Part 40 (1/2)

He caught up at the stone steps, his arm slipping around her to lend support.

”I do not need your help!” She tried to shrug his arm away.

He seized her shoulders, swinging her around to face him. ”I know you're angry and well you should be. I ken you dinna want to wed Carlisle. I wish I didn't have to send you-”

”Then don't!”

He continued as if she hadn't spoken. ”And I had no right to start something I wasn't prepared to finish. But I'll not let you rush heedlessly through these tunnels. They're dangerous and you don't know your way.”

”Very well,” she said as coolly as she could. He was right, of course. She was being thoughtless as always. She would never escape if she slipped and broke her leg. d.a.m.n it all, she hated it when he was right!

She took his arm but refused to speak to him the entire way back up to the tower. After a time he quit trying to coax a response from her. Fayth was so distressed she could not think clearly. It seemed foolish now to have turned shrew on him. She had acted the wanton and now looked ridiculous because of her behavior. And yet, the injury to her pride was too great. She could not look at him without anger and resentment clouding her mind.

They arrived at the ladder where this had all begun, where she'd been giddy-headed in her desire for him. She smirked at her own folly and grasped the rungs as if she could wring punishment from them. Alex sent her up to the larder first, holding the candelabra high so she could see.

When she came up through the hole, she immediately sensed she was not alone. Still poised on the ladder, half out of the trapdoor, she turned. Skelley, perched on a barrel, straightened at her appearance. Biddy sat beside him, whining softly.

Skelley had avoided Fayth since she'd donned a gown and even now stared at the floor, hands clasped behind his back as she crawled through the hole and into the larder. Biddy came to her tentatively, as if she could sense the waves of furious heat emanating from Fayth. Fayth scratched the dog's head absently.

She was feeling the effects of her afternoon of exercise. Her muscles ached and lethargy rolled over her. She longed to have her former strength back-so she could steal a horse and ride as far from Red Alex as possible!

”G'day to ye, Mistress Graham.”

”Greetings, Skelley.”

Alex climbed lithely from the hole as if an arrow had not ripped through his shoulder and become dreadfully corrupted, as if the leech hadn't cut his rotted flesh away. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d!

Biddy went to his side, tail wagging joyously as he closed the trapdoor and pushed the barrels back into place.

Fayth asked Skelley, ”Any word from Carlisle or my brother?”

Skelley slid her a strange look, quickly returning his gaze to the floorboards. ”Ah... of a sort. Alex? A word?”

He obviously would tell her nothing without first relaying it to Alex, so Fayth turned on her heel and entered the kitchens.

She ignored the stares and whispers, keeping her chin high as she pa.s.sed through. She knew what they were thinking-a woman, exploring dark corridors, alone, with a man like Red Alex. If word of this got out, she was as good as ruined. So what would it possibly matter now if they lay together? She pushed that errant thought away, rus.h.i.+ng blindly forward. She was almost to the door when a figure stepped in front of her, stealing the air from her lungs.

”Weel...” Armless Eliot's black eyes trailed from the top of her head to her toes, and back up again, lingering on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. ”If it ain't wee Hugh Maxwell.”

0=”15”15.

”ELIOT'S HERE?” Alex said, surprise and relief sending him for the door to the kitchens before Skelley could finish speaking.

”Aye-but wait!”

Alex turned impatiently.

”Laine's dead.”

”Dead?”