Chapter Thirteen
If he’d had his sword drawn, Alec might have skewered Angus Cameron where he stood, his triumphant smile slashed across his round, bushy face.
“Tor?” Mairi whispered, standing there, her hand on his arm. “Cullen? They were here? Just days ago.” Her fingers curled into a tight fist and slid down to her side.
“Mairi—”
She held up a hand, silencing him. With her head high and the regal bearing of a queen, she grabbed the yellow skirts of Millie’s dress and strode up the wooden dock toward the castle. Hair tumbling down around her stiff shoulders and bare feet made her look like a furious fairy marching off to war.
Angus made an appreciative grumble in his throat. “Now that’s a fine lass for tupping.” He chuckled. “Wondered what was taking ye so long. Seeking a bit of vengeance by fu—”
Alec’s fist slammed into the bastard’s jaw and nose, throwing him backward, arms flailing, to land on his arse. “Get the bloody hell off my island. Now.” Alec ignored the warmth of his blood on his knuckles and stepped over Angus’s thick legs to stride toward the castle.
Behind him, Angus spit. “Ye knocked out my bloody tooth.”
“Ye have an hour to get your men off Kisimul,” Alec turned and nodded to Ian who stood in the doorway. “Light the beacon.” It would draw his men from shore, since at present there were more Camerons and Macraes on Kisimul than fighting MacNeils, and he wouldn’t risk his children or Mairi. Ian ran off as Kenneth came out of the hall, sword drawn.
“Where’s Mairi?” Alec asked.
“I don’t think ye’re going to like it,” Kenneth said as they entered.
Only George Macrae stood inside, the other men hopefully on his ship. Alec pointed at him. “Angus Cameron has one hour to vacate Kisimul and Barra. Make sure he sees it happen.”
George strode out the door, and Alec turned back to Kenneth. “Where is she?”
“I saw her heading down to the dungeon.”
“Mo chreach,” Alec murmured. “Guard the children,” he ordered as he walked briskly toward the back of the keep.
He grabbed a lit torch, held in one of the iron wall sconces, and pushed through the heavy door. “Mairi,” he called, his boots cracking against the cobblestone ramp as he descended underground.
She sat in the dark on the raised platform that had been her luxurious bed last week. Alec went to the door and shook the bars. She’d locked herself in with the key. “Dammit, Mairi. Ye knew they’d come look for ye. I wasn’t about to start a war in my village when it could be avoided by ye marrying me first. It was just the two of them, and if they’d known ye were here, they’d have drawn their swords. I didn’t want to kill your brother.”
She kept her back to him, knees pulled up under her chin with her arms wrapped around them. It was cold down there. He rattled the bars. “Mo chreach, Mairi, open the door.”
“Ye started a war the moment ye took me from Kilchoan,” she said. “And if I am to remain a prisoner, I should be in the dungeon.”
Alec’s hands gripped the iron bars tightly, his cut knuckles dripping blood with the strain. “Your husband started a war the moment he came to Barra and slaughtered an innocent woman.”
“If he never consummated the marriage, was he really my husband?” Mairi asked softly.
“I didn’t know any of that,” Alec said, frustration raking him. He slammed the heel of his palm on the bars and turned, pacing from one end of the short corridor to the other.
Mairi looked over her shoulder at him. “My family is worried about me. I was taken without any indication of why. They may think I’m dead. My mother… She must be tortured. What would ye do if Cinnia had been stolen away? With no word left or reassurance that she was even alive?”
Anger made one rash. Alec knew that, and yet the bloodlust for revenge at Joyce’s brutal murder had been so fierce that he had reacted with hate in his heart. If Cinnia or Weylyn had been taken, he’d tear the world apart, finding them, and punish the bastard who’d taken them.
“I will write to your mother,” he said, grabbing the back of his neck.
“Give me parchment and ink,” Mairi said. “I will write in my own hand, so she knows I am well.”
“Ye can write?” he asked.
“Aye,” she said indignantly. “My father wanted both his children educated. I wrote all the missives Fergus sent out.”
Alec froze. “Ye wrote for your hus—Fergus MacInnes?”
“I just said as much,” she snapped.
Without a word, Alec strode up the ramp to the great hall. Angus stood there, a rag against his nose. “Ye bloody bastard,” Angus boomed.
“Get the hell out of here,” Alec yelled back, his voice just as loud.
“Bessy wants to stay,” Angus said.
Alec pulled out a small lockbox on a shelf under the stairs, flipping it open to retrieve the letter he needed. “She’s welcome. Ye are not.”
“MacNeil,” Angus said, his voice lower. “I meant no harm, out there.” The apology in his voice brought Alec’s head up. With his empty hand held up in surrender, Angus stared at Alec. Ian and Kenneth stood beside George and Angus, their swords drawn. “Ye are letting a lass work her way between us, friends since we were lads.”
Why did the man think they were friends, just because he couldn’t beat Alec in a fight? “If ye are trying to apologize, do it and then leave. Ye’ve worn out your welcome on Kisimul.”
Angus’s eyes narrowed. “Kisimul. A cursed rock in a bay away from your clan. Ye’re all alone here, Alec MacNeil, abandoned by your kin.”
“Shut your mouth,” Ian said.
Angus grabbed his cod and swore at Ian before pivoting on his heel. He spit on the floor. “Cursed place. And if Bessy succumbs to the curse, consider yourself at war with the Camerons.”
George Macrae gave Alec a brief nod. “I support the Camerons in this.”
“Then ye need to get the bloody hell off my isle as well,” Alec answered and motioned for Kenneth to follow them out. Voices outside showed that the men from the village had landed.
With the brittle parchment in hand, Alec tromped back down to the dungeon where Mairi still sat on the bed, turned now toward the locked door of the cell. Alec grabbed the torch to bring it close to the bars and unfolded the letter. He flattened it up against the bars. “Did ye write this letter?”
Mairi’s brows lowered as she squinted, stretching forward. She slid her bare feet off the bed and came over to the bars. “Is that…?”
“Blood? Aye,” he answered. “Joyce’s blood. Fergus MacInnes sliced her neck open and then left the letter, stabbed to her chest.”
Mairi’s lips opened, her eyes blinking at the horror she must be imagining. She inhaled and bent to look closer. She shook her head. “I didn’t write this.” She examined the bottom. “And neither did Fergus.”
“What?” Alec held the letter up to the light, reading. “I, Fergus MacInnes, declare war on Clan MacNeil of Barra. We will kill ye off one at a time, starting with your women and children. Kisimul is cursed, and ye all will die.” He held it back to her. “He signed it.”
Mairi met his gaze. “Fergus couldn’t write. I wrote all his letters, and even if he’d had someone else write that, he always insisted on signing a big FMI as his signature. I don’t even think he knew how to spell MacInnes.”
Alec stared at the words as his mind worked. “He was seen in Barra, he and his men. They were interested in the resources of the isle.”
“But did anyone see him actually kill Joyce?” she asked softly.
“Nay.”
…
Mairi woke.
Where am I? A musty smell tightened her nose, and she pushed upward. Oh, damp, dark Hell. She exhaled long as she surveyed her cell. She’d refused to unlock the door, and Alec had brought her wool blankets and Daisy, who was curled on the hanging bed against her back. Mairi’s faithful friend sat up and licked her.
“Ye’re wondering how we got back down here, aren’t ye?” she asked, scratching the dog’s head, although Daisy seemed as blissfully happy as ever. Mairi cursed softly and glanced around the small cell. If he was going to keep her a prisoner, she would act like a prisoner.
Mairi looked where Alec had stood for a long time while she had curled up with Daisy and tried to ignore him. Had he waited until she’d fallen asleep? Lying on the floor, just inside the bars, was a folded parchment, quill, and inkwell. He’d left them for her to write to her mother, knowing that he’d bring war to Barra if he sent it to Aros.
She stretched, rising to use the privy, and was thankful that they’d left the privacy screen in place. There was no water in the basin with which to wash, and she longed for a bath after she and Alec had…
She sighed. Their time under the stars had been the best adventure of her life. And he’d asked her to marry him. Was it to avert a war with Tor and Cullen and their powerful clans? Or for revenge? How could she trust her captor? A captor who hadn’t left a single bruise on her skin or delivered a single threat. Even locking her in his dungeon, he’d ordered her fed and kept warm. “Bloody terrible jailer,” she whispered and walked over to the table where the key and Alec’s dagger sat.
She rubbed her hands over her face, pocketed them, and leaned against the bed. “I don’t know what is real, Daisy.” The dog licked her cheek, and Mairi realized one of her tears had broken free. Footsteps came down the ramp, and Cinnia appeared with a tray.
“Did Da lock ye up down here?” she asked, her face desperate.
“Nay,” Mairi said, walking to the bars. Daisy jumped down to follow and wiggled out, hopping around Weylyn on the ramp.
Mairi unlocked the barred door and ushered Cinnia inside to the table. “We had an argument,” Mairi said. “And I was reminded that I am still truly a prisoner here.”
Cinnia’s brows drew close in earnest. “Not if ye marry him.”
Mairi sighed. “It’s more complicated than that.”
“Adults tend to make simple things complicated,” Weylyn said, throwing a short piece of rope up the ramp for Daisy to fetch. “Do ye like our da?”
Mairi felt her lips curve into a grin at his question. “Sometimes, and sometimes he makes me furious.”
“Sometimes is a good start,” Cinnia said, her voice lifting. “Do ye like us?”
“Always,” Mairi answered without hesitation. Could she bring war to Kisimul when she’d grown to love these two children? She scooped up the blank parchment and writing materials, setting them on the table. Her smile faded. “But your father brought me here without permission. When others find out, my clan will war with the MacNeils.”
“Not if ye wed him,” Cinnia said, crossing her arms as if Mairi were just being stubborn. “People wed all the time to prevent wars.”
Wasn’t that what Mairi had agreed to do with Geoff MacInnes? She pursed her lips. “This is an issue between Alec and me, not ye two.”
Weylyn kept throwing the rope, tugging it from Daisy’s teeth and throwing it again. “Did ye send him to battle your clan then?”
Mairi looked between Cinnia and Weylyn. “Did Alec leave Kisimul?”
Weylyn stopped, staring intently at her. “Aye. He left Kenneth to guard us and Bessy. We watched from the roof as our two galleons sailed away and a group of twenty men rode north from the village, Da in the lead.”
Weylyn squatted down, hugging Daisy to him. “He was armed for war.”
…
Mairi stood on the upper walkway, the breeze catching in her hair. Five days. Alec had been gone five full days and nights, and Kenneth wouldn’t say where he’d gone or when he’d be back, the loyal bastard.
She told herself she shouldn’t care, that Alec was her enemy, that she hated him or at least disliked him. That if Kenneth wasn’t there to guard her, she would flee without a second thought, that she’d never agree to wed him, her captor, her enemy…the man who’d looked vulnerable under the stars before she kissed him. The man who showed her the boats, tethered and unused, of all the people who had abandoned him. The man who’d given her his own dagger so she wouldn’t feel helpless as his prisoner.
“Damnation,” she said, for every time she thought of him, his eyes and his quiet strength, her fury dissolved. She looked up at the gray clouds. Their heaviness mirrored her mood ever since he’d left without a word. She’d written the letter to her mother, giving it to Kenneth to send with someone sailing off Barra for the mainland. Mairi had said she was well and not in danger but couldn’t bring herself to say where she was or who was to blame for her abduction. She was turning out to be just as terrible at escaping as Alec was at imprisoning.
“Any sign?” Bessy asked as she walked up behind her, wrapped in a thick shawl.
“Nay.” Mairi shrugged. At least she could pretend not to care. “Are the children occupied?” Bessy had taken on some of the cooking and helped Mairi clean and keep up with the children. Together they’d managed to lift years of filth from the great hall and two bedrooms. Next, they would tackle the kitchens and small room housing the freshwater well.
“Weylyn is working with all six dogs in the courtyard, and Cinnia is finishing up a batch of tarts in the upper kitchen. We still need to properly clean the lower kitchen.”
“Aye, we’ll get to it.” Mairi touched her thin arm. “Thank goodness ye’re here to help.” Joyce must not have cared much about Kisimul to allow it to become so neglected. Why had she left without saying anything to Alec? Leaving her children behind? Was she that unhappy? It was obvious, from the way Alec did not talk of her, that they weren’t in love, but they had seemed to tolerate each other.
“I’m extremely happy I could stay on Kisimul,” Bessy said.
Mairi looked at her troubled eyes. “Was it horrible with the Camerons?”
“It was loud. I was fairly unseen.”
“Well, ye’re unseen here, too, but not because it’s loud,” Mairi said. “It’s because there’s no one here to see ye.”
She smiled. “I prefer it that way.”
“I come from a big clan, lots of family coming and going. But everyone is kind for the most part.” Her chest tightened with missing them.
“Ye are fortunate.”
Mairi watched the smoke from the cook fires snaking up from the cottages in the village. In the distance, a chorus of dogs began to bark, and Daisy danced up on her back legs, trying to reach over the wall. Bessy gasped. Riders charged over the knoll, lots of riders. From the north.
Mairi held her breath, though her heart began to hammer.
“Is it them?” Bessy asked.
“I think so,” Mairi said. Scanning the group, she spotted Alec atop his black charger, racing down the hill with the grace of a wolf loping over the moors. She blinked, unwilling to admit the relief she felt at seeing him alive. “I need to go,” she said, turning from the wall and racing into the keep.
“Where are ye going?” Bessy called.
Mairi ran into the bedroom she’d taken over again as soon as Alec left Kisimul. She grabbed her warm cloak, blanket, and pillow. Stopping in the middle of the room, she breathed deeply. She had time, for they had to row across the bay. What would she bring down with her to the dungeon?
She glanced in the polished glass mirror and frowned. She’d been helping to clean the root cellar. Dirt smudged her face, and the day dress she wore was threadbare at the elbows.
“I will be like a bird in a cage,” she whispered and pulled the laces loose on the dirty bodice, shimmying out of the drab costume. She pulled out a blue dress that she and Cinnia had lengthened and re-stitched.
Knock. Knock. “Oh,” Bessy said as she peeked around the door. She rushed over, grabbing up Mairi’s brush, apparently catching on. Bessy smiled at her in the mirror. “We lasses must stick together.”
Bessy helped her tighten the clean bodice as Mairi tossed her hair to make her soft curls bounce around her face.
“I’ll go find the children,” Bessy said.
“Thank ye.” Mairi grabbed her supplies, including the key to the cell. She stepped lightly down the stairs, ran across the empty hall, and pushed through the heavy door that led underground. If she was going to spend more time down there, Bessy and she would need to give the dungeon a thorough cleaning.
Mairi hid her things on a table behind the privacy screen. Swirling around, she ran back to the gate, locking it from inside. Pocketing the key, she scooted up onto the bed, kicking off her slippers.
She pressed back against the rock wall, her chest rising rapidly. She fluffed her hair again and settled the blankets around her. There. Locked away. A bonny bird in a cage. Mairi frowned. Would he come down? She squirmed on the bed, crossing her arms under her bosom. Her breasts raised up, pressing a swell above the square, lace-bordered neckline. Aye, that would help.
The door to the dungeon opened at the top of the ramp. She relaxed her face into a look of boredom, as if she didn’t care how long he’d been gone. Kenneth would report she’d been out, although the children had made it seem to him that she spent most of her time in her cell.
Heavy footsteps pounded down the slope. “Mairi?” The voice was deep and familiar, but not Alec. She turned, staring open-mouthed, as her brother, Tor, ran down before the cell, Cullen on his heels. “Mairi,” Tor yelled.
“Are ye well, lass?” Cullen asked. They grabbed the iron bars of the cell, rattling the lock.
“I…I am well,” she said, her eyes rising above them to Alec, who stood at the bottom of the ramp.
He had a swollen eye and a slash across his forehead. Mairi leaped up. “What’s happened?” She noticed then that both Tor and Cullen looked beaten, their faces bruised, slashes along their arms, a bandage around Cullen’s calf. “What the bloody hell happened?” she repeated.
Tor turned to Alec. “Open the damn door, MacNeil.”
Alec took two steps forward, his gaze locked on Mairi. “I cannot,” Alec said.
“Why the ballocks not?” Cullen demanded.
“Because,” Mairi said, her voice soft. “I have the key.”