The Last Debutante (11 page)

Daria shuddered. She would remember to bite her tongue if she thought to complain about her accommodations.

Mr. Campbell’s arm tightened a little more around her.

Why didn’t he speak? He was exasperatingly silent! Daria forgot her fear and blurted angrily, “I cannot understand your reasoning for this, in truth. Do you intend to hold me in your cottage? I warn you, it is quite close when a stranger occupies a room. You will find it as tedious as I did; have you thought of that?”

Beside them, Duff snorted and looked the other way.

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Mr. Campbell, for taking an innocent woman from her grandmother. I’ve done no harm to you.”

“He is laird,” Duff said.

Daria was startled that the big man spoke to her and jerked her gaze to him. “I beg your pardon?”

“Laird. No’ Mr. Campbell, aye?
Laird
.”

“At a time like this, you would instruct me on forms of address? Whatever I might call him has no bearing on the fact that he has willfully and unlawfully taken me from my grandmother. It is indecent!”

“It is the fault of your grandmamma,” Mr. Campbell—or Laird, whoever he was now—said hoarsely.

His point was rather hard to argue, but Daria did her best. “That may well be, I’ll grant you. Yet
you
cannot deny that this abduction hardly improves my situation. Is there no other way, sir? Can we not perhaps negotiate a better—”

“Uist,”
he said, squeezing her like a plum. “No more talk.”

Daria could feel his weight beginning to sag against her. She shifted, but he did not move back; if anything, his body pressed against her even more. He was obviously in quite a lot of pain. Perhaps his pain could be made worse so that he would let her go.

She pressed against his injured leg and heard his sharp intake of breath. “You might have listened to Mamie, you know,” she said petulantly. “You might have taken the brew she made you to ease the pain.”

“Stop moving,” he growled. “I might have taken her brew and died, too, aye?”

Daria shifted again; he jerked her tight against him, his hold surprisingly strong given his state, squeezing the breath from her. She stopped, giving in completely. He relaxed his grip, and with a sigh Daria looked up at the treetops. Her mind raced—she was angry and fearfully determined to escape, in spite of her bare feet. Then she would think what to do next. One step at a time, wasn’t that the course people generally took in dire predicaments?

She only had to escape before they reached Mr. Campbell’s hovel, for she couldn’t bear to imagine where men like these would keep their hostages. She worked to convince herself she could survive almost anything—a night
alone in the forest, for example. She could survive anything but a rat-infested dungeon cell. If there were rodents—

Daria shivered rather violently.

“Be
still,
” her captor said roughly.

They continued on, his weight pressing even more against her, his chest, heavy and damp with his perspiration, wider than her back. How far would they go? It felt as if they were riding to the ends of the earth. Perhaps they meant to camp, which would present her with an opportunity to flee. She would take his plaid for warmth. She would tear off pieces to wrap around her feet. She would steal a knife from the sleeping giant.

They crested a rise, then started down a narrow path. Daria could see light sparkling through the dense forest, and as they moved farther down the hill, she could hear water running. A river! They eventually arrived at the river’s edge and moved into a small valley where the river widened, turning dark against the gold and green of the hills. Dark green firs rose up to touch a clear blue sky; wildflowers grew along the worn path. It was ironically picturesque, given that this was the ugliest day of Daria’s life thus far.

But then she saw hope—up ahead, she could see two men fishing in the river. Her prayers had been answered!

Duff said something to which no one responded. She guessed he was warning them, telling them that she would attempt to escape. Daria’s heart began to pound—this was her chance, and she had to do it perfectly. As they approached the men, one of them turned to look at the party, and Daria seized her moment.
“Help!”
she shrieked.

“Diah,”
Duff said.

She clawed at Campbell’s arm. “
Help me!
I’ve been kidnapped! I do not belong with these men, they have taken me against my will!”

Campbell reined up, and for a slim moment Daria thought she’d won. But that hope evaporated when he said, “How are they biting, then, lads?”

“Fair enough,” the older of the two men said. He trapped his pole between his legs, then doffed his hat, running his fingers through a thick crop of graying red hair.

Daria’s anxiety choked the air from her lungs. “Do you not hear me?” she cried breathlessly. “These men have kidnapped me and intend to hold me for ransom!”

“Aye, we heard you,” the fisherman said.

Speechless—Daria was completely speechless. What man could turn a deaf ear to a woman’s cry for help? And the other one! He squatted down again to continue cleaning a pile of fish as if she’d not even spoken!

“You’ll bring some round to Dundavie if you catch more than you can use, aye?” Campbell said.

“There ought to be plenty, Laird.” The man returned his hat to his head and took up the pole he’d tucked between his legs.

Campbell spoke in that awful tongue to the others, then nudged the horse to walk on. Daria stared ahead in utter disbelief, sagging against her captor as they rode. “A nightmare,” she said in a voice that was dangerously close to a whimper. “I am in the midst of a nightmare from which I cannot wake.”

No one bothered to deny it.

Their progress continued at an interminably slow pace, Campbell’s warm weight pressing harder against Daria’s
back. She began to imagine a man like him in a bed, sinking into a mattress. She imagined a man rolling onto his side, his arms going about her—
what in heaven was she thinking?
But she couldn’t help herself. With his arm around her, his chin on her shoulder now, she’d never felt a man so firmly against her, thigh to thigh, his sex pressed against her back.

She’d gone mad, that was what. No one could blame her, surely, but only a mad person would imagine such things in this circumstance.

The day had all but passed when they crested another of what seemed like dozens of identical hills. At the top, Daria gasped softly at the sight of the castle and village in the valley below them. It was a real castle, the sort with turrets and battlements. It looked medieval, as if it had not been touched in five hundred years. It was built on a ledge in the hills, its back against a steep and forested incline. A thick stone curtain wall circled the main keep, anchored by the turrets. A wide bailey with a drive and a tended lawn spread out from the keep, and Daria could see the small shapes of people walking across it.

Outside the castle walls was a quaint little village, around which were parcels of land, divided neatly for grazing and crops. Dozens of shaggy cattle ate their way through fields of green grass. In the distance tiny spots of sheep dotted the hills. There was a large stable, and a dozen horses milled about in the fenced pasture around it, their tails swishing lazily.

They started down the path toward the castle, single file, as if they’d done this a thousand times before. They moved into a deep copse of firs that obliterated the sun,
then emerged into the sunlight that bathed the clearing around the castle and village.

As they joined the wide lane that led to the heart of the castle, someone in the fields shouted. With his gaze straight ahead, Duff lifted his fist high above his head. More men began to appear, dropping their tools, moving toward the castle, shouting and running alongside the little caravan of horses that carried Daria and her captors.

Daria’s heart began to skip. She could imagine being dragged from the horse and . . . and what?
Beaten?
Strung up? Daria tried to push down her fear by reminding herself the year was 1811, not 1611. No one was carrying a pitchfork or scythe. They might be uncivilized here, but they weren’t so uncivilized as to harm a defenseless woman, were they?

Be calm,
she anxiously told herself.
Be rational.
She did the only thing she could do in the circumstance—she lifted her chin and employed the aloofness young women were taught when entering the ballroom for the first time.

The road curved up to the open gates of the castle, which were held back by thick iron chains. As they neared the gates, Campbell lifted himself off Daria’s back, as if he’d found a renewed strength. He was sitting taller, his grip around her tightening. More shouting brought more people running. As the group rode through the gates people began to emerge from the buildings, all speaking the language Daria could never hope to understand.

There was quite a lot of commotion as the horses halted in the bailey. Duff shouted, coming off his horse with surprising grace as he pointed to Daria. Two men hurried forward. Before she realized what was happening, one had
grabbed her by the waist and pulled her off the horse; the other helped Campbell down. Everyone was talking wildly, their voices rising, crowding in around Campbell until Duff bellowed above them all. In a moment, everyone had quieted.

He spoke again, his voice calmer but firm. And then, as if the Red Sea had parted once more, all heads swiveled in Daria’s direction. The crowd began to step back, clearing a path to the keep. Campbell, whose face bore the deep etchings of his pain, stepped up beside Daria. “Come then,” he said, his voice low.

“Come where?” she whimpered.

He grabbed her wrist in his viselike grip and began to limp toward the keep. When Daria didn’t move right away, Duff gave her a rough nudge that caused her to stumble forward. She glanced uneasily about her at the angry faces, the dark eyes boring through her, and wrapped her robe even more tightly around her. Her hair obscured her vision somewhat, and for that she was thankful. She imagined a sea of angry Scotsmen, all demanding her head.

Daria considered her options, found them wanting, and moved hesitantly alongside the laird. From the corner of her eye, she saw Robbie and another man dip down and pick up her battered trunk. They fell in behind her.

A movement to her right startled Daria badly—she expected to be struck—but she released her pent-up breath of anxiety when she realized it was the dog. He nudged her hand with his snout, his tail wagging, before loping off to greet a larger dog with coarse brown fur. They excitedly sniffed about one another as if they were well-known to each other.

“Walk on,” Duff said.

Daria put one foot before the other and fixed her gaze on the castle’s keep. Sitting high on the top of the keep was a row of blackbirds, their heads cocked to peer down at her, too. She tamped down the alarm building in her and glanced at her captor. His face was a sickly shade of gray, and when she averted her gaze, she noticed a dark red stain on the plaid at his thigh. “You’re bleeding,” she said.

He did not answer.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked, waiting for the word “dungeon” to drop from his lips. She could picture it—iron bars, a room devoid of light.
Rodents.
Alarm began to choke her again; she glanced over her shoulder at the unwelcoming crowd—lest they were following with a length of rope for her neck—and noticed, for the first time, the stain of his blood on her clothing, a dark red patch that spread down her side. His blood, soaked into her nightclothes. Given the amount, Campbell’s stride was surprisingly strong.

As they reached the threshold, Campbell paused to speak to a man with bushy brows that matched the untamed nest of hair on his head. He then forced Daria ahead of him into a narrow passageway. She kept moving until she reached a large entrance hall where a row of windows above the passageway door streamed sunlight in, adding to the light cast by candles in a half dozen wall sconces. On the wall overhead, swords were mounted artistically around elaborate body shields. Interspersed between them were portraits of stately men clad in plaid cloths.

“Suithad,”
said the man with the bushy brows, and pointed to a staircase to Daria’s right that marched up
alongside more battle armaments mounted on the wall. She glanced around and saw Campbell walking in the opposite direction, his hand pressed to his side as if to stanch the flow of blood, a pair of men flanking him.

“Wait!”

Campbell kept walking. “Campbell,
wait,
” Daria cried, and pushed past the bushy brows. She heard the laird sigh wearily as he turned, with some effort, back to her.

Her heart was pounding; she felt nauseated with fear—he was leaving her with men she did not know. “Am I to be held prisoner here?”

Campbell muttered under his breath. “We are not heathens, Miss Babcock. You are free to roam anywhere you fancy in the confines of Dundavie, aye? But you may no’ leave the curtain walls.”

Free to roam? This castle was so big, with so many places one might get lost.
Or escape . . .

“And if you think to escape,” he added, startling her, “you willna get far. Do you understand?” He moved toward her, his eyes hard. Daria hadn’t realized she’d stepped back until she bumped into a stone wall. “If you think to escape,” he said, so close now that she could see the hot glint of pain in his eyes, “you’d best hope I find you first.” His gaze drifted down to her mouth. “For if the dogs find you . . .” He shrugged, then slowly lifted his gaze to hers again, pinning her with it. “Do I make myself clear, then,
leannan
?”

All eyes turned to her, waiting for her answer. Daria swallowed. “Exceedingly.”

Satisfied, Campbell looked at Duff and said something in their tongue. Then he turned away.

“But I think you should know that I am not afraid of you.”

Why she said it, Daria could not say. The words had fallen from her mouth without thought. Inexplicably, it seemed of the utmost importance to let him know that she’d not given up. He stood quite still for a moment, then turned his head to look at her. His eyes were burning. With fever, with anger, with lust—she was too confused to know. His gaze fell to her mouth once more, and he clenched his jaw—in pain? Or restraint? “Are you certain?” he asked, his voice silky and low, tickling her spine like a feather.