Captured by a Laird (36 page)

“Ye want me too,” he said, pulling up the skirts of her gown. “I know ye do.”

“I don’t!” she said, and kneed him in the groin.

Everything seemed to happen at once then. Patrick was shouting a string of curses in her ear. She brought her foot down to catch her balance, and the wall gave way behind her heel. A moment later, the tapestry beneath her outstretched hand felt as if it had nothing behind it, and a gush of cold air hit her feet.

She had opened the door to the tunnel.

If Patrick realized it and discovered the tunnel, all was lost. The Hume warriors would be killed one by one as they came through the tunnel, she would never escape Patrick, and David would die a slow and agonizing death in the dungeon.

She must get Patrick out of this room. While he was still doubled over, she ran for the door, knowing he would chase her. But he caught her before she reached it. His hard gray eyes were seething with a violent fury as he slammed her against the wall.

“It’s because of him, isn’t it?” he shouted, shaking her. “He’s ruined ye for me!”

She feared he was going to kill her.

“Nay.” Belatedly, she remembered the dagger strapped to her leg and tried desperately to reach it. “I only want ye to wait for the marriage contract.”

“Ye wanted me before. All those years, ye wanted
me
,” he said, his eyes wild. “’Tis Wedderburn ye want now.”

“Wedderburn forced me to wed him,” she said, struggling to pull her skirt far enough up the side of her leg to reach her blade. “I had no choice.”

“He’s chained in a cell,” he said through bared teeth, “and you’re still loyal to him!”

“I swear it’s true,” she said, and plunged her dagger into his side. “I am still loyal to him.”

CHAPTER 49

Patrick clutched his side. With a shocked expression, he looked down at the blood seeping through his fingers, then up at her and the dirk that was still in her hand.

Alison had never tried to kill a man before, and she clearly had not succeeded. With a roar, Patrick launched himself at her. She fell backward under the force of the impact, and they crashed into a side table and the wall. Stunned and bruised, she scrambled to her feet.

Patrick lay unmoving on the floor. He had a gash on his head and her dagger in his belly. On instinct, she must have brought her blade in front of her when he charged into her. Good God, had she killed him after all? Fearing he would leap from the floor and attack her again, she prodded him with her toe. He still did not move.

How long before one of his men came to look for their laird and found him dead? She could not wait for the Hume warriors to arrive and help her. She and David must escape through the tunnel now.

As she started to leave, her gaze fell on the pouch tied to Patrick belt. She needed his key to the dungeon in case the picklock did not work on it. She knelt beside the body. Gagging when the dead man’s blood got on her fingers, she removed the key from the pouch. She wiped her hand on her skirts, then stared down at the blood-smeared silk gown.

In these clothes, she would be easily recognized when she crossed the short span of the hall between the Tower stairs and the stairs to the undercroft. After closing the door on Patrick’s corpse, she raced up to the Tower Room, shed her sister’s fine gown and elaborate headdress, and changed into a gown and plain head covering of Flora’s.

She was taking too long!
Any moment, Patrick’s body could be discovered.

When she reached the bottom of the Tower stairs, Alison held her breath and peeked into the hall. The room was bustling with activity, which should make a female servant passing through less noticeable. Ducking her head, she scurried across.

Just before she reached the stairs to the undercroft, someone stepped in front of her. She looked up into the face of a Blackadder warrior she recognized. He was one of the young men David had nearly executed and whose life she had begged him to spare.

She saw the surprise in his eyes as he recognized her too. They stared at each other for one heart-stopping moment.

“A favor returned,” he said beneath the noise of the hall. Then he turned and walked away.

Once she was out of sight down the steps to the undercroft, she leaned against the wall, her heart thundering in her chest. If the young warrior had given her away, she and David would both be dead soon.

They needed to escape quickly. As she hurried through the undercroft past the kitchens and storerooms, she prayed David had been able to remove his manacles with the picklock. She did not have a key to those.

When she reached the dungeon, she took the torch from the wall and peered through the gloom on the other side of the iron grate. David was collapsed on the floor against the back wall, and the chains were still on his wrists. Her heart sank as she realized he had been beaten again.

“David!” she called in a whisper as she shoved the key into the door’s lock.

Panic rose in her throat when he did not answer.

How would she ever get him up the stairs? Even if she could, a man that severely injured would surely be noticed when they passed through the hall.

Time was passing. The lock was stiff, and she could not turn the key.

“David,” she called again as she struggled to open it.

Again, he did not answer.
Nay, they cannot have killed him. They cannot.

She tried to turn the key in one direction, then the other, again and again.

Her screams echoed off the walls as she was suddenly lifted off her feet and thrown against the iron grate. She fell to her hands and knees, and her ears rang from her head banging against the iron bars.

When her attacker hauled her to her feet, she saw it was Patrick, risen from the dead. He had murder in his eyes, and he slapped her with such force that she tasted blood in her mouth.

“David, help me!” she called as Patrick drew his arm back to hit her again.

The blow made stars dance across her vision. David remained ominously silent.

“You’ve killed him, haven’t you?” she wailed, and blindly pounded her fists against Patrick’s chest. “You’ve killed him! You’ve killed him!”

“He’s not dead,” Patrick said. “Wedderburn! Wake up. I want ye to watch this.”

Holding her with one hand by her hair, he picked up a bucket of water from behind them and flung the water into the cell. A groan came from the back of the cell.

David is still alive.

The iron bars cut into her back as Patrick again pressed her against the dungeon’s door.

“I’m going to fook your wife now,” Patrick called over her shoulder.

Alison bit and kicked at him as he tugged up her skirts. When she clawed his face, he slammed her against the iron bars, banging her head again.

He pressed his forearm against her windpipe, choking her, while he unfastened his breeks with his free hand.

“David! On the floor!” she managed to squeak out. “It’s on the floor!”

She could not breathe. She scratched at Patrick’s hands, trying to get air.

Then the sounds around her faded, and she fell into darkness.

***

David heard Alison calling him, as if from a great distance. Slowly, her voice pulled him to the surface. He fought to clear his head and wiped the blood from his eyes. When he saw Patrick holding her against the door, anguish tore through his battered body.

On the floor!
Something he needed was on the floor
.
Walter had broken his arm, the same one with the damaged hand, but he felt the rough stone around him with his other hand, desperately searching for whatever it was. On the other side of the iron grate just a few feet away but outside of his reach, his enemy was choking and raping his wife.
Jesu
, where was the damned thing?

His fingers touched a thin piece of metal. He knew at once what it was. A lock pick.

Damn it! Finding the keyhole was like threading a needle in the dark. Sweat dripped into his good eye. He could hear Alison gasping for breath as he worked the thin metal shaft into the lock.

Click.

He could not work the pick with his damaged hand for the second manacle, so he held it in his teeth. Alison had gone silent. Time was running out. He had to free himself
now
.

Click.

David no longer felt his pain. He crossed the cell in three long strides, reached through the bar, and grabbed Patrick by the throat with his good hand. Startled, Patrick released Alison. She slumped to the ground, coughing.

David squeezed Patrick’s throat, wanting to snap his neck in two. Patrick clawed at his hand, and David squeezed tighter. When Patrick reached for the dirk at his belt, David was quicker. He released Patrick’s throat, grabbed the dirk, and plunged the blade into Patrick’s heart.

Relief swept through him when he saw that Alison was on her feet. He rested his forehead against the cold iron grate, exhausted from the effort of subduing Patrick. Loss of blood from his injuries had made him weak.

“David.” Alison reached through the bars of the grate and held his battered face between her hands. Tears streamed down her face. “What have they done to ye, my love?”

“Nothing I won’t recover from if we can open this door and escape.”

“I brought the key,” she said, pointing at it in the lock, “but I can’t make it work.”

Using his good hand, he reached through the grate and grasped the key. The lock was old and rusty. Gritting his teeth, he forced the key to turn with scraping click. He was free.

David opened the door—and fell into Alison’s arms. At least he managed to catch hold of the door as his knees gave way so he did not land on her with all of his weight. Still, she staggered backward as she attempted to ease his fall to the floor.

When she embraced him, he winced. Every inch of his body hurt, but it did not matter. Alison was here.

“Ach, ye feel good, lass,” he said, holding her against him with his good arm.

He assumed his men had somehow gotten into the castle, but he was confused as to why Alison was here.

“What is the plan for our escape?” he asked.

His heart nearly failed him when she told him she had come to the castle alone to open a secret tunnel door for his men. Once she was out of danger, he would tell his wife what he thought of what she’d done. But now he needed to reach that tunnel and get her out of here.

“Our men will be coming through the tunnel soon.” Alison’s face was pinched with worry as she attempted to wipe some of the blood from the gashes on his face. “We’ll have to wait here for them.”

“We’re not waiting. We must be gone before someone finds us—or him,” David said with a nod toward Patrick’s body.

“But ye can’t even stand, let alone climb two flights of stairs,” she said.

“I just needed to catch my breath.” Gritting his teeth, he held onto the door and pulled himself up. “Let’s go.”

She put her hands on her hips and looked him up and down. “You’ll never make it through the hall looking like that without being stopped.”

David glanced at his bloodied shirt and his hand, which was purple and three times its normal size.

“Aye, we need a diversion,” he said. “But we needed one anyway to ensure the safety of our men coming through the tunnel.”

At the sound of footsteps coming toward them, David shoved Alison behind him. Blood pounded in his veins, but he relaxed when a thin man with a weak build emerged from the shadows. Even in his current state, David could take him easily.

“’Tis the cook,” Alison said from behind him. “He’s a friend. We can trust him.”

The first time she told David to trust the cook, he had kicked the man out of the castle with the rest of the Blackadder servants. But he was a wiser man now.

“Can ye start a fire in the kitchens?” David asked the cook. “A big one?”

***

Alison coughed on the billowing smoke filling the undercroft as she peeked out from behind the door of the storeroom to watch the servants flee the kitchens. The cook was the last to run out. He paused to glance up the stairs after the others, then he waved for her and David to come out.

“Don’t worry that I’m burning the castle down,” he said. “The fire is more smoke than flame.”

“’Tis a perfect diversion,” David said. “My thanks to ye.”

“Watch how I clear the hall,” the cook said, his eyes shining as if he was actually enjoying himself. He turned and ran up the stairs shouting, “Fire! Run for your lives!”

Alison looked at David.
God help me, how will I ever get him out?

He was so battered and bloody it was a wonder he could stand. If he collapsed, she could not carry him alone. She wiped more blood from the gashes on his face. His swollen eye looked so painful she did not dare touch it.

“Ready?” David said.

“I’ll go alone and bring the others back for ye.”

“I just watched a man try to rape and murder ye,” he said. “I’ll not let ye out of my sight until you’re safe.”

Ach, he was a stubborn man.
There was no use talking to him, so she took his arm. As they started up the stairs, he swayed and had to catch himself with a hand on the stone wall. Alison swallowed back her fear and kept moving.

The hall was in chaos with men and women shouting and running in every direction. Though she thought it should be glaringly obvious to anyone who looked that David was the captured Hume laird, no one seemed to pay them any attention.

She strained under David’s weight as he suddenly leaned against her.

“Sorry, lass,” he said and straightened almost at once.

“We’re almost there,” she said.

She glanced behind them and saw that he was leaving a trail of blood. She was desperate to get him out of the hall and upstairs where she could see to his wounds.

Relief coursed through her when they finally reached the arched doorway to the tower stairs. Looking behind her, she caught sight of Walter. The tall, black-haired warrior was pushing people out of his way to reach the door that led outside.

“He’s the one who did this to my hand,” David said, staring after Walter. “I’d kill him now, but Brian needs his blood on his sword more than I do.”