Highlander’s False Betrothal by Alisa Adams
16
Aodh snuck back to the estate, carefully creeping—and, at times, crawling—across the grassy lanes and trimmed bushes of the garden.
Before he had gone out for his walk in the hills (which already seemed as if it had been days away, even though it had only been hours), Aodh had taken himself on a brief but thorough tour of every room in the manor. He had meant to do so the previous night—the tactician in him insisted, and it was a ritual he engaged in whenever he traveled—but he had been caught up in the antics of supper and the tension of bedtime with Caroline.
He was glad that he had managed it eventually, though, so that he could plan at which windows would be the easiest to climb through and which rooms had the best chance of being deserted so that he might sneak through them undetected.
I can only hope that most of the estate’s guards rode out along with the soldiers,Aodh thought as he crept into a vacant sitting room on the first floor, the knife in his hand. Even though that will mean more swords and spears wielded against my kinsmen when they reach the Campbell lands.
The house around him seemed still—indeed, almost too still—and the fine hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he realized he was very likely walking into a trap.
Still, he had no choice but to continue. Caroline was counting on him, and he had little doubt that if she was in jeopardy, his sister was as well.
It took Aodh the better part of an hour to make his way down to the lower level. He ached to move more quickly, but he knew that might make him careless and allow him to be detected.
He slipped down a corridor and into a passage he knew led to the dungeons. Sure enough, there was a well-lit area ahead, with a thick metal door that bolted from the outside. A lone guard stood watch over it.
Yes,he thought grimly, they are making it look easy to lure me in. But how shall I manage the guard? There are no shadows for me to hide within that close to the door, and the moment he sees me, he will yell and sound the alarm, which would no doubt bring a dozen other guards to his aid.
Still, there must be a way.
As Aodh shifted his weight, he felt a stone in his boot, and an idea came to him.
He slipped the boot off carefully, felt around for the stone, and, upon finding it, tossed it down the hallway perpendicular to the one leading up to the dungeon door.
Then he huddled behind the dark corner, his eyes steadily adjusting to the gloom.
The guard heard the echo from the adjacent corridor and stirred, peering into the shadows. Seeing nothing, he almost settled back into his former posture but then thought better of it, venturing into the darkness of the other hall.
As he did, he turned his back to Aodh.
The guard’s eyes were still unaccustomed to the dark, and Aodh knew his chance had come.
He palmed the knife and leaped on the guard from behind, shoving his free hand over the man’s mouth to muffle his cry and drawing the blade across the guard’s throat.
Aodh kept a tight grip on the man’s body as it heaved and convulsed and moaned, trying to…what? To spend his last few moments of life fighting back? To catch a glimpse of the man who had done him in? To scream one last time so that the echoes of the sound upon the stone walls would bear witness to this shocking act?
It did not matter. A few more grunts and twitches, and the guard slumped to the floor, lifeless.
Aodh felt vaguely nauseated. He had killed before, yes, many times, but always in battle. He had never struck from the shadows in cold blood against a man who had not yet raised a weapon to him.
There was no honor in such a kill, and he knew it. But he also knew that he had no choice. Caroline had to be freed at once, and Freya as well. And in searching for them, his best bet seemed to be the dungeons.
He quietly stepped up to the metal door, looking around him furtively as though he expected an arrow to fly at him from a hidden slot in the walls. When none came, he slid the heavy bolt aside and opened the door, peering in.
“Caroline?” he called out in the darkness. “Freya? Are you in there?”
“Aodh!” Caroline’s voice called back. “We are here!”
He saw their shapes moving in the darkness, and within moments, their faces were visible as they stepped toward the light from the corridor. Caroline ran ahead of Freya, throwing herself into Aodh’s arms.
“I was afraid I might never see you again!” she gushed.
“Come,” he replied, “let’s get you out of this horrible place.”
Suddenly, the sound of slow, ironic applause emanated from the hall behind Aodh. The sound sent a chill scampering across his flesh, and when he turned, he saw Ainsley clapping. There was a maniacal gleam in her eye, one he had never seen there before, not even in her most furious and least reasonable moments.
“What a touching reunion,” Ainsley sneered. “You see, Aodh? I tried to warn you that the little British minx would steal your heart, but you refused to listen. Now look at you. Swanning and simpering about her, and after everything you and I have shared.”
“Ainsley,” Aodh said in a low warning voice, “stand aside and let us go.”
“No!” she snapped, reaching behind her and producing a dagger from the back of her dress. “The lass has bewitched you, and I’ll not stand for it! I refuse to believe that after all we have been through together, some silly English bitch would be able to swoop in and take it all away from us!”
“Please put the knife down, Ainsley!” Freya pleaded. “This is not you! You’ve gone quite mad! Surely you must see that!”
“Quiet, you precocious little ferret!” Ainsley growled. “Do you think I am stupid? Is that it? You never liked me! I know that! You were always whispering poison in his ear about me. Well, now I have used proper poison on the blade of this dagger! The smallest cut will be lethal to any of you, so do not test me!”
“Very well, Ainsley. What do you want?” Aodh asked. “Clearly you do not mean to raise the alarm, or else you would have done so already.”
“No, I do not wish to, although I certainly could!” she told him gleefully. “Carnegie has been expecting you! He has his men upstairs at the ready waiting for you! If I yell for them, they will make sure you never leave this place alive. But I do not want that for you! I want you to live, and I want to help you escape so that we can be together, as we should be! I will even save your odious sister, too, since I know how much she means to you. All you have to do is kill the British tart.”
“No,” Aodh answered flatly.
“Oh, come now!” Ainsley gave him a nasty grin. “Do not let the fact that she is a woman stop you! She is still English, and what are they but our sworn bloody enemies? I know you have a blade. I saw you use it on the guard outside, in case you were about to give me some nonsense about your ‘personal honor’ or some such bollocks. Killing some British whore won’t even be the worst thing you have done this day! You can make it as quick and painless as you like, and then we three can be on our way before Bhaltair even knows you have been here at all!”
“I will not harm Caroline,” he insisted quietly. “I love her.”
Caroline’s heart took flight at those words. She only hoped they would all live long enough for her to properly express her gratitude to Aodh.
Ainsley’s face contorted into a witch’s mask of sheer rage. “No, no, no, no, no,” she groaned, shaking her head slowly. “No, you love me, not her! You promised yourself to me, and you cannot break a promise simply because it has ceased to be important to you because that is not how promises work!”
“We will never be together, you and I,” Aodh said. “That can never happen after the way you have behaved. However, if this enrages you, then I beg you to take it out on me, not them. I am the one who spurned you, who broke his promise, as you said. They are blameless. Let them go.”
“They are not blameless!” Ainsley retorted, gnashing her teeth. “They were both against me from the start! Just like everyone has always been against me! I thought you were different, but you have been against me too! So now I believe I shall nick all three of you with this blade. And then, perhaps, if I am fortunate, there will be enough venom left on it for me too, since you have all conspired to ruin my life!”
Ainsley swung the knife, and Aodh prepared to attempt to disarm her, but before he could, Caroline darted forward, her fist connecting smartly with the bridge of Ainsley’s nose.
Ainsley took a step backward, frowning slightly as though pondering a difficult problem.
Then she took another step back, and the knife dropped from her limp fingers.
Another step and her eyes crossed. She lost her balance, her legs slipped out from under her, and she fell hard on her bottom, slumping unconscious.
“That was quite something!” Aodh commented, awestruck.
“Yes, well, she had it coming, didn’t she?” Caroline replied primly. “Now, shall we finally leave this foul place?”
Freya swallowed hard. “I doubt it. She was ranting and raving so loudly that—”
“That what, child?” Bhaltair’s gloating voice echoed off the stone walls as he appeared in the doorway with several guards at his heels. “That her jabbering was heard throughout the manor? Yes, I shall have to remember to thank the madwoman when she wakes up. Meanwhile, though, it seems I have you right where I want you at last!”
