Chapter 2
“Halt and face me!” Murdock’s breathless voice pursued Ailis and the stranger down the stairs, footsteps echoing.
But the dark-haired man with the wintry blue eyes was agile and swift, even with the added weight on his shoulder. He didn’t miss a step, and what was more, he seemed to know exactly where he was going.
The guards will stop him soon.
Ailis was certain of it.
All of her protests were bounced away by her kidnapper’s shoulder against her stomach. She couldn’t have unleashed a yelp if she had wanted to; it was difficult enough just to breathe.
At the bottom of the stairwell, the stranger swerved away from the short hallway that led to the entrance hall. With the confidence of someone who had a map in their brain, he ran to the right and made for a passageway in the wall.
In the torchlit gloom, he hastened through a labyrinth of corridors, with no hesitation in any turn he made.
And though Ailis couldn’t see much, her neck aching every time she tried to lift her head to determine their location, she had an inkling of where they were headed—to the disused courtyard at the rear of the castle.
Mama’s favorite place.
Ailis had first heard of it from her mother’s old lady’s maid, Gladys.
The only person who seemed inclined to build a picture of the woman she had never had the chance to meet.
Since then, Ailis had sought out that very courtyard when she needed a dose of freedom, knowing that no one would ever bother to look for her there.
The man burst out of a familiar door and into that same courtyard—a small, sheltered square, with a dead hawthorn in the center and a solitary bench tucked against one wall.
The flagstones were a patchwork of moss and lichen.
Weeds poked out of the cracks in the ground, nature reclaiming that lost corner of the castle.
“Sir, I assure ye, this is a waste of yer time,” Ailis managed to gasp as the man slowed his pace.
Up ahead, a curved gate, about as tall as Ailis, usually barred any exit from the courtyard. She had tried to get it to budge many a time in her younger years to no avail.
That night, however, the gate swung up as the kidnapper kicked it. He ducked under, with her still over his shoulder, ignoring her remark entirely.
There’s still a world outside the castle.
The thought surprised Ailis.
Seeing the exterior of the walls was somewhat jarring to her jostled mind. It had probably been a year since she had been permitted to walk—escorted, of course—beyond the confines of Castle Ainsley.
“How did ye do that?” she whispered, staring back at the gate, which had swung back into its closed position.
Instead of replying, the man put his fingers to his lips and whistled.
Brigands? More kidnappers? An army?
Ailis’s heart lurched at what that sound might lure out of the woodland that bordered the rear of the castle.
More to the point, why weren’t the archers shooting at her kidnapper? Where were the guards who should have been watching from the spired towers that were set back from the forgotten courtyard? Why was no one raising the alarm?
She would have assumed it was because no one cared, but Murdock would at least raise the alarm for the sake of the clan’s honor.
Just then, a gigantic horse, with a velvety black coat, came trotting through two oak trees. A war horse, certainly, with stocky legs, a thick neck, and a back as wide as a feasting table.
“On ye get,” the man said in that deep, gravelly voice as he hefted her unceremoniously onto the horse’s sturdy back.
Her hand shot out to grab the pommel of the saddle, if only to stop herself from tipping over the other side.
She definitely wasn’t willingly staying seated.
But the man used that opportunity to pull himself up behind her, his arm locking around her waist for a third time, while his other hand grabbed the reins.
“Ye might want to throw yer leg over,” he warned. “We willnae be goin’ slow.”
He didn’t wait for her to respond. The horse lurched into a walk that lengthened into a canter that soon became a breathtaking gallop.
Ailis didn’t intend to make the kidnapping easier for him, but sure enough, she swung her leg over. She had to, for though the man’s arm was strong and steady around her waist, she couldn’t ignore the feeling that she would fall and be trampled to mush by those huge hooves at any moment.
“Good lass,” the man murmured.
Those two words left Ailis breathless for another reason as the horse charged toward open moorland.
She had barely gotten over the dizzying speed of the horse and the press of the stranger’s hard body against her back when the drum of the stallion’s hooves was joined by fresh percussion.
Twisting her head as far as she could, Ailis saw the shapes of other riders, kicking up clods of earth as they raced to catch up. She counted five. Murdock and his usual vanguard of trusted men, riding in a ‘v’ formation.
All but Murdock were drawing their bows and nocking arrows.
“They’ll surely hit me too,” Ailis croaked. Her worry was so visceral that she had accidentally spoken aloud.
“Nay, they willnae,” her kidnapper replied, immediately turning his horse.
The great beast thundered toward the safety of the dense forest instead of the open moorland.
As the first arrows were loosed, thudding into the earth a good distance from the black stallion, Murdock called out, “Ye’ll stop at once and bring me sister back, or there’ll be an ocean of blood to pay!”
The kidnapper grunted, a sound that might have been his version of laughter. Without bothering to turn, he shouted back, “It’s yer sister’s life for me braither’s! I own her now, and if ye take what’s mine, ye’ll be the one payin’ in blood!”
His stallion sped up, crashing through the tree line and into the shadows of the forest, where Murdock and his four men likely wouldn’t stand a chance of getting Ailis back.
Ailis hadn’t heard the sound of pursuit for some time as the forest gradually thinned and the horse slowed to a less nauseating pace. Even so, it took her a while to find her voice after the wind and the panic had snatched it away.
“What do ye plan to do with me?” she asked quietly, taking in her surroundings.
They seemed to be following a trail that sloped upward, worn into the earth by countless feet and carts and hooves. On her right, in the distance, a river glittered in the moonlight. Undoubtedly the same river that marked the border between Ainsley land and MacNairn land.
For a moment, her kidnapper, whom she assumed to be the new Laird MacNairn, didn’t reply.
“It’s yer sister’s life for me braither’s!”
His words echoed in her mind, more or less confirming her suspicion. Then again, Fraser Lennox wasn’t dead.
Indeed, if her kidnapper had said, “It’s yer sister’s life for me faither’s,” then she might have been a little more concerned about her fate. Barron Lennox was dead. Or so Murdock had told her.
“Keep ye,” the dark-haired bear of a man said, at last.
She took a shaky breath. “Ye’re Laird MacNairn, are ye nae?”
“I am now, aye.”
She couldn’t ignore the slight bite in his voice, the accusation. As if she were the one who had held the sword that ended Barron Lennox’s life.
I have a chance of survivin’ this.
Clearing her throat, she pulled herself forward in the saddle. She had always been aware of her ample backside. Her father and brother, and whoever else wished to join in the mockery, always made sure to remind her of how large and unseemly she was.
But she did not need her buttocks to be cushioning her kidnapper’s loins at that very moment, the too-intimate nudge of him exacerbated with every rock and sway of the horse.
“For how long do ye mean to keep me?” she asked as his arm tightened around her waist, pulling her back.
“As long as it takes,” Laird MacNairn replied vaguely.
Ailis nodded, ready to play her best hand. “Then ye should ken that Fraser is alive.”
“He had better be,” he said, stiffening against her back.
She nodded in earnest. “I spoke to him a few hours ago. Gave him somethin’ to eat and drink. I even slipped him a blanket so he wouldnae be cold.” She paused. “That’s why ye should have left me there. I was the only one takin’ care of yer braither.”
“This serves the same purpose and more,” he declared.
What is his name?
She racked her brain for it, but it wasn’t easy to do when her brother and father always referred to MacNairn men as “that bastard” or worse.
“Will I… make it out of this alive?” she asked breathily.
He gave that same grunt that might have been a laugh. “What use are ye to me if ye’re dead, lass?”
She mentally prepared a list of her other merits and good reasons as to why she should be returned in one piece, gathering them on her tongue. But, as she began to speak, her words turned into a yelp.
The horse had reached the top of the slope and turned right, and she had made the mistake of looking down. What she had assumed to be the crest of a hill was, in fact, the jagged edge of a cliff. The roar she had been hearing came from the thrashing sea below, not the rush of blood in her ears.
Spray burst upward in frothy plumes as angry waves slammed into the rock. Even calm and mirror-still, her reaction would have been the same.
“Oh nay… nay… nay, nay, nay…” she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut.
She put her fingers in her ears to block out the pounding surf, cursing that the roar of the blood in her ears was identical.
No longer caring about proximity, she leaned fully into the solidity of Laird MacNairn and dropped her chin to her chest. Withdrawing into herself to escape that terrifying mass of surging, seething water.
A few moments later, she felt his arm tighten around her waist, holding her so close that there wasn’t an inch between his body and hers. Not a hair’s breadth.
He willnae let me fall. He willnae throw me over the edge. He said it himself—I’m nay use to him dead.