Chapter 26 #2
The man lifted her, then dragged her through the shattered window into the wet darkness beyond. The last thing she heard before the night swallowed her was Logan’s voice below, shouting her name.
“Rose,” Logan called.
No answer.
He reached for the latch. It did not give.
For one sharp heartbeat, he only stared at it, hoping the locked door might offer him some harmless explanation. Then his fingers closed around the iron and pulled again, harder this time.
Still nothing.
“Rose.” His voice was louder, rougher now, the edge of command giving way to something he could not quite control. “It’s me. Open the door.”
The silence that followed made the blood drain cold from his hands.
He struck the wood once with the flat of his palm. “Rose.”
No answer came. Only the thin whistle of wind from somewhere inside the room.
Logan stepped back, his chest tightening so violently it almost stopped his breath. Then he drove his shoulder into the door.
The wood cracked hard against the frame.
Once. Twice. On the third blow, it burst inward, slamming against the wall.
Logan stepped into the room with his sword raised, and the whole world narrowed to the shattered window, the rain blowing through it, the overturned chair, the candle lying on its side with wax spilled like blood across the boards.
Empty.
For one heartbeat, he could not breathe.
Then a sound tore out of him that did not feel human. “Rose!”
Conn reached the doorway behind him. “Logan?—”
“She was here.” Logan crossed the room in three strides and dropped to one knee by the window. “He took her.”
Conn’s face hardened. “Tracks?”
Logan was already moving. He swung one leg over the window ledge and dropped to the muddy ground below, landing hard enough that pain jarred up his knees. He barely felt it. Rain struck his face, cold and sharp, but his blood was burning now, bright and savage beneath his skin.
There. Beneath the window, the mud was torn by one set of boot marks. Rose’s smaller prints marked the mud in broken, dragged half-steps, then vanished where he must have lifted her.
She fought.
The knowledge made his breath catch.
Conn crouched beside him, jaw tight. “Trail heads east.”
Logan rose. His hands wanted to break something. His heart wanted to stop. He did neither.
Conn caught his arm. Not hard. Just enough to make him look. “If this leads tae Henshaw, he’ll have men. Walls. We need numbers.”
“Fergus. Bram. Niall.” Logan’s voice cut through the rain, hard enough to bring every man still in the yard toward him. “Ride now. Wake every village between here and MacKenzie land. Bring men. Armed. Fast. Tell them Barnaby Henshaw has taken Lady Rose.”
Fergus went pale. “Me laird?—”
“Now.”
The three men ran.
Logan stared at Conn, rain dripping from his hair, breath burning through his chest. Somewhere in the dark ahead, Rose was bound, frightened, perhaps hurt, and every moment he stood there felt like betrayal.
“I willnae leave her in his hands while we wait.”
Conn’s eyes held his. “I ken.”
Logan turned to the others. “We follow.”
Conn’s expression changed. “Then we follow the trail. But when we find the place, we wait long enough tae see where tae strike.”
Logan pulled his arm free. “We find her first.”
They rode into the night.
The trail dragged them through wet fields, along a broken cart path, then into a stretch of trees where mud clung thick to the horses’ legs.
Logan rode at the front, bent low over the saddle, eyes burning as he searched every mark in the earth.
Once, he found a strip of pale ribbon tangled in a thorn bush, and the sight of it nearly undid him.
By the time a stronghold rose against the dark, squat and ugly beyond a line of black trees, dawn had begun to grey the sky.
“The tracks end here,” Conn drew up beside him. “That’s Henshaw’s place.”
Logan looked at the walls, the torchlight, the guards moving above the gate.
“Hold the men here,” he said.
Conn’s head snapped toward him. “Logan.”
“Wait fer reinforcements. When they come, surround the road and the east wall. Dinnae let a rat crawl out.”
“And ye?”
Logan swung down from his horse, sword at his side, dagger in hand. “I’m going in.”
Conn’s face tightened. “Alone?”
Logan looked toward the stronghold, where somewhere inside those walls Rose was waiting, or bleeding, or calling for him in silence.
His voice, when it came, was quiet. “She waited fer me once. I was too late.”
Then he moved into the trees before Conn could stop him.
Rose woke to cold stone beneath her cheek and the taste of cloth still bitter in her mouth.
For a moment, she did not understand where she was.
There was only darkness, broken by the weak orange smear of torchlight beyond iron bars.
Water dripped somewhere close, each drop striking stone with a hollow sound that seemed to echo inside her skull.
The air smelled of damp earth, old blood, and rot.
Her wrists burned where rope had bitten too tightly into her skin, and when she tried to move, pain flashed through her shoulder.
Then memory returned.
The inn. The window. The man’s hand over her mouth. Logan’s voice shouting her name from below.
Rose pushed herself upright too quickly, and the cell swayed around her. She caught herself against the wall, her fingers scraping over cold, wet stone. Her breath came in thin, ragged pulls as she forced her eyes to adjust.
There were chains fixed to the opposite wall.
A man hung from them.
Rose went very still.
No.
His head was bowed, silver-threaded hair falling over his bloodied face. His shirt had been torn at the shoulder, dark with dried blood and fresh bruising. One wrist hung at a cruel angle in the iron cuff. His breathing was so shallow she could not hear it over the dripping water.
“Papa?”
Her voice broke against the gag. She tore her bound hands upward, fumbling clumsily until she worked the cloth loose enough to drag it from her mouth.
“Papa.”
This time the word came out raw.
She crawled first, then stumbled to her feet, crossing the cell in a broken rush. Her knees struck the stone beside him. She reached for his face with shaking fingers, brushing the hair away from his brow.
“Papa, wake up. Please.”
His skin was cold.
Not dead. Please not dead.
She pressed her fingers beneath his jaw the way she had once seen the healer do at the castle, searching frantically until she found the faintest beat there.
A sob nearly tore through her. She swallowed it hard enough to hurt.
“Papa, it is Rose. I am here. Please open your eyes.”
His lashes did not even stir.
Then, footsteps sounded beyond the corridor.
Rose froze, one hand still cupping her father’s cheek. Slowly, she turned.
Barnaby Henshaw stepped into the torchlight.
He looked exactly as she remembered. Broad, finely dressed, composed in a way that made the filth of the dungeon seem somehow obscener around him. His eyes moved over her first, then over her father, then back again with a satisfaction so quiet it made her stomach twist.
“My dear Rose,” he said. “You look displeased.”
She rose carefully, because her legs trembled and she would rather die than let him see it. “What have you done to him?”
Barnaby glanced at her father, brows rising faintly. “Your father was stubborn.”
“He is injured.”
“He is alive.” His gaze returned to hers. “For now.”
The words entered her like ice.
Rose kept her chin lifted. Her hands, still bound before her, curled until the rope cut deeper into her skin. “You forged the letter.”
“I persuaded you to come home.”
“This is not my home.”
Barnaby smiled then, slow and thin. “Not yet.”
The cell seemed to shrink around her.
He stepped closer to the bars, one gloved hand closing around the iron. “You will remain here until our wedding day. No more running. No more Scottish dogs hiding you behind their walls. You will be kept under guard, away from every voice that has made you forget your duty.”
“My duty is not to you.”
“It will be.”
Rose’s pulse beat painfully at her throat, but she held his gaze. “Logan will come.”
The name changed him.
Only slightly. A tightening at the corner of his mouth. A hardening in the eyes. It was enough to tell her the arrow had struck.
“Let him,” Barnaby said softly. “I would rather enjoy watching the great Highland laird bleed for his foolishness. Once he comes, he dies, and his clan will break beneath what follows. I have men enough for both.”
Her fingers went numb.
Barnaby watched her too closely, and Rose forced the fear down before it reached her face. She drew herself straighter instead.
“I shall never marry you,” she said.
His smile vanished. For one dangerous breath, he said nothing. Then his gaze shifted to her father.
Rose felt the change like a blade turning toward exposed skin.
“If you continue refusing me,” Barnaby said, each word calm and careful, “your father will suffer for it. There are many ways to make a man regret his daughter’s pride.”
Rose’s breath stopped.
Her father hung silent in the chains, helpless beneath the threat. She could not protect him. She could not even wake him.
Barnaby leaned closer to the bars. “You may think yourself brave because the Scot hid you. But courage is expensive when someone else pays the cost.”
Tears burned behind her eyes, but she refused to let them fall.
His expression softened into something almost pleased, and that was worse than anger.
“Obey me,” he said. “Then your father continues breathing.”
The dungeon tilted, but she held herself still.
Barnaby stepped back. “Rest, Rose. You will need your strength. Brides should not look so pale.”
He turned and walked away, his footsteps fading into the dark corridor.
Only when the sound disappeared did Rose sink back to her knees beside her father. She pressed both bound hands carefully against his cold fingers.
“Papa,” she whispered, the word breaking now that no one but the darkness could hear. “Please. Wake up.”
He did not move.
Rose bowed her head, trembling hard.
Logan would come. She knew he would. And that terrified her more than anything.