Chapter 9
“What do we do?” Heather rasped: her throat tight with the guilt of almost being caught in the arms of the handsome Scot, blended with the terror of what might befall that beautiful man when the sun rose.
Brandon stooped to catch his breath. “There is nothing to be done, Heather. It is much too late. We should have acted sooner. We should have known your father would not delay.”
“Do not say that!” Heather gripped one of the iron bars of Owen’s cell, until her knuckles whitened. She would not give up, nor would she stand by and watch an innocent man be led to the executioner’s block. Her brother would not want that.
Just then, the young man who always pretended to be asleep when she came to visit Owen, leaned into the bars of his prison. “This might sound an outlandish notion to the pair of ye, but how about ye… oh, I daenae ken… let us out of here so we can escape? Ye must ken where the keys are kept.”
“Sawyer,” Owen chided. “This isnae the time for yer jibes.”
The usually silent Sawyer shrugged. “Who said I was makin’ a jibe?
I daenae ken if I’m part of this dawn execution plot, but I’ll tear these bars out of the damned ground if they try to get at ye.
” He flashed a pointed glare at Heather.
“Where are the keys, Lass? If ye daenae think M'Laird is yer brother’s killer—which I assume ye daenae since ye’ve been comin’ down here without executin’ him yerself—then get us out of this castle. ”
“The keys—” Heather took out the iron ring which her brother had gifted to her, many years ago. Eyeing the variety of keys, she wondered if one of them might open the locks on the cell doors.
Would he have entrusted me with such a thing? Did he know something like this might happen? No matter how hard she tried, she could not shake William’s last confession of fear from her mind.
“Where did ye get those?” Sawyer stared at the keys.
Heather approached Owen’s cell first. “William gave them to me. He never wanted me to be a prisoner in my own residence.” She paused, meeting Owen’s concerned gaze. “My father often locks the door to my bedchamber, if I have been badly behaved… for my own protection.”
“Who’s he protectin’ ye from? Yerself?” Owen sounded annoyed, but Heather merely shrugged.
“Sometimes, I do not act the way a lady ought to.” She flashed him a nervous smile. “Spending my evenings alone here with you is certainly not the behavior of a prim young lady, nor is helping two Scots to escape.”
With hope brimming in her heart, she tested every key, sliding them into the lock one after one. With each failed attempt, her disappointment turned to frustration, laced with an undercurrent of panic.
“They do not fit,” she admitted, struggling with the last key on the ring. It would not even begin to turn in the mechanism, prompting her to force it.
Owen’s hand slipped through the bars to cover hers. “Daenae break the end off, Lass. If ye do that, we will nae be able to get the right key in.” He smiled down at her. “Be calm, Lass. We’ll find our way out.”
“Do you have the key to the gaoler’s room?” Brandon raised an eyebrow at the obvious intimacy between Heather and the handsome Scot, which she pretended to ignore.
Heather nodded. “I do.”
“Then, we ought to begin there,” Brandon urged, taking Heather by the arm and leading her to the wooden door opposite.
There, she shuffled through the keys until she came to the right one.
By now, she knew it well, as she always ensured the gaoler’s room was open when she came down to converse with Owen.
There had been too many narrow escapes from her father’s men for her liking, so it paid to have somewhere she could run to and readily hide.
Opening the door wide, she hurried inside, heading directly for the gaoler’s writing desk.
She was not sure how much writing the fellow did, for the majority of her father’s men were illiterate, but it was scattered with empty bottles, rather lewd drawings, and plates of chicken and lamb bones that were starting to fur with mold.
Those drawings cannot possibly be accurate, she told herself, for she had never stolen more than a glance at them. Now, standing over them, she could not help but take a closer look.
At first, it was not clear what they were supposed to detail.
She could make out the shape of a woman, bending at the waist: her pendulous breasts pointing downward.
Behind her stood a man with his hands upon her hips, or so it appeared, but Heather could not fathom what he was doing to the woman.
Nor did she know what the thick protrusion, poised to slide between the lady’s buttocks, could be.
“That wretched pig,” Brandon hissed, grabbing the drawings and scrunching them into crumpled balls. “You should not have seen that.”
Heather cleared her throat, feeling oddly curious. “I saw nothing, Brandon.”
Trying not to dwell on that crude etching, she wrenched open the desk’s crooked drawers, searching for the keys that would free Owen. They had to be there, somewhere.
“Is there anything you wish to tell me?” Brandon said, closing the door before heading to a tall set of equally warped and worn drawers.
Heather paused. “Whatever do you mean?”
“How often has Laird Dunn touched your hand like that?” Brandon did not turn around to address her, as he sifted through more discarded papers and empty bottles.
Guilty embarrassment burned in Heather’s cheeks. “That was the first time. If he had not, I would surely have snapped the key in the lock.”
The lie rolled off her tongue with ease, though she did not know why she felt the need to hide Owen’s sweet actions.
Deep down, she supposed she knew it was not the proper way for her to behave.
Brandon had every right, as a friend and gentleman and the only brotherly figure she had left, to chide her for it. She just hoped he would not.
“So, I did not see you embracing him earlier?” Brandon sighed, as if she had disappointed him very much.
Heather’s mouth fell open. “I… uh… well, it was not… um… an embrace, per se. I stumbled into the bars, you see, and I hit my head. I was dazed and he was attempting to help me to my feet.”
“Your head?” Brandon came over to her, nudging aside the wavy locks that framed her face. “I see no bruise.”
“There will be one; I assure you. It has not darkened yet, that is all,” she explained, a note too quickly, as she took a step back from Brandon.
He narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “Are you certain there is nothing untoward between the two of you?”
“I am certain,” she replied fiercely, tilting her head to one side. “Might I ask you something?”
Brandon nodded. “Of course.”
“If there were something untoward—which, as I have said, there is not—would it deter you from freeing two innocent men?” She wanted to test if Brandon was the sort of man that she hoped he was.
His expression relaxed. “It would not, my dear Heather. I am merely trying to act as your brother would have done. He would want me to make sure you are not going to come to any harm.”
“I am not,” Heather promised. “But those two will, if we do not find this key.”
Brandon gave a mock salute. “You are quite right. That must be our priority.” His expression turned more serious. “There is not much time.”
He hurried back to the tall stack of drawers, increasing the intensity of his search. Meanwhile, Heather did the same, all but ransacking the gaoler’s room in her pursuit of Owen’s freedom.
“I have them!” Heather cried, not five minutes later, holding a different ring of keys aloft.
She did not wait for Brandon’s reply as she raced out of the room, going straight to Owen’s door.
Once again, her patience was tested as she slipped key after key into the lock.
Not one would turn, and she was beginning to wonder if someone else had the key to this cell—someone she would not be able to persuade to give it up. Her father.
Please say you have not kept it for yourself.
Please say you have not dashed my hopes, Father.
Do not make me watch this man die. Coming to the last key, she slid it into the lock and turned.
For a moment, it seemed to follow the same useless pattern as the rest, but with a firmer turn of her wrist, she gasped as the key twisted in the lock. It was merely rusty from disuse.
The door swung open, and it took every shred of willpower that Heather possessed, not to throw her arms around the freed Scotsman.
After all, there was still a great deal more to do before Owen and his man-at-arms would truly be liberated…
and there was always a chance that Brandon might change his mind about helping the innocent men escape, if he thought there was some affection blossoming.
It is not affection, Heather chided herself inwardly. It is justice. It is doing the right thing when no one else will. Yet, she could still feel the comforting pressure of Owen’s arms holding her, and the tingle upon her forehead, where he had placed a delicate kiss.
“I owe ye dearly for this,” Owen said, stepping out.
“Aye, we owe ye, now get me out!” Sawyer interrupted, yanking on the bars of his door.
Heather blinked up at Owen. “I should attend to your acquaintance.”
“Allow me,” Owen insisted. “Yer hands are shakin’.”
He took the key from the lock and went to free Sawyer, while Heather stared down at her hands.
They were, indeed, shaking, though she did not know why.
Was it relief, panic, anxiety, or something else entirely?
The same unknown thing that made her breath shallow, her heart race, and her skin turn feverish.
The moment Sawyer had been sprung from his cell, he looked to his Laird for instruction. Indeed, he was not the only one, for Heather did not know what they were supposed to do next. Nor, it appeared, did Brandon.
“Are there any secret passages in this castle—tunnels, hatches, concealed gateways, that can get us out unseen? I ken ye daenae often get besieged, these days, but there must’ve been a time when ye did,” Owen asked, keeping close to Heather.
Brandon shook his head. “I do not know of any.”
“There will be no one in the kitchens at this hour,” Heather interjected, forcing herself to think quickly. “The cooks and kitchen maids retired after dinner and the baker will not begin his work until three o’clock.”
Brandon chewed on his lower lip. “It is almost three o’clock now, Heather.”
“Then we have not a moment to lose!” Heather urged.
Boldly, she seized hold of Owen’s hand and broke into an ungainly run, hampered by her layers of skirts. Nevertheless, he followed her lead, with the sound of Sawyer and Brandon’s footsteps echoing behind.
Bursting out of the door at the top of the narrow staircase, Heather breathed a sigh of relief upon finding the hallway empty. No guards had come to take the night watch, for they likely still thought the door to the dungeons was locked.
“This way,” Heather urged, clutching Owen’s hand tighter as she guided him through a labyrinth of eerily silent hallways, to the kitchens.
“Where are all yer soldiers?” Owen whispered: the foursome slowing in reflection of Heather’s pace.
She put a finger to her lips. “They do not patrol this part of the castle, as many of the soldiers were upsetting the maids. I do not know the details, but the cooks requested that no guards be permitted in these hallways after dinner had been served and cleared.” She paused, suddenly curious.
“Indeed, I believe that was when my father began locking my bedchamber door.”
“Perhaps, he’s nae so foolish as I thought,” Owen said, with a grim expression upon his face. “Ye cannae trust Sassenach soldiers when their blood is up.”
Heather peered up at him in confusion. “What does that mean?”
“It means nothing,” Brandon interjected, flashing a warning glare at Owen. Evidently, it did mean something, but there was no time for Heather to press the issue.
“It is not much farther.” Heather tiptoed up the dimly lit hallway: her eyes fixed upon a set of double doors at the very end.
All they had to do was get through those doors, pass through the kitchens undetected, and slip out of the rear door.
From there, it would be a swift dart into the forest surrounding the castle.
At some point, Owen and Sawyer would have to scale the boundary wall, but she suspected that would not cause them too much trouble.
Will that be the end? Will that be farewell, forever?
To her surprise, her heart ached a little.
She had only just begun to know Owen and his healing knowledge.
It seemed too painfully soon for her to have to say farewell to both.
But what else could she do? If he did not leave now, he would die, and if he ever returned, he would meet the same fate.
“We must be as quiet as mice,” Heather whispered, reaching the double doors.
Owen smiled. “Mice can be louder than ye think.”
“Hedgehogs, then. I daresay I have never heard one make a sound.” She cast him an amused look, before opening the kitchen door and slipping inside.
To her relief, it lay as empty as she had hoped. A blast of warmth from the perpetually lit ovens struck her in the face, but the workbenches were devoid of pots and pans and trays and ingredients. Everything had been cleaned away, the servants all gone to bed.
“Nay baker,” Owen murmured, “but we ought to take this for the journey.” He plucked up half a loaf, which had been covered with a cloth on the side, and tucked it under his arm.
Behind him, Sawyer grabbed a small sack of apples.
“We’re goin’ to need us some horses, too.
I trust yer faither will nae mind us takin’ a couple, as payment for bein’ locked up without due cause?
” Though phrased as a question, Heather knew it was not one.
Of course, they would require horses, otherwise they would never outpace the soldiers that would surely ride after them.
“I believe your own mounts are presently in the stables,” Heather replied, hurrying to the back door of the kitchen. “Go straight to the forest and allow me and Brandon to fetch the horses for you.”
Owen nodded. “Very well, Lass.”
Carefully, Heather opened the back door as wide as she dared, wincing at every creak of the hinges.
Glancing out into what should have been the thick camouflage of darkness, she froze in terror. Torches flickered menacingly in the stretch of land between the castle and the forest, illuminating grim-faced men. Her father’s men: their attention fixed upon her.
“It is a trap,” she gasped, as the soldiers swarmed forward.