew around the castle, it skirted the loch before going around the edge of the woods and into Cairndene. Minna was striding along, looking at the ground to try to avoid the mud from the previous night's rain, when a familiar voice rang out in front of her.

"I knew it!" Jamie cried as he stepped out in front of her. "I knew you would try this!" His blue eyes were blazing with anger, but for once he did not reek of whisky.

Minna stopped short, then tried to dodge around him, but he caught her easily, grabbing her by the upper arms and forcing her backwards towards the loch.

"If you knew then why did you make me promise to stay inside?" she demanded.

"A test," he replied. "To see if you would defy me. To see if you were a person of your worth. But no - you are not, are you? My sister, who looks down on me and accuses me of being selfish and heartless, is no better than I am!"

"How dare you!" Minna cried. "I am trying to help these people! You are taking food out of their mouths and you do not care! What are you saving all your wealth for? Whisky? Wine? Nights out with your worthless friends?"

"Well, there is no point in me spending it on wine, is there?" Jamie snarled, "since my good wine is disappearing faster than I can drink it. What was next? My whisky? When did you become so fond of alcohol?"

Minna felt her heart skip a beat and the blood drained from her face as she realized that her scheme to sell Jamie's wine had been discovered. She had thought that replacing expensive vintages with cheap rubbish would fool him, but evidently he had a spy amongst the staff or his palette was better than she thought.

"I am not interested in drinking your wine or your whisky," Minna replied, trying to keep her voice calm. "I was selling it to buy clothes and food for the people of Cairndene, because you would do nothing."

"So you really thought that I could not distinguish the taste of fine vintage wine from stuff that tastes only a little better than vinegar?" Jamie gave a strange half-laugh and poked his finger into Minna's chest. "You don't know me very well, sister dear. I have an excellent palette."

"And no doubt an expensive one!" Minna's voice was bitter. "And you would rather feed your excellent palette than keep poor people alive!"

"I expect you are going ro see your precious peasants now?" Jamie raised his eyebrows in a question.

"They are not peasants - they are tenant farmers and villagers who work for you - and they are people with hopes and dreams just like you - or maybe you don't dream further than your next bottle of whisky! You are a selfish, greedy fool, Jamie Darroch, and I am ashamed to call you my brother!"

While she was speaking, Minna had been poking her finger into his chest, and now he gripped her upper arms and growled: "well, I have good news for you, little sister. You can stay with your precious villagers as long as you like, because you will never darken the doors of the castle again! Try to get in and the guards will simply turn you away. You are not welcome in my home anymore. If you love those people so much, and you say they are hungry, then go and share their pain. Let them look after you - go on - you will never have to look at your horrible cruel brother ever again!"

Unbeknownst to Minna, she had been backing towards the edge of the loch as they were speaking. This side of the lake had a low wall around it which reached her knees, and the water behind it was deeper than the rest.

All of a sudden Jamie put his hands on her shoulders and pushed, then turned on his heel and walked away. Minna gave a startled squeak then toppled over the knee-high wall, spinning her arms backwards in a vain attempt to stop herself falling backwards.

It was futile, however. She had no time to even take a breath before the freezing water closed over her head she inhaled a great mouthful of it, but as she coughed reflexively she inhaled more water. Panic flooded through her, and she began to thrash about, kicking her legs frantically trying to reach the daylight above her that meant blessed air and salvation. Her chest was on fire, but she kept reaching and kicking. She was not going to give up. She would not let Jamie win.

Her vision was darkening, but the pain in her chest was beginning to lessen. She was tiring, losing the ability to fight any more. Her eyes drifted closed. ‘ Goodbye, Lorna,' she thought. ‘Don't worry about me, I am going to heaven, and I will see you there one day.'

However, she did not get to heaven, at least, not that day. Suddenly she was pushed upwards as a great weight splashed into the water beside her. She could not see, only feel the waves swirling around her. Then for a few seconds she caught a glimpse of daylight before drifting under the water again. She saw her hands floating on the surface, then abruptly she was lifted out of the water and over the edge of the wall and placed on the grass.

The earth was firm beneath her back, she could see daylight, and an overwhelming sense of relief flooded over her. She gulped in great lungfuls of life giving air even as she began to cough painfully, spewing great jets of water from her mouth and nose.

Minna's eyes were streaming, her chest was still on fire with pain, and she was vaguely aware of a shape moving around her, but she could not focus on it. The cough was ripping through her, shaking her whole body and worsening the burning pain in her chest. Then she felt herself being rolled over onto her side, allowing the rest of the water to trickle from her mouth onto the grass, but she was still racked with coughing as she succumbed to utter darkness.

As soon as he saw the woman tumbling into the water, Gowan began to race towards her. He was two hundred yards away, and it took him a full minute to cross the distance between them. He knew that every second's delay was a second closer to her death, so he pushed himself as hard as he could, and was relieved to see, when he reached the edge of the loch, that she had not floated too far away. Moreover, she was still moving, her arms and legs flailing about in the water.

He threw off his cloak and dived in, swam underneath her and hoisted her upward out of the water. It took all his strength and willpower, and his arms and back were straining and shuddering with the effort, but he clenched his teeth and persevered. At one point he thought he might be forced to give up, but somehow, with an almighty surge of energy and determination, Gowan managed to lift Minna onto solid ground again.

He clambered out of the loch and rested for a moment, then he looked across at the woman he had just rescued. She was trying to breathe while spitting out the water in her lungs and coughing at the same time; she was in a bad way, but at least she was alive.

Gowan was by no means an expert in dealing with emergencies, so he took what he thought was the best course of action. He rolled the young woman over on her side and knelt behind her to make sure she did not roll back again, then reached over for his cloak, which he draped over her before hefting her into his arms. It was a long walk back to his cabin, and although Minna was not a big woman, his arms felt as though they would break if he held her weight a moment longer.

When he put her on the ground, Gowan sighed deeply and rubbed his aching arms, then looked closely at his new guest. Even with her face plastered with mud, and her hair slick with dirty water, she was beautiful. He checked the pulse at her throat and made sure that she was breathing, and was rewarded by feeling a strong, steady pulse. He sighed with relief.

However, now he had other things to worry about. Both he and the woman he had rescued were sopping wet, and he knew that he had to warm her up, and quickly, if her condition were not to become worse.

Accordingly, he lit a fire in the small grate, then shut the door firmly and shuttered the window. He stripped off his wet clothing and hung it up to dry, wrapping one of his linen towels around his hips just in case his visitor regained consciousness. She was breathing steadily now, although her breaths had a wheezing, rattling sound, but he was confident that nothing was seriously wrong with her.

Gowan took a deep breath then began to strip the woman of her sodden garments, noting with great surprise that she was wearing men's clothes instead of women's. He methodically stripped them off her, however, trying to ignore his healthy male body's instant reaction to her soft flesh.

He had not seen a woman's body for a very long time, and had forgotten how pliant and soft her skin was, how delicate her features were compared to his own. She was cold to the touch, and his first instinct was to lie down beside her and wrap them both in a blanket, but he knew that was dangerous, and he would never take advantage of a helpless woman in that way. His mother and father had not raised him to be that kind of man.

A fleeting image of his mother's face flashed across Gowan's mind for a moment, and a dart of sadness pierced his heart. Even after all this time he still missed her, but now he had other things to worry about, so he forced his mind back to the task in hand and began to dry the woman he was tending.

He had removed all her clothing except for the thin camisole under her shirt, trying not to think of what was underneath it. He dried her face, neck, and arms, then passed the towel over her feet, the slender, shapely columns of her legs, and up over her thighs but paused when he reached the edge of the camisole. He was going into dangerous, territory.

After a few seconds of hesitation he decided to leave the thin garment where it was, reasoning that it would dry quickly as the room heated up. Even so, he could see the shape of her breasts underneath the sheer fabric, round and full topped by rose pink buds that were now puckered with the coldness of the air.

Gowan hastily dried her breasts as best he could over the camisole, looking away as he passed the towel over the mound of her sex. He wrapped her up snugly in a woolen blanket, partly to warm her up, but mostly to hide her luscious body from his sight, because it was far too tempting. He had too much respect for her to sit and stare at her naked body when she was so vulnerable.

He picked up all their wet clothes, which he had strewn all over the place, and hung them up to dry, then he realized that he was ravenous, and he had had nothing to eat since that morning. He quickly made himself a meal by scrambling some eggs with wild mushroom. He followed it with a cup of ale and some blackberries, then he lay down to rest for a while. It was only midafternoon, but his arms were aching, as was his back, and he wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and seek oblivion. Fortunately, he was so exhausted that oblivion came quickly.