“I canna find Bella.” Lorna’s voice broke as she announced it a second time. She swallowed hard, struggling to regain control. “Cook last saw her a short time ago. Bella told her she was going to visit the garderobe, then go out to the kittens with Hesther and Frances.” Lorna shook her head. “Bella never showed up in the stable.”
Gunn’s hands slowly fell away from her shoulders. He turned to Jasper with his teeth bared. “Every man. Into the tunnels. Find my daughter and bring that woman to me.”
Loads of crime stories, some fictional, some true, flooded back to Lorna. She caught Gunn’s arm and pulled him back. “Wait. We have to think this through. If ye close in on Murdina and she feels threatened, she might hurt Bella.”
“Surely ye canna expect me to stand here and do nothing?”
“Of course not. I am just saying we have to think everything through. If ye flood the tunnels with warriors, I fear for what might happen. She could hear ye coming for her and…” She couldn’t bear to finish that sentence. They had to play this deadly game better than Murdina. “Did she kill her brother, or did he die of whatever was ailing him when they arrived?”
“Slit his throat,” Jasper said. “But it looked as if he just lay there and let her do it.”
“She probably waited until he passed out from the whisky,” Mrs. Thistlewick said. “He had the maids bring fresh bottles daily.”
“Why would she kill him?” Lorna turned and stared at the archway that led to their rooms. “Remember how Hesther and Frances said they didna believe him to be her brother?”
“Could be he turned on her and threatened her somehow,” Gunn said. “But none of that gets my Bella safe. The woman must be mad to think she can gain anything other than a snapped neck from threatening my daughter. I understand the point ye make, dear one, but I must take action. We waste precious time standing here discussing it.”
“Then only take a few. Those who know the tunnels best,” Lorna said. Murdina had probably been working on this for days. Who knew how long she had tested the tunnels to see where they led?
“Mistress!” Out of breath and wild-eyed, Ebby stumbled out of the stairwell, waving a ragged parchment overhead. “Lady Murdina has Miss Bella!”
Before Lorna could make it to Ebby, Gunn outdistanced her and snatched the paper from the maid’s hand. After scanning the note, he turned back to Ebby. “Where did ye find this?”
“On the floor of Miss Bella’s solar.”
“What does it say?” Lorna squinted at the erratic scrawl, made even more difficult to decipher by blotches of ink and smears throughout the script.
Gunn lifted his gaze from the missive and locked eyes with her. “If we send anyone other than yerself into the tunnels to fetch Bella, she will cut my daughter’s throat just as she did her brother’s.”
The prospect of wandering among the damp, dark passages made Lorna swallow hard. She had never been good at mazes or puzzles and was none too fond of close places either.
But she had no choice. She had to save Bella.
“How extensive are they?” The more information she had, the less her imagination could run wild. “Do they run throughout the entire keep or only exist in important areas to escape a siege?”
“They run the full of the keep.” Gunn scrubbed a hand across his mouth. “Where there is a wall, there is a passage. Some lead nowhere. Others connect and create routes that would make hiding for days or even weeks possible. And there are many traps throughout.”
Lorna tried not to think about searching behind the walls for that long. “She canna know them as well as she thinks she does. She has only been locked in her rooms for a few days.”
“Aye, but who knows how long she has been studying them?” He gave a frustrated snort. “She couldha started mapping them out the day she arrived.”
Lorna wiped her sweaty palms on her skirts. “Get me a candlestick. Extra candles. Water and bread, maybe?” The keep was huge. Who knew how long it could take her to find Murdina? She gave Gunn a hopeful look. “I dinna suppose ye have them mapped out, do ye? That would save me time and keep me out of the dead ends and traps.”
“I canna ask ye to do this.”
The strain in his voice made her throat ache with the urge to sob that they had no choice. Instead, she managed a calm but stern tone. “Ye didna ask me, and I am doing it. Is there a map or not?”
Gunn shot a curt nod at Jasper, who took off in the general direction of the library.
“Ebby and I shall see to the lighting and supplies,” Mrs. Thistlewick said. She waved for the maid to follow, and they both scurried toward the kitchen hall.
“Ye have thesgian-dubh?” Gunn shifted his weight from one foot to the other, as if unable to bear the fact that this task was not his to do. “A dirk is more effective but canna be so readily concealed.”
Lorna patted her chest. “The dagger is tucked right here. I can get to it easily.” She tried to reassure him with a confidence she did not feel. “And once upon a time, I was quite the knife thrower. The talent will come back to me should I need it.” At least, she hoped it did. That particular skill had bought her many an ale in the pubs of her time. She had never been particularly good at darts, but daggers were a different story.
He scrubbed his palms together, then closed his hands into fists. “I canna let ye go alone.”
“But the note said—”
