About the same time, Aidan stood in the middle of Ardcraig’s smoke-hazed great hall and struggled to ignore the softly crying women huddled together by the hearthside. Pale-faced and hand-wringing, they posed a trial to his already thin patience. He shot another glance their way, then scowled, dignity alone keeping him from thrusting his fingers in his ears. He couldn’t bear to hear any women cry, especially when he bore the brunt of causing their grief.
A weakness Conan Dearg’s womenfolk were using to their fullest advantage.
Sure of it, he paced the length of his cousin’s hall, cursing under his breath. Something was sorely amiss, and if his foe’s teary-eyed females would cease their sniffling and sobbing long enough for him to think clearly, he’d figure out what the devil it was.
In any event, it had little to do with despairing women and even less with the sad state of Ardcraig’s dingy, foul-smelling hall. Och, nae, what plagued him was the same niggling sense of not-rightness that had ridden him the last time he and his men had come here. The whole lot of them had scoured Conan Dearg’s keep from dungeon to parapets, searching pointlessly and making fools of themselves in the process. An embarrassment he wasn’t going to endure again.
Especially if it meant having to admit failure to Kira.
Flashing a glance at the blackened ceiling rafters, he clenched his fists in frustration. Truth be told, he was also weary of the sideways looks his men had been giving him ever since he’d left his bedchamber to join them that morn. Their silence rode his last nerve, but he’d deal with such annoyances later. After he’d routed his nefarious cousin and tossed him into Castle Wrath’s dungeon.
The blackguard was here somewhere.
Aidan could smell him.
Furious that he hadn’t yet found him, he strode over to the dais end of the hall where Tavish and a few others guarded those of Conan Dearg’s garrison who’d had the misfortune of sleeping too soundly when Aidan and his men burst into the hall, swords at the ready and flashing.
Surprisingly, though naked and weaponless, not a one amongst them seemed concerned. They certainly didn’t appear sleep-befuddled. If anything, they looked smug. That was what gave him such an uneasy feeling. Almost as if they’d let themselves be caught unclothed and defenseless, knowing any Highland chieftain with a smidgen of pride would refrain from wielding steel on an unarmed man.
Aidan blew out a breath and slid a glance at them, their bare-bottomed, muscle-bound bulk limned by torchlight and the reddish glow of the Conan Dearg’s hall fire.
None of them could meet his eye, each man glancing aside whenever he wheeled to fix one with a penetrating stare.
He shivered, drawing his plaid against a cold that had little to do with his cousin’s crowded, untidy hall.
The bastard’s men were hiding something.
He was certain that something would prove to be Conan Dearg. The chill creeping up and down his spine left no room for doubt, even if they had searched everywhere. He scanned the shadows, half expecting to see the craven come crashing out of some hidden corner, swinging a battle-ax.
He saw only emptiness.
Darkness and gloom, echoing stillness.
Aidan’s every nerve ending hummed, his warrior instincts screaming with each indrawn breath. He tightened his grip on his sullied blade, his heart heavy with the need to stain his steel with the blood of kin.
Tavish stepped closer and put a hand on his shoulder. “Kin or no, the deaths couldn’t be helped,” he said, as always seeming to read Aidan’s mind.
“The bastard is here.” Aidan seethed, anger shielding him from the morning’s horrors. “He’s sacrificed his men, hiding behind them as he would a woman’s skirts.”
Tavish shrugged. “They should not have refused us entry.” His gaze flicked to Aidan’s sword, then to his own. Its blade, too, dripped red. Looking back at Aidan, his lip curled. “Better they died nobly than lying silent and feigning sleep.”
Aidan arced a brow. “So you agree something is amiss?”
“To be sure.” Tavish lifted his sword, eyeing its bloodied edge. “I just cannae grasp where Conan Dearg is hiding. We’ve upturned every stone and peered into each corner.”
Aidan rubbed the back of his neck, thinking. “We’re missing something. It will come to me soon.”
Frowning, he glanced again at the captured garrison men. Others were joining them, men brought in by the patrol he and Tavish had sent around Ardcraig’s perimeter. Warriors now stripped of arms and clothes, just as their brethren from the hall. Their leader was nowhere to be seen. To a man, they stood sullen and defiant. Some shifted restlessly, others exchanged edgy glances. All refused to talk, a stubbornness Aidan secretly admired, not that he cared to admit it.
Instead, he sheathed his reddened sword and folded his arms. Sooner or later, one of the men would let his guard slip, revealing the truth through a gesture or a glance, a word spoken too quickly. Moving to the high table, Aidan settled himself in his cousin’s chair, deigning to wait.
“You will grow cold, standing there naked,” he observed, speaking to the men but pretending to study his knuckles. “Yet stand you shall, for I will have the bollocks cut from the first man who dares sit.”
He leaned back in the chair, watching them. “I am a patient man. It willnae cost me to while here for days. Indeed, I intend to stay put until one of you tells me where my cousin is keeping himself.”
None of the men said anything, though several tightened their jaws and glared at him.
One spat into the floor rushes.
Another slid a nervous glance at the screens passage and the arched entry to the kitchens.
The kitchens.
At once, the hall tilted and dipped, spinning around Aidan as the answer hit him like a fist in the gut.
“Thor’s thunder!” He leapt to his feet, his own words echoing in his head: He’s sacrificed his men, hiding behind them as he would a woman’s skirts.
He wheeled to Tavish, triumph surging through him, hot and sweet. “I know where he is!” He grinned, and slapped his mailed thigh. “The bastard is in his kitchens, disguised as a scullery wench!”
“For truth!” Tavish’s face split in a comprehending smile. “The unfortunate creature we saw sitting in a corner, querning grain. The big-boned woman with a head veil and her back turned to us!”
Aidan nodded. “That’ll be him. I’d bet my life on-”
“Your life is over!” One of Conan Dearg’s men lunged forward, snatching the sword of Aidan’s youngest guardsman. “It’s you who shall die!”
“I think not.” Aidan whirled with eye-blurring speed, his own sword already drawn as the man rushed him, swinging his blade in a stroke that would have been deadly against any other foe. Steel met steel, the clang of clashing metal and angry snarls filling the air as Aidan parried the man’s every slashing blow, then closed in, his arcing blade cutting a mortal wound in the other’s side. The man folded in a pool of his own blood, his roar of pain echoing in Aidan’s ears.
Jerking his sword free, he swept Conan Dearg’s men with a heated stare.
“Should any others amongst you feel honor-bound to defend my cousin, come forward now or hold your peace,” he challenged them, furious. Bile rose in his throat that he’d been forced to cut down yet another kinsman. “I’ll see that you’re given a blade and even a shield. It’ll be a fair fight. On that, you have my word.”
A sea of hostile gazes met his cold stare, but no one made a move to accept his dare.
“You have no right to speak of fairness when you’d have us ride to Castle Wrath only to be slaughtered by your allies on the journey!” An older man pushed past the others, glancing hotly at the fallen guardsman before turning his glare on Aidan. “Your treachery is the reason we-”
“My treachery?” Aidan stared at him, a chill dread icing his blood. Suspicions too blasphemous to consider. He strode forward, clutching the man by the arms. “What is this you’d accuse me of? If we have our differences, every man within these walls is of my blood. Ne’er would I harm a kinsman without due reason.”
He paused to shove the hair from his brow, taking heart in the doubt beginning to flicker in the man’s eyes. “I see you know it,” he said, releasing him. “I would think every man in these isles knows it as well.”
“Your words spoke otherwise.” The man rubbed his arms, his face darkening again. “One of Conan’s riders intercepted the courier you sent to the MacKenzies of Kintail. Your missive fell into Conan’s hands. He told us of your perfidy. How you planned to invite us to feast with you and how the MacKenzies would lay in wait, falling upon us when we passed through the narrow gorge not far from your holding.” The man put back his shoulders, fury blazing in his eyes. “Your orders were to give no quarter, that not a one of us should be left alive.”
Heat swept Aidan, scalding the back of his neck. He felt his face flush, aware his jaw was working, but no words were coming out.
“By the blood of all the gods,” Tavish swore beside him, “ne’er have I heard a greater pack of lies.”
Aidan’s accuser set his mouth in a hard line, his gaze angry and unflinching. Behind him, others surged forward, their own faces red with outrage. “He speaks the truth,” one of them called. “The MacKenzies were to ambush us-”
“Who amongst you saw these orders?” Aidan thundered, his temper fraying. “Speak up and prove your lies. Here and now, that I might dispel them.”
“I will speak.” A young man barely sporting a beard elbowed his way to where Aidan stood. Ignoring the disapproving glances of his fellow guardsmen, he straightened his shoulders and drew a great breath. “We did not see the missive,” he said, his tone respectful. “We but believed what our lord told us he’d seen. He claimed his fury was so great upon learning of your plans, that he tossed the parchment into the hearth fire. All know of the strife between the two of you, so why should we have doubted his word?”
He paused to clear his throat, his cheeks reddening a bit. “I ask you, sir, would you not expect the same trust from your own men?”
“Indeed, I would.” Aidan folded his arms and did his best not to scorch the louts with a listen-and-learn-from-this-lad glare. “I would know your name.” He eyed the boy, judging him to be not more than fifteen summers. “Your name, and if you are skilled with horses.”
“I am Kendrew. I was orphaned and left at Ardcraig’s gates, or so I was told.” The boy flushed anew, his gaze darting to Conan Dearg’s silent, set-faced men, then back to Aidan. “And I am good with beasts, aye. Especially horses,” he added, shifting legs already longer than most of the men crowded near him. “I also know my letters and am handy with both a blade and a battle-ax.”
Aidan nodded. “So-o-o, Kendrew” – he flashed a narrow-eyed glance at his men – “are you afraid of witches?”
The boy blinked, then shook his head. “I do not fear them, no. From my experience, the older ones are naught but healers and the young ones are often women who’ve fallen out of favor with powerful men. There are some who say my mother was such a woman, but I cannae believe she was bad. Were that so, I think I’d feel it here” – he paused to clap a hand over his heart – “Though I’m sure there are many things in these hills we’ll ne’er understand.”
Under other circumstances, Aidan would have smiled. As it was, he made a swift decision. Turning to the man at his left, he ordered, “Mundy, see Kendrew’s clothes returned to him and give him a blade.” Before the oversized Irishman could protest, he took the boy’s arm and drew him forward. “You, lad, shall hie yourself outside and help my men tend their horses. Then you’ll return with us to Castle Wrath where I have other duties in mind for you.”
The lad’s flush deepened, turning as bright a red as his hair. “But, sir, I cannae leave Ardcraig.” He pulled back, clearly torn. “I am Conan Dearg’s man. I-”
“Go, and dinnae make me regret my rashness.” Aidan turned from him to Mundy. “See him into the bailey, then set others to gathering my cousin’s horses and weapons. We’ll be leaving anon. With Conan Dearg.”
“No-o-o, please!” One of the sobbing women ran at him, clutching his sleeve. “You cannae take the laird from us! See you, I carry his child.” She ran her hands down the front of her skirts, displaying the bulge at her middle. “Several of us are heavy with his seed,” she added, gesturing to the clutch of females. “We need him-”
“My regrets.” Aidan shook his head, wishing his cousin’s manhood was long enough to be tied into a knot. Unfortunately, he knew from earlier years that it wasn’t.
Frowning, he disentangled himself from the woman’s grasp. A comely wench with fiery-red hair and a lush, creamy bosom fair spilling from her low-cut bodice, she smelled fresh and sweet, her scent reminding him of Kira and what would happen to her should she land in his cousin’s hands. He shuddered at the thought, thanking the gods he knew her to be safe and guarded in his own bedchamber.
“Please, sir,” the woman pleaded again.
Aidan schooled his features, not wanting to frighten her.
“You shall have all you need and more, my lady.” He hoped she’d believe him. “My own patrols will guard your walls and I will make certain your stores and fuel remain plentiful.”
He didn’t add that he’d also attempt to find more suitable fathers for hers and the other women’s bairns.
“No one here will suffer, lest you repeat my cousin’s mistakes,” he added, already turning back to the captive men. “I give you my word.”
“Your word!” A swarthy man spat at his feet. “A snake’s honor,” he sneered. “We’ll no’ have your leavings.”
Great shouts of agreement rose from his fellow warriors and the older man stepped forward again, anger rolling off him in waves. “Hear me, Aidan of Wrath, I am Walter of Ardcraig and have dwelt here since before your birth. I, too, share your MacDonald pride. You may well slay us here where we stand if you mean to leave us unable to defend ourselves. We do not want or need your men riding our lands.” He glared at Aidan with withering scorn. “In your place, Conan Dearg would ne’er-”
“Let us speak plainly, Sir Walter.” Aidan lifted his voice now that the woman had scurried back to her friends and young Kendrew was out of earshot. “My cousin would and has done many things, including deceiving you.” Reaching beneath his plaid, he withdrew the rolled parchment, penned by Conan Dearg’s own hand.
The blackguard’s seal, cracked and broken, still dangled from the missive, attached to the end of a crumpled bit of red ribbon.
Red as blood and just as damning, as were the words inked inside.
“Read this and then tell me I’ve no right to put an end to my cousin’s villainy once and for all time.” Aidan thrust the scroll into the man’s hands, then stepped back to wait. “Read it aloud if you will.”
Walter of Ardcraig glanced at the scroll, looking up as quickly. His face was ashen. “My lord, this is beyond reason.”
“Reason was ne’er one of my cousin’s better points,” Aidan agreed. “Never the less, I’d have his words known. Read on, and loudly enough so all may hear.”
Looking miserable, Walter complied. A great silence descended when he finished. Again, Conan Dearg’s men avoided Aidan’s eye, but this time shame stained the faces of most. Regrettably, not all, so he took back the parchment and tucked it carefully into his plaid.
Then he cleared his throat. “Since my cousin intended to slay me and any of my clan who cared to accompany me to his feast, there will be some amongst you who knew of his plans,” he said, his voice ringing. “Be glad I am not him. I willnae damn innocent men for the dark deeds of others, but I will keep your horses and your weapons until I’ve decided I have no further reason to distrust you. Or until those brave enough to throw yourself on my mercy, step forward and admit your guilt.”
“I cannae think of a man present who’d be party to the like,” Walter spoke up again. “Not a one.”
“Then so be it.” Aidan gave him a curt nod. “I charge you to ensure I have no cause to return here in anger. If I must, not a stone will remain uncharred.”
Before the other could reply, Aidan wheeled about and strode for the screens passage and the arched kitchen entry, quickening his pace as he neared the torch-lit steps spiraling down into Ardcraig’s heart.
He took them two at a time, Tavish and a few others fast on his heels. At the bottom, his heart bounded to find a cluster of his best guardsmen, standing at ease as they watched over the seemingly innocent kitchen scene. Young boys stirred the cook pots and a straight-backed gray-beard kneaded bread at a table laden with butter, milk, cheese, and other goods obviously meant for the evening meal. Conan Dearg still sat quietly in the corner, his back angled to door as he ground his grain, clearly unaware his hours were measured.
The old man looked up, his expression as tight as his posture. “Can we no’ be left in peace to tend our work?” he demanded, his voice thrumming with indignation. “Your guardsmen frighten the wee fire laddies and I’m too old for the likes o’ such scrutiny!”
“Indeed,” Aidan agreed, stepping deeper into the kitchen, the zinging hiss of his sword leaving its scabbard, announcing his purpose. “We are no’ here to plague you or yon laddies, though you’d be wise to stand clear lest you get injured in the fray.”
“There’ll be no fray! Only your death!” Conan Dearg whipped his sword from beneath a pile of grain sacks and leapt to his feet. He lunged forward, overturning a bench as he swung wildly, his movements hampered by his skirts. “You’ll no’ leave here alive,” he snarled, crashing into the table before he regained his balance and attacked again.
Aidan’s mouth twitched. “You shall leave here alive,” he shot back, easily side-stepping the other’s charge. “You’ll meet your end in my dungeon where you’ll need neither grain nor a woman’s skirts.”
Conan Dearg lunged again, his blade striking Aidan’s with an ear-splitting clang. “You’re mad,” he bellowed, jumping back when his sword went flying. His face red with fury, he dived for the table, grabbing a kitchen knife. Aidan was on him in a heartbeat, knocking the weapon from his hand before he could even blink.
“Och, I’m no’ mad.” Aidan tossed aside his own sword, then slammed his fist into his cousin’s nose. “I’m reminding you that no one threatens my people and lives to tell the tale.” Another blow sent Conan Dearg to his knees, where he pressed a hand against his nose and gaped up at Aidan for a split second before sprawling facedown on the floor.
Satisfied, Aidan glanced at the grim old man and the three wee boys. They cowered in a corner, their distress only deepening his anger. Wiping his hands on his plaid, he turned to Tavish.
“See that someone looks after them.” He started toward the kitchen door arch, snatching up his sword on the way. “As for Conan Dearg, we are cousins no more. Have someone get him out of those skirts and properly clad. I’ll no’ have him shaming us on the journey back to Wrath.”
Once there, he might seize Kira and have his way with her, wooing and restraint be damned.
After the ordeal he’d just put to an end, his need for her was that great.
Unfortunately, when Aidan and his party approached Castle Wrath a few hours later, all such urges were swiftly replaced by an odd sense of ill ease. Nothing he could put his finger on, but something out of place all the same. A muscle began to twitch in his jaw and a hard, tight knot started pulsing somewhere deep inside him.
Frowning, he adjusted his plaid to better shield him from the sudden cold he suspected only he’d noticed.
Were he a superstitious man, he might think someone had hexed him, feeling such an uncanny chill twice in one day. As it was, and just for the sake of good Highland prudence, he shot a glance at Conan Dearg. It wouldn’t surprise him if the craven was attempting to blast him with the evil eye. But the double-dyed blackguard sat ram-rod straight in his saddle, his face stony and his gaze fixed stubbornly on the back of the man leading his horse.
Tavish, his other men, and even Kendrew, appeared oblivious. Some of Aidan’s younger kinsmen whooped and jested with each other before kicking their beasts into flat-out gallops in their eagerness to reach Castle Wrath’s looming walls and the warm welcome of its great hall. The promise of a seat beside the fire, free-flowing ale, and a trencher piled high with fine, roasted meat.
Perhaps, too, the grand feast he’d sworn would mark Conan Dearg’s capture.
For himself, he’d hoped to enjoy a bit of celebratory wooing. Slake the simmering burn inside him with a few long, deep kisses from his dream woman. Perhaps more, if she proved agreeable. At the least, he’d desired a quiet evening in her company. Shared hours spent in bliss that would banish the distastefulness of the morn.
Now….
He grew more wary the farther he rode along the steep and twisting track leading out to his cliff-girt home. And for no apparent reason, as the day had turned fair, with a fine deep blue sky and a bracing autumn wind. Not far ahead, Castle Wrath with its square keep and high curtain walls stood tall and proud as ever on its pinnacle of rock. Aidan’s banner was raised and snapped in the breeze. Everything looked as it should. From what he could see of the landing beach and little harbor below his stronghold, naught was amiss there either.
He turned in his saddle, craning his neck to make certain. The seas were running steep, but his flotilla of longships and galleys appeared safely moored in the choppy, sun-dazzled water. Several of the galleys had been drawn up onto the shore for repairs and the fires of the beachside smokehouses looked well-tended, with the usual number of men going about their business drying fish and mending nets.
Even so, something wasn’t right.
Sure of it, he placed a hand over the worn leather scrip hanging from his sword belt, hoping the clutch of freshly-picked heather tucked within would dash his dark thoughts and put him back in fine fettle.
But as so much of his luck seemed to be going of late, Tavish caught sight of the movement and cocked a knowing brow. “Think you a handful of crushed heather will win a lady’s heart?” He edged his horse nearer, his implied superior knowledge of women, only worsening Aidan’s mood.
Leaning close, Tavish lowered his voice, “You’d be better served to seat her next to you in the hall, pouring her wine and hand-feeding her fine morsels. Whispering sweet nothings in her ear and letting your men see-”
“It would seem my men see all too much.” Aidan shot him an annoyed look. “Since when can a man no’ pause to tend nature’s call without some long-nosed kinsman who claims to be his friend spying on him while he’s at the deed?”
Tavish chuckled. “Mayhap because it was the first time I’ve seen you call for such a halt on a notably short journey?”
Aidan harrumphed. “Perhaps I drank too much watered ale before we left Ardcraig. The morn’s doings left a bad taste in my mouth and I but sought to wash it away.”
“Then why not tend such matters standing beside your horse as you usually do? Why sneak off behind a great outcrop where a particularly bonnie patch of heather is known to bloom?”
Aidan bit back a curse.
“I’m no’ the only one who saw.” Tavish pulled a hand down over his chin, but not before his mouth quirked. The lout was amused. “It’s good for the men to know you’re so smitten. They’ve been worried about you.”
“Grinding on my patience is what they’ve been doing.” Aidan flashed him a dark look. “You most of all.”
“You wound me, my friend.”
“I’ll do more than that if you dinnae leave me be,” Aidan groused. He clamped his lips together, refusing to be goaded any further.
“Ho! Have done being so sour.” Tavish leaned over to thwack him on the shoulder. “We’ve been seen. The drawbridge is down. But isn’t that Geordie and Ross with the gatehouse guards? I thought you’d ordered them to guard your lady?”
“I did.” Aidan frowned.
He stared ahead, squinting against the afternoon sun. Disbelief washed over him, but there could be no doubt. The drawbridge had been dutifully lowered and the gatehouse’s heavy iron portcullis was rattling upward even as they approached, his best guardsmen hastening to swing open the second, inner gates.
As was expected of them.
Them, and not Geordie and Ross, two of his most trusted men.
The apparent lackwits who’d sworn they’d watch over Kira with their very lives.
A score of dire possibilities making his head reel, Aidan spurred his horse across the last stretch of rough, wind-blown grass. But when he thundered over the drawbridge and through the gatehouse arch, the only men crowding the guardroom doorways were the ones he’d assigned duty there.
His relief great, he swung down onto the cobbles, tossing his reins to a running stable lad. “The sun must’ve blinded us.” He glanced at Tavish as he dismounted. “I should’ve known Geordie and Ross could be trusted no’ to leave their post.”
Tavish snorted. “My vision has yet to fail me, though I’ll agree I see nary a sign of them now.” He set fisted hands on his hips and looked about, his face grim. “What I do see isn’t pleasing. Too many men are avoiding your eye.”
“They will think more kindly of me when they see my cousin hauled into the dungeon.”
Looking doubtful, Tavish glanced to where a handful of Aidan’s stoutest guards were already escorting Conan Dearg across the bailey.
“Then let us make certain he’s put in a cell he cannae escape,” he said, starting after them.
Aidan threw a last glance at the gatehouse, pleased to see his younger men crowding around Kendrew, Conan Dearg’s man or no. He had no wish for the lad to witness his former liege laird being hustled away.
Tavish signaled, waiting for him. “I want surety. We’ve both seen the bastard wriggle out of the worst scrapes and come back to jeer at us.”
“He’ll no’ have the strength this time.” Aidan kept pace with him. “No’ living on salt beef and soured water.”
“You’re the one who’ll wither away on such rot, and in your own foul pit.” Conan Dearg twisted round to sneer at him. He spat on the ground, showing no concern as Aidan’s men tightened their grip, bundling him through the low-ceilinged door that led to the steep, stone steps into the dungeon.
“The sun will ne’er rise on the day you get the better of me,” he boasted, squaring his shoulders to walk proud along the cold and dank passage.
“Some might say that day came this morn.” Aidan fell in step beside him. “Salt beef and soured water ne’er sustained any man for long and I’ve yet to meet one who can live on bluster alone.”
Conan Dearg snorted. “I am a hard man, Cousin. Rancid victuals and darkness willnae break me. Soon, I shall prove it to you.”
Aidan glanced over his shoulder, not surprised to see the dirk raised in Tavish’s hand.
“That isnae the way,” he warned, hoping his way wasn’t a mistake. “Each hour he spends in his cell will repay one of the lives he’s taken. We both know how great the number is. A swift death is a mercy he won’t find here.”
“I dinnae trust him.” Tavish frowned, but thrust his knife back beneath his sword belt all the same. “He’ll charm the water rats into bringing him cheese and wine.”
Despite himself, Aidan chuckled, his spirits lifting for the first time that day. His cousin was a charmer. No’ that it would help him now. Still, even with a blackened eye and swollen nose, his roguish looks were bold enough to dazzle any woman who caught a glimpse of him.
That his flashing smiles and swagger would be lost on all but scuttling vermin and whatever nameless creatures slithered in the matted rushes scattered across the dungeon floor, was a meet end for a man of Conan Dearg’s vanity.
Aidan started to say as much, but they’d rounded a corner, entering the oldest and dankest part of the dungeon. A familiar smell hit him square in the face, an odor apart from the usual reek of damp stone and stale air. He stopped short, blinking into the murky passage even as a pitiful, canine wail filled the darkness.
“Odin’s balls!” Aidan hurried forward, almost slamming into his guardsmen and Conan Dearg who’d stopped a few paces ahead, their passage blocked by the howling beast’s great bulk. Aidan stared at his dog, his jaw slipping. “Ferlie!”
The dog’s presence was an impossibility, for he feared the dark and especially avoided the dungeon.
Yet there he was, sitting on his ancient haunches beside one of the blackened, iron-hinged doors. He also looked intent on staying there.
“Heigh-ho! So you’ve arranged a mourner for me.” Conan Dearg laughed. “A pity you couldn’t have chosen a less offensive creature. The beast stinks.”
“He is worth a thousand of you.” Reaching past him, Aidan snatched one of the rush lights out of its wall bracket. He stepped forward, stunned when the sputtering torch illuminated not just his afraid-of-the-dark dog, but two sets of masculine legs in the shadows behind Ferlie.
Legs, as a lifting of the torch revealed, that belonged to none other than Geordie and Ross.
“What mummery is this?” Aidan thrust the light at them, his blood icing. “You swore to guard my lady, vowing to see to her safety even if the Valkyries came calling for you.”
“Ah. See you, we … m’mmm…” Geordie, the larger of the two twisted his hands, looking uncomfortable. “Your lady, sir, is-”
“His lady?” Conan Dearg looked on with interest. “I’d heard he’d gone off women.”
“You’ll hold your tongue or lose it,” Tavish growled, his own face dark with anger as he rammed an elbow into Conan Dearg’s ribs, then pressed the tip of his dirk beneath the lout’s chin. “Be silent if you know what’s good for you.”
Scarce hearing them, Aidan felt rage sweep him. For whatever reason he’d found his two guardsmen and his dog in the deepest bowels of his dungeon, he was sure it had something to do with Kira.
“What’s happened?” he demanded, fixing the two guards with a fierce stare. “Where is she? Why aren’t you at her door, watching her?”
The two men exchanged glances, their misery palpable.
“Um,” Geordie tried again, sweat beading his brow.
Ross drew a deep breath. “We’re guarding you, sir. No’ the lass. She doesn’t-”
“Guarding me?” Aidan’s eyes flew wide.
“Aye, sir.” Ross bobbed his head. “She did something that proved our suspicions about her. We brought her down here for the good of the clan,” he added, speaking quickly now. “Her powers-”
“Have you lost your wits?” Aidan roared, blood thundering so loudly in his ears that he scarce heard himself shouting. “She’s here? In the dungeon?”
The two guardsmen nodded.
Or so Aidan thought, whirling away before he could be sure. He’d already wasted too much time, should have guessed the truth as soon as he’d spotted Ferlie and seen the fear in his guards’ faces.
Dread for his dream woman squeezing his chest, he shoved past Tavish and leapt over Ferlie, fumbling at the heavy drawbar of the nearest cell door with fingers that had gone impossibly cold and clumsy.
“Kira!” He yanked at the drawbar. “Sweet lass, can you hear me?”
“The entire keep hears you.” Tavish grabbed the bar and helped him slide it aside. “Go fetch your lady,” he said, shoving Aidan into the cell. “I’ll see to Conan Dearg and the others.”
But his lady wasn’t anywhere to be fetched.
The cell was empty.
Then, peering into the darkness, he saw her standing in a corner, her shoulders straight and her hands clasped tightly before her, her eyes squeezed shut.
“Kee-rah!”
Her eyes snapped open. “Aidan!” She ran at him, her arms outstretched. “Thank God! I didn’t think you’d ever get back!”
“I’m here now.” He crossed the cell in two quick strides, catching her when she launched herself at him. “Shush, lass, I have you.”
He pressed her head against his shoulder, absorbed her shiver, then kissed her hair, not caring that Tavish and the others gawked through the door.
Ferlie barked and pushed past them, hurling himself at their legs, his tail wagging.
“He followed when they brought me here.” Kira reached down to pet the shaggy, tail-thumping beast. “He’s been outside the door the entire time.”
Aidan glanced at the aged dog, rubbed his ears. Only his pride and the knowledge that his cousin looked on, kept him from acknowledging that Ferlie had guarded Kira better than his own men.
There’d be time enough later to reward Ferlie and have words with Geordie and Ross.
To discover the reason they’d put her into the dungeon. What she’d done to give two burly Highlanders such a dreadful fright. Whatever their excuse, it wouldn’t be good enough to spare them his fury.