Eyes of the Cat (2 page)

Lawrence gazed down at her, a bemused expression in his hazel eyes. He was still obviously unconvinced of the gravity of the situation. “What do you suggest we do then, Miss Jef—” A wild, weird wailing suddenly filled the air. “Gad! Is someone slaughtering pigs out there?”

Gabrina giggled, in spite of herself. “You daft laddie. ’Tis auld Highland tradition. Bagpipes tae welcome the bride.” On the word bride, she choked, and Tabitha caught her hand.

“Never mind, Lady Gabrina. We’ll counter them with another old Highland tradition.
Stealing
the bride.” She gave the girl’s fingers a reassuring squeeze.

“How?” Leslie asked, his confidence apparently cracked by the wailing of the bagpipes. “It sounds like there’s a regiment out there.”

“Oh, nay. They’d ne’re send sae many,” Gabrina said quite seriously. “A dozen, perhaps, nay more.”

Leslie gave her a wry grin. “A dozen or a regiment, it makes no difference, darling. I can’t fight that many. And I doubt I could slip you past them in your tartan. They’ll be watching everyone who gets off the train.”

“True.” Tabitha straightened her bonnet and gave her borrowed skirt a quick shake to smooth the creases out of it. “But there are two of us here in tartan. And the MacAllisters will only be expecting
one
.”

Gabrina’s eyes went wide. “Oh, Tabby—you wouldna!”

“I most certainly would! It’s already been commented that we could almost be sisters. Of course, you’re a good deal prettier than I, but the MacAllisters have only your portrait to go by—they’ve never actually seen you.”

And a man who’d marry a girl he’s never seen can’t be that choosy, anyway.
She pulled on her gloves and collected her large purse.

Disliking deceit in any form, Tabitha wasn’t overly enthralled by the prospect of the switch, herself. But it was a question of the lesser of two evils. Just like when her aunt’s tragic death a year ago had left her penniless, and she’d nearly lost a well paying position because the service agency refused to hire anyone under twenty-one. In that instance, it had been either tack a few years onto her age, or starve. In this one, the choice seemed as obvious: A few hours of embarrassment for herself, or a lifetime of misery for Gabrina and Leslie.

And having reached that decision, an earthquake wouldn’t have been able to jar her loose from it. That was another of Tabitha’s habits that her aunt had never been able to cure. Pigheaded stubbornness.

She paused a moment to listen. “It sounds as though they’re near the front platform. That is the one I shall use. You two will have to disembark at the rear, but give me a few moments lead before you do. I’ll need to draw them away.”

“No!” Leslie Lawrence blocked her exit from the compartment. “This is very noble of you, I’m sure, Miss Jeffries, but a gentleman can hardly allow a young lady to endanger herself on his behalf. You don’t know what they might do to you at that castle!”

“Really, Captain Lawrence, I have no intention of playing this charade that far. I shall never even see their horrid old castle. I appreciate your concern, but I assure you, I am quite capable of looking after myself.” She met his rigid gaze with iron in her own. “Now kindly move aside.”

He crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Absolutely not.”

“Leslie is right, dear. We canna let you do this.”

Tabitha resisted the urge to stamp her foot. “Good heavens, Lady Gabrina, it’s not as though I intend to
marry
the man. I’m simply going to distract them long enough for you and Captain Lawrence to get safely away. Do you two want to elope, or don’t you? We’re running out of time!”

“Time? Why the time be near eight o’ the mornin’. Who asks?” a heavy voice brogued from the corridor just outside.

“’Tis too late!” Gabrina squeaked, and promptly fainted again.

Leslie tried to catch her, but was sent sprawling as the compartment’s door burst open, and a haystack in a short plaid skirt muscled its way into the small chamber.

Oh, not a skirt…a kilt, Tabitha corrected herself.

“C-cousin Alan?” she stammered.

The haystack glared fiercely down at her, glanced at Gabrina and Leslie slumped motionless together on the floor, then fixed his bushy browed gaze back on Tabitha. A big, beaming smile split open between beard and mustache.

“Gabby MacAllister! I’d ken you anywhere!” he roared. “Welcome tae your new home, lassie! The bonny bridegroom couldna come t’day. I’m your Uncle Angus!”

Thank heaven for small favors, Tabitha thought, as she fought for air in his rib-cracking hug. At least this wasn’t Alan.

Though, perhaps, Alan would be worse?

She shoved that idea straight out of her head. Right now, she had to get
Uncle
Angus off the train before the good captain and Lady Gabrina regained their senses (and herself along with them—in a different sort of way). Already Leslie had started to stir. She watched in horror out of the corner of her eye as his lids fluttered open and he groggily struggled to sit up.

“Uncle Angus, ’tis fair squeezin’ the breath oot o’ me, you be.” She giggled, neatly twisting out of his burly embrace and dropping her heavy traveling purse at the same instant. It landed on Lawrence’s head. “Ah, the poor laddie,” she said, as his eyes closed and he slumped forward once more. “’Tis exhausted he mun be.”

“Aye,” Angus agreed, glancing downward. “Who are they, Gabby dear?”

“I dinna ken for sure.” Tabitha batted guileless eyes at him. “They only boarded the stop afore this one, and we had such a wee time for speech.”

Angus’s eyes abruptly narrowed, drawing his brows together into one big fuzzy blond caterpillar creeping across his forehead. “The lassie wears MacAllister tartan!”

“Oh, aye.” Tabitha quickly laughed. “The poor dearie was splashed by a carriage just afore boardin’, and she hadna another gown, sae I made her take one o’ me own.”

“Ah, now there be a MacAllister for you, generous tae the core,” Angus boomed. “Come alang now, Gabby dear. Me lads be fair hoppin’ oota their kilts tae see you.”

“Aye, Uncle Angus.” Tabitha beamed up at him.

I must be completely mad, she thought, following his broad back off the train.

* * *

“They’re mad!” A disheveled tartan-clad fury stormed across the dim chamber, flailing cobwebs out of her face as she went. “All of them!” She fumed back to the thick wood door, kicking through a pile of ancient straw on her way and startling a family of rodents. “Every last man Jack of them—completely and utterly stark raving
mad
!”

Grabbing the door’s heavy iron handle with both hands, she braced her feet, threw her weight backward, and tugged with all her might.

It refused to budge.

Which was pretty much what she’d expected, having already tried to open it eleven times and gotten the same result with each effort. She hadn’t been able to resist a twelfth attempt, however, just in case it wasn’t actually locked, but merely stuck, and a really solid pull would jar it loose. A fancy born of desperation, of course, because she knew well and good that the horrid door to this horrid tower prison was horridly locked. She had very clearly heard its horrid latch scraping horridly into place when they had thrown her in there barely thirty horrid minutes before.

It took two of them to do it, though.

Tabitha studied the blood under her fingernails—none of it her own. That was some satisfaction, at least. The tartan gown was rather the worse for the tussle, her long hair had tumbled loose and probably looked like a banshee’s at the moment, but other than that—and a few definite dents in her pride—she was basically intact.

So far.

Which was more than anyone would be able to say for Duncan and Douglas. Or had it been Donald and Dunstan who had imprisoned her up here? Douglas and Donald, perhaps?

She shook her disheveled head. Angus’s four sons all looked so alike, how could anyone be expected to tell them apart? Probably it made no difference. They were four peas in a pod—all insane, like their father. Some kind of congenital defect, no doubt. Only insane people could be thinking what they were.

After all, they knew the truth now. She had admitted who she was long before they’d come in sight of this adobe monstrosity. She’d had to hold off a while, naturally, to insure Captain Lawrence and Lady Gabrina an adequate headstart, but she hadn’t waited a moment longer than necessary. Scarcely three hours out of Abilene Station, she had told all. It had been right as they were passing that other wagon, the one with the pleasant looking Mexican family. It had seemed such a providential time because, once the MacAllisters realized she wasn’t Gabrina, they certainly wouldn’t want her anymore, and she should have been able to hitch a return ride to Abilene with the Mexicans.

Except…

“Ah well”—Angus had shrugged after listening silently to the confession—“what canna be cured, mun be endured.”

“Thank you so much for your understanding, Mr. MacAllister.” Tabitha had twisted around on the wagon seat, straining to see if the Mexican family was still in earshot. The explanation had taken longer than she’d intended. “I must say, you’re being very gracious about this.”

Where was that other wagon? That couldn’t be it, could it? That pinprick on the horizon?

“Oh, dear.” She had turned back toward Angus. “I’m terribly sorry about this, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to drive me back to Abilene.”

“Why?” He had flashed her a big toothy grin. “Gabby or Tabby, ’tis such a wee dif’rence. Dinna you fear, lassie. Alan’ll still wed you.”

A high-button shoe stomped onto a filthy wood floor.

But I’ve no intention of wedding Alan! I don’t care if he’s Prince Charming, himself, I don’t even want to meet the man.

The truth of the matter was, she had no intention of wedding anyone. Ever. Her Aunt Matilda had always preached that wedlock was a
lock
, indeed, little better than slavery for women. Tabitha wasn’t sure if that was entirely correct; she had known some girls who seemed content in their chains. But they were generally the type of Lady Gabrina, girls who hadn’t much stored in their attics, so to speak. She agreed with Matilda Jeffries that she, herself, was not especially well suited for marriage.

“You are too intelligent and far too independent to tolerate such a union,” she could almost hear her aunt saying. “For you, Tabitha, marriage would feel like being nibbled to death by ducks. A slow torture. Leave it for the girls who can think of nothing else to do with their lives. You will be far better satisfied if you forge your own way in the world, as I have.”

Right,” Tabitha answered aloud, stalking away from the locked door. “But the only way I’m interested in now, is whatever way will get me
out
of here.”

Stopping in the center of the circular cell, she peered about, trying hard to determine her options, and harder to ignore the fact that there didn’t appear to be any. Except for the gloom, the must, and the dust—of which there was plenty—the cell was practically bare. Nothing but one heavy door with a small iron grate letting in scant light from the passage beyond, one narrow, deep-set window letting in a bit more from the nearly full moon outside…one torch in a wall bracket, offering no light at all, because it was unlit…one comforting manacle dangling from a short chain in the wall (the comfort being that it wasn’t dangling from her)…one foul smelling heap of straw…one small, scarred wood table…

Was that all?

But there had to be
something
here. Something she had missed. Something she could use?

Swallowing down anger, frustration, and a rising panic, she forced herself to make another deliberate inventory. Table. Straw. Manacle. Torch. Window. Cat. Door…

Cat?

She rushed to the window. There on the floor below it, stately and dignified, like a king holding court, sat the biggest, blackest, most magnificent tomcat she had ever seen. He was almost too beautiful to be real.

“Why, you marvelous creature… Wherever did you come from? I’m sure you weren’t here a moment ago.”

The cat stared solemnly through large golden eyes as she reached down to him. He sniffed her fingers, rather with the air of a courtier kissing a damsel’s hand, and then began a deep bass purr while she stroked between his ears.

“I wish you could show me how you got in,” she said, “because maybe I could get out the same way.”

The cat stood up, gave a long regal stretch, and leaped neatly into the window crevice.

“Oh, now don’t tell me you came in through there.” She shook her head at him. “We must be at least three stories high. Did you scale the tower, or simply fly? I don’t see any wings on your back.”

“Nor I on yours, and I thought angels always had wings,” came a low voice from behind her.

Her heart in her throat, Tabitha whirled about to confront a tall young man lounging against the closed door and studying her with obvious amusement. He was fair-haired, like most of the MacAllisters, but he spoke with a distinctly American accent and wore trousers instead of a kilt. Which meant… She allowed herself a discreet sigh of relief.

He wasn’t Alan.