Chapter Twenty-Three

Delilah had expected the dungeon.

The guards were not kind in their act of half carrying, half walking her down the length of the hall. A quiet whimpering sound behind Delilah told her Leasa was sobbing.

They stopped before a door, but it was no dungeon—it was MacKenzie’s solar.

Delilah was shoved inside and Leasa was pushed into the room after her. She landed on the hard ground with a cry of pain. Delilah immediately bent to help her, but several men held her back.

“She can rise on her own, the clumsy wretch.”

Only after Leasa struggled to her feet did Delilah notice there were more in the room than the soldiers and MacKenzie.

There, standing beside his desk, were two women she recognized with such suddenness, she had no idea how she’d missed them in the first place—Liv and Elizabeth.

A part of Delilah wanted to run forward and embrace Liv, to bask in the affection of a familiar face when the last few weeks had held so much chaos.

The little gray cat, Fianna, peered at her from Liv’s lap. It was all she could do to keep from stretching an arm out to pet Fianna’s thick, silky fur.

Liv and Elizabeth both kept their faces impassive, but Delilah knew with stomach-clenching certainty what they must both be thinking of her betrayal. They sat perfectly still, Elizabeth regal in a burgundy gown with her honey-blonde hair piled beneath gold netting and Liv equally as beautiful in a plain blue dress, her red hair plaited in a simple braid.

She wished they were alone so she could explain. Instead they were separated by a heavy wall of silence and unspoken accusation.

MacKenzie turned toward Elizabeth. “Well? Do ye know them?”

Delilah’s heart scampered into an erratic beat. Elizabeth could condemn them with a single word. Then again, doing so would condemn herself as well.

Lady Elizabeth looked Delilah and Leasa over and shook her head. “I’ve not ever seen them before.”

MacKenzie’s eyes narrowed for a moment in consideration. “A MacLeod sympathizer, then,” he muttered in Gaelic. He nodded toward his guards and spoke with clenched teeth. “To the dungeon.”

The rough hands were on her once more, clamped at her shoulders and partially dragging her. This time the journey was a greater distance and down several flights of stairs. The final descent plunged them into near darkness where the air was wet, and the odor of metal and damp earth nearly choked her.

A dungeon.

It was a far cry better than the gallows. Though Delilah would have fought then. Most likely she would have died trying, but she would have regardless.

Their chances of escaping were far higher in the dungeon than facing certain death.

MacKenzie opened a large barred door despite its scream of protest. “Since ye were so concerned, I figured I’d ease yer mind before yer death.”

With that, the women were shoved hard into the room and the door immediately slammed shut behind them. Delilah turned to find MacKenzie twisting the key. He gave her one more hard look before slinking back into the darkness, away from their cell.

A single, narrow window framed the moon and allowed a square of its fair light to fall onto the floor before them. Something shuffled in the darkness beyond where they could see.

That something was in the cell with them.

A low moan sounded in the darkness, and shivers raked down Delilah’s spine.

Leasa pressed her hands to her mouth, but it was not enough to squelch the sound of her cry.

A shape emerged from the shadows, ragged and large.

Delilah slipped her fingers into her pocket where the lining had been cut away to make the dagger at her thigh more accessible. She crouched low, her muscles coiled to strike, to fight.

The beast moved forward and gave a hoarse swallowing sound.

Delilah edged backward, encouraging it into the light so she could see what she might need to kill.

The moonlight hit the thing and revealed it to be not a thing at all, but a young woman. She was slender and dressed in a ridiculously extravagant gown for the sorrowful pit of despair where they’d been left.

The woman pointed toward Delilah. Bits of ruined lace hung from her sleeve like clumped cobwebs. Dark hair fell around her face in lank waves and cast her face in shadows. Still, Delilah could make out her mouth working, as if she intended to speak.

The woman gave a mewling sound and shook her head in irritation.

Leasa stepped backward to put herself behind Delilah. The maid’s fear was as thick in the air as the pungent odor of the woman’s unwashed body.

“Who?” The woman’s mouth formed an exaggeration of the word and she stabbed the air with her bony finger.

Delilah stepped to the left, forcing the woman into the light in order to keep eye contact. The pale light fell on her face, and Delilah realized the woman was not as young as she first thought. Strained lines creased her brow and rimmed her mouth. Nor was her hair dark as it had been in the shadows, but a streaked and dirty red.

“This is Leasa.” Delilah indicated Leasa, hesitating for a moment over her own name. But what did sharing her name matter? No one knew her surname, not that her surname held much traction in Scotland. “And I’m Delilah.”

The woman’s gaze lowered to the ground and searched the darkness before she suddenly dropped into a very stiff curtsy.

When she rose, she looked up at Delilah with the wide, wounded gaze of an animal often beaten. She licked her lips and swallowed.

“I…” The sound came out in a long croak. The woman grimaced and shook her head again, as if chastising herself. “I…”

She gave a feral growling noise and pressed her hand to her bony chest. “Torrrr.”

Her features relaxed into a look of accomplished victory.

Delilah pointed at her. “Tor?”

The woman shook her head vehemently and hit her chest hard enough that the thump echoed off the wet walls. “Torra.” She nodded in obvious encouragement for Delilah to understand. “I’m Torra.”

• • •

Donnan always was good at hiding. It was why Kaid had sent him to Edirdovar in the first place.

If only he wasn’t so hard to find. Even in the light of a new day, it was impossible to locate him.

Kaid skimmed the treetops for anything amiss. Staying aloft was one of Donnan’s best hiding tricks. Kaid had left his horse at a paid stable in the village and walked the remainder of the way to the castle.

He’d had to duck away from several guards. Thus far, his labors had rendered him unseen.

Now he was entirely visible in the forest, scanning the trees like a fool. He itched for a good cleaning after the hard travel and his mind fogged with exhaustion.

“Anything interesting up there?” a voice asked nearby.

Kaid smirked and stared into a thick patch of bushes where the question came from. A white smile flashed at him.

He strode toward the bush and ducked beneath the cover of it to sit beside Donnan. “I dinna know if I should hit ye for being an arse or hug ye for helping me find ye.”

Donnan had dirt smeared on his face and his plaid pulled around his body. He shrugged. “I prefer hugs.”

Kaid pulled his plaid around his body and over his head to ensure his own optimal cover. “I heard MacKenzie intended to marry Elizabeth.” He searched his friend’s dark gaze. “Is that true?”

“I heard similar, but it’s no’ happened yet.” He jerked his head toward a stone building near the castle garden. “If the priest is as ruined as the chapel, I wish him luck.”

Donnan was right. The building was in sore disrepair, its windows gaping and jagged like broken teeth and embedded in a tangle of weeds.

“There could be one inside the castle,” Kaid offered.

Again, Donnan shrugged. “I canna imagine the inside is much more grand. From what I see in the windows, the halls are empty. No’ just of the clan, but of furnishings.” He nodded toward several figures standing near the entrance of the castle. “Even the guards. They’re mostly paid men, no’ MacKenzies. Mercenaries who work by day, and all but a few leave at night.”

“So, MacKenzie agreed to this so readily because he needed the coin of Elizabeth’s dowry?” Kaid surmised.

Donnan grinned. “Exactly. Which explains why we’ve no’ had any more raids.”

Kaid nodded to himself and braced his chin on his folded hands. “If his clan is not around him, they dinna support him. But if Torra can be found…”

A door opened and a woman with honey-colored hair walked out into the sunshine.

Kaid’s heart stuttered to a stop.

Delilah.

How he wanted to call out to her, to capture her in his arms and kiss the lushness of her mouth, revel in the sweetness of her voice, bask in the beauty of her joy.

He’d drawn her almost as soon as she’d left Ardvreck Castle, but it wasn’t the same.

How he’d longed to let his hands skim over the luxurious softness of her skin.

But now, her posture was stiff, her gait uncertain.

Something was wrong.

“What’s happened?” Kaid asked.

“There was a coach last night.” Donnan shook his head. “I dinna know what that meant then.”

“I mean with Delilah.” Kaid indicated Delilah.

Donnan gave him a hard look. “That’s no’ Delilah.”

Kaid’s gaze snapped to the proud back facing him from far away. How could Donnan be so sure?

Before he could ask the question, Donnan spoke again. “Because that’s no’ Leasa.”

Kaid noticed, for the first time, the woman at Delilah’s side. No, not Delilah. His heart clenched around the realization.

The woman’s maid had auburn hair that shone like copper in the sunshine. Donnan was right—she was not Leasa.

And the woman…

As if in compliance with the demand of Kaid’s thoughts, she turned toward him and his heart plummeted to the ground.

She was not Delilah.

His skin prickled with the cold fear of his realization.

She had to be Elizabeth.

Then what the hell had become of Delilah?

• • •

The rising sun had cast light into the dismal cell of Delilah’s existence.

Torra lay in slumber on a narrow bed in the corner. The meager mattress she slept upon hung down in clumps and threads from the bed ropes. Her gown was smeared with grime and so torn, it looked more like rags than anything once considered fine.

Her filthy thumb was properly lodged in her mouth, and she sucked at it like a child.

Leasa stared down at her with a slight frown. “How long do you think she’s been down here?” she whispered.

Delilah looked around the room. There was a crooked desk with a dirty, curved mirror and a stool missing a leg, as well as a table which appeared as well-worn as everything else.

“I’d say for several years,” Delilah replied quietly.

Heavy footsteps strode in a slow rhythm toward their cell. A guard peeked through the bars, his brows lifted with purpose, before turning away. Delilah followed his departure as far as she was able to see. There were more guards around the cell, which was why she hadn’t at least freed Leasa by now.

MacKenzie would realize too quickly if the maid had escaped, and then Torra and Delilah would never stand a chance to flee.

And of all of them, Torra was the most important.

The woman’s red hair fell down her back in dark, greasy waves. She’d combed it repeatedly with the brush now sitting on the scarred surface of the desk. She’d then tied a ribbon of mostly fraying silk at the back of her head.

Though Delilah and Leasa had tried, Torra could not be persuaded to speak any more than her name before finally falling into an exhausted sleep.

It would be a long journey to recovery for the heiress of the MacKenzie clan.

Something gray darted through the bars of the prison and Delilah jerked away. She’d never had the nightmare encounters some had with rats, and had no wish to start now.

But it was no rat threading between Delilah’s ankles.

A gray and white cat peered up at her with beautiful blue eyes.

Delilah stroked the familiar smooth gray fur. Fianna purred and rubbed her fuzzy head against Delilah’s palm.

It was then she noticed the harness on Fianna’s back. The one Percy had fashioned for the small cat to use when passing messages between the women.

Delilah slid her hands into the seam of the harness. Her fingertips met the crackle of folded parchment.

Her stomach dropped. She knew what the correspondence would say before she even read it.

Delilah turned her back to the cell door in case a guard happened past, and unfolded the note. A slim bit of charcoal rolled out onto her palm.

The means to reply.

A quick skimming of Liv’s missive revealed exactly one word which sucked Delilah’s heart into her stomach.

Explain.

To the point and without judgement until detail had been provided. Perfectly Liv.

Delilah balanced herself on the stool and wrote out the admission of her betrayal, all the while hoping she would not lose the only allies who might truly see Kaid’s people safe.