Chapter 3

R ecalling her earlier comparison of Dougal MacPharlain to her cat, Ansuz, Lina watched Dougal closely. But she was unable to summon the calm that thinking of Ansuz had provided her before.

Now Dougal was the one holding her gaze. His expression was disturbingly speculative, too, making her wish she had the power to disappear.

Lizzie, for once, kept her mouth shut.

Lina tried to feel grateful for that silence but could not seem to summon up gratitude, either.

At last, when Dougal had not spoken for what seemed an age, she collected herself enough to say, “Have you lost the power of speech, sir?

He blinked. Then he said in a cool, strangely distant tone, “My father once suggested that I should marry one of the MacFarlan sisters. If ye be Andrew Dubh’s daughter, ye must be one of them, aye?”

“I am,” she said. “But I doubt that my father would approve such a marriage.”

“Andrew Dubh did disapprove when my father suggested a union betwixt your sister Andrena and me,” Dougal said, his attitude still distant as if a veil had dropped. “But ye’re in nae position to request your father’s approval. Nor would he be likely now to refuse it.”

Chilled, Lina drew a breath before saying, “I knew of no such suggested union, sir.” Choosing her words with care to avoid provoking him further, she added, “I fear I would fail to be the sort of wife you desire.”

Despite her caution, his jaw set, and his lips thinned. One dark eyebrow twitched. “How would you know the sort of wife I’d want?” he demanded.

Racking her brain, she tried to imagine what sort of wife he would want and wished again that she possessed her older sister’s insight into others.

Impulse stirred. Lina swallowed it. Even so, the words spilled from her lips: “I think you would want a gey beautiful wife who thinks just as you do, sir. To satisfy your needs, she would also have to be obedient to your will in every way.”

“Any wife should be obedient to her husband’s will,” he retorted, eyeing her more closely. “If she is not, he should teach her that she must obey.”

“Aye, sure. But, you see,” she added gently, “I could never be happy with a man who thought only of his wishes and never of mine. I doubt that you would deal kindly with an unhappy wife, sir. You would just order her to be happy.”

“Ye’re gey insolent.”

“I expect I am, or that I sound so to you,” she agreed, remembering with a shiver what he had said he would do to punish insolence. “But you see, I have always been allowed to speak my mind. I would find it hard to stop.”

“Ye’d do better to think of how much more unpleasant your captivity could be, lass. Ye’ll do as I say, or I’ll see to it that neither of ye marries any man.”

Lizzie spoke at last, her eyes wide, “Faith, do you mean to murder us?”

“Ye might wish I had,” he said curtly. Returning his gaze to Lina, he said, “I could just spread word that I’ve enjoyed favors as intimate and varied as I’d wished, from both of ye. Sakes, I could demand those favors or offer them to my men.”

The chill that struck Lina then nearly robbed her of speech. But she managed to say, “I hope you will not.”

“Ye may hope, aye,” he said grimly.

Then, to her relief, he turned and left, snapping the door shut behind him. Not until she heard his key turn in the lock did she breathe easily again.

“What did he mean about telling others that he had enjoyed our favors?” Lizzie asked. “We have given him no favors. Faith, I’ve never even attended a tourney where I might have offered a man my favor.”

Recognizing the innocence of those words, Lina said, “He speaks of sexual favors, Liz. The sort a husband enjoys from his wife in their bedchamber.”

Lizzie frowned. “Since I have no mother, I do not know what those are. But surely it would be wrong of Dougal MacPharlain to pretend he had treated either of us as if she were his wife.”

“Yes, it would be wrong, just as it was wrong of you to flirt with him earlier. Sithee, the truth is that whilst we are here, we are wholly in his power, Liz. Unless James Mòr stops him, Dougal can harm us. He can thrash us or do much worse. And, as we’ve seen, your brother cannot help us.”

“I hate Patrick,” Lizzie said fiercely.

“I know you must be disappointed that he—”

“It is not disappointment, Lina. ’Tis fury. In truth, Patrick has always been my least favorite brother. He is quickest to take offense or lose his temper if one disagrees with him. Rory is bossy, too, but he will one day be our clan chief. Mag is the kindest. But I’d liefer not see him now, either,” she added with a sigh. “He will likely be more unpleasant than Father will when they learn what happened to us.”

“Well, I won’t pretend to sympathize if you come by your deserts, Lizzie. But the truth is that, much as I hope Magnus and your father can rescue us from this awful place, I do not look forward to facing either one of them.”

As she said the words, her thoughts shifted abruptly to Ian Colquhoun, and she hoped he was safe. If he’d got into trouble through trying to aid them, she would not want to face him either. Heaven knew what he would say.

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.”

An hour later, washed, brushed, and properly attired in a linen tunic and his favorite blue-and-gray plaid, Ian descended to the castle great hall. There he found his parents and his brother Adam at the dais table, with a stolid Rob MacAulay.

Colquhoun’s two favorite greyhounds lay under the table near his feet, as relaxed as if they had no interest in scraps.

“ ’Tis good to see you, Rob,” Ian said, stepping onto the dais and extending his right hand as MacAulay got to his feet.

Ian was taller by an inch, and lanky. Rob MacAulay was broader of torso and muscular from top to toe. He boasted a thick mop of yellowish brown hair, leaf-green eyes, and the sober but confident demeanor of a man who knew his worth.

Ian knew him to be a strong, highly-skilled swordsman, a devil with a knife or dirk, a fine wrestler, and an enviable archer. If Rob agreed to join them against James Mòr, he would be a valuable ally.

Shaking hands, Rob said, “ ’Tis good to see you, too, Ian. I’ll admit, though, I had expected you to be up earlier than this.”

“He’s a damned lie-abed,” Adam Colquhoun said with a teasing look.

“Just out late,” Ian said, avoiding his father’s gaze.

“I see.” Rob cocked his head. “Is she a beauty?”

“Enough of that, you three,” Colquhoun said. “Ladies present.”

“Only one lady, my dear,” Lady Colquhoun said in her amiable way. “And none of these three will say aught to offend me.”

“Not unless we want to see our heads in our laps, my lady,” Rob said. “When I was a stripling, you put me to shame more times than I care to recall. And you did it with nowt save a few well-chosen words.”

“Did I?” she asked. “I do recall that you and Ian got up to mischief more than one would care to see. But I am sure I was the most tolerant of mothers.”

“Sit down and eat, Ian,” Colquhoun said dryly. “I’ve nae doubt ye’ll have much to report afterward, will ye not?”

“Not as much as I had hoped, sir. I did learn a few things, though.”

“I’d hope so,” Colquhoun said brusquely. “Sit, sit, now, both of ye. They’re waiting to serve ye, Ian, and ye’re blocking their way.”

Conversation was wide-ranging until Rob asked Colquhoun if the rebels at Dumbarton posed a threat to Dunglass.

“Nay, nay; they ken fine that I’m a man of peace,” the laird said.

“I’ll wager they’d rather have you with them, sir.”

Colquhoun’s eyes twinkled. “Aye, they would. But I’ll have nowt to do with unseating a rightful king, lad. And knowing your sire as well as I do, I’ll wager he feels as I do.”

“He does, sir. He also has some concern that, situated as we are at Ardincaple, guarding the entrance to the Gare Loch, we may pose a threat to James Mòr that he will seek to eliminate. That is why I asked about Dunglass. It sits in a similarly strategic place and could block his access to Glasgow.”

“I expect it could,” Colquhoun said. “But it will not do so unless his grace orders it. If he does, I’d have to obey the royal command, would I not?”

They chatted desultorily then until Lady Colquhoun departed with a graceful suggestion to Rob that if he tired of male company, he might visit her. “I would fain hear all the news of your mother and the rest of your family,” she added.

He agreed with a smile, and the men stood until she had departed.

Then, signing to a gillie to set the privacy screens, and dropping tidbits to his dogs, Colquhoun said to Ian, “Now, let’s hear it, lad… all of it, if ye please. Hak looked as if I had suggested hanging him when I said I’d wake ye myself if ye didna get down to eat. I half expected to find ye wearing bandages, or worse.”

“It was not as bad as that, sir,” Ian said. “I just visited Dumbarton Castle to see how their lady captives were getting on.”

The rest of Lina’s morning passed slowly, making her wonder what her captors expected them to do all day. She could occupy herself indefinitely with her thoughts. But she preferred to walk or sew while she thought, and at present her thoughts had an absurd tendency to drift to Ian Colquhoun if she let them.

Lizzie loved to talk, but she talked mostly about herself or Dougal. If Lina tried to shift the topic, it too often returned to Dougal, and since her own thoughts seemed equally frivolous and contrary, she found it hard to stifle Lizzie.

However, when it happened for the third time before MacCowan brought their midday meal, Lina said, “Prithee, Liz, can we not talk about someone else?”

“But why do you not like him? He sent us breakfast, after all, and ordered our midday meal. And he told that MacCowan man not to let anyone trouble us, even Patrick, which I can tell you, did not disturb me in the least, although you may have feared that it would. Do you dislike Dougal as much as that, Lina?”

“It is not a matter of how much I dislike him,” Lina said. “I have no reason to like him. Forbye, your brother Mag also dislikes Dougal. That should tell you all you need to know about the man, Liz. You respect Mag’s opinion, do you not?”

“I just want to get out of here,” Lizzie said flatly.