Captured Heart (29 page)

“This time you’ll stay dead.” Meg’s eyes snapped back open.

Girshmel held his bow steady and nocked an arrow.

“Nickum!” she warned just as the arrow released. Nickum jumped and the arrow darted through the sheet of water, nearly pinning Gilbert.

Nickum lunged at Girshmel. He darted around the beast and tried to reach the log, but Nickum’s teeth tore into his calf, yanking him back. A curse froze on Girshmel’s wet lips as Nickum dragged him, the man’s nails digging into the frozen earth.

“Pull the log,” Boswell yelled at Gilbert. “Or her beast will come across.”

Meg stood before the log and whistled.

“Bitch!” Gilbert threw against the outside of the cave with one hand and reached down to yank the log. Nickum turned, his muzzle covered with fresh blood. Too late. Gilbert braced his feet against a boulder and pulled the log off the far edge. “Help me. If I drop this, we’ll never get back across!”

James leapt over and grasped the log where thin stumps of branches gave them handholds. The log slid across the chasm, leaving Nickum staring from the edge. His black eyes locked with Meg’s. He was a beast, but the expression that passed across his face was human regret, regret for not getting there sooner, not jumping across the log, regret for leaving her with her tormentors.

Meg stood tall along the side of the cave entrance. “You know he won’t leave me.”

Gilbert spun on his heel and stalked toward her. He grabbed her hair and yanked it back so that he washed her face with his stagnant, fear-drenched breath. “Ye will make him leave, witch.”

“Or what?” she asked against the sting on her scalp. “You’ll kill my family? You’ll kill me? What other threats could you use against me that you haven’t already?”

Gilbert’s lips crushed down on top of her mouth, bruising, suffocating. He pushed her hard, banging her head, the sharp rocks scoring her back. When he pulled back, the worry was replaced with raw fury. “There are many worse things that can happen to ye before ye die, Meg. Things that can start right here on this rock until ye send yer minion away. Think about it,” he said, the spittle from his wet lips speckled her cheeks.

Meg stared at him defiantly but kept her silence.

“Enough, Davidson,” Boswell said, stepping out of the cave. “I need her alive to navigate these tunnels.”

Gilbert leaned in, his arms braced on either side. “Think about it,” he said and pushed backward. He strode toward the cave entrance. Nickum stood there, staring past the edge of the waterfall.

“Find him,” Meg called to Nickum and turned before the others could question what she was doing. Whether Nickum understood, she didn’t know, but when she glanced back he was gone.

Gilbert lit the dry end of a torch he’d brought out from inside the tunnel. “There are three paths to take,” he said and turned to Meg. “The lady will guide us.”

“What makes you think that I know which way to go? I’ve never been here.”

Boswell’s hands came down heavy on her shoulders. He peered down his hawkish nose. “I’ve heard of your mother’s journal. That there were clues hidden within it.” His hand dug into Meg’s pocket, down to the very bottom. She stood motionless, though Boswell’s fingers sliding against her thigh through the surcoat made her queasy. His hand moved around and his frown deepened.

“I heard there is a key, a map,” Boswell said.

“You certainly hear a lot,” Meg said, staring into his beady eyes.

“Ah, the lovely Gwyneth.” Gilbert said it as if he were sampling a sweet morsel.

“Where’s the key?” Boswell asked.

“I gave it to my father,” Meg said.

Slap!
Boswell’s palm burned against her cheek. Her eyes teared with the pain and she swallowed hard.

“Then you will have to remember the way through the tunnels, won’t you?” Boswell articulated with cruel precision. “There are three paths that branch off.” He turned to Meg. “Which way?”

She kept her lips shut tight.

“Gwen saw the key,” Gilbert said. “She said one line off to the right went the farthest.”

The dark victory of Boswell’s gaze squelched Meg’s breath like fingers pinching a candle flame. “To the right,” he ordered.

Gilbert pulled Meg under the heavy lip of wet granite into complete darkness. The contrast between the filtered sunlight under the waterfall and the sharp black of the cave was blinding. Meg blinked several times to help her eyes adjust. Boswell followed them in with the torch, throwing sharp shadows against the moist walls.

“James, walk ahead of her so she can’t lose us by running ahead,” Gilbert called.

Gilbert gave Meg a small shove. “Ye be thinking of which way we should turn at the first divergence.”

Meg followed James but murmured, “I don’t know the way.”

And it was true. Colin had said the markings were a map, his finger lingering on a spot at the end of the line that extended off to the right, but she hadn’t confirmed that it was the hiding place.

Boswell moved the torch closer so that it cast a glow through the circular rock cave. The irregular walls closed in and widened out as they walked. Water trickled along cracks and small mushrooms cropped out at odd intervals. A musty earth smell infused Meg’s inhales. The tunnel slanted, curved, and continued like a throat leading into the stomach of the mountain.

Lord, give me strength
. She shuddered and tried to keep her breathing regular. The flame flickered as a breeze blew through, followed by a mournful cry.
Mmmaaaayyyyy
.

Meg stopped and rubbed her arms at the chill that had flooded the channel with the wind.

Gilbert turned rapidly, his sword sliding free. “What was that?”

“The wind,” Boswell growled and grabbed Meg’s arm. “Keep moving.”

Rapid heartbeat, sour stomach, veins stretched, unhealed abscess on left foot, poorly healed shin bone on left leg, clot in deep vein of same leg. The infinitesimal details about Rowland Boswell’s physical conditions poured into Meg upon contact. She blinked hard as he released her. The clot. Big and dangerous. If it were to break free and travel through his body, much like the clot in Angus or the leaves in the creek…Meg swallowed hard. The clot could kill him.
I could kill him
.

Meg’s cheeks filled with heat as she faced the flickering darkness. How could she kill someone? She wasn’t a witch who killed with her powers, a witch like the one Boswell had accused her mother of being. She was a healer with a gift from God. Her fears chewed at her heels, fed by years of denial, years of trying to subdue and ignore her powers. What would she become if she gave way and killed a man?

She heard one of them stumble behind her, the torch light shifting sporadically as Boswell cursed. He was winded, probably not used to such a climb. His elevated blood pressure could loosen the clot on its own.

“Perhaps you should rest your left leg. The break in your shin didn’t heal well,” Meg said into the darkness, her voice swallowed down the cave’s throat.

The torchlight halted, but Meg continued, fading farther into the black, her hand against the wall.

“Hey, where’s the light?” James called.

Meg stopped for fear of running into Gilbert’s lackey.

“You will burn like your mother, witch,” Boswell said.

“Where are ye?” Gilbert called, leaping forward and holding onto Meg’s wrist. “Boswell, keep us in sight.”

Another breeze moaned through the cave. Meg’s curls moved as if an unearthly hand threaded through it. A chill raised gooseflesh on her neck. The same gooseflesh prickled up in Gilbert, along with a leap in his heart rate.

“The cave is inhabited by restless spirits,” she said in a soft voice and sensed Gilbert’s increasing sweat production and clenched bladder.

James halted at a fork in the tunnel. “Which way?”

“Meg?” Boswell asked.

To the right
, Meg thought. Colin’s finger had stopped at the end of the farthest right path and all of her mother’s clues mentioned staying to the right.

“Left,” Meg said and cast her eyes downward as if they’d dragged the answer from her and she harbored guilt over it. “My father said to go left at the fork.”

Boswell frowned but flicked his fingers at James. “Continue.”

James hurried off into the darkness, the torchlight barely keeping up with him. Meg hung back, not knowing exactly what lay ahead, wondering if she’d been wise or foolish to lead them down a wrong turn.

Pebbles skittered as James shuffled past larger boulders. Meg heard his hand grazing the wall. “Perhaps there is a treasure chest at the end.” He laughed over his shoulder. “With the letters. Seems like a perfect place to hide—”

James’s words transformed into a gasp and a guttural scream cut through the tunnel. Meg froze. As James’s voice grew fainter and fainter, energy to hold herself up drained out of her body. She sagged against the rock wall. Boswell stepped past her, holding the torch high. The light slanted across the sharp angles of stone walls to reveal a sheer drop, so far down into the mountain that the light couldn’t reach the bottom.

“
Cac!
” Gilbert cried. “James!” he hollered, as if the man would reply.

The wall supported Meg as she tried to control her breathing, her wildly pounding heart. Gilbert turned on her, fury transforming his face into that of a nightmarish monster. “Ye bitch!” He advanced. Meg had tricked one of them to their death, but would it lead to her own?

“Halt, Davidson,” Boswell said, and the angry bull actually stopped. “You can deal with her later. For now, she will lead us through the rest of this maze. I need her alive.”

Boswell glanced at Meg. “Thank you for showing me the perfect place to forget a body.”

His dark meaning was not lost on Meg. She swallowed hard.

“Now take us the correct way,” Boswell finished and shone the light high. “You in front this time.”

Meg led them back out to the main tunnel and turned them down the correct path. There were only two more divergences, and she continued to steer them right. She picked up her pace, straight ahead and into the dark. The three of them trod through the tunnel in the small circumference of light. Footfalls and tumbled pebbles echoed with their breaths.

She cringed as Gilbert’s huff brushed her hair from behind, but as long as she continued quickly, Gilbert couldn’t touch her. A sweat broke out along her spine despite the chill swirling around them. The farther they moved into the heart of the mountain, the milder the air became, as if the summer-warmed cavern still retained its heat.

The belly of the beast. Black nothingness and heavy rock pressed in on her, making her breathing shallow. Meg pushed the panic back into her stomach. The thought that her mother had found happiness here kept her trudging forward at the very fringe of the torchlight circle.

Time passed, the only evidence being the ache in her legs. She spent the time hoping and praying that Caden was alive. Minutes heaped upon minutes.

“Bloody long tunnel,” Gilbert swore. “We must have hiked halfway through the mountain by now.”

“Halt.” Boswell held the torch high. Sweat covered his face. He wiped it with a handkerchief and tucked it back in his vest. He took a drink of water from a bladder he’d brought. “Carry on.”

If this rapid hike hadn’t dislodged the man’s clot, then the hope of it occurring naturally was dim. Meg placed her hand against the slope of her belly. The babe was growing, elongating, protected below the layers of her muscle and skin. Alive, healthy, trusting her to keep it safe.

Her lips tightened into a thin line as she stared ahead. She wasn’t an evil witch, plotting to take a man’s life at will. Caden had called her a warrior. She was a warrior—a woman warrior with a purpose greater than her own life. And she must use all the weapons available.

Meg rounded the corner. Without the torch glow she could only detect the immense space with an intuition born to her gender. Her arm floundered out to the wall, but only waved in the emptiness.

“Meg!” Gilbert yelled and stepped around the corner with Boswell right behind him. The light flickered around the cavern walls as Boswell held the torch high.

She turned in a circle. Several fist-sized holes of light filtered down near the center where the ancient remains of a fire sat.

“Huh. Could have dug down to it,” Gilbert said, staring up at the small holes.

Tears stabbed at her eyes as she surveyed the room. A folded wool plaid sat near the fire. Her mother and Colin had handfasted here in the heart of the mountain. The wind howled along the tunnel, tumbling around the three, chilling the space. Meg crossed her arms and shivered. The wind whipped dried pieces of debris from the fire pit and funneled them upward into mini tornados.

Several large boulders sat around the perimeter of the cavern like ancient monoliths. As Meg stood before the dead fire, directly beneath the holes, she noticed the boulder to the right. Could it be? She squinted in the poor lighting. Yes, a heart. God had molded the large granite stone into the shape of a human heart.

“A cold cave with a warm heart,” Meg mumbled, and wiped a stray tear that had escaped her control.

“Where are they?” Boswell tore about the cavern. He flipped open the neatly piled blankets and kicked at the ashes in the fire pit as if attacking the place her mother had at one time been happy. “They’ve got to be here!”

“Perhaps it was a ruse,” Meg said softly. “Perhaps she didn’t hide any letters at all.”

“No, she took them!” Boswell yelled. “They never arrived or Henry and his little Mary would be dead.” His gaze flew about the room. “They must be here.”

Gilbert began to kick at the monoliths, scattering stones and sending up dust. Meg spit out the grit in her mouth and shivered as the temperature seemed to drop.

She averted her gaze from the heart stone and prayed Gilbert would stop, but he didn’t. With a brutal drive of his heel, Gilbert toppled the heart-shaped boulder. The two halves of the heart slid apart, showing that it had actually been two smaller boulders placed together. A packet of parchment fell out of the rubble.

“There!” Boswell snatched up the dust-covered bundle.