“ ’Tis just as much my fault as anyone’s,” Ewan said bleakly. “I trusted him with Mairin’s safety many times.”
Ewan rubbed his hand tiredly over his face and tried to put the memory of Cameron’s hands on Mairin out of his mind. He couldn’t imagine Cameron hurting Mairin because it would drive him insane. The only way to survive this was to turn it off. Turn off his emotions. Turn off the images flashing through his mind with torturous precision.
“Cameron will expect a full-scale attack on his holding,” Caelen pointed out. “He’ll know that Archibald cannot hold us in the king’s dungeon forever, and he knows you’ll come for Mairin. He’ll know it and expect it, so he’ll be prepared.”
“I can’t risk Mairin’s safety by attacking his keep with the might of my entire army. If she was not in residence, I’d give him the fight he expects and not give a damn that he expects it. I’d swarm over his lands like the plague and decimate everything in our path. But I won’t take the risk that Mairin would be caught up in the battle. And if Duncan knew all was lost, he’d kill her out of spite.”
“Aye,” Alaric agreed. “What then do we do?”
“We steal into his keep and take Mairin back.”
Caelen let out a deep breath, the sound loud in the quiet of the dungeon cell. “You make it sound like a simple raiding mission, Ewan. Cameron will expect such a trick as well.”
“We’ll succeed. We have no other option.”
Caelen, Alaric, Gannon, and Cormac voiced their agreement. Silence fell once again as they waited.
An hour later, a sound outside the cell stirred them to action. Caelen leaped to his feet and charged toward the iron bars as a guard shuffled down the corridor, torch in hand.
“You must hurry,” the guard whispered in an urgent voice. “Your men have staged a distraction. Follow me. I’ll show you to the northern gate.”
Alaric helped Ewan to his feet and they hurried from the cell and up the stone staircase to the first level of the castle. The guard rushed down the long corridor, past the great hall, and beyond to the kitchens.
They exited the castle through the small door where rubbish was discarded and approached a small wooden gate carved into the imposing stone wall that jutted upward. The guard produced a key and hastily unlocked the large metal padlock.
“Go,” he urged.
Ewan’s men filed out of the doorway and Ewan paused at the end. “You have my thanks,” he told the guard. “You need to watch over your king. Archibald plots against him. I’ve heard rumor the king is unwell. Examine his food and drink.”
The guard nodded. “Go with God, Laird McCabe. I’ll pray for the safe return of your lady wife.”
Ewan ducked out of the doorway and followed his men into the night. They raced across the terrain, heading for the distant cover of the forest.
Chapter 36
Ewan trilled a soft birdcall, the sound echoing over the still night. In the distance, an answering call sounded and Ewan crept stealthily forward, his brothers on his heels.
They’d waited four days for the new moon, after taking three days to arrive on Cameron land and carefully survey the layout of the keep. Ewan couldn’t wait a single moment longer. There had been no sign of Mairin in several long days as they watched and waited. Duncan was keeping her under tight wraps.
After singling out the chamber that Mairin was most likely housed in, Ewan and his men circled the keep. Along with his brothers, Ewan crept inside the stone skirt, past the sleeping guards to the tower that loomed overhead.
Now in the darkness, Ewan tossed the rope with the hook up the wall. It took five attempts before he hooked the sill. Tugging on the rope to make sure it would hold, he began a quick hand-over-hand scale up the wall to the window.
Mairin stood in her window and bowed her head, as the shame of her circumstances fell over her shoulders.
A devil’s bargain. Her child’s life for her own. Her child’s life for her life with Ewan. She didn’t regret the decision she’d made, but she mourned all she had lost. All she’d never have.
The strain of the last week was too much to bear. She was at her wit’s end. She was afraid to eat lest Duncan change his mind and go back on his word. She feared at every turn that he’d put a potion into her drink or food that would cause her to lose her child.
She lived in constant fear of having to give herself to the man who now called her wife. She swayed wearily and turned in the direction of the bed. She couldn’t continue on in this manner. It wasn’t good for her child, and yet she had no choice.
Tears glistened on her cheeks as she gave in to the overwhelming grief welling from the depths of her soul. How could she live when she’d known a love so deep that she ached at the memory? How could she ever willingly lie with a man after knowing Ewan’s touch?
Finally, in her exhaustion, she crawled under the covers and buried her head in the pillow so no one would hear her sobs.
She had no idea of the passing of time. When she felt a hand slide over her arm and to her shoulder, she flinched away and turned over, prepared to defend herself from Duncan’s attack.
“Shh, lass, ’tis me, Ewan,” he whispered.
She ared up at her husband in the darkness, unable to believe that he was here, in her chamber.
He touched her wet cheek and wiped away the trail of tears. His voice was tortured and the words seemed ripped from his very soul. “Ah, Mairin, what did he do to you?”
“Ewan?”
“Aye, lass, ’tis me.”