Chapter 16

Despite having dismissed Maxwell's fears about Roy, Kenna was more than a little scared as she crept along the passageway and down the servants' stairs to the kitchen. The stairway was almost completely dark, and the only light was her feeble candle, which had only half an inch of wax left on it. She proceeded very slowly, watching every footstep as she descended and listening warily for any unexpected sound. At last, she reached the kitchen and breathed a great sigh of relief. There was no sign of Roy so far, but Kenna did not want to wait around to meet him.

She hastily grabbed the food and wine she had put aside earlier, glad that no one had taken it, and turned to go back to her chamber. Then she froze.

A man was standing in front of her, staring at her intently. Kenna was reminded of the ugly man in her nightmare at once, but this man was not quite so repulsive, although he scared her just as much. Presently, he moved further into the light, and she recognized him at once.

It was Douglas McDonald.

"Ah," he said with a kind of dark glee. "I wanted to see if I could find the maid I saw looking out of the window, and lo and behold, here you are. You really are a delicious little thing, you know. Just the kind of lady I would like to warm my bed tonight, so I am inviting you to come with me."

He held out his hand and smiled at Kenna in a lascivious way.

She shuddered with revulsion. Even though they were yards apart, she could smell the whiskey on his breath, and it made her want to be sick. She was terrified, having heard about Lachlan's death. This man looked as though he was equally, if not drunker, than his brother had been. Indeed, he could hardly stand up. She very much doubted if he could pick her up, but he was advancing on her, slowly but surely backing her into a corner of the kitchen.

Kenna looked down at his hand and shook her head, her eyes wide with fear.

"Thank you, but I am very tired," she replied politely. "I must go to sleep."

The young man's gaze dropped to the food she was carrying.

"Really?" he asked, nodding at it. "Are you planning on having a late supper, then?" He stood back and folded his arms, then glared at her. "That is some of my best wine. A whole half bottle to yourself? All that food? Perhaps you have a guest in your bedroom already that you are not telling me about. Hmmm?"

He raised his eyebrows in a question, then, to Kenna's relief, he laughed.

"I am a little hungry," Kenna admitted. "The wine was left over from dinner, and I thought no one wanted it, but I will leave it behind if you wish."

He shook his head. "No, bring it with you. We can drink it while we get to know one another. I love wine, whatever kind it is, and I love women. When I think of wine and women together, I am in heaven."

"Thank you, sir, but I cannot come with you," Kenna replied firmly, even though her heart was thumping wildly with terror. If this lout wanted her body, he was going to have to fight her for it, for she would not surrender it to him willingly.

Douglas raised his eyebrows. "Do you have better things to do? Another lover, perhaps?"

Kenna shook her head. "No. I merely want to sleep, sir," she replied. "I am very tired. Will you let me pass, please?"

"No," came the simple reply. "I will not." He stood stock-still and stared at her with a penetrating, challenging glare. "You may as well make up your mind that you are coming with me, and you will be warming my bed tonight whether you like it or not."

He reached out to take Kenna's arm, but she jerked it away, dropping the tray of food as she did so. There was an almighty crash as pieces of glass, clay, and metal smashed or bounced on the floor, and morsels of food splattered them both. Kenna had somehow managed to keep hold of the wine bottle, and now she waved it around like a club, threatening him with it as he came nearer.

"Stay away from me!" she cried, her voice shaking with terror. "Leave me alone!"

"Or you will do what?" Douglas laughed. "Will you hit me over the head with that bottle of wine? Because you will have to catch me first!"

He moved closer, and Kenna squealed as he swiped the bottle of wine out of her hand, leaving her defenseless. She looked around for a weapon, but the kitchen had been cleaned and tidied hours before, and she could see nothing.

In the split second that Kenna took her eyes off him, however, Douglas lunged forward and grabbed her, then pulled her against him, his hands holding her upper arms in an iron grip. Kenna screamed in pain, but she was close enough now to raise her knee and drive it viciously into his groin. He doubled over, moaning in pain.

Sure that he would be unable to catch her, Kenna tried to dodge past him, but somehow he managed to reach out a hand to grasp her arm again. This time he was weakened, however, and his grip was not so tight. Kenna shook him off but slipped on some of the food on the floor and fell headlong onto the flagstones.

She tried to scramble away, but then she felt her attacker crawl onto her back, his weight crushing her and pressing her to the ground.

"You will pay for that," he growled. "You will pay very dearly."

But Kenna had not given up. She knew that her attacker was weakened, and it hardened her resolve to fight back. She would fight until her last breath to save her life and her maidenhead, and she was certainly not about to surrender now.

Douglas tried to turn her over, but he could not do so without moving away from her. For a few seconds, he raised himself on his left elbow while he used his right to try to prise her off the ground, but she resisted him. Eventually, he resorted to pulling Kenna's hair so hard that she screamed.

"Shut up!" he shouted in her ear. "Or I will really have to hurt you!"

"If you hurt her, it will be the last thing you ever do," said a deep voice from the shadows.

Maxwell was restless. Ever since Kenna had left the room, he had been fretting, and when he reasoned that enough time had passed for her to do her errand and come back again, he decided to go after her. This was easier said than done, however, since she had locked the door behind her, and the only way he was going to escape was by breaking it down.

He thought about this for a moment since, if he tried to do that, he would give himself away. However, if she were in danger and could not get back to her chamber, he would be trapped anyway, so going after her seemed to be the lesser of two evils.

Maxwell could not run in the confines of the small room, so he took two long strides toward the door and kicked it with as much force as he could muster. The door shuddered on its hinges and began to splinter but did not give. He repeated the maneuver, and this time it fell outward, hanging from one hinge.

He sped down the passageway just as the doors along the corridors began to open as other servants who had been roused from their sleep began to emerge grouchily from their chambers. All they saw, however, was a fleeting glimpse of Maxwell's back as he hurtled down the corridor and then down the stairs to the kitchen.

His heart was hammering as he thundered down the stairs and rushed along the passageway, and when he saw Kenna lying on the ground crushed under Douglas's weight, he saw red.

After threatening to hurt him, he pulled Douglas's arm up toward his shoulders and then hauled him up and away from Kenna, holding him securely by the front of his shirt. Douglas struggled fiercely to escape, but Maxwell tightened the grip around the neck of the shirt so that it began to strangle him, and he stopped.

Maxwell looked into the other man's eyes as if he was trying to bore a hole in his head. Douglas gazed back at him, his eyes full of fear.

"You never learn, do you, Dougie?" Maxwell spat. "I thought you might have learned from Lachlan's death, but you did not. I suppose you are just too stupid."

"Are you going to throw me down the stairs too?" Douglas was trying to put on a show of bravado, but his voice was trembling. "You killed my brother, you beast, and he was doing nothing to you."

"Must I say this again?" Maxwell asked angrily. "I did not kill Lachlan! He was my best friend, for God's sake! What happened was an accident. I was trying to save an innocent young woman from being raped. You saw it, yet you continue to insist I am a murderer."

"Are you sure you were not seeking to avenge yourself on Lachlan for pushing you out of a tree when you were boys?"

Douglas's voice was sly, his expression a sneer.

"That was an accident, too," Maxwell said irritably. "I bore no grudge against him for that."

"Really? Are you sure about that?" Douglas asked spitefully. "My brother was a very good liar."

"I am not wasting any more time on you," Maxwell growled. "Goodbye, Dougie."

Then he pushed his erstwhile friend away so hard that he skidded and fell backward on the kitchen floor in an action that was eerily reminiscent of his brother's death. Dougie sat rubbing the back of his head for a while, and by the time he was able to stand up to raise the alarm, Maxwell was long gone.

"I don't know how to get out without alerting the guards," Kenna said anxiously.

They were standing in a shadowed alcove out of sight of the guards, watching them carefully.

Maxwell grinned. "I do. Lachlan showed me one of the escape tunnels, but we are going to need some light. The tunnel we need runs under the stables."

"I can get that for us," Kenna assured him.

She went to the stable first and took a blanket from a peg in one of the stalls, then a lantern. When one of the guards approached her, she smiled at him, and they talked for a few moments, then he laughed and went back to his post.

Kenna beckoned for Maxwell to come to her, and he did, keeping to the shadows as he joined her.

"Which way?" she whispered.

"This way."

Maxwell led her to a trapdoor in the floor of one of the stables, then they climbed down a ladder into complete and utter blackness.

The fact that they had a little light was the only thing stopping Kenna from screaming with terror as they proceeded along the narrow tunnel. Then she felt Maxwell's hand closing, strong and warm, around hers, and she sighed with relief. Wherever he was, she knew she was safe.

They walked along the tunnel for what seemed like miles until they came to a wooden door. It had no lock, but when they emerged on the other side, they were confronted by a thick wall of leaves and branches. The tunnel ended in a portal cunningly concealed behind a bush, through which they extricated themselves with some difficulty.

When they looked back, Kenna was amazed to see that there was no sign of the door at all.

"And Lachlan showed you this?" she asked, amazed. "What if you had been a spy for another clan?"

"He was drunk at the time," Maxwell answered resignedly. "But I would never have used it or disclosed its whereabouts to anyone but you."

That was the moment when Kenna realized that she was absolutely freezing and that Kirklieth Castle was eight miles away. Both of them were dressed only in their daytime clothes, with no protection at all from the cold. It had stopped snowing earlier in the day, but the ground was still covered in a carpet of white which deadened all sound. Its eerie whiteness made the way ahead easier to follow, but it also made their footprints all too visible, but there was nothing they could do about that.

At that moment. Maxwell was almost glad that he had endured all the trials he had undergone in the last few months because he had faced situations like this many times before.

"There is a barn near here," he told her.

Kenna nodded. "I know the one."

She gave Maxwell the blanket, and he wrapped it around both of them while they put their arms around each other's waists and began to trudge into the night.

After what seemed like days, they saw the little thatched building ahead of them. Maxwell gave a sigh of relief as he unlocked the door and found half a dozen sheep inside. The air was thick with their earthy smell and warm with the heat of their bodies.

"Thank God," he breathed. "At least we will not freeze tonight, Kenna."

Kenna picked her way over to a corner and lay down on a pile of straw, then waited for Maxwell to join her.

He closed the door of the barn and lay down beside Kenna, draping the blanket over both of them and pulling her into his arms.

"Thank you," she whispered. "Not many people would have done those things for a servant."

"Kenna, you are more than a servant to me," Maxwell said in astonishment. "You are the woman who has kept me alive for the past few days. You hid me, fed me, clothed me, and even shaved me. I was glad to help you. Do you not know by now that I would do anything for you?"

"No, I did not, Maxwell," she replied. She put up a hand to stroke his face, which was bristling with half an inch of beard again. "I know we will have to part from each other soon, but I must tell you that it has been a wonderful experience knowing you."

"Thank you, Kenna, but will you get into trouble for running away with me?" he asked anxiously. "If so, I will tell them it is my fault. That I made you do it."

She shook her head. "Mammy is there and will speak up for me, and Laird and Lady McDonald will be good to me, I am sure."

They lay together in silence for a moment. Under the blanket, with their arms wrapped around each other with the body heat of the sheep keeping them warm, they were quite comfortable.

"You will have to make things right with your sister and the rest of your family, Maxwell," Kenna said softly.

"I know, and I am happy to do so," he told her, "but I am not sure Lindsey is even there at the moment. She usually lives at Auchnasheil with her husband."

"I saw her at Invercree during the ceilidh," Kenna said, smiling. "She is hugely pregnant, Maxwell. It looks as though you are going to be an uncle."

Maxwell smiled happily. "I am glad for her. She and James have been trying to have a baby for a long time." Then he stopped and looked deeply into her eyes. "We should go to sleep."

"I know," Kenna replied, before snuggling under his chin and closing her eyes. "Goodnight, Maxwell."

"Goodnight, Kenna," he murmured.

Strangely, holding this kind, lovely woman whom he usually found so irresistible in his arms, Maxwell did not feel aroused but content. He should have been ravenous with hunger, but he was not. He could take care of his hunger in the morning, anyway. A night holding Kenna would be an experience he would never have again.

He tightened his arms and pulled her closer to him.

Goodnight, love.

It was his last thought before he closed his eyes and fell asleep.