Chapter 2 #2
The door to her cell swung open, and it took all of Sorcha’s willpower to step only where the girl motioned.
She followed her across the way and up closer to the door, where more heat and light seeped into the room.
Clean straw was scattered across the floor, and a wool blanket was folded on the end of the bed.
It looked as if it had all been freshly scrubbed and cleaned, a decided improvement from where Sorcha had just been.
“I dinnae ken if it was mere minutes, but it felt as though I was in that reeking cell for hours. Thank ye for saving me from a second more of that stench. As it is, it will take a week’s worth of baths to rid me of the smell.”
With a dry laugh, the woman nodded her head and gestured for Sorcha to sit.
“Och, aye. Ye are right about that. I think it was on a fortnight before I was able to wash the smell from my hair. And my clothes had to be burned. The cook would nae have them in her kitchens. But ye were nae in there overly long. The smell will nae cling to ye, as it did me.”
“How long were ye in there?” Sorcha asked carefully, closing her eyes as the girl pulled out a damp cloth to dab at the blood on her cheek.
“I dinnae ken. I think it was nearly a month. Perhaps two. I lost track.”
Sorcha winced, though she couldn’t tell if it was the sting of her cheek or the despondency in the girl’s answer that caused it.
“Ye are Scottish,” she commented, opting for what she hoped would be a safer line of questioning.
“Aye.”
“After all that Dudley said tonight about his views on us Scots, I am surprised to find ye here.”
The girl shrugged, intent on her task.
“Perhaps ye ken of another Scottish lass the Baron has stolen—Taryn. Do ye ken her? Have ye seen her here?”
Freezing, the girl’s expression clouded with something dark and unexplainable. Sorcha counted her heartbeats as she waited for the maid to answer, praying to whoever might deign to answer her that this girl wasn’t about to tell her that her best friend was already dead.
“Do ye mean Taryn McGregor? That Taryn?”
“Aye! Aye, I do. I came to save her. The blaigeard Dudley has stolen her from us.”
With a deep, long sigh, the maid let her hand fall, along with her eyes.
“Well, I—” she sighed again. “I ken that Taryn McGregor was betrothed to the Baron. It was a peace agreement between our clan and the Baron. But Taryn fled before the wedding. He took me instead.”
“What?” Sorcha exclaimed. “Why?”
“Because I helped her escape.”
“Laura.”
The maid’s name was a gentle whisper, one of recognition and despair. Her head snapped up to meet Sorcha’s gaze, eyes tense with wariness.
“How do ye ken my name?” Laura asked, her tone accusing and untrusting.
“Taryn is my family. We live together in the Kincaid Clan. I am here only to save her from the Baron. She is all I have left in this world. We dinnae have secrets from each other. She told me of ye and yer brother, James, years ago. She told me of how ye helped save her. She felt she owed ye a debt she could never repay. But for all that she told me, she never mentioned that ye had been taken in her stead.”
Laura shrugged, trying so hard to brush off the pain and bitterness that Sorcha saw brimming just beneath the surface.
“Nay one thought he would demand such a thing. Even fewer believed that Laird McGregor would ever give into the lunatic’s demands. But as far as they were all concerned, her escape and their failed engagement was my fault, and I was made to pay for it.”
“Do ye mean he…” Sorcha trailed off, too horrified to speak the words.
“Nay. It is a blessing, I suppose. The Baron thought me too plain to be worth any effort. He has nae so much as laid a finger on me since I arrived. Sometimes, I think he has forgotten about me. And then he goes and does things like this,” she motioned to the door and the Great Hall full of English Lords that lay beyond it, “and I remember that the man refuses to let any grudge go.”
“Why does he keep ye here?” Sorcha asked, mind racing.
“To prove a point that he can, I guess. I have been found guilty, in his mind, of a grave sin against him by thwarting him the most bonny Scottish lass money can buy. My sentence is to be a prisoner here, stuck serving his dreadful table for the rest of my days, any chance of my own happiness ruined.”
Stunned into silence, Sorcha said nothing as Laura continued her ministrations, applying a salve to her cheek with a gentle touch.
For the first time since the girl came in, Sorcha looked at her, really looked.
Her hair was braided and pulled back tight, hidden beneath a gray cap.
Only a few errant tendrils of dark hair poked through.
Her eyes, saddened around the corners, were a pale green; a shade that Sorcha was sure would have been magnificent in the sunlight.
But judging from the pale and dry skin of Laura’s hands and face, Sorcha doubted the girl was allowed much time to do anything besides work. The thought made her heart ache anew.
“Did ye really come all this way to save Taryn?” Laura asked, as if the thought had bubbled up from somewhere deep inside her.
“Aye.”
“Why?”
“Because I love her. I would do anything for her.”
A beat of silence.
“And do ye believe that she would do the same for ye? Ye think that Taryn would risk everything she has to save a friend?”
“Absolutely. I ken that she would.”
Sorcha’s answer came with no hesitation, but it didn’t seem to be the answer that Laura was looking for.
“I was once Taryn’s friend too,” Laura said bitterly, her hands folded in her lap once again. “I loved her, too, risked everything for her happiness. But she forgot about me. She did nae love me the way I loved her. She never came back to help me.”
“I will help ye,” Sorcha vowed without reserve. “I will find some way to escape, some way out of here. And when I do, I will take ye with me. We will escape together.”
Laura hung her head and shook it, like a disappointed school marm whose students had missed a valuable lesson.
“Ye dinnae understand. There is nay escaping the Baron. There is nay way out of here. Nae for me.”