Chapter Sixteen #2
Someone grabbed her arm anyway and dragged her forward. By the smell, or lack of it, she gathered it was Barclay. The level footing felt springy under her feet. Then she stumbled painfully over something hard.
Barclay’s voice sounded in her ear as her feet found purchase on another level surface.
“I beg your pardon, I did not think that threshold so high.” He might have been standing in the drawing room at Duncarie.
Her mind barely grasped that she stood on another level surface before the rag was jerked off her head and she could see.
Blinking a few times, she looked around.
She, Barclay, and MacLeish stood in the ruins of a small croft.
Incongruous splashes of sunshine entered through large holes in the disintegrating thatched roof and landed on the walls and pounded dirt floor.
A couple of baskets near the smoke-stained fireplace held some cooking utensils and dishes.
Others containing food indicated that they used this place with some regularity, as did a rickety table.
With a flourish, Kieran’s cousin upended a crate and indicated that she should sit down on it. “Welcome.”
Diantha ignored him. “Where is my husband?”
Barclay cleared his throat. “About that.” Terrified he would say Kieran was dead, a wave of faintness nearly overwhelmed her. “I was wondering if you would care to listen to a proposition.”
She mastered her pounding heart. “I don’t have the strength to fight you off and win, but rest assured I will resist you.”
He winced. “Forgive my poor choice of words. I have no intention of molesting you. Before I go on, however, I do need to see to one detail.” He waved to a wooden panel along one wall. “MacLeish.”
The big man jerked the panel aside. It emitted a painful screech as he tugged at it again.
It revealed a box bed holding only a thin pallet.
On it, bound hand and foot, lay Kieran. A yellowing bruise covered one side of his face, his uncombed hair lay in matted curls around his face and he had three days’ worth of whiskers.
MacLeish hauled him to a sitting position.
His eyes, blinking at the burst of light into his makeshift cell met hers with an expression of combined horror and shame. “Diantha.” He could hardly croak her name through cracked lips.
She nearly fainted with relief. He was alive.
Barclay also regarded him with pleasure. “Perfect.” He turned to Diantha. “As I should have said, I have a proposal for you.”
The sight of her husband gave her courage. She held up a hand. “All well and good, but I should like a drink of water first, and one for Kieran.”
“Oh, very well.” With a sigh of exasperation, he caught the servant’s eye and jerked his head. “See to it.”
The taciturn servant picked up a tin pail from beside the fireplace and went outside. A few minutes later, he returned with fresh water slopping over the side of the container. Picking up a battered tin cup, he dipped it into the cool liquid and offered it to Diantha.
The gesture surprised her into a “Thank you.” She took the cup to Kieran, holding it for him as he drained it. Then, returning to the pail, she got a drink for herself.
Barclay leaned against the stone wall, watching her with folded arms and a contemptuous smile. “If I may proceed?”
She set the cup down on the slanting surface of the old table. “By all means.”
He bowed. “I have harbored great regard for you since we first met, Diantha. I hope finally to be rid of my unworthy cousin by this evening.”
“Finally?” She regarded him in horror. “You’ve attempted to murder him before?”
“I placed my trust in MacLeish to weaken the bridge that collapsed under your husband.” Barclay considered.
“In retrospect, I admit it was too grandiose a scheme. The additional wadding I slipped into his gun the first day of shooting was a far better idea. Unfortunately, he used a blank, which had no shot in it.”
“He would have bled to death!”
“You bastard, Diantha could have been killed!”
Barclay sighed. “That is rather the point of a murder.”
MacLeish hunched a massive shoulder as he left the cottage. “I should hae bashed him in the head tae start with.”
Barclay ignored him to address Diantha. “I beg you to preserve your own life by marrying me. I shall be a far more satisfactory husband than my cousin. As my wife, you are constrained from testifying against me, and you will have my undying respect and affection.”
She waited for him to finish his speech. “Even though I smell of the shop? Barclay, you are a blithering ass, and I have no intention of marrying you, ever.”
Kieran scowled at her. “Diantha, save yourself, please.”
She shook her head. “I would rather die.”
“Done!” Furiously, their captor grabbed her and dragged her to the bed. Placing a booted foot on Kieran’s chest, he shoved him backward, then practically threw her in on top of him. With a few more agonized squeaks, he pushed the door back into place, trapping them in total darkness.
She heard Barclay’s boots tramp across the floor before they faded suddenly. “MacLeish!” His voice bellowed from outside the walls.
Kieran struggled to place his ear at the crack between the partitions, and Diantha did likewise.
Barclay said something about “back at sunset” and “have the horses saddled,” which she hoped meant they were not far from the manor and Archie.
The two of them scarcely dared to breathe until the muffled hoofbeats died away. Only then did they relax and adjust themselves to lie face-to-face in the narrow space. Keeping their voices to the barest thread of sound, they spoke.
Diantha, at an advantage with her hands tied in front and her feet free, offered to try and untie Kieran’s wrists. He told her that the servant stayed in the croft as a guard and warned her to make as little noise as possible.
She placed her bound hands on the rough wool of his jumper and sighed with relief. She was trapped and probably going to die, but for the first time in days, she was with Kieran.
Kieran whispered against her ear, his voice barely more than a vibration. “For the love of God, why did you not just say ‘yes?’”
Equally quietly, she answered him. “He would have had to kill me eventually.”
His chest rose and fell in an exasperated breath. “I know that, but you would have had a chance for rescue before he figured that out.”
She buried a giggle in his chest in spite of their grim situation. “The price is too high.”
He still sounded annoyed. “What are you talking about, you pigheaded woman?”
She maneuvered until she could kiss his cracked lips. “What would be the point of surviving without the man I love?”
He did not reply, although he kissed her back.
The silence stretched between them for longer than she could bear. “I understand if you can’t say it back to me. But I want you to know that you are the only man I will ever love, and I’m thankful to have the chance to tell you so before we die.”
She swallowed a sob. “When I was afraid Barclay might have killed you already, all I could think was of how stupid I was not to have told you how I felt sooner.”
He rested his cheek on hers. “I don’t deserve you.”
He still hadn’t said he loved her.
To cover her pain, she sat up on the thin pallet. “I’d better get you untied. We have people out looking for you; perhaps someone has trailed Barclay here.”
He adjusted on the pallet so she could slip behind him with a minimum of noise. Then he inhaled softly. “Did you say ‘we?’”
Diantha told Kieran about the Greens’ efforts to find him as she patiently worked at the rope binding Kieran’s wrists. After what seemed like an eternity, the strands finally loosened. Once he could free his hands, he eased the loops off and untied her bindings.
He told her not to touch his leg bindings. “If Barclay wants the horses ready, he’s taking us somewhere, which means they’ll have to free my legs for sure. If they see those ropes are tampered with, they’ll check our hands. Then we’ll lose our one advantage.”
After they stretched and rubbed the kinks out of each others’ muscles, they stretched out with their arms around each other.
Kieran urged her not to give up hope. “We will find a way out of this, love. If Archie knows, he’s rounding up help, and there’s not a cannier man at Duncarie. And once we get out of this mess, so help me, I will spend my life making sure you never have a moment’s regret for marrying me.”
He might not have said he loved her, but at least he cared for her. Touched, she tightened her arms around him and listened to her husband’s beating heart. She might not get another chance to do so.
By the time MacLeish shoved the panel back they had retied each others’ bonds so that they could free themselves.
The servant grabbed Diantha first, crudely running a hand over her breasts in the guise of grabbing her arm.
She gritted her teeth and held her wrists together and prayed that Kieran would not do something gallant and stupid.
Barclay, standing nearby with his revolver pointed at them, barked at the man to let her be.
Luckily, enough shadows had gathered in the old building that their retied bonds were not obvious.
As Kieran had predicted, his feet were freed and they assumed his hands remained firmly tied behind his back. She had pulled the loose sleeves of his jumper down as much as she could to disguise his rope.
The two men shoved them outside, where two saddled horses waited. Barclay looked at Diantha and gestured to one of the animals with the pistol. “Mount.” Keeping the pistol trained on her, he turned to MacLeish and ordered him to get Kieran on the other horse.
As she struggled to get into the saddle, her heart leaped into her throat. What if Kier’s wrists came free in the process?
The bruiser shoved him onto the horse. With a grin, he turned to his employer. “What next, sir?”
Barclay lowered his pistol. “I have to tie off a loose end.”