Gifts of Desire (13 page)

             
She worked hard to keep her
fear
in check, knowing it would do her no good.  There was no light
after the door closed behind them, and
Ella
had to feel her
way down the
steps
,
though she couldn’t have fallen, with
the brute still holding her ar
m
in an iron grip.  T
hen
they were in
a dank tunnel
where she could smell
the damp earth all around.  Underground.  She was p
robably right under the bailey
, where
above
the
clansmen worked
.  A
nd they could not help her
, would not even hear her if she dared to cry out
. 

             
After what felt like
an eternity
, t
he
y
turned a corner, and she saw a faint light up ahead, where a door stood slightly ajar.  She felt a rush of relief that
she
would be outside again soon.  Truth be told, she
was rather
frightened
of the pitch dark, and the kind of places where the pitch dark existed with not even starlight
to break it
, like
underground tunnels, for one.  When her captor pushed her out of the tunnel ahead of him, she stood blinking for a moment while her eyes adjusted, then saw that he had not come alone.  Two other men waited on horseback, and a third horse stood nearby.  Be
hind her was the castle wall.  It was t
he outer wall, far from the watch tower, and in front of her, the wood.  No one would ever see them take her, probably not even if she shouted or screamed.
T
he tunnel had no doubt been constructed so that the inhabitants of the castle could escape unseen by their enemies, even during a siege. 
 

             
The man nearest them had pulled a length of rope from his saddle bag and
silently
tossed it to
the
one
who still held her
.  He grabbed her arms roughly and tied her wrists together in front of her.  He pulled
her
forcefully toward the waiting horse, and grunting, threw her up into the saddle, immediately swingi
ng up behind
.  He nodded to the other men, and as one they rode off into the wood. 

             
Ella
’s first thought upon finding
herself
hurled up onto the horse was
:
oh, this is
mad
.  How many times
can
I
be dragged off by a man on a horse in less than a sennight?
  Only this
time
, she was
afraid, and
angry
.  She was being taken away from
Tulloch
Castle, where her duty lay.  And from
Ceann
, who, although he had yet to say a kind word to her, had her
stomach
all tied up in knots…  Would he come for her?
  Would he care? 
She could hold onto that hope. 
If he thought she had escaped from Tulloch, he might just be angry enough to come after her.  He would probably even think she had killed the man outside the library door. 
A man who had obviously been ordered to guard her.  She had not been alone
after all
when she had tried the study door. 
Thank God it was locked, I would have been caugh
t.  Not that it matters now…

             
She struggled surreptitiously yet again to free her wrists, but the rope held tight. 
W
ell, she wouldn’t be jumping off a speeding horse anyway, nor would she be single-handedly defeating the
three
rough-looking
men that surrounded her.  She would have to bide her time and hope for a chance to escape.  She
closed her eyes and
let
her
fury fill her, giving her courage and strength.
  Where could they be taking her?  And why? 
Did someone know who she really was?

             
Ceann
knew something was wrong the moment he rode through the gates, and a guard
rushed to meet him, followed closely by Maggie.
  And he had a sinking feeling the something wrong had to do with Ella.

             
“What happened?”  He struggled to keep his tone even.

             
“Taken, Laird,” the man rasped.
  It was then that
Ceann
saw that
t
he
guard
was wounded, blood staining
the front of
his tunic.  Maggie was pulling at him
and fretting
, tr
ying to hold a rag to hi
s wound, but he held her at bay, determined to first do his duty to his laird.

             
“Who
was
taken?”
Ceann asked,
though he already knew.
“
T
he lass?”

             
“Aye,
and
her guard
gravely injured
”.

             
“Who took her?” 
Ceann
could fe
el the rage rising in his chest, his body tightening, preparing to fight.  To protect.  To avenge.

             
“I
don’t
know
.  They left me for dead.  I climbed to the wall…
saw...
three men on horseback go into the wood…
rode…
east
”
.
  He paused to gasp for breath.  “I don’t know how they got her out of the castle… they… just appeared…”

             
The tunnel. 
He knew it with a dead certainty
. 
Someone knew of the tunnel under the wall…
How could that be? 
“Go, man, let Maggie tend
you
…
”  A sudden horrible thought crossed his mind.
“
Wait…”

             
The wounded guard turned
, wincing as he did so
.

             
“The lass…
she lives?
  Was she hurt?
”
  He braced himself for the answer, wondering why he cared so much.  If she was
mortally wounded
, it would solve the problem of what to do with her.  But the thought of her
harmed
in any way
made his stomach clench.

             
“Aye,
she lives.  W
hen last I saw her, she was
bound
…
and they
… carried her off
.”

             
Ceann
felt a wave of something
suspiciously like
relief wash over him.  She
was alive, and she
apparently
she
did not go willingly.  But who would have taken her? 
The answer might have been easy if he knew who she was, but he didn’t. 
To the east lay his uncle’s
small
estate
, but not much else for miles.  Could hi
s
uncle’s men have taken her?  No
, that
didn’t make sense.  All he knew
was that he had to get her back, needed to get to the bottom of this damned mystery so that he could get on with other things, like…  Well, a
ll other thought could come l
ater.  He called to his captain, Gregor. 
Then he
raised his sword high in the air and
shouted to his men.

             
“We ride!  We’ll find who dares to attack my men on my own lands
, aye, within my own walls
!”

             
A cheer rose as the men, eager for battle
for any reason at all
, hurried to collect their weapons and mount their horses
for the second time that day
.
  They were ready in no time;
the countless drills
Ceann
had put them through
had prepared then well for such swift action.
  They
rode hard to the east, the
thunder of hooves drowning out all other sound. 
But it could not drown out Ceann’s thoughts
.  He could not understand the rage and panic rising in his chest
.  The rage,
aye
, he knew rage, had lived in it for longer than he wanted to think about.  But what was this feeling of loss, and of fear? 
For a lass he barely knew? 
Those were not
things
he was familiar with, because in his mind, he had n
othing to fear, nothing to lose, except his position as laird.
  Not since the day when he had finally accepted the truth of what his father had done to him.
  It was on that day that he lost everything else.

***

             
Though she lost track of time, it
surely
could not have been more than a few hours
of hard riding
before they came to a stone manor house, not
nearly as grand as the keep at Tulloch
, but certainly no crofter’s hut either
.  She was pulled roughly from the horse and led up t
he stone steps to the door of the manor
. 
Her hands were still tied, and her wrists ached and stung wher
e the rope had chaffed her skin, b
ut she barely noticed; she was far more concerned with whatever fate awaited her within.
  She still did not even know why she had been taken
, but somehow she had not expected to be brought to a fine house
.
 

             
The door was opened and she was shoved unceremoniously inside. 
Looking up, she saw s
eated in front of her on
a small
dais an older man, perhaps fifty
by the gray in his hair and lines on his face
, finely dressed, and
…
bearing an undeniable
resemblance to
Ceann
.  She
look
ed
twice, but it was
definitely there
.  The same
blue-green
eyes, the same strong angles of cheek and jaw
.   B
ut
Ceann
’s
father w
as dead, or he wouldn’t now be laird.  Would he?

             
“Lass, it
is
a plea
sure to welcome
you
to my home.”
The man
spoke, but his voice was not warm
and dark
and honeyed
like
Ceann
’s.  No, there was something in the way he spoke that made her blood run cold
and cold fear run down her spine
.
  He rose from his seat, and clasping his hands behind his back, took a few
threatening
steps toward her.

             
“
You
r
name,
lass
?” he demanded. 

             
She answered him
only
with an icy stare.

             
“Her name’s
Ella
, mil
ord”, said the
man at her side, the one who had kidnapped her.
  “I heard her called such
whilst
I waited to take her
.”
  She shot the man an angry glare.

             
“
Ella
, a
lovely name for a lovely lass
”
,
said
the
one
who looked like
Ceann
, but there was no sincerity in his words.
  Something
about him
made her
very
skin crawl.
 
“
Tell me
lass
, what are you to my nephew?  His betrothed?  His
new
l
eman
,
perhaps?”