The old laird had been even more miserable and mean-spirited than usual since word came of Romilly’s imprisonment. He rarely slept or ate, and he spent most days wandering the corridors with his appearance in disarray pale, haunted, muttering to himself like a madman. From the few words Katherine could catch as he passed, it seemed he was fretting about the fact that he had not received any demands from the Oliphants—or, indeed, any direct word from them whatsoever, no acknowledgement that they even had Romilly in their dungeons.
He could not seem to make sense of that, and from what Katherine could tell, he worried day and night that a message would finally come in the form of Romilly’s head. For what else could they possibly intend by keeping her so long without word, except as a prelude to execution?
At one point, she took her father firmly by the shoulders, forcing him to look into her eyes. “Father, won’t ye at least try tae negotiate with them for her freedom? Won’t ye send any message at all tae break this-this stalemate?”
He peered at her as though her head had fallen off mid-sentence. “Are ye daft, lass? Tae do that would be as good as an admission of guilt. How else could I claim that I know they have her? And once such a thing is confirmed, once they know I’ve tried to meddle in their affairs, how do ye think they’ll bloody respond? For God’s sake, have I raised some sort of simpleton? Do ye nae know that that’s exactly what they want us tae do?”
Katherine saw that it was hopeless to try to reason with him, and so she released his shoulders and allowed him to toddle along on his way, mumbling and weeping to himself. Angus was desperately trying to think his way out of this quandary, and the mental labor was evidently driving him insane.
Despite their past problems, Katherine still hated to see her father wasting away in such a fashion. She was equally dismayed that the small amount of time her mother had previously spent outside of her room had dwindled entirely. Now she never emerged, and the meals the servants brought her were generally sent back uneaten.
Finally, Katherine could stand it no longer. She was terrified that her mother would suffer a lonely and terrible death from grief and self-neglect, and so she tried the door one day and found it unlocked.
“Mother?” She took a step into the dark room, then another. “Mother, are ye ill?”
Annabel was lying on the bed, but when she heard these words, she sat bolt upright, exclaiming, “Romilly? My darling lass, are ye home?”
Then she saw that it was Katherine, and her face twisted into a mask of horror and rage.
“Get out,” she shrieked, grabbing a hairbrush from the table next to her and flinging it at Katherine. “Get out of here at once. Go!”
The brush hit Katherine’s forehead, and she cried out from shock, withdrawing immediately. She barely made it to her room before crumpling to the floor in tears, and she never made such an attempt to check on her mother again.
The only small comfort Katherine could take from any of it was that with her parents so distracted, neither of them heaped their customary abuse upon her. However, she was every bit as worried about Romilly as they were, and the panic and despairof it all gnawed at her spirit until she felt she could abide it no longer.
She fantasized about riding off on her own, going to Castle Oliphant, pleading before Laird Alex, finding some way to bring Romilly back. If she were able to do that, not only would her sister be safe, but her mother and father would finally appreciate her. Angus could no longer sneer that his youngest daughter was worthless, that she merely took up space while doing nothing for her clan.
Then all of them could live together, happily ever after.
She wept as these scenes played themselves out within her mind, for she knew that they would never come true. She had no idea what she could possibly say to the notoriously hard-headed Laird Alex, not if he had caught her sister in the act of something vile toward the Oliphant Clan. And clearly he had, else he would not have detained her.
And what, then, would stop him from tossingherin the dungeon next to Romilly?
The situation seemed hopeless, but during the few hours she could spend with the young lasses of the McGregor Clan, she was able to keep from dwelling on it too fiercely. She hated seeing the sun lower in the sky, for she knew it meant she would have to return to the bleakness of the castle.
So she put it off as long as she could, finding new excuses to remain, new inquiries to make about the women’s loved ones, new sewing patterns and techniques to suggest. She waited until the underside of the swollen red sun touched the hilltops, staining them liquid gold. She even contemplated staying longer still, and riding back after dark. Why not? No one at the stronghold would miss her, and bandits rarely prowled these lands.
Still, she knew it would be irresponsible, and that she needed to remain clear-headed and strong while her family collapsed allaround her. She said her goodbyes at last, reminding herself that she would return the next day, and the one after that.
Katherine mounted her horse and rode toward the stronghold, feeling herself wither inside as she drew closer to it. There was little upon the path, except for a horse stable at the halfway point near a copse of trees. Sometimes, when there was no one around to see, Katherine would whistle at the horses and delight in hearing their chorus of neighing in response. It had lightened her spirits when she was younger, made her feel deliriously silly.
Today, though, nothing felt humorous to her. She was merely tired, and sad.
Even so, as her horse galloped past the farm, the others greeted her with loud enthusiasm. It made her feel as though she were a familiar and welcome sight to them, and part of her was wistfully cheered by that, for it was more than she could say about the members of her own family.
Their chortles and snorts filled her ears even once she had passed the stable.
That was why she did not hear the frenzied hoofbeats behind her until it was too late. By the time she had a chance to peer over her shoulder, a muscled arm clamped around her waist and swept her out of her saddle.
Katherine could scarcely draw breath to scream before the powerful arm closed around her midsection, forcing the air back out of her sharply. With his other hand, her assailant produced a musty sack, putting it over her head. The hood was a grisly reminder of her previous nightmare, it drew a quivering groan from her.
Then he slipped what felt like a length of knotted rope around her wrists, tightening it. The entire abduction could not have taken more than five seconds, and now she was helpless,struggling, trying to cry out while he turned his horse and rode hard away from the stronghold.
Toward Oliphant territory.
Her darkest horrors seemed to be coming true. The Oliphants had dispatched someone to capture her as well, to further punish her father for whatever fiendish thing he and Romilly had plotted against them.
“Please,” she gasped, flexing her wrists against her bonds. “I have done nothing, I have taken nay part in the laird’s plans, whatever they may have been!”
