No Other Woman (No Other Series) (25 page)

Death seemed a mercy at this moment.

"Shawna!"

Her name was spoken harshly. David. He was kneeling before her, holding the lantern above her face. She couldn't see his features. The light was all but blinding her.

"What happened?"

It was another voice. A kinder, gentler voice.

The kinder, gentler voice of a savage. Hawk.

He was hunkered down on her other side, and she could see without being blinded by the glare of the lantern.

"I—I don't know. I paused to catch my breath... oh, God! You're—you're all right."

"Aye, my brother lives."

It was all that he said, yet she was aware that he believed his brother was fine despite her efforts to harm him. Angered, she leapt to her feet. She instantly wavered, feeling again the dizziness and the nausea. She nearly fell—and would have, had Hawk not caught her.

"Shawna, what is the matter with you?" David demanded skeptically.

"Shawna?" Hawk inquired.

"I..."

"Shawna, talk to us!" David warned. "We'll not play games here as we did five years ago!"

"You must... you must leave me be," Shawna whispered to Hawk. "I'm... sick."

She pushed away from him, staggering along the tunnel. When she burst out of the main shaft, Skylar, who had been waiting and watching from the very edge of the entrance, came hurrying after her. "Oh, my God! What's happened, are you all right—"

She broke off as her husband emerged, followed by David. She spun around nervously, trying to assure herself that they remained alone by the mine's entrance. "David, you can be seen here. Hawk, what's going on? Shawna, tell me! What has happened?" she demanded, her voice rising anxiously at the sight of them, Shawna gray, Hawk soaked and muddied, David disheveled and caked with coal dust.

Without waiting to hear the men's answer, Shawna hurried to the nearest bushes. Her stomach constricted in vicious torment, and she was violently sick, so much so that she fell into the long, cool grass once her retching had stopped.

"Poor thing!" she heard. She tried to sit up. The effort was too much. She fell back as Skylar knelt down beside her. She'd had the presence of mind to bring a bucket of water from the mine entrance and dipped her handkerchief in it to bathe Shawna's face. "There..." she murmured. "You're not... well, you're not..."

"Not what?"

"Expecting?"

"Expecting what?" Shawna inquired, then realized just what Skylar Douglas thought she was expecting.

"No, oh, no! I was attacked, drugged!"

"Drugged?" Skylar demanded, alarmed, and Shawna realized that neither Hawk nor David had really told Skylar anything.

"We were tricked in the tunnel. Led toward a gap in the flooring that led to the caverns below that fill with high tide from the loch. When I ran for help... someone drugged me."

"With wine?" came a sardonic voice.

David stood behind her. She knew it. She made it to her feet, though she had to pray that she would maintain the strength to stand. And to move.

"Pray, Skylar, tell your brother-in-law how terribly sorry I am that he does not reside in hell!" she said furiously, and started for her horse.

She was going to make it. She was still trying to move too fast. She heard a cry, though it seemed distant. Skylar, she thought.

She started to fall again.

She was swept up. She tried to open her eyes.

David. David was carrying her.

And for a brief moment, his green eyes seemed forest deep with concern.

"Bastard," she mouthed to him.

Then her eyes closed again.

When she awoke next, she was in the tower room at Castle Rock.

Sunlight was shining through the window and Skylar was seated by her side, reading as she kept watch.

Thinking they were alone, Shawna groaned. She tried to smile at Skylar, who instantly looked at her with concerned eyes.

"Are you all right?"

"Better. Very thirsty."

"I'll get you some water—"

"Here."

Skylar didn't need to go for water. David was in the room as well. Bathed and changed, he wore a handsomely loose-fitting white shirt and form-hugging breeches along with black boots. A stray lock of his dark auburn hair had formed a wild, rakish wave down the center of his forehead and he impatiently thrust it from his eyes as he pressed a glass of water into her fingers.

Skylar rose. "Well, Shawna, you're looking much better. I guess I had best leave the two of you... er, alone," she finished flatly, looking from one of them to the other.

She didn't flee uncomfortably. Skylar wasn't the type to do so. She turned, and seemed to gracefully float from the room.

Shawna sat up, instantly wary.

But she groaned then, burying her face in her hands. "Don't you ever go away anymore?" she whispered painfully.

He sat by her side on the bed, and she felt his eyes on her. She felt his stare. It seemed to be piercing her, stripping her in a manner quite unlike anything she'd ever felt, even from him, before.

"Tell me exactly what happened."

"I should not tell you the time of day."

"I don't give a damn about the time of day. What happened?"

"Your brother came to me to see the mines—"

"So he says. But he is a gallant heathen, and would protect you."

"He is gallant—and honest."

"Indeed. Go on."

"We heard a tapping. And followed it. And a gust of air doused the light. I heard him calling to me—" she began, then broke off flatly, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Go on."

She shook her head vehemently. "I'll not."

"You will."

"Go plague someone you believe in, Laird Douglas."

"I shall plague you mercilessly until I get my answers. My brother was nearly killed today. That would have made a fine and fitting end to the Douglas clan."

"I never sought to harm your brother. He knows it well. And you know it."

"Maybe I'm afraid I'm finding it far too easy to believe in your innocence, and knowing you, I don't dare allow myself that luxury. What happened to you when you went for the rope to save his life?"

"Someone... drugged me."

He stood, walking to the window. Then he turned back to stare at her.

"How odd."

"What is odd?"

"I found a handkerchief very early this morning in the chapel."

"What has this to do—"

"It still smelled of chloroform."

Shawna gasped. "Chloroform? But whose—"

She broke off, wide-eyed, because he was walking back toward her and he leaned over her, his arms like a pair of bars on either side of her.

"Yours," he said, before she could voice the question.

"What?" she gasped. "You're trying to tell me that you found one of my handkerchiefs in the chapel—and it still carried a scent of chloroform."

"Indeed. I did, however, search the chapel from top to bottom. And I found nothing more."

"So you're implying that I drugged myself to keep from saving your brother—then managed to run back here, drop my handkerchief in the chapel, and go running back to the mine to fall flat on my face?"

"I'm implying no such thing."

"Then—"

"I'm saying that it's quite curious that you are drugged by a mystery creature in the mine—and a handkerchief with your initials upon it is found in the cemetery bearing the scent of chloroform."

She pushed his arm aside, trying to rise. She wasn't nearly as dizzy as she had been, but she wavered for a minute before gaining strength by leaning on him. "I have had it! I won't keep secret the fact that you live anymore—I will not betray my own family. How could my kin possibly be guilty when I am master of so much mischief? And you, Laird Douglas, you may have many rights, but you've got no right to me—"

She was suddenly no longer leaning on him, he was holding her, his hands cupping her elbows as he kept her firmly close, his head somewhat lowered to hers.

"You are sure it is a drug that made you ill?"

"Aye, of course!"

"You're quite certain that you're not with child?"

"Oh, sweet Jesu!" she murmured. "It was a drug, I am not with child!"

"How do you know?"

"I know, believe me, I know."

"You can't—"

"Oh, God, stop!" she hissed. She was feeling weak again. She couldn't tell him that she knew full well that this was not a pregnancy sickness! "I was ill from the sickly sweet scent of the drug, and that is all! Damn you, go! If you cannot believe in me, I insist that you leave me be. Your brother is here—darken his door by night! If you must guard someone by night, find your way to Sabrina's door—"

"That would not be likely."

"She's an exceptionally beautiful young woman."

"Exceptionally so."

She tried to wrench free from him. "Go—"

"M'lady MacGinnis, I think not."

"If—"

"I rather imagine that Sabrina Connor is involved with the father of her child."

Shawna gasped, horrified, trying to remember if she had given Sabrina away with any word or action. Surely, she had not done so!

"So you know—"

"Aye, that I do."

"But, I didn't—"

"You did not."

"But she has told no one, she doesn't want her sister or your brother to know—"

"They do not. Not to my knowledge."

A warm wave of uneasiness swept over Shawna. He heard too much, knew too much! She backed against the wall, watching him, wondering what else he might know.

She never gave away the past, she assured herself. Never.

Not even in her dreams.

There were things she could not bear to remember.

"Ah, so, Laird Douglas, were it not for Sabrina Connor's delicate secret, you might be slipping through her door."

He frowned, staring at her peculiarly. "You don't think that my nights are well spent?"

"We've both just agreed that Miss Connor is exceptional."

"So we have." He arched a brow. "Ah, my dear Lady MacGinnis? Could you be... jealous?"

"Certainly not. I seek some other poor damsel for you to plague."

He came to her. She found herself backed all the way against the wall. He lifted her chin, meeting her eyes.

"Not jealous, eh?"

"Never. Although..."

"Aye?"

"It easily might have been," she murmured softly. "Your brother's sister-in-law is a very lovely young woman."

"Very lovely indeed."

"So then... who knows what might have been."

"Had she not had a lover—and I not had you?"

"Are you so certain that you have me?"

"I am certain only of the past, m'lady. Who knows what might have been had our lives been different. The lovely young Miss Connor has her past, and I have my own."

"The past, Laird Douglas. What of the future?"

"What can one know of the future when we must first survive the present?"

He stared at her, the expression in his eyes demanding, and provocative.

Yet then, even David was taken by surprise, for the door suddenly burst open when he was completely unprepared.

Totally exposed.

It was Skylar who had come upon them, anxious and upset—yet still with the presence of mind to close the door swiftly once she had entered.

"Edwina, the woman from the tavern, is here, with your great-uncle. She's very upset. She's come about some very unpleasant dreams, and... oh, God!" Skylar buried her face in her hands.

David walked to her quickly, putting an arm around her shoulder. "Skylar, Edwina often has dreams, but you shouldn't be upset, she comes to warn people so that they can be careful when she feels they are in danger."

"No, no," Skylar moaned, blinking back tears. "She came because she was worried about Sabrina and—"

"And?" Shawna said worriedly.

"I can't find Sabrina! I went to get her to talk to Edwina, and I couldn't find her anywhere!"

"Skylar! We'll find her. She's an independent young woman with—with a lot on her mind," Shawna said, trying to be reassuring. But she was concerned herself. "Sabrina is not a part of whatever nonsense is going on here. We'll find her. I'm sure she's fine."

"I'm afraid not," Skylar whispered. "Edwina is certain that—"

"Certain that what?" David asked hoarsely.

"That Sabrina has met with some evil!" Sabrina said.

"Why should she be so certain?" Shawna queried, a sinking feeling wrapping about her heart.

"Because," Sabrina said, hesitating just briefly, "because Sabrina was somehow woven into her dream. She appeared as an angel in Edwina's dream, whispering to her."

"And saying?" David demanded.

Skylar moistened her lips to speak. "Saying that the charred corpse of David Douglas has come to life, and walks the earth. Seeking vengeance. And that, in a reign of death, he shall have it."

Chapter 14

Shawna wound up searching through Castle MacGinnis with her great-uncle Lowell and Aidan. Since Castle MacGinnis was far smaller than Castle Rock, it had been involved in far less political maneuvering throughout the years than the Douglas stronghold at Craig Rock. While Lowell methodically went room by room through the ground floor and the crypts beneath, Shawna searched the upstairs rooms and turrets with Aidan.