Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Castle Gordon was just as Catriona remembered it, a forbidding granite monolith perched on a rocky promontory. It dominated the wide valley below, surrounded by cultivated fields and pasture lands dotted with farmsteads and cows and sheep. People moved about the landscape like tiny dolls.
Rivers and burns fed several small lochs which shimmered in the sunlight. Wild moorland rolled away into the distance. Beyond, a ring of snow-capped mountains circled the valley like watchful sentinels, protecting Gordon lands.
“’Tis every bit as beautiful as I recall, Malcolm. Hardly changed at all,” Catriona said, impressed by the well-maintained look of his domain as she surveyed it.
“I’ve built a couple more towers and extended the outer walls, but that’s about all that’s changed,” he replied with obvious pride.
“’Tis a keep tae be proud of all right,” she told him sincerely, touched to see him so pleased. “But the last time I was here, yer faither ruled over it.”
His expression darkened slightly. “Aye, he did,” was all he said. Then, “Let’s go down.”
They made their way slowly down to the road leading to the gates. As they rode, Catriona silently speculated on whether it had been the responsibility of becoming laird that had changed him so much from the carefree youth of old... as it had changed Duncan.
“I’M SORRY, BUT I CANNAE GIVE YE THE ANSWER YE WANT, LAIRD SINCLAIR. I ASSURE YE, YE’VE BEEN MISINFORMED. THE LASS YE SPEAK OF ISNAE HERE.”
THE MOTHER ABBESS STOOD BEFORE TORCALL SINCLAIR’S POWERFUL, LOOMING FIGURE IN THE PRIORY’S RECEPTION HALL AND CALMLY REPEATED HER DENIAL.
The cold, steel-gray eyes of the infamous laird bored into hers as if he would dissect her brain with his dirk to get at what he knew was inside.
“Dinnae waste me precious time with more of yer lies, woman. I dinnae care how bloody holy ye think ye are. I’m Laird Sinclair and I always get what I want.
I have it on good authority the Grant lass has been hidin’ out here with ye for the last few years, and if ye dinnae tell me where she is right this minute, then it’ll be the worse for ye.
” He paused to sweep the terrified sisterhood gathered about their leader with a marble stare before adding grimly, “All of ye.” He turned back to the abbess.
“So, this is yer last chance. Speak now, or see what happens. Yer choice.”
To his rising irritation, the abbess appeared unruffled. “Yer threats make nay difference, me laird. I cannae tell ye what I dinnae ken, what none of us ken,” she insisted with a lift of her chin, which he read as defiance. “The lass isnae here, I tell ye.”
Torcall’s lips twisted as he seemed to consider the response. Then he said measuredly, “Very well. Ye give me nay choice.”
Whispers of alarm ran among the sisterhood as he shot a commanding glance at one of his men.
“Hold her. I’d see her kneel before me.”
A collective gasp of horror went up when the soldier stepped up behind the abbess and seized her around the neck with one hand. She cried out in pain.
“Now ye’re in the correct position fer prayin’, I suggest ye start. Although I doubt yer Lord will help ye now,” Torcall told her.
He stood silently, letting the fear in the room ramp up for a few moments, expecting the abbess or one of the others to give way. Cold rage flowed through him when none did.
The abbess looked up at him with fear in her eyes yet uncowed. He stepped back from her with a look of disgust.
“Seems like ye need some more encouragement tae speak.” He motioned to the man who had pushed her down to tear off her headdress, exposing her shorn head. Then he pulled his dirk from his belt.
“Och, Lord Jesus, help us!” cried one of the novices, who promptly swooned and would have fallen if her sisters had not caught her. Like a flock of hens, the other women fussed around her.
“Silence!” Torcall barked at them, unmoved by their white, pinched expressions and soft weeping. He nodded to his man.
The soldier grabbed the abbess’ head and yanked it backwards, eliciting another cry of pain. He pressed the edge of his blade to her cheek.
The entire room held its breath. Torcall focused on the tiny red beads appearing on the woman’s pale flesh, certain she would soon tell him all she knew.
His observations were rudely interrupted when the interior doors burst open and one of his sergeants hurried into the room.
“I bring news, me laird,” the man declared, sounding out of breath, as if he had been hurrying. The other soldiers stood aside as he approached the laird and doffed his cap.
“Well? Have ye got her?” Torcall barked.
The sergeant shook his head. “Nay, me laird, but?—”
A string of expletives broke from Torcall’s lips. “I dinnae wantae hear yer more of yer bloody excuses!” he ground out.
The sergeant bravely ploughed on. “We’ve searched the place from top tae bottom, and the lass is nae on the premises. If she ever was here, ’tis certain now that she’s escaped.”
Torcall growled as white-hot fury tore through him.
“Escaped?! Ye’re tellin’ me ye’ve let a wee slip of a lass has outwit ye, ye fool?
I had solid information. She was here all right, and only a bunch of bloody fools could have messed up so badly.
” He glared threateningly at the sergeant and then at his men. “I should have ye all whipped.”
“Aye, I’m sorry, me laird, but she was clearly forewarned and had help gettin’ away,” the sergeant hurriedly explained.
“Is that so? Then whoever helped her will pay dearly,” Torcall said, fixing the terrified abbess with a menacing stare.
“Aye, me laird. One of our riders found a trail leadin’ out from the garden tae the orchard. They must have gotten over the perimeter wall and fled,” the sergeant reported.
Torcall inhaled sharply. “They? Who the bloody hell is they?” he demanded.
“The rider reckons there were two people, me laird. He followed the trail a short way, but then the storm broke and we had tae call off the search until the mornin’.
But before that, he says he saw two figures in the distance, fleein’ across the fields towards the woods.
One of them was a man wearin’ Gordon colors. ”
Gordon colors?
A powerful jolt shot through Torcall’s body as he suddenly realized who might have been responsible for helping Catriona escape the priory, aside from the nuns that was.
In light of this new knowledge, the seething anger of frustration that had been churning inside him suddenly turned cold and controlled.
“We’re leavin’,” he suddenly announced. “Immediately.”
“Aye, me laird,” said his sergeant, already silently directing the men from the room. “Where are we goin’?”
“Gordon lands,” the laird replied, striding towards the doors.
If Malcolm Gordon has taken me bride tae his keep, then I’ll just pay him a wee visit and retrieve her mesel’.”