Mael: Immortal Highlander, Clan Mag Raith Book 2 Page 15

  His calm assurance inspired the same in Mael. “Aye, Chieftain.”

  Inside the great hall Jenna sat finishing her evening meal with Edane, and looked up to smile at them.

  “You two must be hungry.”

  “I must first speak with Kiaran,” Domnall said, and after kissing his wife’s brow left them.

  Mael had no appetite, but to please the lady he sat down with them and shared their food. The flavorful fish pottage contained veg and herbs, attesting to Rosealise’s deft hand, as did the seed-studded baked round Jenna handed him.

  “In America we call this sourdough,” the chieftain’s wife told him. “Rosealise made the starter out of thin air, literally. I never imagined leaving a jar with wet oat flour outside in the garden would produce bread yeast, but your lady proved me wrong. Makes it worth grinding the oats by hand, which takes almost forever with a quern.”

  Mael knew that Jenna meant to put him at ease, but the praise for his lady made him wish the last twoday had never happened.

  “Rosealise, she’s well?”

  The archer nodded. “Well and sharp-eyed. She found that the builders used iron to fashion the warriors, and yet bronze for all else in the keepe. I reckon they too fought the Sluath.”

  “The Bronze Age ended long before the Mag Raith came to the original fortress,” Jenna chided. “It’s more likely that they used up the iron available here while making the statues. Bronze became the only alternative.”

  Another time Mael might have joined in their talk, but he needed to see his lady.

  “Where went Rosealise, Jenna?”

  “She took some clean blankets to the buttery,” she said, and grimaced. “She mentioned that it gets a little cold in there at night.”

  He thanked her and took his crockery to the kitchens before continuing through the new pantry to the darkened buttery. On its threshold he paused and looked in, and used his enhanced sight to inspect it. The ladies had arranged it into quarters, but only the blankets left atop the bedding attested to Rosealise’s presence.

  Mael glanced down, and spied boot tracks in the dust crossing the floor. Too small to be anyone but hers, they led out into the old pantry. He had no desire to hound Rosealise, but he could offer his help if she needed something more brought in.

  He followed the tracks into the old pantry, but they didn’t stop there. He saw how she had pushed aside a mound of wool to make her way into the far passage.

  Mayhap she awaits me in my chamber. Mael recalled the gleam of tears in her eyes after he’d spoken his heart. Or no’.

  He went to his chamber and saw Rosealise’s tracks leading past it into the base of the tower. For the first time he saw other, larger tracks crossing hers. Whoever had left them had been dragging something to leave the long, scraping marks that distorted the footprints.

  Rosealise had followed someone into the tower, but had not come out. Mael approached the arch, but saw no one inside.

  “My lady?”

  No answer came. He moved inside, where he spied the map scroll on the stones, half-covered by his tartan. When he picked up the plaid it revealed a hatch that had been left open. A waft of cold air came up in his face, but it smelled of Rosealise, not dank and forgotten space. From deeper inside came the glow of a torch held out of sight. The remnant light it shed revealed a large, sunken chamber with two walls and a rope ladder hanging down from the edge.

  Mael cast aside the tartan and map before he jumped down into the passage.

  * * *

  What Rosealise had thought to be a cellar stretched out into a seemingly endless tunnel. The torch she had brought lit the stone walls, but revealed no entries to other chambers or passages. Judging by its orientation, the tunnel ran beneath the old pantry back toward the buttery and kitchens. Here the stonework and mortar held firm, and no moss sprang from their seams.

  “Mael?”

  She turned around, even more perplexed to find herself alone. She had just seen him limping into the tower from his chamber, and had hurried after him to ask what had happened. Seeing the scroll and his tartan beside the open hatch had prompted her to follow him down into the cellar.

  But it wasn’t a cellar at all. A patch of wall with much finer masonry contained a large half-oval of grooves. Recalling the faux corner stonework in the great hall, she reached out to touch it.

  “No,” bellowed a deep voice.

  A huge hand grabbed her wrist, making her jerk away.

  “Unhand me, you– ” She saw his face. “Mael.” To see him appear beside her made her gulp in smoke from the torch and cough. When at last she recovered she gasped out, “Egad, sir, you startled the wits from me. What are you doing down here?”

  “I came looking for you, lass, and tracked you here. I saw the glow of your torch from above.”

  “That’s unlikely, as I saw you limping down the passage ahead of me.” She glanced down at his legs, which appeared uninjured. “Or perhaps Domnall or one of the others is having a joke on us.”

  Mael peered past her. “My brothers wouldnae do such. This man you followed, did you hear the sound of metal scraping as he limped?”

  “No. I don’t believe it was another iron warrior. He didn’t move so stiffly as they do.” She glanced around them. “This may be where the first was hiding, however. There could be more of them on either end of this tunnel.”

  He breathed in deeply. “I cannae smell iron, or anyone here but you.” He turned his attention to her face, holding the torch. “Do you feel addled?”

  “No, but I’m aghast at how easily I’m deceived.” Her expression grew rueful. “I should have called out your name. I did not wish to press you to attend me if you did not wish–”

  Mael jerked her into his arms and kissed her, lifting her up until her boots dangled. By the time he lifted his mouth from hers Rosealise had draped his neck with her arms.

  “So, you still do want me,” she said, her damp lips curving.

  “More than breath.” He set her on her feet. “Only we must climb out and fetch the others, and weapons. ’Tis how the bastart moves in and out of the keepe without our notice. He uses tunnels.”

  Before she could ask him to explain Rosealise coughed again, and turned away as the spate continued. Something burned her arm as her skin touched the wall, and she felt herself being pulled in to it.

  “Mael.”

  He grabbed hold of her arm and tried to tug her from the now-glowing stonework. When it would not release her, he turned to put himself between her and the half-oval. But in response it yawned around him, sucking them both inside.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  CUL SILENTLY DROPPED from the half-fallen timbers he’d secured to hold his bulk aloft, and checked both passages flanking the tower before climbing down and closing the hatch. The torch the female had carried now lay on the stones, its flames slowly diminishing. He lifted it to inspect the masonry, which had solidified as soon as the gate had closed. The smell of her and the hunter still hung in the empty air. He reached through their scents to caress the finely-dressed stones.

  “Rosealise.” Her name rolled stiffly from his tongue, so he tried the other’s. “Mael.”

  He had been right not to call to either of them. He could ape their movements, but the moment he spoke, his voice would have betrayed him.

  Cul’s plan had been to seal the gate once the female had gone inside, for he knew exactly what awaited her. Inflicting on her such an unkindness had seemed cruel, even for him, but her ability to control his iron warriors made her too dangerous. As a mortal she could be enslaved by the Sluath, who would use her as a weapon against him.

  Iolar’s little fiend had marked her, and would know of her power the moment he touched her. No, the female had to die.

  Draping himself in her lover’s tartan and luring her to the hatch had been a necessary risk. The ruse had worked just as he’d planned. Once inside the tunnel Cul knew that she would be drawn to the gate, as all who were marked by the Sluath
would be. What he hadn’t considered was that the hunter would pursue her. Now it seemed they both had fallen through together, and that would save the female. In a short time, they would remember everything taken from them, but they would never find their way back to Dun Chaill.

  Or perhaps they will. They already escaped once…

  Splaying his twisted fingers on the stone, Cul allowed himself a moment to wallow in the temptation. All that he had ever desired lay on the other side of the gate. He could kill the hunter, and take the female for himself. For a time, he’d know the pleasure that had been torn from him along with his life. But in doing so he would either kill her, or she would take her own life, and he would be alone again, and forever exiled from Dun Chaill.

  Without his castle Cul was less than nothing.

  “You are all I have, my beauty.” He pressed his misshapen face against the wall, and let the cold stone scour his flesh. “I will never leave you.”

  Chapter Thirty

  AS THEY FELL into the yawning darkness behind the wall, the shroud concealing Rosealise’s memories tore apart, bringing her back to the last day she’d spent in her time. As a governess in the eighteenth century, her life had been quiet, and ordinary, at least until she’d gone to Scotland.

  Scotland…

  The morning after the funeral, no maid came to dress Rosealise or arrange her hair. No tray from the kitchens arrived, either, although her chamber door had finally been left unlocked. It seemed the note she’d penned last night had reached the duchess after all.

  The rest she would say to Her Grace’s person.

  Donning her best black gown, Rosealise flattened her unruly curls with a liberal application of mint-scented pomatum. Once she had inexpertly braided her thick mane she could manage only to coil and pin the long, lumpy cables, but her bonnet would cover the inadequate coiffure. Rosealise did not once consult the small looking glass. The Duchess of Gowdon didn’t care how she appeared, nor did she give a jot for Her Grace’s good opinion.

  Blazes upon blazes, but she would be relieved to be done with that awful woman and quit this wretched place.

  Rosealise left her room and carried her valise downstairs. Along the way, footmen, who should have offered help, pretended not to see her pass them. A maid carrying fresh linens gave her a wide berth, contempt shining in her eyes. Since young Lady Mary had died, Miss Dashlock no longer existed in their eyes. She knew this because they dared not fault the person truly responsible. The governess instead would forever be blamed for failing to save the child.

  Would they be mollified to know what more Rosealise would suffer? Likely not. Servants could be greater snobs than the gentry, and they’d believe she’d justly earned her fate.

  Rosealise put down her case to scratch on the door of the grand sitting room before she entered the dark chamber. Heavy mourning cloths covered all the windows, turning the bright yellow room into a dark, airless cave.

  So, Her Grace feigns sorrow now.

  She wondered if any true emotions ever penetrated the hard shell of the duchess’s insufferable vanity. Clarinda, the Duchess of Gowdon, reclined in black furs and noir silks on her velvet chaise. A diamond of the first order since her triumphant first season, Her Grace still appeared as flawless and young as a debutante. Only now did Rosealise suspect how she maintained her luminous eyes, ghostly-pale complexion, and tiny waist.

  Ignoring Rosealise, Clarinda nibbled on a strawberry with the indolence of a well-fed cat.

  “Your Grace.” She curtseyed. “I shall be leaving this morning on the Edinburgh coach.”

  The duchess arched a brow as she set aside a half-eaten berry, and then sipped from a crystal goblet. The murky wine it contained suggested a far less palatable tincture had been liberally added. If she was indulging in laudanum this early in the day, then Rosealise had the last of her proof. Clarinda had left London, bringing her young daughter to this remote Scottish estate, to conceal more than Mary’s illness.

  “Before I depart there is the matter of my unpaid wages, Your Grace,” she said, keeping her tone carefully neutral. “I am owed ten pound sixpence.”

  “Our beloved child is dead.” No matter what she said, Clarinda’s voice held the sweet, high trill of a girl about to giggle. “You brought this dreadful disease into our household, Miss Dashlock. You sickened our poor, helpless Mary, and sent her to her grave. Now you demand wage for the horror you’ve visited upon us?”

  Queen Victoria herself could not have been more regally appalled. Rosealise briefly wondered what the penalty for slapping a duchess would be before she discarded the notion. If she were tossed into prison, she would not receive the help she now so desperately needed.

  “You are mistaken, Your Grace,” she said as civilly as she could. “When I entered your employ, you said nothing to me of Lady Mary’s affliction. You bade me come to Scotland to look after a lively little girl. What I found on my arrival was a very sick child who could not rise from her bed. I came straight to you with the news. You claimed she had caught a chill.”

  The duchess selected another berry and examined it closely, as if it held more interest than Rosealise’s recounting of the facts.

  “That first night I also requested a doctor see to your daughter’s care, as well as a nursemaid to stay with her at night. You refused me, and then forbid me from your presence.” She paused for a moment to push back her anger, and then continued. “Weekly have I continued to beg for both. Since Mary’s decline began last month, I did so daily. Your servants ignored me. You refused to respond to any of my notes.”

  “We recall no such communication.” The duchess gave her the bland look she used instead of frowning. Turning the corners of one’s mouth down created lines she didn’t care to show on her pretty face. “We have had not a single note from you.”

  “I know you burned them,” Rosealise told her. “When I tried to take Lady Mary to the village doctor myself, your servants took her from me. Your footmen locked me in my room. You forbid the coachmen to give me transport anywhere. I believe you also burned every letter I wrote to London, asking His Grace for help for Mary.”

  The duchess dropped the berry back on a plate, and then drained her goblet. “I remember these matters only vaguely. Some complaints, doubtless to cover your own culpability. We owe you nothing.”

  “How could you be so wicked?” Rosealise demanded. “She was a helpless child.”

  “You know nothing of me.” Without warning Clarinda heaved the empty glass. “Get out.”

  Having some experience with the tantrums of nobility allowed Rosealise to nimbly dodge the crystal, which smashed on the marble floor behind her.

  “I believe His Grace shall feel quite differently when I call on him in London,” she said, freed now to pursue justice. “I will assure him of what I know to be true. He will make you answer for what you’ve done.”

  Clarinda sat up. “Do you think Gowdon will take your word over mine? You’re nothing but a nameless, unwanted drab.”

  “You read far too many novels,” Rosealise advised her. “The name Dashlock is very well known in Derbyshire. My mother was the daughter of a beloved vicar. My father was a decorated trooper of the Queen’s Own Hussars, and became my grandfather’s curate after the war. I have impeccable references from all of my former employers there and in London. You cannot sully my reputation with more of your lies, Madam.”

  “I am a Duchess,” Clarinda said, coughing on her own title. She produced a small brown bottle and drank directly from it. “No one will believe you.”

  Doubtless she needed the opium tincture. Fever, blood loss and starvation had made the duchess quite beautiful. They also sped the progress of her affliction now.

  “The handsome Scottish poet who spent so much time with you last winter recently died of consumption. So did your child. I expect so will I, in due time.” Rosealise pointed at her. “You are the only connection we three share.”

  “Blue-stocking nonsense.” The duchess surg
ed to her feet, only to succumb to a longer fit of harsh, liquid coughing. The flecks of blood that stained her lips and hand had not yet turned dark red, as Mary’s had in the last weeks of her life. “I will have you arrested for slander.”

  “I am proof of your sins.” Although Rosealise wanted to feel pity for her, Clarinda hadn’t sat for weeks holding a dying child’s hand as she fought to breathe. “Whatever your husband decides to do with you, I have the comfort of knowing you will meet the same terrible end as your daughter and lover. Good-bye, Duchess.”

  Once she’d left the morning room, she heard thumping and crashing sounds, but Rosealise didn’t turn back. Picking up her case, she marched out of the castle and down the long drive to the road to watch for the coach to Edinburgh.

  She felt sure that, once she spoke to the Duke, Gowdon would at the very least give her the unpaid wages. She’d need them for a doctor, and any treatment that might give her a little more time. Although she had always enjoyed good health, Rosealise did not feel especially optimistic.

  She did have friends who cared for her, but she would not risk infecting them with the disease. Nor would she try to work as a governess again, as it would make her no better than Clarinda. The best she could hope for was to take a cottage in a small village where she might make lace or bonnets until the end came.

  The coach arrived empty but for the driver, who clambered down to help her inside and stow her case.

  “We’ll be taking the back roads to Edinburgh, Miss,” the driver said, and nodded toward a swath of black clouds brewing on the horizon. “Keep us clear of that joint-rattler.”

  She smiled and nodded, but once safely inside the carriage a strange depression sank into her. Trained for a lifetime in service, Rosealise had never expected to marry. Her excessive height and size usually repelled most men of her station. Losing her parents to cholera at such a young age made her decide never to have any of her own, which eliminated any other sort of romantic liaison. She had chosen to work as a governess because it suited her character, but also allowed her to exist on the fringes of her employers’ families. The thought of dying didn’t frighten her as much as the prospect of doing it in self-imposed solitude, like some scabrous leper.