Читать книгу Highland Lover - Hannah Howell - Страница 7

Alana grimaced as she finished washing, patted herself dry with a cloth, and began to don her clean but damp clothing. The Gowans catered to her and Gregor’s need to keep clean, but there was nothing they could do about the all-pervasive damp. Or the chill, she mused, wrapping her damp plaid around her shoulders. After three days in the dark hole the Gowans had tossed her into, Alana felt as if that chill had settled deep into her bones. The only time she felt even partly warm was when she was curled up in Gregor’s arms, pressed close to his warm body.

And that was beginning to be a pure torment, she thought as she brushed and braided her hair. All too often she had to sharply bite back the confession that she was a woman, not a child. Alana did not understand how she could be so hungry for a man she had only known for a few days, one she had never seen and who told her very little about himself. In most ways, he was a complete stranger to her, and yet, she felt as if she had known him for years. Each time she felt that hard length pressed against her backside, she wanted to move against it and ached for it to be born of a desire for her, not for some chimera in his dreams or a need to relieve himself. It was utter madness. Worse, she could think of no way to cure herself of this insanity.

It was past time for the man to devise a plan of escape, she decided, especially since she had not come up with one. Since he had spoken of it the first night she had joined him in the pit, he had never really spoken of it again. The few times she had ventured to mention it, he had said only one thing—patience, lass. Just how patient was she supposed to be? If he had a plan, he could share it with her, and if he did not, why did he not just admit it? She would be disappointed but would not fault him for not being able to find a way out of a very deep hole in the ground.

“Best ye move to the bed, lass,” Gregor said. “Our meal is arriving.”

Alana cautiously groped her way toward their rough bed. She doubted she would ever learn to move about in the dark as easily as Gregor did no matter how long she stayed here. Stumbling into the bedding, she quickly sat down and watched as the faint shaft of light appeared overhead.

“Ready to tell us who ye are?” asked the Gowan man who was lowering down the clean privy bucket.

“Nay,” replied Alana, proud of how she resisted the growing urge to scream out her full name, give precise directions to her people, and demand to be pulled out of the darkness.

She frowned a little when Gregor’s response was little more than a grunt of agreement to her words as he exchanged the clean bucket for the soiled one. He stood as he had for the last three days, staring intensely at the rope as the Gowan man raised the privy bucket and then lowered down their food. And again as he exchanged the dirty water for clean water. It puzzled Alana, for he was far too intense in how he watched the whole tedious process. Although she could not see his face, she almost felt his concentration and could see it in the taut stillness of his lean form.

Their guard left, taking that faint light with him, and Alana shivered with fear as she always did. She fought for calm, but still sighed with relief when Gregor sat down next to her. Each time that light disappeared, her fear of the dark reasserted itself. It embarrassed her that she required Gregor’s presence to harness it again. It seemed so cowardly, yet it was not a fear that could be reasoned with. She could only hope that Gregor was not aware of how deep and strong that fear was, although why that should be important to her Alana did not know.

“I have a plan now, lass,” Gregor said as he divided the food between them, carefully placing her share in her lap.

“And just when did ye devise this plan?” she asked calmly, even though her pulse quickened with hope. “Before or after ye assisted in changing the privy bucket?”

“So sharp for one so wee,” he murmured, grinning. “I was watching the raising and lowering of the buckets.”

“I noticed that. I cannae see much in that wee flicker of light, but it did seem that ye were most interested in that.”

“I was studying it all verra closely. It took me a while to decide on the best way to judge it.”

“Judge what?”

“The distance up to that hole.”

“Too far for either of us to reach it.”

“Aye, but, mayhap, nay too far for the two of us.”

Alana took a moment to think about that as she finished the bread she had just filled her mouth with. “What do ye mean by the two of us?”

“How tall are ye, lass?”

“Five feet.”

“And I am six feet and a few inches.”

“How proud ye must be,” she muttered and then sighed out her irritation, “but how does that matter?”

“Your height added to mine might be enough to get ye up to that opening.”

“To do what? Gnaw through the thick iron bars?”

“The grate isnae locked or barred.” He could feel her grow tense even though she was not sitting up against him.

“Are ye certain of that?”

“Aye. Why should they bother? ’Tis too high to reach, or so they believe. And these walls cannae be climbed. I tried several times ere ye arrived and got naught for my effort save more bruises. I am a verra good climber, but e’en I need the odd niche or outcrop or so to grab hold of as I climb. The few there are are too far apart and not easily grabbed hold of.”

“So how do ye plan to get us out of here?”

“I think that if ye stand upon my shoulders, ye will be able to reach that grate.”

Alana looked up, envisioning the grate in her mind since it was too dark to see it now. It was made of a very thick iron. Barred shut or not, it would be difficult for her to move it, especially since she would be standing on a man’s shoulders and not on firm, steady ground. She was also not that fond of heights but felt she could overcome that unease if offered the chance to escape. Alana was just not sure this plan gave them much chance.

“’Tis a heavy thing to try to push up and out of the way,” she murmured.

“I ken it, and ’twill be a struggle for such a wee lass, but there is no other choice. I cannae stand upon your shoulders.”

“Quite true. ’Tis worth a try.”

“’Twill probably take several tries because of the lack of light. ’Tisnae easy to do anything in this dark. We should give it a try after we sup.”

“Why wait?”

“If we succeed, ’tis best if we try to leave the keep come nightfall. After the last meal is delivered, we can also be certain no one will be coming down here for hours. If we fail, it will also give us time to hide all possible sign of what we were trying to do. After having come up with a plan, I dinnae want it to fail simply because the Gowans caught us at it and secured the hatchway better.”

“Should we attempt to hoard a little food?”

Gregor sighed. “We should, but I still worry o’er attracting the rats.”

“I certainly dinnae want them for company, but I havenae heard much scratching about within the walls. Mayhap they have given up since ye have been here nearly a week and we havenae left anything out for them.”

“True. It may also be that, since the Gowans have only recently begun to play this game, the vermin havenae discovered a way in here. We shall give it a try. Mayhap if we wrap it securely in cloth and keep it close they willnae sniff it out and come ahunting for it.”

The mere thought of rats crawling about their prison made Alana shiver. She loathed the creatures. Unfortunately, she and Gregor did need to at least try to hoard a little food for their escape. If they got free of this place, they would have to move swiftly and stealthily, which would make hunting for any food very difficult. She had little doubt that the Gowans would set out after them. Although she did not believe the Gowans would follow her and Gregor too far, there would probably be several days during which she and Gregor would spend a lot of their time running and hiding. For that they would need food, if only to keep up the strength needed to run fast and hide well.

“’Tis a shame we willnae be able to get the horses,” she murmured.

“Aye,” agreed Gregor. “Howbeit, I think e’en these fools would notice if I tried to slip a horse or two past the gates.”

Alana laughed softly and then frowned as a sudden complication in his plans occurred to her. “If I can get up there and open the hatch, how do we both get through it? Once open, I can pull myself up and out, but I cannae pull ye up after me.”

“Ah, weel, that is a weak point in my plan.”

“’Tis nay a weak point, Gregor. ’Tis a gaping hole.”

“Sarcasm is unbecoming in a female,” Gregor said and grinned when she muttered a curse in response to that pious and condescending remark.

“So is punching someone offside the head,” she muttered.

He ignored that. “I think we could use one or two of the blankets as a rope of sorts if ye can find naught to use up there. Once we ken if ye can move that lump of iron, we can tie the blankets about your waist ere ye climb out of here. If I recall it aright, above us are several things ye could tie the end of a rope to.”

“Ah, that may serve.”

“The first problem we need to solve is how to hold ye steady enough upon my shoulders so that ye can open that cursed grate. How much do ye think ye weigh?”

“Seven stone, mayhap a little more.”

“I can lift that easy enough, but I have ne’er tried to balance such a weight upon my shoulders. But dinnae worry. I will catch ye if ye fall.”

Alana did not feel particularly comforted by that reassurance. Six feet was not a great distance to fall, but the ground was hard. She still had bruises from landing on Gregor when the Gowans tossed her into the dungeon. Obviously unwilling to damage their prize too much, they had lowered her down by her wrists first, but it had still hurt when the man holding her had let her go.

For a brief moment, she battled the urge to tell Gregor that she could not do it, but then she lectured herself sternly to banish that surge of cowardice. They needed to escape this place, and not just to save their families the expense of ransoming them. She needed to get out of the unrelenting dark before she began to cling to Gregor like some terrified infant. Each time the Gowans brought that blessed shaft of light and took it away again, she drew closer to that point. Her fear of the dark grew sharper and took longer to shake free of.

It was also necessary to escape the chill and damp of their prison. Alana was surprised that Gregor was still so hale and strong after spending a week in such a dismal place. The man appeared to be annoyingly untouched by conditions she knew were slowly robbing her of the good health she had enjoyed before entering the prison. If fear of the dark did not drive her to attach herself to Gregor like a leech, then the chill creeping into her bones would.

The thought that she was a pathetic weakling settled itself in Alana’s mind. Cold and damp were ever pervasive, annoyances she had thought herself inured to. She hastily shook that troubling thought aside. There had always been fires to warm one and dry clothes at hand. They were blessed with neither in this dark pit. If one could not get warm and dry from time to time, it was only to be expected that the cold and damp would settle in deep and hard. It was also not surprising that Gregor held up better than she did, for he was much bigger and had more meat on his bones.

“What are ye scowling about now?” asked Gregor as he carefully packed away some of their food, a simple chore that was proving very difficult to do well in the dark.

“How do ye ken what expression is upon my face?”

“Ye make a little noise when ye are irritated.”

“A little noise?”

“A soft, weel, grunt, or the like.”

“Ladies dinnae grunt.”

“Of course not. My mistake.”

She ignored that remark, for the words were heavily weighted with amusement. “What are ye doing?”

“Attempting to secure some food. A simple chore. Or it would be, if we had a wee bit of light,” he grumbled and then asked, “So, what has annoyed ye?”

Alana sighed. “I was just thinking on what a puling weakling I am.” Gregor made an odd choking noise and she decided it was probably flattering that he would find such a statement amusing. “I always told myself the dark unsettled me. Weel, I cannae lie to myself anymore. It frightens me. As for your plan to escape? Standing on your shoulders to try to open a way out of here is a good idea and I shall do my best, but thinking of how high up I will be also frightens me. I am weary of the cold and the damp, can feel it in my verra bones. Each time one of those fools asks if I will now say who I am, I have to fight verra hard to say nay. A part of me wants to cry out my name, where I am from, give them a clearly drawn map to get to my people, and demand that they be quick in the doing of it. And that part gets bigger every day. ’Tis a coward I am.”

Gregor had to bite back a laugh as he sat down next to her and put his arm around her slim shoulders. She sounded extremely irritated with herself. He could understand that well enough, for he had battled with a few of his own fears in those days he had been alone. Being alone in the dark with no way out and nothing to do made one think about oneself and see oneself far too clearly. Gregor suspected few people would find that comfortable.

“I suspicion many people are made uneasy by the dark and by being up high,” he said. “Each is a fear I think we are all born with and we ne’er fully shake free of. There is naught wrong with being afeared of something, only in letting it control you. As for the cold and the damp? There is naught wrong with ye for feeling that. So do I, and I grow most weary of it.”

“Ye have been here longer than I have.”

“And I have a lot more flesh for it to sink its teeth into. Takes a lot longer for it to burrow down into my bones, but ’tis there. Nay, lass, ye are no puling weakling for that either. Ye havenae wept, or needed a wee sharp slap to restore your wits, or complained incessantly.”

Alana said nothing, just subtly pressed a little closer to him. For warmth, she told herself. She was not sure she believed all his kind reassurances, but they were comforting all the same. The urge to have a screaming, hair-pulling fit lurked inside of her, but his presence helped cage it. Alana did not think it would be wise to tell him so, however. If nothing else, it would not be fair or kind to put the weight of such a responsibility upon his broad shoulders. There was a good chance he was using her presence in a similar way, so there was no need to belabor the matter.

For a fleeting moment, she wished she had never left home, and then she accepted the fact that she simply could not have continued to wait for some word from her sister. Hearing that Keira was a widow, that her home had been taken by a man whose evil reputation was widespread, and then hearing nothing from her for months had been hard to bear. Her fear for her sister had grown stronger with each day that passed without word or sight of Keira, only more rumors and all of them bad. The only thing that had kept Alana from blindly rushing off to find her twin immediately was the feeling that Keira was still alive. That and her dreams.

She frowned as she realized she had had no dreams of her twin since setting out after her brothers. That should trouble her more than it did, yet she simply could not believe that Keira was dead. Alana still felt drawn toward her sister and suspected she would begin to sense in exactly what direction to go once she was free again. Yet it was odd that, in all other ways, she had lost that bond she and Keira had shared all of their lives. It made her feel intensely alone, and she pressed even closer to Gregor.

“Troubled, lass?” he asked.

“Nay, not truly,” she lied, still uncertain if she should tell him exactly why she had been alone and such easy prey for the Gowans. “I think the chance to escape is so tantalizing, I fear to let myself believe in it too much.”

Gregor idly rubbed his hand up and down her slender arm. “I think I ken what ye mean. Now that we have a plan, we must face the daunting possibility of failure.”

She nodded, feeling the soft wool of his plaid rub her cheek. Alana knew just how bitter failure tasted. Her arrogant plan to lead her brothers to their sister had been a failure of monumental proportions. It was something that still stung her pride and puzzled her as well. She really should not have failed so badly. All her skills and gifts had deserted her, and that made no sense. It was as if whatever power had granted them had abruptly taken them away, but she did not understand why.

Alana inwardly shrugged. She could still sense that her twin was alive, could not believe that the other half of her was gone forever. There had to be some purpose to it all, some reason God and fate were conspiring to keep her from joining her sister at this time. Perhaps Keira needed to pass some test, to learn some great truth about herself, and having her twin at her side could make that difficult. Or, she mused, perhaps she needed to pass a test. Alana did not like that idea at all and hastily asked for Keira’s forgiveness for hoping it was her sister who was being tested. Keira was pretty, kind, and clever, much more able to pass such a test of her spirit and courage.

Although she loved her sister dearly, felt that Keira was truly her best friend and ally, Alana ruefully admitted to herself that she often suffered the pinch of envy concerning Keira. Keira was the one who looked so much like the matriarch of their family, being vividly beautiful with her black hair, fair skin, and green eyes. Alana was little and brown. Keira had the true gift of healing whereas Alana was just a good healer, using knowledge and skill well but lacking the touch and strong instincts Keira had been blessed with. Keira had the sight. Alana only had a bond with her twin that occasionally stirred dreams and strong intuitions. Although neither of them had a bad temper, Keira was the gentler one, the sweeter one. Alana knew her tongue could be as sharp as a knife’s edge. Although she knew it was nonsense, knew she was as beloved by her family as Keira was, Alana occasionally felt that, as the second born, she had entered the world in Keira’s shadow and had never left it. She sighed, dismayed by her own foolishness.

“That was a mournful sound, lass,” Gregor said. “Are ye sure ye arenae troubled?”

“Nay, I am just thinking on how long we must wait until we may try to escape,” she lied, embarrassed by her thoughts.

Gregor did not need to see clearly to know he was being lied to, but he did not press her. “Weel, what say ye to a game of chess to pass the time?” he asked, leaning back against the wall and tugging her along with him.

“Aye, I am prepared to beat ye soundly yet again,” she said. “Ye may make the first move.”

“How gracious ye are,” he drawled, suspecting her confidence was warranted, as he had not won a game yet.

He closed his eyes, pictured his much-prized chess set in his mind, and struggled to decide upon his first move. If he was very lucky, he might take longer to lose this time. His victory could then be found in keeping them both well occupied during the too-long wait ahead of them.

Alana lay sprawled on top of a cursing Gregor and struggled to catch her breath. It was obviously going to take them a while to learn the trick to it all, to gain the strength and balance to act as one while she stood upon Gregor’s shoulders. Her only consolation was that he was not any better at it than she was. He could hold her up well when she stood still, but the moment she attempted to move the heavy iron grate, he lost that control. The first three times she fell he had caught her easily enough. This time, however, even that had gone wrong.

“I think four times is enough for tonight,” Gregor said, trying to will away the pain in his head, which had hit the hard ground with enough force to bring him perilously close to unconsciousness.

“I concur,” Alana replied in a voice still hoarse and unsteady after having all the breath knocked out of her. “Mayhap on the morrow, betwixt meals, we should practice moving about whilst I am on your shoulders.”

“Might be wise.”

Forcing herself to move off him, Alana sprawled at his side. “We need to learn to move as one—one verra tall person.”

Gregor briefly laughed. “Aye. Holding ye up there isnae so hard. Standing as steady as the floor whilst ye struggle to move that cursed grate will require some practice. Do ye think ye can move it aside?”

“Aye. ’Tis heavy, true enough, but I can do it. I must needs figure out how to push it aside without toppling us is all. There is a trick to it, I am certain of it.”

“Fine, then. On the morrow we will practice moving with ye on my shoulders and ye can try to puzzle out what that trick is.”

“And then, after we sup, we try again?”

“Aye. And the next night, and the next, until we get it right.”

“Oh joy.”