Amanda Scott (2 page)

Thoughts whirled and danced through her head as her fertile imagination sought possible avenues of escape. Her wrists, tied behind her, felt raw from her struggles against the rough binding. If only she could reach . . .

Memory shifted to a time in her childhood when her sister Kate had tied her hands behind her and threatened to tickle her witless if she did not stop chattering and let Kate finish some chore or other. The minute Kate had turned her back, a younger, smaller, and doubtless much more agile Isobel had slipped her bound wrists beneath her bottom, up her legs, and over her feet. Then, loosening the binding with her teeth, she had run up behind her sister on silent, bare feet, poked her sides, and startled Kate nearly out of her skin.

Wondering if she could still do such a thing, she gave it a try. Her hips were broader now, but her arms were longer, too, and with only a slight hitch when a seam in her heavy skirt snagged against the rope, she managed by pulling, scooting, and at last rolling backward over her bound hands and lifting her backside as she forced them underneath her, wincing when they scraped rock.

She was glad now that the villain had taken off her cloak and cast it to the floor, because had it still covered her, it would have been very much in her way.

“What are you doing?” Michael asked.

Grateful that he could not see her, and knowing she would sound breathless if she tried to talk, she said nothing, hoping to show him her success instead.

“Answer me, lass. Are you all right?”

“Aye,” she muttered. “Just listen hard for them, will you?”

Rolling to a sitting position, she tried to reach under her skirt, but the dirk Hector had given her when she turned thirteen sat in its snug leather sheath on the outside of her right leg above the knee, and she could not reach it. Nor, in that earlier incident, had Kate tied her ankles. No matter how she twisted, she could not seem to stretch far enough to force both feet at once through the small opening. She had to try harder. Their captors would not stay away much longer.

Rolling backward again, she exhaled as much air as she could and lifted her legs and backside as if she were attempting a backward somersault, using her bound hands to pull her hips and then her legs as close as possible to her torso. She was still flexible enough to bend double at the waist, but whether she would be able to slide her hands far enough to do the trick remained to be seen. In any case, she was glad her companion could not see her. Her position lacked dignity, to say the least.

Sir Michael St. Clair, having painfully exerted himself to test his bonds and found them tight enough that they would soon cut off his circulation, believed the lass was struggling as futilely against hers. But believing as well that she might hurt herself in such a struggle, his first inclination was to warn her to be still so he could at least hear as soon as possible when Waldron and the others returned for him.

Not that hearing them would make much difference to his fate at their hands, but at least he had seen enough of the cavern now to be fairly certain it was not the one he saw so frequently in his dreams.

Sounds of her movements continued. Mayhap the belief that she could do something was somehow aiding her, he mused. That she was not screaming in terror or berating him for getting them into such a fix was surely admirable behavior that he ought to encourage as long as possible. She was undeniably an unusual female. He had never known one before who, in distress, could manage to hold her tongue.

When she gave a barely audible cry of pain followed by a mutter of what he suspected was a most unladylike epithet, he said, “Are you sure you are all right?”

Silence greeted him for a long, uncomfortable moment, broken then only by another indecipherable grunt.

Stretching so much that she feared she might hurt herself, Isobel had at last reached her feet with her hands, but the rope binding her wrists had snagged on the ankle bindings. Gasping from frustration as much as from her exertions, she forced herself to exhale more, expelling so much air that she wondered if her stomach might scrape her backbone.

A dull, rhythmic thudding sounded distantly in the passageway, and with the impetus of near panic, she slipped her hands over her feet at last. Rolling upward again, still unable to reach the dagger through the slits in her skirt and underskirt, she yanked the skirts up instead and grasped its hilt.

Blessing Hector for insisting that she keep the weapon sharp, she drew it at once, sliced through the ropes around her ankles, and got awkwardly to her feet.

“Make a noise so I can find you,” she whispered. “I cannot see a thing in this cursed blackness.”

“I’m here,” he said. “But you’re standing. Did you manage to free yourself?”

“Aye, but only my feet, so beware, because if I trip and fall, I may stab you.”

“You’ve a knife then! Mind your step,” he added hastily. “That was my foot.”

Already kneeling, she found the bindings at his feet, then the space between them, and sliced through the rope.

“Someone’s coming, so don’t talk anymore,” she murmured.

“Aye. I heard them.”

“If you will turn so that I can find your hands, I’ll free them, too.”

He obeyed, and although the sounds drew ever nearer, she discerned no light.

Feeling her way, she stiffened when her hand touched the bare flesh of his shoulder. Ignoring the impulse to snatch it away, she slid it further down his back, seeking the rope that bound his wrists.

When he gasped, she knew she had brushed across his injuries, and then she felt stickiness on her palm that was harder to ignore. Her stomach heaved at the thought of congealing blood and the knowledge that she had hurt him.

Moving as swiftly as she dared, she tried nonetheless to be careful, fearing to do him greater injury. She felt him trying to help, pulling his hands apart as the blade cut through his bindings. Then, in a twinkling, he was free.

“Give me the knife,” he said, his voice sounding strained.

“Be careful,” she said. “The blade is sharp enough to shave a man’s face.”

He chuckled again. “So I guessed, lass,” he said, adding as he felt for her bindings with one hand and sliced with the other, “You are a most extraordinary female. I have no doubt that you know just how to get us out of here.”

“Faith, I did not even know this cavern existed until they brought us here,” she said. “You seem strong enough. Can you not overpower whoever is coming?”

“I doubt it. Heaven knows how many will come for us. Moreover, I’ve had naught to eat or drink since this morning, so I’m feeling a trifle unsteady on my feet. And even if only one comes and I could knock him down, what good would that do with the other five outside, just waiting to get on with my questioning?”

She had no answer and little time to think. The footsteps were so close that she could see a dim orange glow in the distance. Under ordinary circumstances, she would have been surprised that so little light could prove useful, but she could discern the near wall now and enough of the floor to see that no obstacle stood in her path.

She felt her way along the wall, certain that she had caught a glimpse earlier of some sort of side passage but having no idea how one might be useful, even if she could find it. Without light, they could not hope to escape down an unknown pathway, because their captors would find them in a trice. Still, she knew that only a witless fool would ignore any opportunity to find concealment or means of escape.

Her companion remained silent, and she was grateful, because his silence let her concentrate. Puzzles always had answers. One just had to find the right one.

“Give me back my dirk,” she said, moving back to him.

“Faith, do you mean to murder him?”

“If I must,” she said as she reclaimed the dagger, her mind already leaping ahead, seeking more possibilities.

He muttered something, but she ignored him. She could see a figure coming toward them now and felt a measure of relief that the waiting was nearly over.

“I think only one comes,” she said. “Could you not
try
to knock him down?”

“Lass, much as I’d like to oblige you, I dare not promise anything. I’ll do my best, but I should warn you that even if I do manage to knock him out, it will accomplish little more than to make him angry, and without any way out of here—”

“But how do you know that? Do
you
know this cavern?”

“No more than you do, but you must agree that it does not look promising.”

“It would be less promising if the passage ended here,” she pointed out. “But we know it does not, and I swear there is at least one side passage just yon—”

“Hush,” he interjected. “He’s close enough to hear us.”

Although the orange glow had increased steadily, she could see little, for she had dropped to her knees to feel around on the hard-packed earth, and her body kept blocking the dim light. At first, she found only pebbles, two boulders near the wall, and her cloak, but at last she touched a good-sized stone that she thought she could heft. Quickly, using both hands, she picked it up and stood again.

Her companion was barely visible, no more than a thickening of the darkness near the opposite wall. She went to him as silently as she could.

“Here,” she whispered, pushing the rock into his midsection. “Take this. I’ll divert his attention before he realizes that we are both free, and you can bash him on the head.”

“Faith, lass, I’m a man of peace.”

“If that is true, you are the first such man I’ve ever met,” she retorted. “Do try to resist predicting failure at every turn and summon up some resolution instead. You may recall that you said those louts are likely to murder me. I’d infinitely prefer to remain amongst the living, so—”

“Shhhh,” he hissed.

Gripping her dagger tightly, Isobel flitted back to the wall across the passage.

Chapter 2

H
ere now, who untied ye?” the man asked as he loomed over Isobel, holding his torch high, its flaring brightness making her shield her eyes and hope he would not put it too near her.

“I untied myself,” she said, lowering the hand shielding her eyes and smiling at him. He was the one who had caught her in the woods. “I don’t like being tied up.”

“Faith, but ye’re a beauty,” he said. “I’m partial to flaxen-haired wenches. Come here and see if ye can persuade me to speak to Waldron on your behalf.”

“Would you do that for me, sir?” she said as she put her free hand to her breast and leaned slightly toward him, her years attending the Court of the Isles making it almost natural to let him see a flirtatious gleam in her eyes. “I surmise that Waldron is your leader’s name?”

“Aye.” The glint in his eyes was predatory as he reached for her.

She stepped back, still smiling, fluttering her lashes as she held his gaze with her own, the dagger clenched ready in her right hand behind her back.

He followed her, grinning in anticipation of what he meant to do, but what that was exactly, she would never know, because as she braced herself to raise the dagger and strike, a silent shadow loomed out of the blackness behind him, a dull thud sounded, and the man collapsed toward her without another word.

She jumped out of the way, and when he hit the ground, he lay still. She looked up again and saw to her amazement, as Michael stepped forward a pace, that he had somehow managed to grab the torch as the villain fell.

“Now what?” he asked, gazing down at his victim. His tone was as casual as if he had inquired about the weather.

Isobel grimaced. “The others will not be far behind him. We must hurry.”

“I agree that haste is warranted, mistress, but as neither of us knows precisely where we are or, for that matter, where the others are—”

“Faith, sir, we know we are in a bad place and must remove ourselves from it forthwith. We must at least take advantage of his torch whilst we can, to see where that narrow passage yonder leads and how much farther the main route will take us.”

“We cannot do both at once,” he said. “May I suggest that you let me hold the torch aloft for you whilst you inspect that narrow passageway? I’m thinking it looks utterly impassable for a man of my size.”

“What about him?” Isobel said. “Is he dead?”

“Would you mind if he were?”

“No. He is a vile creature.”

“So I thought, but I own I’m relieved that he seems still to be breathing.”

“That only means he may awaken at any moment. We should tie him up.”

“An excellent notion,” he said, handing her the torch. “I shall do so if I can find enough uncut rope.”

“Tie some bits together if you must.”

Nodding, he gathered the longest pieces and quickly trussed the other man up. Then, taking the torch again from Isobel, he gestured toward the narrower passage.

A brief glimpse inside revealed that it was no more than a shallow alcove.

“We could bundle him into it,” her companion suggested diffidently. “They won’t see him straightaway, and if they have to look for him, untie him, even revive him, the delay will occupy them for at least a few minutes. If we are lucky, they may miss him altogether and thus even mistake the exact spot where they left us.”

“Can you lift him?” she asked. “I shan’t be much help to you unless I put down this torch, and if it falls over, we may be plunged into darkness again. I’m not sure how much longer it will burn as it is. It’s already dimming.” She fought to speak calmly despite her fear that the pitch blackness would swallow them again, but she was not sure she had succeeded. Her voice had seemed to tremble a bit.

He had begun wrestling their captive into the opening, however, and if his method of shifting him about was rough and ready, it stirred no sympathy in Isobel. She hoped the villain sustained at least as many scrapes and scratches from banging into the rock walls as she had in her graceless contortions to free herself.

The task was soon finished, and Michael said, “If you will lend me your dagger again, mistress, I can cut away a strip of his shirt to gag him.”

She gave it to him, straining her ears for any hint of the enemy’s approach, fearful that she would not hear them in time to extinguish the light before they saw it.

Though he worked quickly and in relative silence, her impatience stirred. “Mayhap I should just go a little way on whilst you finish with—”

“Nay, lass, I’m done. I’ll take that torch again, shall I? I can hold it up and light the way for us both if you lead the way—although I cannot help but believe they will simply follow us.”

“Which is why we must hurry,” she said, reaching down to snatch up her cloak. “The more distance we can put between us, the safer we will be.”

“But I cannot think how we can escape them unless we do find a side tunnel. Even then, they have only to divide their party to search both routes.”

“True,” she said. “We would therefore be wiser to seek a hiding place.”

“An excellent notion, if you can conjure up such a place.”

She sighed, biting back a sharp comment, certain of its futility, as she donned her cloak. Grateful for its warmth, she led the way carefully along the passage. Aware that she was not going as fast as she had hoped, she said apologetically, “We must tread warily, sir. I know little of caverns, and the flickering light of that torch creates odd shadows that obscure the path. I’ve no desire to find myself suddenly plunging toward the center of the earth.”

He made no comment, but a few moments later, he said quietly, “Look up to your left, mistress. Does it not appear there may be a ledge of some sort up there?”

He raised the torch higher, and she saw what might have been some such thing, but it was well above even his head and much too close to where their captors had left them to suit her notion of a refuge. “It is too high,” she said. “We could not climb up there, and even if we could, they would surely see us.”

“Not if that ledge is deep enough,” he said. “If I can manage to lift you to my shoulders, I believe you can scramble up there. Are you stout-hearted enough to try?”

“I think we should move on as quickly as possible and put more distance between us and those dreadful men.”

When he did not reply but only waited with a nearly tactile air of patience, she said, “Oh, very well, but I do not see what my getting up there will accomplish.”

“You can at least judge for yourself whether we both can fit up there.”

“But do you really think you can lift me? Only a few moments ago, you said that you could barely stand.”

“Now who is the naysayer?”

“But you did say that!”

“Aye, sure, but I find myself astonished at how much strength fear can lend one at a time like this,” he said. “Come now, and we’ll see if we can do the thing.”

With startling ease, he lifted her to sit on his right shoulder and then steadied her as she braced herself against the wall and stood up, moving her left foot to his left shoulder. Standing so, she experienced a dizzying sense of the immodesty of her position, but he seemed unaware of it as he took the torch from the crevice in which he had jammed it while he lifted her, and raised it higher. Her chin was even with the ledge, and she saw that it was much deeper than she had expected it to be.

“The space is large enough for both of us,” she said. “Indeed, it is more crevice than shelf, for it slopes downward.”

“It doesn’t plunge to the center of the earth, does it?”

“No, for I can see its back wall, but I don’t think I can pull myself up onto it.”

“Hold onto the edge, and I’ll lift you by your feet.”

Almost before she realized what he meant to do, his thumbs slid beneath her arches, he grasped both booted feet firmly, and then lifted her straight up so that she was able to pull herself over the ledge into the space beyond.

No sooner had she done so than blackness swallowed them again. Gasping, she fought new terror as she squeaked, “What have you done?”

“Hush,” he muttered. “I’ve put out the torch because I hear them coming. “Move as far back from the edge as you can, and if you can manage to slip off your cloak, we’ll use it to cover ourselves.”

“But how will you—?”

“Shhh.”

Hearing then the distant thudding footsteps and murmuring voices, she scooted back from the edge. With her apprehension increasing, she strove again to calm herself, but so little success did she have that when a large hand grasped her hip, she nearly screamed. All that prevented it was a surge of terror so overwhelming that it paralyzed her vocal cords long enough for her to realize that the hand was his.

“How did you get up here?” she muttered when at last she could speak.

“I had ample opportunity to study the face of the wall whilst I helped you up,” he whispered back glibly.

“You
climbed
it?”

“Since I had no one to assist me, it seemed the only way. Doubtless the same fear that had lent me strength before lent wings to my feet then.”

His bewildered tone made her smile, but she could still scarcely believe that he had climbed the sheer wall. She had not even heard him doing so.

Louder voices and footsteps, nearing quickly, banished levity, and she pressed hard against the back wall of the ledge.

“Lie flat and give me your cloak,” he whispered. “Its dark fabric should help to conceal us, but it would do us no harm to pray that this tunnel draws them on for a mile or so before it ends.”

“Don’t be a noddy,” she retorted. “I’m already praying that the earth will open up and swallow every one of them.”

“The Fates won’t be so kind. Now hush, mistress, and keep very still.”

A heartbeat later, he had stretched out beside her, very close beside her, touching her, in fact, along her entire length—and he seemed suddenly much larger than she had thought him. He shifted, settling himself, then pulled her cloak over them both until she could barely breathe. She opened her mouth to tell him so but shut it when she heard a voice she recognized as the leader’s shouting in outrage. The villains had reached the place where they’d left them tied up, and to have recognized it so surely, they must have found the man she and Michael had left in the alcove.

Michael shifted slightly, then went still as she mused that their captive might have regained consciousness in time to hear his friends and, although gagged, could have groaned loudly enough for them to hear. He might even have come to his senses in time to overhear some of what she and Michael had said to each other.

That last thought increased her terror, but she dared not speak. She wondered what he had done with the torch. What if he had left it in the crack or on the floor?

Scolding herself for indulging in the same useless worries she had disliked so much in him, she decided he would not have been so stupid. Then, normal thought ceased altogether when she heard the voices again, so near that she could make out their words.

“Ye’re a fool, man!” one said. “How’d ye let one wee slip of a lass get the better o’ ye?”

“I tell ye, she were free when I got there, and I never saw him. Doubtless, he’d already fled, leaving her behind a-purpose to divert me.”

Another voice, the leader’s, said harshly, “You’re daft, Fin. Did her pretty face stun you so that you fell flat and hit your head? You’ve a lump on it as big as a pigeon’s egg.”

“I must ha’ stumbled,” Fin said. “I dinna recall exactly, but seems she did keep a hand behind her back. Mayhap she held a rock in it.”

One of the others laughed, saying, “Hoots, man, mayhap she cast a spell on ye, too, making ye bend a knee t’ her so she could reach that thick head o’ yours.”

“Be silent, the lot of you,” the leader snapped. “If one was free, they both were, and you don’t know our man, Fin, if you think he’d have left that lass to face us alone. He’s the one who hit you, so you’re damned lucky the blow didn’t speed you to your Maker. Now, hush your gobs, lads, and set your ears aprick. They’ll not be able to hurry along this passage without making some noise.”

Michael felt Mistress Macleod stiffen. Although, now that he came to think about it, if her father was a Councilor of the Isles, she was doubtless Lady Something Macleod rather than Mistress Macleod. But the less said of names at this point in the game, the better.

The lass had no notion of what she had bumbled into, but whatever occurred, she had given him respite from the whip and for that alone he owed her aid and protection. He would have felt obliged to protect her in any event because she was female and he had had it drummed into him from birth that defense of the weaker vessel was one of a knight’s primary duties. A lass as intrepid as this one, however, deserved safeguarding even when she naïvely courted trouble, even when she foolishly flirted, if only for a moment, with the likes of Fin Wylie.

He smiled at the memory of her fierceness but hoped she would have the good sense to ignore whatever Waldron and the others might say of her.

With the slightest movement, he touched the back of his near hand to her hip in warning. That she relaxed at once did not surprise him. Except for what one could only describe as her reckless behavior in being out without a proper escort, she seemed practical and sensible, and thus remarkably atypical of her sex.

He had taken the precaution as soon as he had stretched out beside her of using a finger to poke up a tiny portion at the edge of the cloak that concealed them, so that he could see down into the passageway. The cloak barely covered him from head to knees, but his breeks and boots were dark and well back from the edge. He was confident that if he and the lass could remain silent and motionless long enough, none of them would see him.

But Waldron had extraordinary instincts to match his extraordinary skills as a warrior. Where he was concerned, they could take nothing for granted.

Isobel scarcely dared to breathe. The men below had fallen silent at their leader’s command, and nothing they had said before then indicated that they suspected aught except that their quarry had hurried on ahead. Still, with no idea how far the passage would take them before it ended, she had no confidence that she and Michael would remain undiscovered.