“Sawyer,” Owen chided. “This isnae the time for yer jibes.”
The usually silent Sawyer shrugged. “Who said I was makin’ a jibe? I daenae ken if I’m part of this dawn execution plot, but I’ll tear these bars out of the damned ground if they try to get at ye.” He flashed a pointed glare at Heather. “Where are the keys, Lass? If ye daenae think M'Laird is yer brother’s killer—which I assume ye daenae since ye’ve been comin’ down here without executin’ him yerself—then get us out of this castle.”
“The keys—” Heather took out the iron ring which her brother had gifted to her, many years ago. Eyeing the variety of keys, she wondered if one of them might open the locks on the cell doors.
Would he have entrusted me with such a thing? Did he know something like this might happen?No matter how hard she tried, she could not shake William’s last confession of fear from her mind.
“Where did ye get those?” Sawyer stared at the keys.
Heather approached Owen’s cell first. “William gave them to me. He never wanted me to be a prisoner in my own residence.” She paused, meeting Owen’s concerned gaze. “My father often locks the door to my bedchamber, if I have been badly behaved… for my own protection.”
“Who’s he protectin’ ye from? Yerself?” Owen sounded annoyed, but Heather merely shrugged.
“Sometimes, I do not act the way a lady ought to.” She flashed him a nervous smile. “Spending my evenings alone here with you is certainly not the behavior of a prim young lady, nor is helping two Scots to escape.”
With hope brimming in her heart, she tested every key, sliding them into the lock one after one. With each failed attempt, her disappointment turned to frustration, laced with an undercurrent of panic.
“They do not fit,” she admitted, struggling with the last key on the ring. It would not even begin to turn in the mechanism, prompting her to force it.
Owen’s hand slipped through the bars to cover hers. “Daenae break the end off, Lass. If ye do that, we will nae be able to get the right key in.” He smiled down at her. “Be calm, Lass. We’ll find our way out.”
“Do you have the key to the gaoler’s room?” Brandon raised an eyebrow at the obvious intimacy between Heather and the handsome Scot, which she pretended to ignore.
Heather nodded. “I do.”
“Then, we ought to begin there,” Brandon urged, taking Heather by the arm and leading her to the wooden door opposite.
There, she shuffled through the keys until she came to the right one. By now, she knew it well, as she always ensured the gaoler’s room was open when she came down to converse with Owen. There had been too many narrow escapes from her father’s men for her liking, so it paid to have somewhere she could run to and readily hide.
Opening the door wide, she hurried inside, heading directly for the gaoler’s writing desk. She was not sure how much writing the fellow did, for the majority of her father’s men were illiterate, but it was scattered with empty bottles, rather lewd drawings, and plates of chicken and lamb bones that were starting to fur with mold.
Those drawings cannot possibly be accurate,she told herself, for she had never stolen more than a glance at them. Now, standing over them, she could not help but take a closer look.
At first, it was not clear what they were supposed to detail. She could make out the shape of a woman, bending at the waist: her pendulous breasts pointing downward. Behind her stood a man with his hands upon her hips, or so it appeared, but Heather could not fathom what he was doing to the woman. Nor did she know what the thick protrusion, poised to slide between the lady’s buttocks, could be.
“That wretched pig,” Brandon hissed, grabbing the drawings and scrunching them into crumpled balls. “You should not have seen that.”
Heather cleared her throat, feeling oddly curious. “I saw nothing, Brandon.”
Trying not to dwell on that crude etching, she wrenched open the desk’s crooked drawers, searching for the keys that would free Owen. They had to be there, somewhere.
“Is there anything you wish to tell me?” Brandon said, closing the door before heading to a tall set of equally warped and worn drawers.
Heather paused. “Whatever do you mean?”
“How often has Laird Dunn touched your hand like that?” Brandon did not turn around to address her, as he sifted through more discarded papers and empty bottles.
Guilty embarrassment burned in Heather’s cheeks. “That was the first time. If he had not, I would surely have snapped the key in the lock.”
The lie rolled off her tongue with ease, though she did not know why she felt the need to hide Owen’s sweet actions. Deep down, she supposed she knew it was not the proper way for her to behave. Brandon had every right, as a friend and gentleman and the only brotherly figure she had left, to chide her for it. She just hoped he would not.
“So, I did not see you embracing him earlier?” Brandon sighed, as if she had disappointed him very much.
Heather’s mouth fell open. “I… uh… well, it was not… um… an embrace, per se. I stumbled into the bars, you see, and I hit my head. I was dazed and he was attempting to help me to my feet.”
“Your head?” Brandon came over to her, nudging aside the wavy locks that framed her face. “I see no bruise.”
“There will be one; I assure you. It has not darkened yet, that is all,” she explained, a note too quickly, as she took a step back from Brandon.
