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Pulling back abruptly, Niels caught her chin in his hand and raised her face. He scowled when he saw the tears threatening to overflow her eyes, and Edith found herself suddenly pressed firmly to his chest as he began to thump her back as if burping a babe.
"I hope ye're proud o' yerselves," he snapped. "Grown men making a wee lass weep."
A burble of laughter slipped from Edith's lips, and she pushed away from his chest. Shaking her head, she said, "'Tis fine. I'm no' crying."
"Actually, aye lass, ye are," Rory said gently as she dashed away the tears that had spilled over onto her cheeks.
"Unless yer eyes are just leaking," Geordie said hopefully. "But it does look like we made ye cry."
"Nay," she assured them, and then added, "Well, aye, but only because I was touched by yer considering me family."
"Ah," Rory said with understanding. "Well, I'm afraid yer stuck with us. Ye are family now that ye married our brother."
"Aye," Geordie growled, and then teased, "But the fact that ye agreed to marry him proves yer touched."
Niels glowered at his brother, but Edith chuckled and then glanced toward the door as Tormod stepped back into the room to announce, "The men are coming."
The first didn't return to the hall then, but paced briefly in the center of the room as they awaited Cameron's arrival with the guards who had been in the hall outside their chamber during the night.
Edith bit her lip and eyed the two men sympathetically when they hurried into the room on Cameron's heels. Both men had obviously been rousted from a deep sleep and looked a bit panicked, as if they thought they were in trouble. It appeared Cameron hadn't explained things and had simply rumbled them from their beds in the garrison and rushed them back here.
The moment they paused in front of Tormod, he asked, "Did ye see anyone coming or going from this room last night?"
"Nay," they said in unison, both obviously surprised by the question. That more than anything said they hadn't.
"Fine." Tormod nodded. "Ye can find yer beds again."
The two men looked more bewildered than when they'd entered, but nodded and turned to leave.
"That fire did no' start itself," Niels said now. "There must be a secret entrance. We should search the room."
Tormod hesitated and then said, "There's no need to search. I ken where it is."
Edith glanced at him with surprise. "There's a secret entrance?"
"Aye."
"Where?" she asked, glancing around curiously.
Tormod hesitated and then said stiffly, "Only the Laird and Lady o' Drummond ever ken where 'tis."
"And you," Niels added.
"Aye. Laird Drummond told me when Lady Drummond died. He felt someone besides him should ken in case he died unexpectedly before passing the secret on to his son," Tormod explained.
Niels nodded solemnly and said, "If ye'd rather only tell Edith, my brothers and I can leave."
She glanced to him with surprise at that, and opened her mouth to protest, but before she could, Tormod said, "Nay. Ye're laird here now. Ye should ken."
Edith relaxed and beamed at Tormod. The man had just given most definitive approval of her husband. Her people must have accepted him. It wasn't something she'd even worried about ere this, but she was glad not to have to.
When Tormod still hesitated to speak, Niels said quietly, "I trust me brothers with me life."
Sighing, the man nodded and turned to Cameron. "Close the door on yer way out."
The soldier nodded smartly and slipped from the room, pulling the door closed behind him.
The moment it had shut, Tormod walked to the candle ledge to the left of the fireplace and pressed on the smallest stone in the middle. The wall on the left of the fireplace immediately shifted, a portion of it about seven feet tall and three wide sliding open about an inch. Tormod caught the raised edge and pulled the hidden door open into the room.
"Where does it go?" Niels asked as he, Geordie and Rory crowded into the opening to peer into the darkness revealed to them.
"This one leads to hidden stairs."
"Stairs to where?" Edith asked, fascinated.
"They go both up to the wall and down to a passage at ground level with several hidden doors. There is one in one of the garderobes off the great hall, one in the pantry off the kitchens, one from the gardens and then another to a tunnel that runs out under the bailey and outer wall to a cave in the woods at a spot about halfway between where the woods start and where the loch is."
Niels considered that and then turned to ask, "So around where we found Lonnie?"
"Aye," Tormod admitted, surprised to note that. "Quite close, in fact. About twenty feet to the right and ten feet farther out from where ye found Lonnie if yer back were to the castle."
Niels nodded and then raised a questioning eyebrow. "Ye said this one leads to the great hall and the kitchens. There is another?"
Tormod turned to walk to the candle ledge on the right of the fireplace. This time he pressed the largest stone in that ledge and a second secret door slid inward an inch.
"This one leads to the bedchambers along the outer wall," Tormod announced, pulling it open as the three brothers moved over to look into this new, dark passage. "The rooms Lady Edith and her brothers occupied and that you're all in now."
"What about the windows?" Edith asked with a frown and when Tormod glanced to her in question, she pointed out, "Surely the windows in each room are in the way. Do ye have to crawl under them?"
"The passage slopes down from each entrance to clear the windows and then back up to the next entrance. In truth, as much o' it is between the upper part of the great hall wall and the outer wall as the wall o' the upper chambers and the outer wall. And there are peep holes drilled every few feet so ye can look down on the great hall."
Frowning, Edith asked, "There are no' peep holes into the bedchambers, though, are there?"
Tormod's eyes widened at the suggestion and then his brow furrowed and he admitted, "I'm no' sure, m'lady. Yer father merely took me to each bedchamber, showed me how to open each entrance, explained about the passage dropping down between each secret door and told me ye could see into the great hall through peep holes. He did no' mention being able to see into the bedchambers and I've never had occasion to actually go inside the passages."
Grunting, Niels looked around the room and then said, "Wait here," and slipped out into the hall. He opened the door just enough to slide through so that the open passages would not be revealed to anyone in the hall.
They all stood silently, lost in their own thoughts, Edith supposed. She was certainly thinking. She was fretting about those peep holes. Worrying over whether there were any looking into the bedchambers, her bedchamber specifically. And if so, had the mystery person who'd been sleeping in this room watched them in their private moments? The possibility was distressing enough that Edith was grateful for the distraction when the door opened and Niels slipped back into the room carrying a lit torch.
Holding it high, he crossed the room, pausing by Edith to kiss her on the forehead, and then said, "I'll be right back," and slipped into the passage. Frowning, Edith moved to the opening and watched him raise his torch, but then peered back when Geordie asked, "Are there any passages to the bedchambers on the inside?"
"Nay. Just the outer rooms. That's why the family members were all given those rooms and the inner rooms were made guest rooms," he explained.
The men all nodded. It made sense. The passages were first and foremost an emergency escape should the castle be invaded. Visitors would not be here all the time and were the passages needed for an emergency escape, the family would be the first concern.
"There are torches in holders along the passage."
Edith gave a start at that announcement directly behind her, and stepped out of the way so that Niels could come back into the room. Smiling at her distractedly, he crossed to the second entrance and disappeared briefly inside that one.
"This
one too," he announced as he came back out a moment later, and Edith noted the glow in the passage now. Apparently, he'd lit at least the first torch, she thought and then saw the same glow at the other entrance too.
"So this must be how someone has been getting in and out of this room without anyone seeing them," Rory commented, walking over to peer into the passage Niels had just come out of.
