He got up. “Guile,” he said, “is often the best defense. There’s something I want to show you. Beneath the foundations of the house, in one of the cellars, there is a secret passage that the Hepburns of a bygone age used as an escape route.”
At last he had found something to divert her thoughts.
“A secret passage?” she breathed out. “We have one in our house, too. My father says that it was probably used to hide clansmen who found themselves on the wrong side of whatever king or queen came to power. And before that, a Templar monastery was built above it.”
“I’m afraid our secret passage may be something of a disappointment. The Hepburns used it to evade the excise men. There was a whiskey still down there at one time.”
She was anything but disappointed after he’d taken her through the door to the cellars. “This would have been the stable,” she said, her gaze moving slowly over the walls. “Hold the lamp higher so that I can get a better look.”
He did as he was bid.
“Of course,” she said, “after so much time, there would be little of the Templars left, only a foundation, but it was a good place for your family to build a house.”
He shrugged. He didn’t know much about the Templars, but Kate was beginning to sound like her father. “Seen enough?” he finally asked.
She nodded.
“I’m showing it to you,” he said, “because it’s an escape route, not because it’s a relic of some ancient religious order. Pay attention, Kate.”
He showed her the secret entrance to the tunnel, a broken-down boiler on concealed tracks. She wasn’t impressed and was even less impressed with the holding pen where the smugglers once stored their contraband.
“The Templars didn’t build this,” she said, as they entered the last tunnel.
“No. I don’t suppose they did. Bear with me until you’ve familiarized yourself with how to get out of here if ever it should come to that.”
She balked when the tunnel ended in a crawl space that led to the outside. “No smuggler ever used this black hole,” she said. “It’s suffocating. And it’s too narrow for a smuggler to get his contraband through.”
“Calley filled in the tunnel with earth,” he said, “after he found a family of badgers had made their home with us. There was a stone at one time blocking the exit, but the elements undermined it. The point is, it’s the only way out. If worse comes to worst, use it. Promise me, Kate.”
She said the words absently. Her head was turning this way and that, her gaze fixed on the walls and ceiling as they made their way back to the cellars.
“What are you looking for?” he asked.
“Mmm? Oh, there should be a priest’s hideout somewhere. Every house in the area has one, or had one until the redcoats found and destroyed it.”
“Kate!” He turned to face her. “You haven’t been listening to a word I’ve said. At the first sign of trouble, you are to get yourself down here and use the escape route. It comes out at a stone cairn. We passed it on the way up.”
“Where will you be?”
“I won’t be far behind you.”
“In that case, I promise.”
When they entered the kitchen, he said, “I’m sorry the house is in such a mess, but good help is hard to get. I’m afraid it’s too much for Calley to manage on his own.”
His words had the desired effect. After the ubiquitous breakfast of porridge and cream, Kate rolled up her sleeves and began an all-out assault on her mortal enemy—ground-in dirt, grease, and other stains that could not be identified. To give her her due, she knew her limitations. She could not clean the whole house, she told them. The fewer rooms in use, the better it would be. It made sense to give up the dining room and eat in the kitchen, which would probably be the warmest room in the house anyway. Since it went without saying that she couldn’t do it alone, Gavin and his manservant were pressed into service.
The two men exchanged a conspirators’ shrug. They had other things they would rather be doing. It could be worse, Gavin reflected. She might have wanted to clear out his study and arrange his books in alphabetical order. As it was, his study was spared and only one reception room and their bedchambers and the kitchen were on her list of things to do.
Anything to keep her mind busy and off their troubles.
It worked, up to a point, but when they had a late supper in Calley’s sparkling, pristine kitchen and Kate was strangely quiet, he knew that her thoughts were still occupied with the threat of the unknown. What surprised him was Calley’s response to her. His manservant tried to draw her out, but all he got for his pains were polite inanities.
Calley! Who never had two words to say for himself when company was present.
Calley took the first watch and went off with Macduff to relieve Danny so that the boy could have a bite to eat and stretch his legs. Gavin and Kate tidied the kitchen and then trooped upstairs to their chamber.
Kate said, “He’s an interesting man, Calley, isn’t he?”
“How can you tell? He said very little.”
“It’s not what he said, it’s what he left unsaid. It seems to me he has had his share of misfortunes, but he has pushed them into the deepest reaches of his soul where no one can touch them, not even himself.”
He didn’t know all the ins and outs of Calley’s story, only that when he had found him, Calley was on the run from the law for killing a man. And just like that, Gavin had made up his mind that Calley was worth saving. His granny would have said that it was his gift of discernment that made him decide to trust Calley. At any rate, they’d been together for several years now. In his memory, Kate was the first person to visit the lodge who had managed to get beyond his manservant’s wall of reserve. They were two of a kind, she and Calley, lone wolves both.
He crushed the thought. Not if he had anything to do with it.
She turned to him with a little frown on her brow. “Of course, I’m curious, but I don’t want you to divulge any secrets. I’m just glad that you found Calley and even more glad that you found me.”
Did she know what she was saying? He felt it again, the pull of an emotion that was both fierce and sweet.
He kissed her softly on the mouth and guided her to the bed. “You’re sleeping on your feet,” he said. “Here, let me help you disrobe.”
Kate had other ideas. “Sleep lasts for an eternity. I don’t want to waste a moment of the time that remains to us.”
His voice was stern. “We have years ahead of us, Kate. Would I lie to you, I, a seer of Grampian?”
She kissed his throat. “You’re an untried seer,” she murmured, “and I’m an untried witch. Just for tonight, I want to be like the tinkers. I want to live for the moment. Tomorrow, we shall fly our true colors and face our mortal enemy together.”
This sounded too much like a prophecy for his comfort. “My mission,” he said, “is to keep you safe, and that’s what I mean to do.”
“You’re thinking of your grandmother’s prophecy. No. I don’t need to hear the words. I’ve worked it out for myself. Tell me, did she mention that she was sending you to save a witch?” He could hear the whimsy behind her words.
He was more than puzzled. He was all at sea. Kate admitting that she was a full-blown witch was the last thing he expected.
She answered his unspoken question as each was wont to do. “He’s coming. I can smell him, taste him, feel him in my pores. The feeling grows stronger with every passing moment. If I were an ordinary girl, I wouldn’t admit to any of this. I was ashamed of who and what I was. That doesn’t hold true anymore. I have a reason now for wanting to be the best damned witch on Deeside.”
“You owe it to your mother,” he said.
“Yes,” she said, averting her eyes. “I owe it to my mother.”
He allowed her to tug him down to the mattress. “We’re just tinkers,” she whispered, “and when this is over, we’ll borrow one of their covered wagons and go where the fancy takes us.”
“I’m exactly where I want to be.” He was wedged between her legs, with her skirts hiked to her waist. Every part of her anatomy seemed to fascinate him. Every part of his powerful body fascinated her. He sucked, he licked, he disposed of their garments. Heat from his skin set her own skin on fire. Tears stung her eyes, and she blinked them away. There would be time for weeping later. Just for a little while, she didn’t want to think. She wanted this, she wanted him to know that he had been well and truly loved.
She was still shuddering in the aftermath of an earthshaking climax when he suddenly rolled her onto her belly and brought his hand down on her bare backside with enough force to make her gasp. On the second slap, she rolled and kicked out with her foot. Scrambling to her knees, she glared up at him.
“What was that for?” she demanded angrily. “Don’t you know your own strength? That hurt!”
“It was meant to hurt.” He was pulling on his clothes. Face tight, eyes narrowed to chips, he loomed over her. “I’ve been seduced by the best,” he said. “Don’t you think I know when I’m being played?”
Because her bottom still stung from his unprovoked attack, she tipped up her chin and glared back at him. “You’ll have to explain that remark, Hepburn, because I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m a seer, dammit! How many times do I have to tell you? My powers may not work with others, but they work with you, because we’re connected.”
She put her hands over her ears to let him know that she did not appreciate being shouted at. “I repeat,” she said with as much disdain as she could muster, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He brought his face to within inches of hers. “This is my fight, not yours. I don’t want you interfering or playing the hero. You’re not going to slip away unseen to draw a murderer off. You’ll only put us all in danger. Is that what you want?”
Her jaw was slack. He could read her thoughts? How else would he have known that she meant to draw their enemy off. “No,” she stuttered. “I don’t . . . I won’t . . .”
He nodded, seemingly satisfied that she’d gotten the message.
She was still fumbling for words when he scooped up her clothes and stalked to the door. “This is just a precaution,” he said, flashing her a devilish grin. “I’ll return them in the morning if you promise to be a good girl.”
He quit the room, and she heard the key turn in the lock. She wanted to throw a shoe at him, but he’d taken her shoes as well.
The next day at the lodge was almost a repeat of the first. Kate rolled up her sleeves and set to work. The difference was she kept her lips tightly closed and barely said a word when Gavin spoke to her but was as nice as ninepence when Calley addressed her personally.
Macduff also appeared to be in her black books. He’d been set to guard her, of course, and she seemed to take his constant presence as an insult. It came as something of a surprise when she entered Gavin’s study after the evening meal and twitched his newspaper aside, the paper he was reading for the umpteenth time since Dalziel had given it to him.
“Here,” she said, holding out a leash that was attached to Macduff. “He’s your dog, and he needs a bath.”
“A bath? Macduff? I thought you liked dogs.”
“I do, but Macduff smells as though he has been rolling in a midden.”
“That’s what dogs are supposed to do,” Gavin replied. “They like earthy smells. You wouldn’t want him to smell like a rose, would you?”
“I want him to smell like a dog,” she retorted, “not like a lump of horse manure.”
There was something about the glint in her eyes that made him decide to let her have her way. It was a small thing, and he was relying on her good sense not to provoke his patience. Besides, before handing over her clothes that morning, he had secured her promise to obey him in all things, and he trusted Kate to keep her word.
“Fine,” he said, “but I want you to come with us. The fresh air will do you good.”
She squared her shoulders as they walked down the hall to the back door. Macduff hesitated, then gamboled after them.
“The only bath Macduff will submit to,” Gavin said, “is a frolic in running water. There’s a stream just beyond the stable. You can keep Danny company while I see to Macduff. I’ll be within earshot at all times.”
There was a row of pegs at the back door with old coats hung upon them. He helped her into one, then did the same for himself. When she groped in her jacket and produced her revolver, he was impressed.
“Calley showed me how to use it,” she said, and she slipped it into her coat pocket.
“Theory and practice are not the same thing,” he replied. “If there is to be any shooting, I’d prefer to be the one to do it.”
“As you wish,” she answered coolly.
“Look,” he said, “you’re gifted, but you’re a novice. All I’m saying is that what you lack is a little practice.”
She wasn’t listening. She was sniffing the air.
“What do you smell?” he asked.
“Tinkers,” she said. “Or Macduff. It’s hard to tell them apart. Shall we go?”