The Scot and I (36 page)

Commander
, her father had called the man who ordered his execution. And the commander said that if the lists were found, they would come to his desk. He had to be Commander Durward, the man whom Alex trusted implicitly. Durward’s name had not been on any list.

The tread of footsteps on the other side of the library door galvanized her into action. She scooped up her father’s revolver and moved swiftly to the jib door. It was so out of use that she could hardly get it open. It creaked, it groaned, but inch by slow inch it opened, and she slipped through to the narrow staircase.

When someone entered the library, she froze, and when the tread of footsteps came closer, she held her breath. She hadn’t shut the door properly. The man on the other side of the door seemed to know it.

“Mahri, I know you’re in there.” Ramsey’s voice! “Give yourself up, and I promise nothing will happen to you.”

She acted instinctively. She raised her father’s revolver and waited. The door was suddenly flung open, and Mahri pulled the trigger. A body fell forward, on top of her, and warm blood covered her hands. She didn’t have time to be squeamish. Others had heard the shot and were converging on the library. She dragged the inert form into the staircase and shut the door with a snap.

“Ramsey?” she heard someone shout. “Ramsey, where are you?”

There was, of course, no response, because Ramsey lay dead at her feet, and she had killed him. When she’d first met him, he’d seemed like a pleasant young man with a bright future. Then he’d got in with the wrong people. It was what had happened to her father.

“Forget about Ramsey!” The voice of authority, Commander Durward. “Forget about the girl. Torch the house! Pass the word. Torch the house!”

She wished with her whole heart that it was Durward who had opened the jib door. Then she would have emptied her revolver into his black heart without a ripple of conscience.

She could smell burning carpets, and smoke was creeping into the staircase from cracks in the paneling. It was so dark that she might as well be hiding in a hole. All she had to guide her was her sense of touch. Which way should she go?

Outside, they were waiting for her. They would shoot her down like a rabid dog. Where was Macduff? What had they done with Macduff? She started to cough. She couldn’t stay here. She had to choose. There was another way out, if she was willing to risk it.

She held on to the handrail and began to climb up the stairs.

 

 

Alex rode like a madman. He couldn’t have kept to that frenzied pace if Macduff had not been out in front to guide him. The bitterness he’d felt when he’d realized that Mahri had slipped away to be with her father had been consumed by an alarm that was bordering on panic. She’d expected her father to greet her with open arms. It was the dog that had shot that hope to pieces. Gavin was right. Macduff wouldn’t have left Mahri’s side unless something dire had happened. He was taking them to her.

With him went a small troop of Guards, courtesy of Colonel Foster. He hadn’t offered them amnesty, though. That would come, the colonel said, when he had tested Alex’s theory, and it proved to be true. Meanwhile, they were going to Mile-End to arrest the professor and his “guests” and bring them in for questioning.

He was wrenched from his thoughts when a rider suddenly appeared in front of him. His horse reared up, almost unseating him.

“Hold yer fire! Hold yer fire!” Dugald’s voice.

“Dugald?” Alex could hardly believe his ears. “Where did you come from?”

“It’s a long story. The lass tricked me but not for long. I knew she would come here.”

There wasn’t time to go into explanations. Macduff was whining and running forward then back again as if to tell them that time was running out.

“These men are armed and dangerous,” Alex said. “They won’t take prisoners. Our job is to rescue the woman.”

“Sir, look!” shouted one of the troopers.

A red glow appeared over a stand of Scots pines just ahead.

“The devils have set fire to the house,” yelled Dugald.

“Forward!” Alex shouted, and he bounded forward with the others close behind him.

It took them only a few minutes to get to the house, but by that time flames were shooting through one part of the roof. Funnels of flames erupted through a downstairs window.

They fanned out and took cover. Bullets were flying in every direction, but no one broke through the cordon of soldiers. Murray and his henchmen were outnumbered.

“Pray God she is not in there,” said Gavin.

Alex’s voice was grim. “We know that she is in there. Look at your dog, Gavin.”

Macduff was on his belly, creeping toward the house inch by inch, and the sounds that came from his throat resembled a baby crying.

Alex said, “Give my your cloak, Gavin.”

“You’re not going in there!”

“I must.”

“Then I’ll come with you.”

Alex shook his head. “You’re forgetting the prophecy Granny McEcheran passed onto me.
My
prophecy, Gavin, not yours.”

Gavin didn’t argue the point. Alex draped Gavin’s cloak over his shoulders and zigzagged toward the back of the house where the flames seemed less fierce.

And he came face-to-face with Murray.

 

 

She couldn’t see a thing in that dark tunnel and feared that she would suffocate in the heat and smoke. What kept her going was the prophecy from the gypsy’s crystal. “
You will pass through fire, but the fire will not consume you.
” No. The fire wouldn’t consume her. She would die from smoke inhalation.

She’d had a plan when she’d started up the staircase. What was it? All she could remember was that she had to get to the old dining room. Odd thoughts occurred to her. She should have paid the gypsy for her prophecy. She loved this ugly old house with all its oddities. It was hopeless. She couldn’t go on. Where was the door to the dining room? She felt along the wainscoting with her hands. If she could only get to the old dining room . . .

 

 

I’m going to cut out your heart,” Murray spat, and he darted forward with a blade in his hand, forcing Alex to retreat.

“You’ve used up all your bullets,” said Alex. “Don’t they teach you anything in traitors’ school?” With that, he shot Murray in the knee.

Murray went down like a howling banshee, and Alex picked up the knife. With his free hand, he grabbed a fistful of Murray’s hair and arched his throat back. “You have one chance to answer my question, and if I think you are lying, I’m going to slit your throat. Understand?”

Murray nodded.

“Where is the girl? Where is the professor’s daughter?”

“I don’t know.”

The knife made a small incision and droplets of blood oozed out. “Last chance,” said Alex.

Perhaps it was Alex’s calm demeanor that terrified Murray, or perhaps it was the sudden shower of burning debris that fell on them, but he couldn’t get the words out fast enough.

“We thought she was in the house somewhere, but when we searched it, we couldn’t find her.” He groaned and groped for his knee. “She must still be in there or she is outside hiding somewhere.”

If she had been hiding outside, Macduff would have found her. So she was still in the house. “Where did you see her?” Alex asked roughly.

“In the library.”

“And where is the library?”

“Above the front door.”

“If you’re lying to me,” said Alex, “I’ll come back and put a bullet between your eyes.”

Murray didn’t have the breath to howl. He lay on the ground, writhing and whimpering.

Alex entered the house. The paneled walls were beginning to blister. At any moment, they would burst into flame. He didn’t give himself time to think of what he was doing. Instinct had taken over. He draped Gavin’s cloak over his head and dashed for the stairs.

The floor was so hot, he could feel the heat through the soles of his boots. It occurred to him in passing that there was more than one fire burning in the house. Several people must have set fires in different areas.

When he pushed into the library, the fire was just getting a hold. His heart almost stopped beating when he saw the body of a man in front of the desk. He thought it must be Mahri’s father. He crossed to it and saw that the man had been shot to death. Had he been trying to protect Mahri? Then where was she?

“Mahri?” he roared.

No one answered.

He went down on one knee, tore off a glove, and touched a hand to the professor’s throat, not feeling for a pulse, but to determine how long he had been dead. He was still warm. As Alex’s touch lingered, a tide of powerful emotions seemed to surge from the professor into himself, making him tremble. Fear. Grief. Horror. Love. Above all, love for his daughter. And when these powerful emotions began to ebb, at the end, something incongruous. A jib door.

Alex knew about jib doors. There were many such doors in the queen’s summer residence. Servants disappeared into walls like wraiths. God forbid that one of Her Majesty’s guests should come face-to-face with a lackey.

If the last thing the professor had thought about was a jib door, it must be significant. Alex found it in a matter of moments. There was blood smeared on the floor and on one section of paneling.

Fear gripped his throat. Whose blood? He found the recessed handle and yanked with all his strength. A panel came away in his hands, then another. Smoke belched through the opening, and Alex began to cough. All the same, his hopes soared. He’d found the concealed entrance to a servants’ staircase.

And right inside the door he found another body. Ronald Ramsey. Blood soaked the dead man’s coat and shirt. A trail of blood led up the stairs. When he looked down the stairs, his hopes faltered. The fire roared to life, cutting off his retreat.

“Mahri!” he yelled, and he followed the trail of blood going up the stairs. He found her one floor up, with her skirts hiked up to cover her mouth and nose. For one heart-stopping moment, he thought that he had lost her, but when he couched down and gathered her in his arms, she clung to him like the pet monkey he had once owned.

“I knew you would come for me,” she said, burrowing her head against his chest.

He allowed himself one moment of weakness, only one moment to savor the feel of her in his arms, before he shut his mind to everything but how he could get them out of there.

He removed Gavin’s cloak and draped it around her head and shoulders.

“What are you doing?”

“We’re going to make a run for it. We have to go down those stairs before the house collapses around our ears.”

“No!” she said, pushing out of his arms.

“There’s still a chance.” Even as he said the words, he doubted that they could make it. “Remember the prophecy.
You will pass through fire
—”

“Yes, but there’s no need to do it the hard way!”

She grabbed his arm. “Follow me. I know another way.”

He almost resisted. Two things made him follow her lead. The first was that the fire was spreading rapidly now and they would never make it to the bottom of the stairs. The second was the prophecy.
Trust your intuition
, his granny had told him, and his intuition was telling him not to let Mahri out of his sight. On hands and knees, he crawled after her.

They came to a landing. “Push the door in,” Mahri said.

He got up and kicked it in. The draft of smoke-free air that swept over them gave them some relief. They both gulped in air and coughed to clear their lungs. The flames had yet to reach this part of the house. As soon as they were clear of the door, Alex shut it to keep out the smoke, and he helped Mahri to her feet.

“As God is my witness,” he said, “I shall never smoke another cigar or cigarette.”

A cursory glance at the room told him that it was used to store old furniture. There was no paneling here, but smoke was beginning to creep through the floorboards. And where the smoke went, the flames would soon follow.

“Pray as you’ve never prayed before,” she said, “that the lift still works.”

“The what?”

“The lift.” She opened the door of a cupboard and sobbed with relief. “It’s still here, thank God! It’s a lift to bring hot food from the old kitchen to the old dining room. When the new kitchen was built, the lift became obsolete. The thing is, the old kitchen became the gardener’s store. They won’t be expecting us to come out there. Get in. It’s our only hope.”

“You first.”

“Oh, no. I’m not going without you. See, there’s room for two. Besides, I don’t know if I can work the chain.”

Pieces of plaster fell on them, and from another part of the house, they heard a muffled explosion. Alex picked Mahri up, pushed her into the lift, and crawled in beside her. “Now show me how this bloody thing works.”

Later, he would reflect that what had saved them were the brick walls that encased the lift. Also, his fingers had never worked faster to pull on the rusty chain that worked their descent. Even so, he felt as though he were roasting in an oven. When the mechanism stopped working, he used both feet to kick out the door. Dragging Mahri into his arms, he ran like hell and leaped through a wall of flames into the cold night air.

 

 

She was lying on the grass, looking up at Alex. “You look like a chimney sweep,” she said and sniffed.

He was lying beside her. “You should see yourself.” His breathing was labored. “This house is a nightmare to navigate.”

“It was a children’s paradise.” She managed a tortured smile. “The result of successive generations of my family indulging their whims and fancies.” She touched a hand to the cut on his cheek. “Ramsey and your Commander Durward killed my father.”

“And you shot Ramsey.”

“You know about Durward?”