“Guard!” He did not respond. “Guard! I had not wanted to hit you with the laver,” she said truthfully.
Still nothing.
“If your sister were held captive, would you not want her to do the same?”
But she found she was talking to dead ears, and was stuck with the cat.
For a while now, she kept busy by cutting the support ropes from bed with one of her three stolen knives. She crawled out from under the bed, dropping some of the ropes next her, before she cut the last two and watched the straw mattress fall to the floor.
Done!
She sat back on her heels, wincing as she rubbed her ankle, which was red from the thick iron shackle. Then, for the third time, she hunched over it with the smallest knife and worked at the lock, but she could not seem to pick it no matter how she turned it.
“What is wrong with this lock?” She looked across the room, where she had picked the shutter lock without a problem. When the manacle lock would still not open, she dropped the knife in frustration and groaned under her breath.
The cat opened one eye, annoyed.
“This is all your fault”.
Unfazed, the cat went back to sleep.
The sun was up and though it was still cool in the tower, ‘twas lighter now in the daylight and with the shutters open. She rose and moved toward the arch, leaning a shoulder against the shutter and looking out while she waited for some renewed patience to test the manacle lock again.
Outside, there was a huge, bright blue sky with a few, fleece-like clouds floating by. The breeze coming in carried the moist scent of morning dew, and spread out before her, the wide forest beyond the lake stood in the great shadow of Ben Nevis.
A movement caught her eye near the edges of the lake, and she leaned forward, searching the shoreline and the trees.
Montrose?
He was not Montrose, really, but Sir Lyall Robertson. To herhe would always be Montrose. Again and again she perused the area, but there was no one. Her eyes were playing tricks on her.
After they had pulled her out from under the bed, when they had dragged her away, she’d called out for him, out of instinct, perhaps. For her instinct told her Montrose would never let her be harmed, or hurt, that he would save her if she were in trouble and called out for him. He loved her.
De Hay had laughed at her when she had called his name and said, “Montrose? He is not Montrose, you foolish woman. You think that Robertson will rescue you? That coward? He took the deed to his lands--his thirty pieces of gold for bringing you to me--and he was out the gates moments later without a word or a look back.”
She had bitten de Hay for those words. Montrose loved her. If it were not true, what kind of fool would she be? He loved her. Yet when they closed the door and she was alone again, battered and bruised and feeling trapped, she weakened and asked herself if he would really walk away so easily.
She thought not, but then she remembered her own escape from the abbey, running away because she was trying to ignore what she felt for him, and still stubbornly sticking to her vow to not be a pawn for a father she did not know.
Self preservation.
But Montrose loved her. She believed that more than any single thing, and perhaps, the only thing left for her to have faith in.
But until the oaf realized what he had done and how he felt, she would be forced to save herself.
Below, the lake shimmered silver in the sunlight, and from the tower, it was a straight drop down to the water. She turned, hands on her hips as she studied the room. There had to be something else she could use to pick the lock.
She began rummaging through all of her plunder and lay them out on the table. Five purses lined up in a row on the table, some plumper than others, along with two jeweled rings and thethree knives, one with an emerald-encrusted handle that at some point Sir Coll would see was missing from his person, along with his purse—the plumpest-- and a lovely brooch with a huge ruby in its center. Though its pin was narrow, she pulled it from the brooch, held it up and eyed the tip.
Perhaps….
She sat down with her foot on the edge of the chair and tried every way to pick the manacle lock. There was a loud snort, and the cat, asleep on its side, began to run, its paws moving furiously as it slept. She should hate the cat, but she couldn’t, even though the little beast kept her from escaping. The cat was only was acting on instinct, something she understood.
A vision of Montrose came to mind, and she felt a deep pang. De Hay had been wrong about Lyall. He was not a coward, driven by greed. Emotion drove him, and perhaps some misplaced pride.
A loud shout pulled her from the chair to the open arch, then came the creaking of the gate chains and the sound of horses hooves. She could see nothing, even when she tried to lean out. She sagged back against the shutter and closed her eyes.
Come to me, Montrose. Please come.
