Sheena’s eyes closed in dread. “Are you sure?”
“Aye.”
“You’ve got to stay close to me, Niall. Please. If he finds me alone, he’ll start his threats again.”
“You managed to avoid him after he threatened the MacKinnion match.”
“Aye. And fortunately Father decided on The MacDonough while Willie was away, and ’twas arranged ’afore he returned.”
“You want Sir Alasdair then?”
“Better him than William. But I’m no’ married yet,” she pointed out. “There’s still time for our cousin to cause trouble. I fear he’s very bitter and would do it for spite.”
“Why don’t you just tell Father?”
Sheena shook her head firmly. “William would only deny it. He’d say I wanted revenge for some imagined slight. Father might believe him, for he knows I despise William. And he trusts him. William was Mother’s favorite cousin.”
Sheena could have bitten her tongue. Why had she mentioned their mother? She had died a few days after Niall’s birth, and he foolishly blamed himself. It upset him to talk of her. Sheena had never been close to her mother, being her father’s pride and joy, but Niall had never known her at all.
“I’m sorry, Niall. Come on, we’d best be getting home ’afore the sun gets much higher.”
They had just safely reentered the tower house and gone around back to the kitchens when the commotion started. The patrol returned at a tearing gallop with an unconscious prisoner. Word spread through the house like quicksilver that the man captured was a MacKinnion.
That night, Dugald Fergusson was in his glory. He had a MacKinnion in his dungeon who could be ransomed for the return of all the Fergusson livestock taken that summer. Just in time for market, too. It would be a prosperous year after all.
Killing the man was never considered. That would be suicide, bringing the whole MacKinnion clan down on them. To kill a man in a fair fight was one thing. To kill a prisoner was something entirely different.
Sheena slept that night with no thought for the man in the dungeon. William MacAfee was on her mind—and she was conceiving ways of avoiding him while he was a guest in the tower.
Niall slept not at all, for he could think of nothing else but the man in the dungeon. A MacKinnion, a real live MacKinnion!
Chapter 5
James MacKinnion woke with a terrible ache in his head. There was a bump the size of an egg on the back of his skull. His eyes opened, seeing nothing but blackness. He decided to keep them closed against the pain. It was too much effort just yet to wonder where he was, or even if he might be blind. But the ache throbbed so badly that he couldn’t drift back to sleep. Slowly, he became aware of things.
The coldness against his cheek was hard earth. The smell around him was stagnant. The tickling over his bare knees was from bugs, or worse. He sat up to swipe the pests away, but the pain shot through his head, and he lay back down ever so gently.
Where he was was beginning to disturb him. The last thing he could remember was being surrounded by Fergussons who had seemed to come out of thin air. But the truth was he had not been watching his back, but had had his eyes on the pool in the glenwhere he had once seen that beautiful young girl. If he had not been off his horse, waiting there like a fool for her to appear, he wouldn’t have been surrounded and struck over the head before he could even draw his sword.
So. He was captured. The smell and the dampness began to make sense. A dungeon, no doubt in Tower Esk. Jamie almost laughed. There was no fool like a stupid fool, and he was certainly that. He had acted like a lovesick boy, coming to that glen more than a dozen times in the last months, hoping just to see the girl one more time. Yet that wasn’t the whole truth. He had hoped also to learn who she was. But she had never appeared. No doubt, as he had once supposed, she was a beggar passing through. He would never see her again.
He had ridden here alone, as he had the other times. Not even his brother knew where he had gone, for he had admitted his obsession with the girl to no one. It would be several days before his brother would begin to worry. Even then, no one would guess he was in a Fergusson dungeon.
How many days would he have to spend here before old Dugald let him go? Oh, Jamie had no doubt that he would be let go. Dugald couldn’t afford to keep any MacKinnion prisoner. Even if he found out who Jamie really was, he would have to let him go.
The creaking of wood above alerted Jamie. He was no longer alone. But if he hadn’t heard the trapdoor opening, he would have doubted his senseswhen a pixielike voice whispered, “Are you really a MacKinnion?”
The voice had no body. All was still pitch black. Cold, fresh air poured down on Jamie, and he welcomed it and breathed his fill before he answered, “I dinna talk to a body I canna see.”
“I dare no’ bring a light. Someone might see.”
“Well, you’d best go then,” Jamie said with a touch of humor. “It wouldna do for you to be seen talking to a MacKinnion.”
“Then you really are?”
Jamie didn’t answer. The trapdoor was quickly closed, then opened again a few minutes later. A small round head with a thatch of dark red hair peeked over the narrow opening in the ceiling. Dim light from a candle spilled down into what Jamie could see was a deep pit. The dungeon was about seven feet around, just a pit dug in the earth, its floor packed down hard. The dirt walls might have been climbed, but the trapdoor was in the middle of the ceiling, and, even if reached, it was undoubtedly kept bolted.
Jamie had seen dungeons like it before. They were convenient because no guard was needed. They were impossible to escape from. He would have preferred a stone dungeon. At least the air wouldn’t have been as stagnant, and he might have had a little light.
