Clang. He closed the door before she could finish, and turned the key in the lock. The prison guard materialized behind him, eyebrows raised questioningly.
“There’s a lass in there,” Callum explained, jerking his head toward the cell. “I daresay she’ll nae be here long. She’s to be treated gently. Fetch her some blankets, will ye?”
The guard bowed, and Callum hurried back up the steps. It was a relief, as always, to leave the heavy air of the dungeons behind. He didn’t stop to enjoy it, however. There was work to do.
Anger mounted inside him with each step. His grandmother’s rooms were in the west wing. She’d once occupied the west tower, but now her legs would not manage all those stairs, or the drafts which whistled through the towers in winter.
The doors to her study were half-open, and the guards leapt aside, nervous, when Callum strode past. He didn’t spare them a glance.
His grandmother sat in a high-backed armchair before the fire, with pillows tucked behind her back, and a footstool at her feet. She had an old-fashioned cap jammed on her head, and tendrils of wispy white hair escaped.
With all of her layers of blankets and scarves, only her face itself and her knobby, thin hands were visible. Her lady’s maid, a ferocious woman of about fifty, was kneeling before her, tucking a blanket around her legs.
“Ye sent another one, Grandmother,” Callum snapped. “Jane, get out. I want to talk to me grandmother alone.”
Jane leveled a baleful glare at him, then glanced questioningly at his grandmother.
“Is that what ye want, Sophie?” she asked pointedly.
Sophie heaved a sigh, gingerly laying down her book and marking her place with a strip of ribbon.
“Aye, Jane, away with ye and have yer supper. I’ll have a wee chat with me grandson. I cannae wait to discover what’s fillin’ him with fury today.”
“Have a care. I wouldnae tolerate this disrespect from anyone else, Grandmother!” he growled.
Sophie rolled rheumy blue eyes at him. “When ye get to me age, lad, ye will find that nothin’ much scares ye, certainly nae the rages of the Laird. Certainly not the rages of a laird whose scraped knees I bandaged. Why, I recall ye comin’ to me in tears because one of the kitchen cats had scratched ye.”
Callum let out a long, slow sigh. “A fine story, Grandmother.”
“I thought so,” she agreed. “Bank up the fire, lad. I cannae seem to get warm in me old age.”
Jane slipped noiselessly out of the room, closing the door behind her. Callum swallowed his anger and moved over to the hearth. A few more logs, and the fire was blazing furiously. His skin prickled with the heat, but his grandmother still clutched her blankets around her.
“I’ll get ye another fur,” he muttered. “Ye should nae be cold.”
“I’m fine for now. Now, what’s all this business aboutanother one, eh?”
“Daenae play the fool, Grandmother. It doesnae suit ye and it’s nae convincin’. Do ye deny that ye have been sendin’ women to try and seduce me?”
“Of course nae,” Sophie responded blandly. “I picked the loveliest lassies I could find, in hopes that ye would take a likin’ to one and marry her. There was nay deceit about it, lad. I have nay idea why ye are bein’ so picky.”
“Sendin’ an English girl was a step too far.”
Sophie’s papery brow knitted. She leaned forward, frowning at him.
“Well, I sent nay English girl.”
This was not entirely surprising. The woman herself had insisted she was not sent by anyone, and Callum had not felt she waslying. The most obvious solution was that his grandmotherhadsent her, but Sophie did not lie.
And neither, apparently, did the woman.
“Well, that creates a few good questions,” he muttered, rising to his feet and stepping away from the fire. “Daenae worry about it, Grandmother. I’ll manage this.”
“Nay, I want to meet this English lass.”
He gave a short laugh. “Ye willnae be meetin’ her. She’ll stay in the dungeons until tomorrow, and then she’ll be sent on her way.”
Sophie glared at him. “A woman in the dungeons? For shame, lad.”
