Chapter 26
A knock at Isabella’s door pulled her back to reality.
“A moment, please,” she called, pushing herself up to stand, her leg useless and without feeling from having been tucked under her as she sat for so long.
Exactlyhowlong she’d sat, staring into the fire, she couldn’t say. But since the sun had long since set, hours had to have passed while she brooded uselessly.
Her stomach knotted as she limped to the door, her dead limb waking with a fierce prickling. What more could MacDowylt want of her? She’d already given him everything she had—her vows and with them the whole of Clan MacGahan. Surely he wouldn’t expect her to actually perform the duties of wife.
The thought stopped her in her tracks and another knock sounded at her door.
“I’m coming,” she hissed, leaning over to rub her hand up and down her calf.
Malcolm had said nothing of the sort earlier, nothing to give her any reason to suspect such an action on his part. On the other hand, he’d allowed her to believe he’d let her take Robbie and leave when he’d intended no such thing.
The new laird of the MacGahan was in for a battle if he expected to takeherto bed.
With a deep breath, Isa straightened her shoulders and strode to the door, ready to give the MacDowylt upstart a piece of her mind as she flung open the door.
“By the saints!” she grunted as the little body slammed into hers, arms tight around her middle.
“Jamie!” She knelt, pulling the child away from her to look into his face, not believing it could actually be him. “How?”
“We have to hurry, Isa,” he said, grabbing up her hand and pulling.
“Wait.” She ran her fingers lightly over his scraped and bruised cheek. “I thought you were in the cottage when... I dinna ken how this has happened. I watched it burn to the ground.”
Jamie nodded, pulling at her hand again, urging her to her feet. “After Robbie left to find you, I was hungry. I was at the table when I heard the horses coming so I went outside and hid in the stable. When the fire started, the animals ran out because...” Here he stopped, shrugging his little shoulders apologetically. “Well, I forgot to close the gate, but it’s a good thing this time, is it no?”
“It most certainly is a good thing this time, dearling.” She gathered him in her arms, holding him close until he pushed away.
“We’ve no time for that stuff now. We have to go.” Again he took her hand with his little one, pulling at her.
“Wait. Go where? And how did you get here to the castle?”
“The MacDowylt’s men brought me here. That big one found me in the forest. Me and Robbie’s big horse. The same man that stopped Master Roland when he was so angry with me. He handed me off to one of his men and he brought me here to the castle and put me in the MacDowylt’s own chamber. And they talked to me like I was one of them and then they gave me porridge, Isa. Very good porridge.”
Against her will, Isa’s impression of the MacDowylt improved just a bit. That his men had rescued Jamie and treated him well had to say something for the man.
“And just where is it yer so anxious to take me?” she asked as the child tugged at her hand again.
“To rescue Robbie, of course.”
Oh, for the simple thoughts of a child. “I dinna see how that would be possible, Jamie. The MacDowylt has named himself laird and has his men in place everywhere.” There was even one in the hallway outside. She’d seen the man when Malcolm had left her here. “How did you get past the guard to get in here?”
“That’s just it. That’s why we have to go now. The one that saved me and another man, they were talking in the room while I ate. They dinna think I listened, but I did,” he boasted. “All the guards save the ones on the front gates have been called to the great hall to meet with the MacDowylt himself this night. The guards and all the castle staff. The man said he worried that their prisoners might escape through the side exit, the one we use to get to the fields, but he said the MacDowylt himself had ordered it to be so and that it should be no problem because the prisoners wouldna ken there were no guards about.”
Isa paused for only a moment. It seemed too good to be true, but she wasn’t going to question her luck. As Jamie said, they had precious little time and this could well be their only chance.
Allowing him to pull her forward, she scanned the hallway in both directions. Empty, just as Jamie had said it would be. As quietly as possible, she ran with the child, to the end of the hall and down the stairs.
At the first floor, she peeked around the corner of the stairway, holding her breath in anticipation of some large man with an even larger sword waiting there. None to be seen, but she could hear the sounds of voices coming from the direction of the great hall, confirming what Jamie had overheard the men talking about.
“Come on,” she whispered, leading him toward the old storage room and the dank, dark little steps she remembered finding as a child. The passageway to the dungeon.
Her grandfather had warned her to stay away from the pit and told her it had seen its last use before he was born—that his own father had sealed it shut and shut it would stay as long as he lived.
Obviously if Roland had no problem with murdering her grandfather, he’d have no problem reopening the nasty dungeon pit.
