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‘I can’t do it. I can’t go back into darkness,’ she gasped.
‘We will go through the darkness together, and then there will be light,’ he said patiently as if she were a child. ‘Take my hand. I will keep you safe, I swear it.’
Morna took hold of Will’s hand, its size and warmth a comfort of sorts as they headed into the cave.
The steady drip, drip of water, all around them, accompanied their climb along a stone path, seemingly hewn from the rock. A musty smell, salty and dank, filled her nostrils as they went further into the cave. Morna looked upwards and clenched Will’s hand fiercely. The roof of the cave was moving as if it were alive. Bats, thousands of them, wriggling and squirming, the light from Will’s torch reflecting off their shiny wings.
Morna’s legs failed her, causing her to stumble. Had it not been for his strong hand in hers, she would have injured herself. As if sensing her struggle, Will pulled her roughly to one side and let the other men draw far ahead, until their torches disappeared in a last flickering of shadows.
They set off again, more slowly this time.
Will took hold of her arm. ‘What a treat it is to see you again, Morna, though not in the most pleasant of circumstances. How did you come to be on that ship?’
‘I was taken.’
‘From Beharra?’
‘What do you know of Beharra?’
His grip tightened. ‘I crossed paths with your brother, Lyall, some years ago.’
‘I know. He told me that you threatened him.’
‘Ah, I was just having some sport with him, is all. I do recall he was in the company of a fine- looking redhead.’
‘That would be Giselle, his wife now.’
‘Ah. Well, I don’t know what she was back then, but I do know they were both naked, swimming in a loch. All over each other, they were. Did he tell you that now?’ he said, raising his eyebrows.
‘No, he did not,’ said Morna, her face burning.
‘He also told me you were wed.’
The words dropped into the gloom like stones, too loud, as Morna tried to collect her thoughts. ‘Can we stop a moment. I am out of breath,’ she gasped.
Will smiled in the torchlight, devilish and dangerous. ‘Rest a while here.’ He jammed the torch into a cleft in the rock and folded his arms across his chest. ‘So, this husband of yours,’ he said casually, ‘will he be out looking for you?’
‘I…of course my husband will be looking for me.’
‘T’was a bit careless of him to lose you like that. The man must be a fool.’ He took a step closer and loomed over her. ‘But I am not, and I know full well you don’t have a husband, Morna.’
‘How could you possibly know that?’
‘Because I make it my business to know. How old are you, girl?’
‘Twenty, and I am no girl, I am a woman.’
‘If you are a woman you should be wed by now, with a gaggle of brats hanging from your skirts.’
‘Well, I am not. Why would you care either way?’
‘I should like to know the answer to that myself. And I don’t care that much, I just don’t like being lied to by someone whose life I just saved.’
‘You forget, I saved yours once.’
‘Aye, so we are even and owe each other nothing save the truth, and I will have it now, Morna Buchanan. We’ll not move from this spot until I get it. I can stand here all day and soon, the torch will burn out.’ Will brought it closer to her face, almost blinding her. She had to tell him something.
‘I was betrayed by my brother’s trusted right hand, Ramsay Seward. He took me from Beharra and sold me. I trusted him, and he sold me off, like a slave, to Ranulph Gowan.’
