Once Upon a Highland Autumn (30 page)

Since it contained Megan.

“Megan?” he shouted, moving toward the stairs. It was dark at the top, and he carried the lantern high as he took them two at a time, his boots sloshing water.

“There’s something up here that’s intact?” Glenlorne asked from behind him, raising his own light to look.

Kit hurried down the hall to the bedchamber. It was cold and dark, the fire down to a single gleaming eye amid the ashes. “Megan?” he called.

“It’s a bedroom,” Glenlorne said.

“It’s where I left her,” Kit said, feeling panic rise in his throat.

Glenlorne went and picked something up from the floor near the fireplace. He held it up, his brows rising into his hairline. Megan’s silk stocking gleamed like a ghost.

“Is this hers?” Alec McNabb demanded, his eyes glowing in the lantern light, indignant and angry.

Kit snatched the stocking from his hand and stuffed it into his pocket. “Yes.” Glenlorne’s fist connected with his jaw, turned his head sideways, and Kit saw stars. He stumbled, but held up his hands, palms open as Megan’s brother came at him again.

“We need to find her,” he said, wiping a hand over his split lip. “Once we do, and she’s safe, we can—discuss—this matter further.” He waited until the fury shifted in the other man’s eyes.

“Don’t think we won’t, Rossington. I intend to—”

A howl filled the air, and the hair on the back of Kit’s neck rose with it. “What the devil was that?” Glenlorne whispered. “It sounded like bagpipes—or singing.”

Kit listened for it to come again. “It’s not bagpipes, it’s a curse.” He hurried out of the room.

“I thought you said there was no curse on Glen Dorian.”

“There isn’t. It wasn’t the castle—that was Megan cursing,” Kit said. He moved down the hall and only just in time saw the hole in the floor. His heart climbed into his throat. He held out an arm to warn Glenlorne back, heard the boards groan under their feet.

“Megan?” he shouted. He could hear the rush of water.

“I’m here! Hurry!”

Kit swung the lantern, trying to illuminate the space below him. He saw broken beams, but she wasn’t under them. He saw a jumble of furniture, but she wasn’t there either. Then he saw the hole in the floor, the malicious glint of rising water in the lantern light, and his heart stopped beating when Megan’s white face appeared in the dark pool of water, shining and wet, her eyes wide.

“The water—” she managed, gulping some. “I’m stuck. Hurry—”

He didn’t need a second warning. Without taking his eyes off her face, Kit thrust the lantern at Alec and lowered himself over the edge of the broken floor and jumped. He leaned over the edge of the pit that held Megan. “Give me your hand, sweetheart.”

She shook her head. “I can’t, I’m stuck. My foot is wedged . . .” She managed, trying to breathe and talk at the same time. “The water is coming up—”

He tossed aside the plaid and dropped into the water next to her, instantly felt the cold chill his limbs. She must be freezing. “Kit,” she gasped, her hands reaching for him, icy talons, “I—”

He didn’t hear the rest. He took a breath and dove under the water.

Her foot was caught between two massive barrels, and he tugged, felt her tense, knew he was hurting her. He couldn’t see anything, was working blind. He braced himself and kicked at the barrel, but it refused to move. He needed light, time, and he didn’t have either. His lungs threatened to burst as he pushed on the obstruction that held her fast.

Above him, a lantern appeared and he knew Glenlorne had arrived. Mere seconds had passed, but it felt like hours. He looked up at the yellow light wavering through the water, but it was enough. He saw the plank that wedged the barrel in place, and he kicked at it, dislodged it, and the barrel floated free.

Glenlorne pulled her out, was holding her when Kit emerged. Megan was shivering and coughing, trying to talk and to cry as she held her brother. Kit found one of the blankets, wrapped her in it and sat back on his heels.

Her hand on his arm was icy, as she left the circle of her brother’s arms to come to him. He opened his arms and folded her against his chest. Her eyes were wide and wet and luminous as she looked up at him. “You came back,” she whispered. “You came back to me.”

A
lec wrapped her in blankets, but she wanted the MacIntosh plaid—their plaid, and Kit. It was damp still, but he put it by her side, his eyes never leaving her face. His own face was white and tense, as if he’d been very afraid, and was still worried. She put her hand on his cheek—her pale, wrinkled, icy hand—and he set a quick kiss on her palm as Alec prowled the room, searching for a way out.

“Looks like it was a chapel once,” her brother said, holding up the lantern to reveal a crucifix, leaning at a rakish angle against broken benches. “There’s no way out. I’ll have to climb up and pull you up, one at a time,” he pronounced. Megan noted the annoyance in her brother’s expression as he glowered at Kit, hating the fact that she lay in his arms. Kit’s arms tightened protectively, and she almost smiled at the silent debate going on between the two men above her head.

“I can’t climb, Alec,” she said.

“Nonsense. You used to climb trees like a squirrel,” he said, and she felt her cheeks flush with hot blood.

“My ankle,” she murmured through gritted teeth. It hurt like the devil now, and so did her arm, and she was tired. So very, very tired. “I mean, I will try,” she said.

“I believe the hall is probably just a few feet that way—” Kit said. “A handful of men could clear the timbers that are blocking the door to this room, but it’s more than you and I can manage. We’ll need help, tools.”

Megan felt frustration bloom in her chest as her bother stood mutinously before her.

“One of us has to go and get help, Alec,” she said. “Would you mind if I waited here?”

He glowered at her. “I think Rossington should go,” he said. “It isn’t proper to leave you here alone with him.”

Megan wondered if marriage had made her brother daft. “If can’t climb, Alec, then I’m certainly in no condition to—” The words stuck in her throat at the look of indignation on Alec’s face.

He glared at Kit. “I haven’t forgotten our ‘discussion,’ Rossington. We will continue it as soon as Megan’s safe, is that clear? Boost me up.”

She watched as Kit helped her bother to climb out the way they’d come, and he peered down from the ceiling one last time before he left. “I’ll be back
soon
.”

Kit was by her side again, kneeling on the floor, fussing with the makeshift bed of blankets, making her comfortable. She was cold, in pain, and hungry—but none of that mattered. Kit was here by her side, and all was well. “I need to check your injuries,” he said apologetically as he shifted the blankets aside, but didn’t move them any lower than necessary. She kept her eyes on his as he looked at her shoulder. She saw the muscle in his cheek twitch at the sight of the cut, the slight furrow between his brows.

“Is it bad?” she asked.

“It’s just a splinter,” he replied.

“Then you’ll know what to do,” she said, and turned her head away as he pulled the shard of wood from her arm. She stifled a cry of pain, felt the blood spurt. He began to unbutton his shirt, and she looked at him in surprise, staring at his naked chest.

“It needs a bandage,” he said, and took the fine linen in his hands and tore it.

“Haven’t you got a handkerchief?” she asked.

“Handkerchiefs lead to trouble,” he quipped. He poured whisky over the wound, his eyes sympathetic as he did so, knowing how much it stung. He bound the injury carefully, his fingers gentle, then he held the flask to her lips, made her drink. His arm under her shoulders, and the sound of his heart under her ear, were nearly as warming as the spirit.

He turned to her ankle, lifting her gown with a murmured apology for the impropriety, and probed gently. She resisted the urge to scream.

“I don’t think it’s broken but it needs to be wrapped tightly in something cold and wet,” he said, and tore another strip from his shirt, and went to the edge of the hole in the floor to wet it. He glanced back at her. “The water’s receding,” he said.

“Has it stopped raining?” she asked. She listened for a moment, heard nothing.

He was staring into the hole. “I suppose it has,” he murmured distractedly. She stared at him, his chest naked, his fair hair water-darkened and tousled.

Her lover, her hero.

Her heart did a slow turn in her chest. She also noted his swollen lip. Someone had punched him, hard. He wet the cloth and carried it back to wind it around her injured ankle, resting her leg on his knee. She gritted her teeth, both at the pain and the cold of the cloth.

“What did Alec mean by ‘our discussion’?” she asked.

He raised his hand to his injured mouth, as if he’d forgotten it. “He found your stocking in the bedchamber upstairs, I’m afraid, and assumed—”

“Oh,” Megan said. “Oh!” Her face flamed, and she tried to sit up. She gasped as her injuries objected. Alec
knew
? It was a wonder he’d left her here at all. Not that he’d had a choice. “Oh,” she said again.

“I’m afraid so,” he said, sighing.

Indignation flared. “What, do you regret it so soon?”

He regarded her in her cocoon of blankets, the long bare length of her leg on his lap. His eyes were filled with an emotion that put out the flames of indignation at once, and made her want to sigh. “Regret it? Never.” He lowered his head and kissed her—one quick, unsatisfying peck. “But that doesn’t mean it should happen again.” She considered. Had he ended that sentence with hope, or was it fear? She felt bitterness fill her mouth.

“It won’t, if—” She stopped. There was a fearsome clunk, a hollow, sonorous sound from under the floor, and he turned to look down the hole, holding the lantern above the dark space.

“It’s the barrels—they’re floating,” he said. Then he got to his feet and went to peer into the hole again, taking the lantern “It means they’re empty,” he said. “Or at least some of them are. There are more, lined up along the walls. Those ones aren’t going anywhere.”

She felt a moment’s annoyance that his attention had been so easily drawn away from her. “Why is that so unusual? The ale in them might have leaked out, or the water—or the fish they once held, or the salt beef, for that matter. It might have been eaten and the barrels forgotten.”

He turned to her, his gray eyes bright. “But why would the barrels be here, under the chapel? Isn’t that where they bury bodies?” he asked.

She blinked at him. “There’s a small burial ground on the mainland, down the glen from Mairi’s cottage, where the village used to stand. They would have taken the dead there.”

“Even a laird?” Kit asked.

She shrugged, and winced at the pain it caused. She had almost been fit for burying herself, if he might remember. She had no wish to discuss the truly dead now.

“Then it’s a storeroom?” he asked.

She shifted, the pain of her injuries biting into her with sharp little teeth. “Is that where you imagine the treasure is hidden?” she asked tartly. “Why don’t you go and see?” she said, knowing that he wanted to.

“Will you be all right?” the daft man had the nerve to ask.

“Go,” she said. She wanted him by her side, holding her, but this was why he’d come to Scotland. He had no intention of staying, or of making love to her again. She felt her skin heat. Had she made a terrible mistake?

Dawn had come, and the narrow crack high above the floor offered a few pallid streams of kitten-weak sunlight to see by. She watched as he lowered himself carefully into the hole, taking the lantern, and Megan’s heart pounded as she heard the splash. “Are you all right? What do you see?” she called, unable to resist curiosity.

“The water’s almost gone. There are at least a dozen barrels here, maybe more,” he said. “Most of them are heavy, so they must be full.”

“What’s in them?” she asked.

She heard him laugh. “What is it?” she asked again, and forced herself to sit up, to gingerly move closer to the edge of the hole, inch by careful inch.

“It’s whisky,” he said. “And it’s the finest I’ve ever had.” He gave a whoop of laughter.

“It must have lain there for over seventy years,” Megan said. “Is that all?”

“There’s a tomb here, made of stone. A knight, his effigy carved on the lid. Sir Alasdair MacIntosh, he is—or was.”

Megan’s skin tingled. “Is that the treasure?” she whispered.

“There’s weapons here on the floor beside him—a sword with jewels on the hilt, a shield. There’s a dirk as well.”

He brought them up to her, climbing out of the hole grinning, his eyes glowing. The weapons rang on the stone floor, the gems winking coldly. Megan’s heart fell as she stared at them .
Now he’d go, leave forever
. Her chest tightened.

He held out the sword to her, like a knight presenting his honor to a lady. The ruby in the hilt glinted like a drop of blood. “Magnificent,” he murmured, his eyes on the blade, turning it in his hands, ignoring the fact that he was wet, and shirtless. “A few hundred years old, I think. It must have been a fine blade.”

She didn’t touch it. “There are tales of Scottish knights who fought in the Hundred Year’s War with the French,” she said. “Perhaps Alasdair MacIntosh came home a hero.”

He looked at her with keen interest, then frowned, noticing her pallor. He set the sword aside at once, and laid the back of his hand against her cheek, checking for fever.

Her brave knight. Megan sighed, then frowned. No, he wasn’t. He didn’t belong to her at all.

“Are you in pain?” he asked, and wrapped the blankets carefully around her.

“Yes,” she said. Of course she was. She had only just realized that she loved him, and now—now he’d take his sword and go, the prize won, the fair maid forgotten. She lowered her eyes, fought back tears.

“Take some whisky for the pain,” he said, raising the flask Alec had left, but he’d emptied it on her wounded arm. He grinned at her. “No matter—I’ll just go and get more,” he went back to the hole in the floor and climbed down.