Chapter Twenty-Two
She was on the wrong beam.
Lisle looked over her head at the proof and groaned the frustration aloud.
Since she was in the castle’s chapel, and almost directly over the center, the sound seemed to search out every corner of the room far below before it came thundering back.
She laid her head down on the beam she would be straddling if it were small enough, and waited for the sound to dim.
She’d been so sure! After what seemed like hours of inching along this one, it was all for nothing.
It looked to be much higher once she’d crossed over the wooden entry doors, too.
Her question was answered for her, also.
The wooden doors were thick enough that any perpetrator would need a battering ram to get through them.
It had taken some time to clear the doors, and her nerve had almost completely deserted her then. It seemed so much higher than the starting point she’d taken, which had been a large step up from the top shelf of what was probably the castle’s library.
Mabel Beamans wasn’t going to have to worry about dust on this great piece of wood.
Lisle had taken care to get a light blue daygown this time, and a petticoat, both of which were looped through the ties at her waist, making a balloon affair.
That bunching of skirts, her woolen socks, and her pantaloons were doing a very good job of dusting the entire beam, especially since she was so afraid of moving that she’d slithered along inch by inch.
It was wide enough they could probably walk two abreast along it, but she wasn’t a marksman set on getting to his perch.
She was a lady of a castle—one that should have better things to do than sneak across the beams into her husband’s empty chamber, get lost twice trying to find the chapel, and then follow a beam backward to the starting point amid the bookshelves.
And never once had she checked and looked to see her destination.
If such a thing had happened, she was afraid she might look down.
That was enough to make her hands wet with sweat again…
all of which made the dust turn into grime on her palms and required wiping them on her skirt again.
There was no way she was going to able to explain further clothing damage of this nature to Mary MacGreggor, and her partner the maid, Betsy.
It was a good thing Langston had hired her lady’s maids that were closemouthed about such things, and didn’t question shredded ballgowns, mud-streaked daydresses, and now a morning dress that would need a place in the nearest dustbin.
All of which made the frustration greater when another beam seemed to come out of nowhere and cross a good four feet over her head. Her eyes followed it again…right to the pipe organ.
It was a good thing she had been raised among brothers, for a more ladylike woman would have started sliding back the way she’d come.
A girl who’d successfully finished the convent school wouldn’t even think of getting to her feet and trying to climb even higher.
Why, any one of a thousand other girls wouldn’t be up on a beam so high above the floor for no reason other than there was something hidden in the chapel, and she wanted to know what it was.
Lisle took a deep breath, gathered her courage to get to her knees, and was forestalled by the sound of footsteps across the floor below her.
She eased the breath out slowly, said a prayer of thankfulness that she’d been saved from her own plan, and moved her face a little closer to the edge…
not enough for danger, but enough to see what was happening.
It was a clergyman. It was probably the largest one of them, but he looked very small from her vantage point.
He was lifting the bolt by using a lever at one side, unlocking the doors, swinging one of them wide, and the entire chapel floor seemed to be filling with two lines of armed men… very armed men.
The other clergy fellows were standing at the massive wall organ, and as each man approached, he was taking bows, arrows, claymores and muskets, and skeans and daggers, swords, and things Lisle hadn’t any experience with, and handing some over before going behind the pipe organ. Then, they’d disappear inside.
Lisle narrowed her eyes and slid a little closer to the edge, tipping her head straight so the view wouldn’t be so distorted. After tens of men had gone behind the pipe organ and none had reappeared, she had to accept the obvious. It was a tunnel. It had to be.
She saw a flash of movement on the other side…near the statue of Mary and her child that Mary MacGreggor had told her of, what seemed like months ago. Lisle slid to the opposite side and watched as the men started coming back up, still in Highland dress, but without a sign of weaponry anywhere.
It was an arsenal! That’s what he used the chapel for, and while it was sacrilegious, it was also cunning and wily and smart, and everything Langston Monteith obviously was.
She’d conjured him, for the next moment she heard his name spoken, but it was coming from behind her, and that meant she had to swivel in place.
It wasn’t as hazardous as she’d suspected, she wasn’t going to have to risk her life getting to another beam, and she had everything she wanted.
“Prepare, lads.”
Monteith’s words carried up to her, and she inched her way to the side of the beam again to see what he was doing.
He was at the entry doors, he was nodding to each man who passed him by, and he wasn’t looking anything like the fellow who’d been in Saladin’s stables yestermorn.
He looked like a full-blooded Scot, who was proud to be a Scot, and not ashamed to show it.
Lisle’s smile widened. He was also her Scot…
hers. The thrill that thought brought made every bit of her tingle.
It also made every bit of her aware of him.
She peeked over and looked at him and caught the sigh.
He made an efficient guardian of the room.
He was also well aware of what was happening throughout the chapel.
She watched as he put his hands on his hips and looked about, almost as if he sensed something.
Then he looked up, although she saw the movement coming and ducked her head out of sight while she waited for her heart to calm enough that she could hear what else was going on.
“Laird Monteith?” a voice said in a low, soft tone that carried to her perch and was such an odd thing that it caught her ear.
“Aye?”
“Green reporting in.”
“Very good.”
The men were leaving and Lisle let out the sigh.
It was followed by the intake gasp of breath as men began filing in again, making the same strange sound of a very large, silent crowd.
They weren’t talking. There was just the sound of boots on stone, steel against leather, blade to scabbard.
She slid close to the edge, not so much that Langston might see her if he looked up, but close enough that she could see what she suspected was happening.
The chapel was filling with a double column of men again.
The same kilts, the same amount of arms, the same purpose of movement.
At least they had that much freedom. She wasn’t going anywhere…
and she’d done such a thing to herself! She watched until they were filing out, counted to a hundred, another hundred.
It was stupid to count; she didn’t have a starting point, and they all looked alike, except for the colors of their hair, and the occasional balding head tossed in. She yawned.
“Laird Monteith?” a voice said again in the same soft, low tone.
“Aye?”
“Yellow reporting in.”
“Very good.”
Lisle watched him nod. The men filed out.
There was a moment of silence from the almost empty aisles.
Then another stream of men filled the gap…
then another: red, blue, black, orange, white, brown, and purple.
After that, they started on jewel tones.
Her eyes were wide on the ninth or tenth company of men, and she was growing more and more astonished as the morning progressed, and her belly grumbled with hunger, and there was nothing to do for it but stay where she was and try to keep her mind on how many companies of men he had. Hundreds? Thousands? Tens of thousands?
It was incredible. It was impossible. It was unbelievable. Captain Barton would have fallen off his new stallion if he knew. Ruby, emerald, sapphire…. When they listed pearl, Lisle had to catch the giggle. The men in that company must have done something to deserve such a moniker.
The sun rose higher, sending the colors of the stained glass window across the floor and to the pews, and still there were men milling about, in the same silence, giving the same salute to Langston, receiving the same response in reply.
They were probably receiving breakfast, too, she told herself.
They’d be sitting down to a feast of rolls and meats, some cooked, some chilled, some in gravy, some sliced, and Lisle had her belly growling again with her own salivating thoughts.
Mary MacGreggor had been right that first morning.
They didn’t have any food that went to waste.
It probably took another fortune to feed them, and she wondered again just how much gold Monteith had, and if it really was earned in the fashion he’d told the captain, and then a shiver of dread crossed over her spine, pressing her into the wood with the force of it.
She knew what he was doing.
He was planning on waging war with England again!
The same war they’d lost, Monteith was trying to change.
He was trying to buy a win. It wasn’t possible.
Such a thing took The Stuart, and rumor had it Bonnie Prince Charlie was on the continent, living a life of luxury in Germany, or Austria, or France, or any number of places that didn’t resemble Scotland.