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‘A Gowan?’ Will took another step forward. ‘He sold you to your brother’s sworn enemy? Why dare Cormac’s wrath to do that?’
‘Because Ramsay offered me his hand and I rejected him.’
‘You spurned his love, so he betrayed you?’
‘Aye.’
‘I know full well how that feels,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Did Ramsay do that to your face?’ he said, his fingers gently grazing her bruised cheek.
‘He knocked me out cold, and when I woke up, I was on his horse, miles from Beharra, heading for Ranulph Gowan.’
‘And Gowan. What is his part in this?’
‘I think he took me as revenge on my brother. He was awful, he put me in that crate and nailed it shut, though I pleaded with him not to.’ Morna tried hard not to cry as she re-lived her fear and desperation.
Will grabbed one of her hands and examined it in the torchlight. ‘Is that why your fingernails are torn and bloody because you tried to claw your way out?’
Morna swallowed her fear back down. ‘Aye,’ she whispered.
‘I wonder that he locked you away like that. Was he worried he would be found out and someone would recognise you?’
‘How should I know?’
‘Perhaps he is vicious and did it to make you suffer.’
‘Well, he succeeded, for it was awful.’
‘I can see that. Those men who took you did they do anything else to you?’
A muscle was going in Will’s cheek. Morna knew full well what he meant, and indeed, she had feared it throughout her ordeal. With shame burning her face, she replied, ‘No, they had some other purpose. I don’t know what that was.’
Will took a deep breath. ‘See, the truth is not so hard, is it? Come, we will press on to the light.’
Morna followed Will upwards, unease turning her belly. The path narrowed in places, so tight that she had to squeeze between jutting rocks, her breath coming in rapid gasps, feeling sick with terror as if the walls were closing in on her. Each time Will went first and held out his hand to guide her through. His were big and rough, and she clung to him tightly. He was her only lifeline in this hellish place. She didn’t quite know why, but she had decided it was best not to tell Will about Owen Sutherland and his proposal. The less Will knew about her life, the better.
They finally emerged from the darkness, halfway up the cliff but on the opposite side of where the ship had anchored. The cave tunnel must have cut through its middle. Here, the land rose in a gentler slope, and they climbed onwards, through the wet grass and stony ground, until they reached a plateau at the top.
The mist had cleared leaving the daunting edifice of Fitheach Castle clearly visible at the end of a narrow promontory stretching out to the sea. On three sides there were sheer cliffs so anyone trying to breach its walls would have only a narrow strip of land on which to manoeuvre. Fitheach was grim, windswept and, by the looks of it, impregnable.
By the time they reached its gates, the sun had broken through the clouds, turning Will’s hair golden as he stopped and turned to her and said, ‘Welcome to my home, Morna.’ He smiled into her eyes with a kind of pride and her knees almost buckled, for Will O’Neill or Bain or whatever he called himself, was possessed of such manly beauty that it stirred her soul to look on it.
She should have put him out of her mind years ago, but she could see now why she hadn’t. He had been on the turn from boy to man back then, still growing muscle and sinew and height. Now he was well over six foot of sheer strength, all long limbs and broad shoulders. Everything about him screamed power and brute force. She glanced down and caught a glimpse of his left hand before he put in down to his side where she could not see. It was mangled in some way she hadn’t noticed in the darkness of the cave. He must have caught her staring for his smile faded, and he glowered at her.
The boy she had met long ago was now very much a man, and infinitely more dangerous.
Clutching her side to still the ache in her ribs, Morna tried to keep up as he stalked off. She got little chance to see Fitheach for, as soon as they entered its main yard, Will pulled her into a low doorway and down some steps. They emerged into a kitchen, humid but cosy. Before the fire, an elderly woman, with a face as lined as a crumpled piece of parchment, was filling a barrel with steaming water from a bucket. The smell of sweet herbs and heather coming from it was a small kind of comfort.
Will seemed eager to be away for he turned to her and said abruptly, ‘This woman is Braya. She will get you warm and clean. Take some rest and we will talk later.’ With that, he whirled around and left her alone with the woman.
Barely summoning a smile for the servant and too exhausted to care about anything, Morna allowed the woman to peel off her wet clothes and gently help her into the barrel. Even as the woman scrubbed hard at her hair and her body, Morna could scarcely keep her eyes open. With a lolling head, she let herself be dried and followed meekly as Braya led her along dark corridors. Fitheach seemed to be hewn from stone, for it was all rough edges and harshness. There was little adornment softening the walls, just small shuttered windows, and there was a constant whining song of the sea winds, gusting in through the shutters and under the doors. It was hard and unyielding, as was Will now, or so it seemed to her.
Morna had remembered him as an angry, young man, full of bitterness at the hand fate had dealt him but one who also had a rough charm and a way of looking at her that stirred her heart. But so far, he had not offered her one word of kindness. All he had done was question and command.
For years she had taken out her memories of that night when she met him, the way he had looked at her, the spark of infatuation she had nursed in her foolish, little girl’s heart. All those longings for him were an illusion, the daydreams of a child. Time to be strong now. She could trust no one here and confide in no one. Get away and back to Beharra as soon as may be, she told herself. Bend this man to your will, as you’ve bent others, and then all will be well.
Chapter Five
Will strode up and down the castle ramparts as the sun died on the horizon, bleeding red onto the water. He could not be still for an instant and, as the hours passed, his mind would not be turned from Morna Buchanan, curse her to hell. Surely she had slept enough by now?
