Captured by a Laird (35 page)

“I already have this castle and my enemy in my dungeon,” Patrick said. “I’ve no need for his cautious advice.”

“My brother has extremely high ambitions, as I’m sure ye know,” she said, folding her hands. “He’ll not agree to the marriage if it hampers his larger goals.”

This was odd, indeed. Alison had always been quiet and meek. Though she came from a family that had been involved in royal schemes for too many generations to count, he had never heard Alison speak of men’s affairs before.

His kitten had gotten above herself. He would return her to the timid lass of his fantasies and enjoy the process.

He drummed his fingers again. Why was she arguing so fervently for him to bring Wedderburn to the Council? Was it a ploy to save his life?

All the years when she was wed to his kinsman, she had wanted him. Patrick was sure of it. But that was before Wedderburn. The Beast was young and virile, and he had a build and looks that attracted women like flies.

“Is it true that you and Wedderburn had been living separately?” He knew it, but he wanted to watch her face as she said it.

“Aye,” she said. “I couldn’t bear the sight of him after what he did to Lord D’Orsey.”

Had he seen a touch of sadness in her eyes before she answered?

Alison had said she looked forward to being his wife. But was it Wedderburn who owned her heart?

He knew just how to find the answer.

***

Patrick gripped Alison’s arm and jerked her to her feet. She looked wildly around the crowded hall as he dragged her across the room to the stairs that led to the undercroft. But there was no help for her among the Blackadders.

“You’ve no need to pull me,” she said, fighting to keep calm. “I’m happy to come with ye.”

He ignored her plea. When she stumbled on the stairs, he lifted her off her feet and carried her to the bottom before setting her down again. Once he hauled her past the kitchens and storerooms, she knew where he was taking her.

The dungeon.

David must still be alive, or Patrick would not bring her down here. Despite Patrick’s vicious hold and frightening behavior, relief washed through her.

When they reached the iron grate door of the dungeon, Patrick took the torch from the bracket in the wall and held it up to the grate.

“Take a good look at him,” he said, pushing her forward with his hand at her back. “He’s not as handsome as he was.”

She realized this was some sort of test and steeled herself to see what Patrick had done to her beloved.

“Wedderburn!” he shouted. “Alison is here.”

There was no answer, but she heard a soft moan coming from the darkness at the back of the cell. Patrick took the long key that was attached to his belt and opened the lock on the grated door. With one arm around her waist, he dragged her inside the cell and thrust the torch in front of them, lighting the far corner.

David was slumped on the ground and chained to the wall with manacles. Tears sprang to her eyes to see her proud husband, the legendary warrior and laird of his clan, chained like an animal.

As her eyes adjusted to the gloomy light, she saw gashes and dried blood on his feet and legs. Her gaze traveled upward to the bloody pulp that was his hand resting on his knee.
God help me, what has Patrick done to you?
She dug her fingernails into her palms. No matter what she felt, she must not show it.

His head was resting on his other knee, cushioned by his arm, so she could not see his face. His shirt was bloody and torn, but they had not stripped him of it. That meant he still had the stone.

Hold on, love. I’m here.
I’m here!

***

David heard his enemy’s voice saying her name.

Alison.
He could smell the faint scent of the lavender she wore, but his mind was playing tricks on him. He had drifted in and out of wakefulness since the last beating.

“Wedderburn!” Patrick’s voice roused him again from his stupor. “I want ye to see who I’ve taken from you.”

Alison could not be in this hellhole. But she had been with him in his heart all along, and he was holding on as long as he could to keep her there.

“Ye were willing to die for her daughters,” Patrick said, “and here she is to negotiate her next marriage before you’re even dead.”

David felt her presence even more strongly than before. His lifted his head, but it was too heavy to hold up, so he rested it against the stone wall behind him. One eye was swollen shut, but if he concentrated he could open the other one a slit.

And there she was. As lovely in his dream as the last time he saw her. The sight of her made him smile, which broke open one of the cuts on his lip.

“Alison.” David was not sure if he’d spoken aloud. It was her. He pushed himself up against the wall and staggered to his feet.

“Now you’ve lost everything ye stole from me,” Patrick said. “She’s mine now. Mine!”

“Nay.” David shook his head, though it sent shocks of pain through his skull.

Patrick pushed Alison out of the cell. Then he stepped closer to David, just out of the reach of his chains.

“I want ye to know that while ye lay here on the stone floor helpless and bleeding,” Patrick taunted him in a harsh whisper, “I’ll be in your bed with your wife, fooking her all night.”

“Nay!” A surge of rage made David’s body forget his injuries, and he lunged for Patrick. When the chains around his wrists jerked him back, the pain in his hand made him deaf and blind for a moment. Then, through the ringing in his ears, he heard Patrick’s laughter.

“It’s me she wants,” Patrick said. “It’s always been me.”

CHAPTER 48

Alison fought to gain control of her emotions before Patrick came out of the cell. She had known he would make David suffer out of sheer hatred. She had even counted on Patrick’s desire to give him a slow death to provide her time to free him. But seeing David so badly beaten left her shaken.

He was obviously too weak to leave his cell without help. Yet she could bear to leave him chained and wholly unable to defend himself.

David gave a sudden howl of pain that tore at her heart like a jagged blade. She told herself to keep her wits about her and to focus on her task. There was no room for error. Her timing had to be just right. She waited until the moment after Patrick said one last thing to David and began to turn toward her and the door.

She swung her arm and tossed the lock pick through the bars. She prayed she had thrown it far enough for David to reach and that he would find it.

After locking the dungeon door, Patrick pressed her against the opposite wall. Leaning into her, he examined her face in the torchlight with his hard gray eyes.

“What, no tears?” he asked.

“Nay, but I don’t like seeing any man treated that way,” she said in a cool, disapproving tone.

Patrick’s lips curved in a slight smile. Apparently she had passed his damned test. He tucked her hand in his arm and walked with her, showing the same thin veneer of courtesy he had shown earlier, as if nothing unusual had occurred.

David’s heart-wrenching bellows echoed off the walls as Patrick led her back through the undercroft. She prayed to God and all the saints that David would survive until the rescue tonight.

But she could not open the tunnel door with Patrick as her constant companion. Would he never leave her side? For the first time, she truly feared she would fail and that David would die in that pit of misery.

She had never felt so alone.

As they passed the kitchen, she caught sight of a familiar face. The cook had returned to the castle with the other Blackadders. Though his expression was as sour as usual, in the brief moment that their eyes met, he gave her a slight nod. He was only a cook when she needed an army.

But she had one friend in the castle.

***

David bellowed in frustration. His wife, the woman he loved, was in Patrick Blackadder’s hands, and he could do nothing to protect her. Though it was useless, he tried to jerk free of his chains until his wrists were raw and bleeding.

At least his rage had cleared his head.
Why did Alison come to the castle?
No matter what Patrick wanted him to believe, David did not doubt her. Alison must believe she could save his life. He wished to God she had not put herself in danger for him. But she must be part of a plan to rescue him. After the risk she took, he would be ready.

After a time, he heard footsteps and hoped it was Hume warriors. Instead, it was Walter, come to take another turn at him.

***

“I’ve a favor to ask,” Alison said, looking up at Patrick from under her lashes as they re-entered the hall. “I lost a ring my father gave me in the laird’s chamber. Would ye mind if I look for it?”

“I’ll send a servant,” he said.

“I’d rather look myself.” She lowered her voice. “’Tis quite valuable.”

She fought to maintain her innocent expression as he eyed her suspiciously. If he did not believe this excuse for her going into the laird’s chamber, he surely would not believe a second one. When Patrick’s expression suddenly changed, she worried still more.

“Ye don’t need an excuse to get me upstairs,” he said. “We’ve both waited far too long.”

God preserve me.
Did he truly believe she wanted him? His arrogance knew no bounds.

She could not offend him before he took her upstairs. She must get into the laird’s chamber, and this was likely to be her only chance. Her heart pounded as they entered the stairwell that led to the bedchambers.

She prayed she would not have to let Patrick have his way with her, but she would do what she must to save David. Through the cloth of her gown, she touched the dirk strapped to her leg.

One way or another, she intended to succeed in her task.

Panic sang in her veins when Patrick started to pass the door to the laird’s chamber. Apparently he meant to take her straight to the first bedchamber with a bed, which was the one she had shared with David. That would be too hard to bear.

“I do want to look for that ring,” Alison said, tugging gently at his arm. When he turned to look at her, she tilted her head and forced a smile. “Please?”

She must be better at covering her loathing than she thought, for he turned back and opened the door to the laird’s chamber for her. She crossed the room and stood with her back to the wall where the bed had been.

“All the other Blackadder men were furious when ye burned the bed,” Patrick said, his eyes fixed on her as he slowly closed the distance between them. “But I knew ye hated to have him touch ye almost as much I hated it.”

“The ring fell between the head of the bed and the wall, where I couldn’t get to it,” she said, her voice coming out high-pitched.

“Ye needed a younger man to satisfy ye,” he said, and took a step closer. “Ye needed me.”

“I should have looked for the ring as soon as I had the bed removed,” she said, frantically looking at the floor, as if she expected the ring to magically appear. “But then there was the siege and…and…everything, and I forgot to look for it.”

He was almost touching her, so she dropped to the floor.

“It’s down here somewhere, I know it.”

She swept her right hand across the floor while surreptitiously running the fingertips of her left hand along the bottom of the wall, searching for a seam that would reveal the piece that unlocked the secret door.

She touched the wall lightly for fear she might actually cause the door to open with Patrick watching. The girls said the door was hidden behind the tapestry, but what if it opened with a loud sound or a rush of air from the tunnel that caused the tapestry to move?

She felt no sign of the moving piece, but it had to be here.

“Forget the ring,” Patrick said, and lifted her up. “I’ll have a new one made for ye.”

She was trapped between him and the wall. “But—”

“I said, forget the ring.” Patrick gripped her shoulders and pushed her backward until she felt the cold, hard stone behind the tapestry. “I’ve waited ten long years to have ye.”

“We must be patient,” she said. “There’s no marriage contract yet.”
She did not point out that she was still married to another man, lest he decide to remedy that at once.

“I won’t wait another hour.”

“Ye don’t want to cross my brother,” she said quickly. “I expect he’ll soon be ruling the country in his stepson’s name.”

“Your brother is more pragmatic than you claim to be,” he said. “He’ll accept a done deed and agree on the terms later.”

She gagged as the smell of leeks on his breath and the rank odor of his unwashed skin filled her nose. When she turned her head, he took it as an invitation to kiss her neck.

She swallowed back her disgust and used his distraction as an opportunity to tap her heel against the base of the wall. When Patrick grasped her breast, she pushed his hand away and squirmed to the side, where she tapped her heel against the wall again. He was so absorbed in slobbering on her that he did not seem to be aware that she was scooting along the wall, inch by inch, as she tried to find the stone that opened the tunnel door.

“I’ve wanted ye for so long,” he said.

Ach, no, his hand was under his tunic now, working the tie to his breeks. She had to do something.

“Not like this,” she said. “Please, Patrick, not like this.”

“Just like this,” he said. “I imagined it a thousand times.”

When she tried to fight him, he held her wrists against the wall on either side of her head.

“My brother expects ye to treat me with respect,” she said. “We’ll be wed in due course, and ye must wait until then.”

“Ten years is long enough to wait,” he said.

He pulled open his loosened breeks, revealing his erect member. God help her now.

She had suffered degradation for ten years to satisfy the vanity of a cruel and contemptible man. She told herself she could suffer one more time to save the life of a good man, the man she loved and wanted to spend the rest of her life with.

But when it came to it, Patrick reminded her too much of her former husband. The rage she had suppressed all those years when she could not escape burst inside her.