“And this time…” His pause was poignant. “Place a guard at the door.”
Bugger!
Lyall lookedup into the angry eyes of Alastair Gordon.
“Bastard!Alastair hissed viciously. “Where is Glenna?”
“Let me cut him, Al.” Elgin Gordon said, holding the knife at his neck. “I want to cut him for what he's done.”
One quick slice of his arm to Elgin Gordon’s knees and Lyall knew the knife would be gone. But he did nothing. Alastair twisted his hair harder and the pain grew in Lyall’s eyes. There was not enough physical pain in the world to match the pain he felt inside.
“The real Baron Montrose came to the island. We know all, you lying bastard! Where is she?”
Lyall swallowed hard and felt the prick of the knife tip. “In the tower.”
There was dim light coming from one of the arrow slits and Lyall wondered why. It was well into the early hours. Did she need a candle lit to sleep there? Was she frightened? When she snapped at him, when she threw his words back or made him feel like a witless goat, when she acted her most prideful, she did so because she was afraid. That he understood so well her whims and moods reminded him of what he’d given up, of his failure and his betrayal.
Alastair cursed and released Lyall’s hair, but a sword tip was now poised at his ribs.
“Step away El.”
“I was not going to give her up,” Lyall admitted. “We were surrounded. I had little choice but to play along.”
“And we are supposed to believe you suddenly speak truths from your lying mouth?” Elgin laughed bitterly. “Please Al…just one good slice so I can watch his life's blood bleed out of him like the stuck pig he is.” He flipped the dagger over in his hand and pointed it at him
Elgin was impulsive, but Alastair Gordon was not. Lyallglanced at the sword he held, an elegant weapon, honed and oiled and perfectly capable of sending him to his place in Hell….for a man who knew how to wield it. But he believed Gordon was no trained warrior. Still his grip was correct. “Do you know how to use that weapon?”
“He can wield a sword,” Elgin said with pride. “He can slide it into you easily. He was trained by our father. But I want to kill you myself.”
“Killing me will not help you get Glenna out of that tower.”
“Perhaps to you, nay, it would not,” Alastair said unfazed, and the weapon he held so threateningly moved dangerously close to Lyall’s throat. “But seeing you die would give me such great pleasure.”
“I have a way inside,” Lyall told them.
There was a shout, and all three men looked toward it. The loud clank and rattle of heavy chains drawing the castle gate carried out over the water. A dark silhouette of a single rider disappeared inside the castle.
“The messenger,” Elgin said to his brother.
“What messenger?” Lyall asked, and a twig cracked loudly and all three men turned.
“The rider from Argyll,” came another voice.
His belly turned. Lyall knew that voice all too well.Ramsey.
“The rider who led us here to you, son.”
Before him stood his stepfather, armed and tall and none too pleased with him, flanked by a large troop of men, men who knew him and who he knew, their swords drawn, looking as ready to fight as the Gordons.
He looked at the expression on his stepfather’s face, the disappointment and anger coming from him filled the air and was palpable. Lyall could not move. He could not look any of them in the eye, because he was acutely aware at that moment he was living, breathing proof of what everyone believed: that bad blood bred bad blood. He was nothing but his father’s son.
She hithim with the laver.
The poor guard crumpled to the floor, and the food tray she’d begged for, cried and sobbed for, despite the hour, and because she was ‘so famished,’ crashed next to him. Glenna leapt down from the chair and ran out of the tower, almost flying down the stairs. She moved through the hallway in the dark and started down the main stairs to the great hall, keeping to the wall.
A door flew open below and someone was running into the hall. “De Hay!A messenger!”
Glenna ran back up the stairs and into the hallway, looking for a place to hide. Across the narrow gallery, she hid in a small niche covered with a tapestry. But it only ended at her knees. She stood with her back pressed against the niche and prayed it was dark enough for no one to notice.
