Chapter Fourteen

“Is that the place? It looks unco’ grand.” Tansy breathed the words as they peered from the backs of their horses under cover of the trees.

“It is grand,” Malcolm told her. “Mistress Catha is a woman of means.” He glanced at Tansy with misgiving. Two days on the trail and he almost thought he could sense the thoughts moving in that black head of hers. Even though they had not lain together again, whispers of their connection remained.

He’d resisted taking her once more only by a grand effort of will. That did not keep him from doubting himself or the wisdom of having brought her along with him.

Quite likely the most foolish thing he’d ever done. Though she did have a way of wriggling into his confidence.

Confession, they said, proved good for the soul. But a man needs must be careful to whom he confessed. Tansy and he now carried each other’s secrets. It lent them a certain power over one another, with which he did not feel quite comfortable.

Trust did not come easily to him, and trusting an admitted witch seemed the height of foolishness. He risked not only his own safety but Mercien’s.

Tansy murmured, “And you wish to abduct the mistress of all that?”

“Whisht! Do no’ speak it aloud.”

She turned her uncanny eyes on him. “I will no’ breathe a word into the wrong ears. Do you tak’ me for a fool?”

“Nay.” Whatever else Mistress Tansy Bellrose Gant might be, she was clever. “And I do no’ wish to abduct her. You ken how I am pressed.”

“Aye.”

“She and I are friends.”

Mistress Tansy continued to gaze at him, seeing too much. Did she see how he felt about Catha? That he’d loved her since both of them were children? And now he had to cause her the worst kind of harm.

By heaven, he hated himself.

Tansy quirked an eyebrow but did not demure. “Do you mean to sit here gazing upon the place all day, or will we ride in?”

“Give me but a moment.” To consult with his heart and his conscience. To seek, in the rat’s nest of his mind, another way he might win Mercien’s freedom.

“’Twill not be easy to talk this friend o’ yours from the safety o’ this place. She will have guards and will be carefully looked after.”

“Aye.”

“A good thing you brought me. It may come to a matter of persuasion after all.”

****

“Malcolm!” The squeal of delight coming from the woman who greeted them in the hall sounded as if it should issue from the throat of a young girl. Indeed, Mistress Catha looked little more than that. Malcolm had explained how she’d been married off and widowed when but a child, but Tansy had not expected her to look quite so youthful still.

Nor so bonny.

Golden hair, a slim, lithesome figure, and skin like rose petals all marked the woman who threw herself into Malcolm’s arms. Tansy, forced to stand back and watch while Malcolm wrapped those arms around her, and to observe the expression that came to his face, bit her lip in agony.

They loved each other—that much a blind woman could see. Was it the love of sister for brother? Or more?

Mistress Catha’s feet left the floor as Malcolm swept her up. His lips grazed her cheek before he set her down again.

“Och, Malcolm, ’tis grand to see you. I did not know you were yet back from France. I did pray for you, so I do vow, every single day.”

The woman’s beautiful eyes moved beyond Malcolm and passed over Tansy without really seeing her. “But where is Mercien?”

“That is a story I maun tell.” Malcolm’s deep voice roughened with his agitation.

Mistress Catha laid her hands against her heart. “Do no’ tell me, you ha’ come wi’ ill news?”

“Very ill indeed.”

All the rosy color fled her face. “Never say he…has perished?”

“Nay.”

“Nay.” She struggled to draw a breath. “For I should know here, inside.” For an instant Catha’s face lit again, like a beacon.

Malcolm glanced around at the servants thronging the entryway. “Let us go speak somewhere more private. I will tell you all.”

Would he? From his guarded expression and the hesitance Tansy felt in him, she doubted it.

“Of course.” Catha succeeded in focusing on Tansy. “And who is this?”

“My traveling companion, Mistress Gant.”

“Traveling companion?” Catha’s brows rose. “Since when ha’ you had need of any, besides Mercien?”

“Catha, I will explain all.”

“Very well.” Mistress Catha turned to Tansy. “Mistress Gant, welcome to Castle Gunn. Maggie, here, will show you to quarters—I am thinking the yellow room, Maggie—and offer you refreshment. You must be eager to rest.”

Tansy was eager to hear what Malcolm said to Mistress Catha, but she saw the reflection of the word obedience in his eyes. So she bowed her head.

“Thank you kindly, mistress.”

“Malcolm, come.” Catha linked her arm through Malcolm’s and dragged him off through a doorway on the left. He never so much as glanced back at Tansy.

Forgotten? She did not like to think so. Neither did she like how it felt watching him go.

****

“I cannot believe it. Mercien, a prisoner? And your men all lost in France, with not one to keep watch at your back. Oh, sweet Jesu, what’s to be done?” Catha pressed her fingers to her mouth and held tight. Malcolm hoped she didn’t mean to vomit or swoon.

But the lass, made of stronger stuff than that, soon rallied. “Tell me what I can do to save him. Do you need a ransom? I can provide it. I’ve more wealth than I can ever spend.”

Malcolm hesitated. He had given Catha a much-expunged version of what had befallen him and Mercien, daring not to tell her all. Would a large payment to Latham serve? He thought not; Latham desired Catha along with her fortune.

“My father sent money, all he could spare. I did no’ mean to involve you in this, Catha. I but wished to give you the ill tidings. I ken fine what Mercien means to you.”

“Do you?” She got to her feet and turned her back to him. “I do no’ think so.”

“We are like family,” he asserted carefully.

That made her turn back to him with a sad smile. “You, Malcolm, are like family to me. A dear brother. We ha’ known each other from time out o’ mind. For Mercien”—she drew a breath—“my feelings are far different.”

And Malcolm found that hurt after all. He loved his brother. More than himself? Unquestionably. Why, then, did it pain him to see Catha gift Mercien with her heart? “Why did you never tell him?” he asked softly.

“How could I? Bundled off into that marriage almost before I realized the truth of my feelings for him. And after…”

“You have been a free woman for two years. You might have said.”

“And him awa’ most that time, in France. I wanted to make certain I was the woman he deserved—here, inside myself.” She clasped her hands to her breast. “That marriage, Malcolm—it changed me. Mayhap even ruined me.”

Malcolm studied her frankly. “How?” She could not look more perfect. “You are strengthened, perhaps—tempered as in a fire.”

“Aye, and before that, broken. Because, dearest Malcolm, there is strength of spirit and strength of flesh. Sometimes they are one and the same; sometimes no’.”

Malcolm thought of the dark hours chained in Latham’s vile cell. Aye, and anger had kept his spirit strong—anger and hate. What of Mercien? What buoyed him up?

He nodded reluctantly.

She came and sat across from him. “I shall tell you a secret, Malcolm. You recall I said things did not go easily for me in my husband’s home.”

“Aye.”

“Aye,” she echoed softly. “I had barely fifteen years when I went to him. And I lost bairn after bairn.” Sorrow filled her eyes. “Once I gained my freedom at his death, I consulted wi’ the best physicians. ’Tis their considered opinion I will ne’er bear a living child.” Her gaze fell abruptly. “I could no’ ask that of Mercien, to live wi’out issue. I ken fine what it means to a man, having a son.”

“But…” Would Mercien care? Aye so, he would care, any man would. But Malcolm doubted it would keep him from a life at Catha’s side.

Still, deep sadness touched him. “I am that sorry for what you suffered at the hands o’ your husband.”

Her eyes grew brilliant with tears. “Do you ken how I remember Mercien? How I did, all that time I remained in my husband’s hands? Laughing, always laughing, his eyes alight. And that smile—I could ne’er help but smile when I saw it. Always teasing and spinning silly flights o’ fancy. He was my strength, then. But such a man should ha’ bairns. He should infect them wi’ his laughter and tuck them into their wee beds at night.”

Abruptly, she broke. Malcolm did not know if she cried for old wounds or new, but his heart ached in his chest. Aye so, Mercien had always carried light within him. Malcolm could not but wonder whether, by now, it would have winked out, shut away in pain and darkness.

“Whisht, lass.” He drew Catha into his arms. And how many times had he longed to have her there? Now his heart broke all over again. For he must hurt her far more than she’d already been hurt, if he meant to save Mercien, betray her in the worst possible manner.

How could he betray a woman who trusted him? Aye, and how could he leave his brother languishing in the blackness of Latham’s cell?