Chapter 11
Callum jerked awake, his toes frozen, a crick in his neck and his stomach grumbling with hunger. He blinked against the light, the grogginess falling instantly away from him as he sat up.
A cool afternoon light was coming through the window. It was harder to tell in the winter when the light was so flat and gray, but it looked as if it were mid-afternoon.
He hadn’t slept for long, then.
Something had roused him. A noise. A repeated, rhythmic thump followed by an odd dragging sound, like a foot sliding across the floor.
Thump, drag, thump, drag …
No wonder he’d woken with an aching head.
There could only be one culprit. God above, did the girl never sleep?
He glared at her over his shoulder. “Cease that pacing, if you please, Miss MacLeod. You’re making my head pound.”
One last thump echoed in his skull before she came to a stop behind the settee. “Oh, dear. Did I wake you? I beg your pardon, Mr. Ross.”
“I don’t see how you could have failed to wake me with that deafening thumping you’re making. And what is that maddening dragging sound? It sounds as if you’re lugging a dead body around behind you.”
“A dead body? How absurd. Where would I get a dead body?”
Where, indeed? “I shudder to think, Miss MacLeod.”
“It’s not a dead body, but a bare foot.” She lifted the hem of her skirts an inch. On one dainty foot was a half boot a size too large for her. The other foot was bare, her pink toes curling against the floorboards. “Cat’s other half boot is in the shrubbery outside.”
Of course it was. Where else would it be? Not on her foot, certainly. That would make too much sense.
He let out a beleaguered sigh. “Wait here. I’ll fetch it.”
He took more time than he should have poking through the shrubbery, but he finally found the blasted boot half buried among some thorny brambles a few paces away from the shore of Lochalsh. He plucked it up and returned to the cottage, the boot dangling from his fingers by the laces.
“Here. Either put this one on or take the other one off.” He’d go mad if he had to listen to her thump and drag herself across the floor for the next three days.
“Thank you.” She stepped into the boot, pulled the laces as tight as she could, then resumed marching from one end of Brodie’s tiny cottage to the other, pausing every now and then to glance out the window, as if she expected Brodie would come riding up at any moment with her sister perched on the back of his horse.
She was sure to be disappointed. At the very least it would be another day before Brodie could possibly return, and that was assuming he didn’t find anything of interest to keep him in Dunvegan.
As for Sorcha MacLeod, if she was still in Dunvegan, he hoped she had the good sense to stay well hidden, but it seemed unlikely.
Good sense and Sorcha MacLeod didn’t appear to be on speaking terms. She had wonderful survival instincts, though.
The girl was thoughtless and reckless, but she was a fighter.
He’d wager his last penny that Keir and Sorcha MacLeod were a long way from Dunvegan by now. Keir was no fool. He knew a lost cause when he saw one, and as far as Dunvegan was concerned, the MacLeod sisters were a lost cause.
He dropped down onto the settee, passing a hand over his eyes.
The cut on his knuckles was oozing again, and the dressing was filthy and damp, but exhaustion was tugging at him.
It could wait until he’d had another hour or so of sleep.
He rolled onto his back, stretched his legs out as far as the settee would allow, and threw his arm over his eyes to block out the light.
Just another hour or so, and he’d be back to himself again. He drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes.
There, that would do. Yes, that would do quite nicely—
Thump, thump, thump …
“For God’s sake, Miss MacLeod.” He jerked upright again, his arm falling away. “Can’t you keep still? You’re making my head spin with that endless marching.”
And thumping. Mustn’t forget the thumping.
“I do beg your pardon, Mr. Ross, but we’ve been trapped inside this cottage for ages.” She huffed, throwing her hands in the air. “I don’t know how you can lie there with such equanimity. I feel as if the walls are closing in on me.”
“It’s only been a few hours.” If she took another turn around the room, he’d go mad. She’d been at it since she woke, and the thud of her footsteps against the floorboards was echoing in his skull.
Good God, what was he going to do with her for four days?
The thudding stopped. “I’m sorry. I’ll just look out the window, then.”
“Good.” He fell onto his back and stared up at the ceiling, waiting for sleep to take him, but his eyes remained stubbornly open.
Damn it, now it was too bloody quiet.
He struggled upright again, stifling a sigh. He’d promised Hamish he’d keep her safe. That was all. He’d never promised he’d keep her entertained, but here they were. “What do you do at home to keep yourself occupied?”
It was a predictable enough question, but she gave him an odd look, then turned abruptly away from the window to sit on the edge of the settee. “I read, and draw. I chat with my sisters and make orange marmalade. Not all that much, really. Nothing useful, in any case.”
It had been the wrong question to ask, somehow. He wasn’t sure why—it was an innocent question—but she’d gone still and was gazing into the fire with a forlorn expression on her face.
Damnation. He preferred the pacing.
“Brodie doesn’t have any books?” He didn’t ask about drawing paper or pencils. That was too much to hope for.
“Only the Bible, and a battered copy of Defoe’s Captain Singleton.” She sighed, dropping her chin onto her hand. “I don’t fancy either.”
“The Defoe would keep you occupied.” Though it was a bit bloody for her tastes, perhaps.
“I don’t care for books about piracy.”
“But your father was a smuggler.” The line between smuggling and piracy was an exceedingly thin one. He would have said this was a nearly universal opinion, but the flat look Miss MacLeod gave him said otherwise.
“A smuggler, yes. Not a pirate.” Her chin rose. “My father didn’t engage in extraneous violence, Mr. Ross, nor did he turn smuggler for his own gain.”
“No. I suppose he didn’t.” One could say what they liked about Rory MacLeod, but he’d never been a common thief. There were some who claimed he was a hero. Callum wasn’t one of them, but if Rory had been into smuggling for the money, Castle Cairncross wouldn’t be crumbling to dust.
Rory had never been a wealthy man, and by the looks of things, he’d left his daughters destitute enough.
“Brodie does have a pack of playing cards,” she offered after a moment, breaking the silence between them. “We could have a game.”
“A game? You want to play cards with me?” She must be bored indeed if she was willing to overlook their differences for a paltry game of cards.
She made a great show of looking around. “Yes, with you, Mr. Ross. In case you didn’t notice, we’re here alone.”
Oh, he’d noticed. He’d done nothing but notice since they’d stepped over the threshold three hours and twenty-six minutes ago.
“Well, then? Would you like to have a game, Mr. Ross?”
He didn’t like it. Cards bored him. They were for aristocrats who had time and money to waste. Still, it would help to pass the time, and it would keep her from wearing a hole in Brodie’s floors with all that pacing. “If I must.”
“Really? Wonderful!” She let out a little squeal, jumped up to fetch the cards from a small wooden box on a shelf by the front door, then hurried back to the settee.
He sat up, taking care to leave a respectable length of cushion between them. “What game do you choose?”
“Whatever you like. Maw, perhaps? Or One and Thirty?”
“Those are wagering games, Miss MacLeod. Do you have any money?”
“Money?” Her face fell. “No, but perhaps we could play for something else?”
“Like what? What do you have that I might want, Miss MacLeod?”
Was that … it almost sounded like … good God, was he teasing her? How the devil had that happened? He wasn’t a flirt, and neither was he a rogue. He wasn’t charming enough to tease young ladies, particularly young ladies he didn’t like that much.
He was as bored as she was, it seemed. There was no other explanation for his uncharacteristic, er … playfulness?
Dear God, the very word made him blanch.
“My sisters and I play for secrets.” She gave a casual shrug, as if it made no difference at all to her whether he agreed to play or not, but she was nibbling on her lower lip, something she only did when she was plotting.
It was disturbing that he knew that about her, and a pity he hadn’t realized it sooner. If he had, she wouldn’t have made it out of the castle two nights ago. She’d nearly bitten her lip bloody when she’d pretended to sprain her ankle, the devious little chit.
“Secrets? Have you a great many secrets, Miss MacLeod?”
“Not a great many, no, but I have a few. Everyone has secrets, Mr. Ross.”
He couldn’t argue with that. Some of them had a great many more than a few.
“Mine aren’t particularly interesting ones,” she went on. “It’s a pity you didn’t kidnap Cat or Sorcha instead. They both have dozens of secrets, and each one more scandalous than the last.”
“I didn’t kidnap you, Miss MacLeod. I promised Lord—”
“Yes, yes. You promised Lord Ballantyne you’d look after me.” She waved this away with a flick of her fingers. “I’m aware of that, Mr. Ross, but you must acknowledge that from my perspective, it feels very much like a kidnapping. Now, are we playing, or not?”
She gave him a hopeful look, and despite himself a grin tugged at his lips. Whatever had given Hamish the idea that Freya was the biddable sister? “We’re playing. Shall we begin with One and Thirty?”
She cocked her head, considering it, then dealt them each two cards with their faces down, and a third one face up. “I prefer Bone Ace, if you’re amenable. Look at that! You have three clubs to my queen of diamonds. You owe me a secret, Mr. Ross.”