Chapter Twenty-One
Constantine’s claymore flashed above her and stopped the enemy sword’s descent in a clashing blow that rained sparks down on her head.
In less than an instant her eyes took in everything going on around her.
There were men everywhere, slicing, jabbing, and chopping with their swords.
Blood spewed, and Hilary was whisked away by her betrothed.
The bastard whose sword had come down on them crumbled to the ground and lay in a bloody heap at her feet. The smell of blood seeped into her nostrils and then filled her lungs. She would have gagged, but Constantine grasped her by the wrist and pulled her to the stairs.
“I will come fer ye,” he promised, urging her up the steps. “There is a trapdoor in my solar, beneath the west window.”
She shook her head frantically while men all around her cried out or swore vengeance as they died. “I willna leave ye, Constantine.”
He pushed her up another stair. “Go to the loch.” He paused to offer her a brief smile in the midst of the chaos. “The loch where ye like to swim. I will come fer ye, my love.”
A look of horror passed over her features as a stranger came up behind him and lifted his blade. She didn’t have time to scream before Constantine turned and in a split second sliced his blade across the stranger’s belly.
Before this opponent hit the floor, another was upon him. He spared her a worried glance then fought his new opponent.
Ismay knew she was distracting Constantine by being there, so, with almost crippling reluctance, she hurried up the stairs, afraid to look back lest she see him fallen on the stairs where he had carried her to his room. If he died, she would drown herself in the loch.
She made it to the second landing and was met by John MacBain and Hilary.
“My kin will never fergive ye, John!” Hilary shouted at him. “Nor will I. Do ye understand? I will never—” Hilary’s words were cut short when she turned and saw Ismay at the top of the stairs.
She hurried to her. “Ismay! Are ye hurt?”
Ismay shook her head and turned to MacBain. “What is the meaning of this?”
He came forward and pulled a dirk from a hilt hanging at his side. “Hilary tells me ye are happy here. That is no’ fer me to decide. Our chief wants ye set free to be kept safe in our care.”
“In yer care?” Ismay echoed.
“The Chattan.”
Ismay backed away. “Nae! I winna come with ye.”
“Lass, the chief doesna care if we kill the Lochiel,” MacBain told her. “In fact, he wants us to kill him. But I can promise ye that if ye come with me, he willna be hurt.”
Go with him? Nae! She couldn’t. She heard someone’s voice from below stairs where the men were fighting. The voice shouted “Lochiel!” It was Geoffry. She turned to run back down the stairs to see what was going on. MacBain took her arm and stepped close to her.
“Come with me and the Lochiel willna be harmed,” he said against her ear.
Her eyes opened wide. If going with him was the only way to save Constantine from two hundred men, she would obey.
“John, I beg ye, dinna take her,” Hilary cried. “Constantine was the one who agreed to our union. The elders denied us.”
“I must obey my orders, my lady.” With that, he ended the conversation and still holding Ismay by her arm, pulled her down the stairs.
Ismay struggled to be free to run to where she saw Geoffry. Her eyes scanned the myriad of faces for Constantine. Where was he? There wasn’t much time to gain her freedom before the gaping doors appeared before them.
“Constantine!” she screamed out.
Geoffry’s wide gaze met hers for an instant, and then he looked down, toward his feet.
Ismay couldn’t see what it was at first. But then there came a free space between the legs of a dozen men. She stopped, never wanting to move again at the sight of Constantine’s body lying limp at Geoffry’s feet.
Should she scream his name again? She didn’t have the strength. It drained from her more and more with each passing moment. Her knees gave out beneath her. MacBain lifted her over his shoulder and as he hurried out of the castle, she finally screamed her husband’s name.
*
Ismay’s eyes opened with the shock of what happened flashing across her dreams.
Constantine was dead. Even her nostrils attested to it, burning from the dank odor decay.
She buried her head into the bed and wept.
Bed? She lifted her head and looked around.
The room was small and empty save for the bed and a chair.
The walls were empty, as well. Where was she?
She looked down at herself in her clothes.
Who brought her here? Immediately, Hilary’s contorted face appeared before her.
John MacBain! Where had MacBain brought her?
Her heart jolted. She wanted to forget, but her heart wouldn’t allow it.
Constantine was dead.
A chill creeped down her spine. How was she supposed to live another day without him in the world? Why should she care about living or dying? She didn’t. But she did want to face her captor. MacBain had not kept his promise to keep Constantine safe. Their bargain was broken.
She had strength enough to throw back her head and scream. Why had he brought his men to Tor Castle? MacBain had mentioned his chief wanting her. Was she the reason they attacked Tor?
“MacBain!” she bellowed. She leaped from the bed and hurried to the door. She struggled to open it but it was locked. She hurried for the chair, intending to pick it up and throw it next.
She paused hearing footsteps coming closer to her door.
She still had strength to throw the chair at him directly. She readied herself as the door creaked open.
When she saw who was on the other side, she let go of the chair and looked around for a place to run.
“What are ye doing here, MacRae?” Her voice shook with fear and anger.
“I have come to help ye,” he smiled and took a seat in a heavy chair by the window.
Did he think himself her protector? She quickly rejected him in her own head. She didn’t need his protection. She needed an escape route. “Save it, MacRae,” she said scathingly. “I dinna know how I came to be in yer possession, but I demand ye release me.”
He laughed. “What a filthy tongue. Ye’re a treasure to potheth. Other men will envy and admire my ability to tame the wild wench.”
Och, how could it be that after all the running and hiding, for all the blisters on her feet, and the nights she’d gone to sleep hungry, he caught her.
“Let me go. I am the wife of—”
“Yer marriage to that unholy Highland outlaw will be annulled,” MacRae advised, rubbing his purple jaw. “Then I will wed ye, ath planned. Though now that I have caught ye, ye are nae longer appetizing.”
“Good!” she exclaimed, sick to her stomach by him. “By the way, ye sound like the blithering fool ye truly are.” She wanted to weep but she wouldn’t show MacRae any weakness. How long could she go on without screaming until she never stopped?
What if Constantine was dead? How could he leave her?
Wait. If Constantine had died, MacRae wouldn’t need to have the marriage annulled.
He hadn’t left her, she told herself with a sudden burst of strength coursing through her. He was alive! He had to be. “He promised to come fer me.”
“What?” MacRae looked up from his fingers.
“He is going to come fer me, MacRae. And when he does, he is going to kill ye.”
The chief paled and swallowed. “He wath fatally injured. He willna be coming fer anyone.”
Constantine was fatally wounded? How long ago had it been since she saw him lifeless on the floor? Did she dare believe MacRae? She shook her head and swallowed back her tears. “He will kill ye whether he is dead or alive.”
He laughed but it sounded forced to Ismay’s ears. He was afraid, and he should be. If Constantine was truly gone, she would do the killing.
“Where is MacBain?” she demanded. “Did he deliver me to ye? Was my mother involved in this?”
MacRae shrugged his beefy shoulder. “I heard the Camerons were looking fer him.” He smiled at his last words and shrugged again. “Dead or alive, he did hith duty.”
So, Ismay told herself, reading him easily, MacBain had, in fact, delivered her to him. But by whose order? MacRae wasn’t powerful enough to order an army to invade Tor. She asked him.
“Yer rescue wath ordered by the Clan Chief Chattan. Ye are a MacPherthon by yer own dear mother’s oath. She wanted ye out of the hands of the outlaw Cameron.”
“She told them I was a MacPherson?”
“I did, actually, with her mark on a document of yer identity.”
Ismay swore quietly. This just kept getting more mad! “So, my mother informed the Confederation of my identity to get me out of the hands of the Cameron, and into yers?”
“Aye.” MacRae nodded with a satisfied grin. “We did ye a great favor, Ithmay. Once the Lochiel discovered who ye are, he would have likely raped ye. Now we know he forced ye to marry him.”
“He didna force me,” she told him woodenly.
He scoffed as if he knew all her family secrets. “We know how ye refuthed every other man that courted ye fer yer hand.”
He didn’t believe her. She didn’t care. She wasn’t here to prove anything to him.
“What do ye gain by doing her bidding?” she asked instead.
He curled his lips up. “Yer inheritance when ye leave the earth.”
Ismay laughed into her hands. “Once ye kill me, are ye fool enough to believe she willna kill ye?”
He was quiet. It either just dawned on the dimwit, or he suspected Lady MacPherson and planned to kill her first.
Let them destroy each other.
Ismay turned her storm-filled eyes on him. “Where are we?”
“We are thill in Lochaber,” he provided, then narrowed his eyes on her. “But we will be moving in the morning. Be ready.” With that, he rose up and went for the door.
“The Lochiel will likely be here before sunset.”
MacRae stopped and stared at her as if he were waiting for her to laugh and confess to jesting.
“He’s coming even now,” she warned. “I’m sure of it.”
He left her, quickening his steps. Ismay watched him leave and shut and locked the door behind him.