This door was heavy, solid oak, with massive iron bracing, big hinges, huge bolts, and a large lock. The key hung to one side. Dominic lifted it down, inserted it and turned, then shot back the bolts and heaved the door open—revealing a stone-faced tunnel leading away from the castle.
Angelica looked down the tunnel, then at him.
“The postern gate, so to speak.” The boys and dogs had already charged ahead, leaping along with careless abandon. Dominic waved her on. “The tunnel runs under the gardens and the outer wall, then beneath the surface of the loch. The floor’s level and it’s not that far—it comes out on the side of a hillock on the shore.”
Brows rising, she stepped out. He followed, pulling the door shut, cutting off what little light the store room had offered. She slowed. His fingers closed about her elbow and he guided her on. “You’ll be able to see shortly.”
A few yards further, her eyes did indeed adjust to the low light. She could see well enough to walk without tripping.
“The other end is a grille, not a door. That’s where the light comes from.”
As he’d said, the tunnel wasn’t that long. The boys had known how to unlatch the grille; it stood pushed wide, and boys and dogs were galloping ahead along a narrow path.
Joining her in the weak sunshine, Dominic took her hand, settled it in his, then they walked on, following the boys’ lead. “On this shore, there are no lanes, only the paths, but there are plenty of forks and offshoots. Until you get to know them, you’ll be safer walking out with others.”
She looked around, turning to look back at the castle and loch to get her bearings.
“We’ll soon be out of sight of the castle.” Dominic nodded to their left. “That hill and the forest will come between us and the loch.”
Hand in hand, they walked on and didn’t speak of the matter consuming them both—not yet. The forests closed around them, the shade soothing, the pervasive silence broken by birdcalls, the boys’ bright voices, and the burbling of a nearby brook.
Still looking about her, she asked, “Are these clan lands?”
“Up to the crest.” He glanced at the surrounding trees. “This is Coille Ruigh na Cuileige forest. The stream down there”—he tipped his head at the slope rolling down to their right—“is Allt na h Imrich. This path will take us to the head of the waterfall close by its source.”
“Do the boys speak Gaelic?”
“Yes.” He glanced at her. “Why?”
“Well, clearly, I’m going to have to learn.” She met his eyes. “You’ll have to teach me—I’m generally a quick learner.”
His lips eased a fraction. He squeezed her hand lightly. Content enough with that, she looked ahead and they continued on.
The climb to the head of the waterfall demanded her attention and successfully hauled her mind from all else. When she wasn’t watching her own feet, she was casting glances at the boys, toiling just ahead of her and Dominic.
He saw, murmured, “Don’t worry. They’re more nimble than goats.”
Eventually, they reached a ledge just below the lip of the cliff top from which the waters of the Allt na h Imrich fell in a long, graceful cascade to land on rocks far below. The ledge was more than a yard wide, safe enough even though fully half its rocky length was damp and slippery, kept wet by the spume thrown from the waters plummeting down at the ledge’s far end. A large natural alcove at the back of the ledge housed a cairn with a bronze plaque, while a bench had been hewn out of the rock where the path reached the ledge, at the end opposite the waterfall.
She peered past the curtain of water. “The ledge doesn’t go behind the fall, does it?”
“No. If it did, the dogs would be soaked, and so would the two terrors.”
Both boys and dogs, still reasonably dry, had clambered up a goat track to the cliff top above. Settling on the lip above the ledge, the boys sat with legs swinging and looked out, lords of all they surveyed.
Smiling, she walked to where a large rock, midchest height for her, formed a natural barrier at the edge of the ledge a few feet from where the water thundered past.
“Careful. It’s slippery there.”
Nodding, she set a hand on the damp rock and very carefully peered past and down.
Between roiling clouds of misty spray she caught glimpses of jagged black rocks a long, long way down. “Definitely not the place to slip.”
Stepping back from the edge, she turned and walked to the cairn, almost as big as the rock; the bronze plaque was set into the front face of the rough pyramid. “What’s this?”
“It’s in honor of my great-grandfather. It was he who kept the clan safe through the clearances.”
With her fingers, she traced the words on the plaque, once again in Gaelic. “Say this for me.”
He did. She listened to his deep voice rolling through the syllables, to their cadence and the emotion they carried. When he fell silent, she sighed. “That’s lovely.”
“Yes, it is.”
Turning, she saw him easing down to sit on the rock bench. She walked over and joined him.
For a moment they sat in silence. The view over the rolling mountains, the dips and shadows of the valleys, the ruffled green skirts of the forests, was breathtaking; they both took a moment to savor the sight, the crisp air, the peace.
Eventually Dominic leaned forward, rested his elbows on his thighs, clasped his hands. “So . . . what are we going to do?” When she didn’t immediately respond, he went on, “I’m at my wits’ end, and close to the end of my patience. If she keeps changing her rules, we’ll never—”
“No—don’t say it.” When he fell silent, Angelica went on, “She hasn’t actually changed her rules—she’s just told us what criteria she’d expected to use to measure my social ruination. That was the one thing we didn’t know, and now it’s tripped us up. You told me she wouldn’t understand how families like mine operate, so of course she assumed there would be a public scandal. As there won’t be . . .”
Turning his head, he looked at her, studied her face, her eyes. He could almost see her manipulative wheels churning. Holding silent, he waited, wondering if even she could find a way out.
She’d been staring into space, a slight frown dragging down her brows; slowly, the frown eased, vanished, then she refocused and looked at him. Consideringly, assessingly.
His instincts pricked. “What?”
She compressed her lips, studying him—his face, his eyes—some more. Finally, she said, “You’re going to have to trust me. For today, leave her to me. Let me work on her—there just might be a way.”
Sitting up, he tried to fathom her direction, but could divine nothing from her face. “How?”
“I need to make her see that expecting to harm my family through a public scandal is unrealistic—that, if anything, she’s going to play into their hands . . . yes, that’s right. That’s how I’ll couch it.” She paused, then went on, “And once I convince her of that, I need to show her a way in which she can be assured of gaining her revenge—a way that you and I can successfully deliver, a way she’ll accept and so be satisfied.”
Meeting his eyes, she smiled intently. “We need to remember that that’s what this has been about all along—her being assured of her revenge.”
He could sense her returning enthusiasm; his instincts still jibbed. “What, exactly, are you planning?”
She met his eyes, considered for a long moment, then laid one hand over his and squeezed. “Let me see if I can get her to swallow my bait, then I’ll tell you my lure.”
He didn’t like it, but he’d run out of options. And he couldn’t not trust her.
He did trust her, but . . . grim-faced, he reined in his instincts and nodded. “All right.”
“Thank you, thank you! I can’t thank you enough for showing me the error of my ways.” Subsiding onto the straig
ht-back chair she’d fetched and placed before Mirabelle’s armchair in the sitting room, Angelica clasped her hands in her lap, fixed her eyes on Mirabelle’s face, and endeavored to cling to her crushed violet persona while leavening her previous dejection with budding hope. “I hadn’t realized, you see—quite silly of me, but with being so frightened, indeed, at times quite terrified of your son and his intentions toward me, well, you can see how it was that it simply slipped my mind that of course my family would conceal my disappearance. Of course they would—and clearly they have, and successfully, given there’s no mention of my disappearance in the news sheets. That’s such a relief!”
She’d let hope glimmer from the moment she’d been escorted to the high table for luncheon; throughout the meal, she’d pretended to be absorbed with her own thoughts, allowing her face to reflect that said thoughts had not been the same dismal, dire, fearful ones that had consumed her before.
During the meal, Dominic had eyed her with unconcealed suspicion and a touch of wariness, unwittingly playing the part she’d needed him to play to perfection. Mirabelle had come to the table in a pouting temper, had shifted to scowling when Dominic hadn’t noticed, but eventually she’d seen Dominic’s suspicious looks, and had followed them, and then she’d grown suspicious, too.
Immediately the meal had ended, Angelica had heightened suspicions all around by literally begging Mirabelle for an audience. Mirabelle had pretended to hesitate, but, of course, had agreed.
Leaning forward, Angelica confided, “I realize, of course, that you don’t approve of your son’s actions—that no matter how it appears, or what you think of me, that you’re working against him.” Mirabelle frowned, but before she could interrupt, Angelica held up a hand. “Oh, I know there’s more to it that I don’t know—I don’t understand very much, but I’ve heard about the goblet, and how, now that he’s brought me here, you won’t give it to him and so he’ll be the one ruined . . . well, I just wanted to tell you how grateful I am, and how grateful and appreciative my family will be, my father and my mother especially. By ruining your son, you’ll be striking a blow for them, giving them exactly the revenge and retribution they would want visited on him for kidnapping me. Why”—eyes widening, she managed an ingratiating smile—“you could be said to be acting as their champion!”
Mirabelle’s face was a study in stunned confusion. “What?”
“Oh, I realize you might not see it that way, and I do apologize if you find the suggestion offensive—he is your son, after all—but I just wanted to thank you for being so kind this morning in drawing my attention to what I should have guessed—that my family will conceal my disappearance and so avoid any public scandal—and so giving me real hope that this ordeal will soon be over, and I’ll be back home with my parents and all will soon be well.” With a small nod, she sat back and folded her hands in her lap.
Mirabelle regarded her much as she might a dog with two heads. After a moment, she asked, “Why . . . ? No. What do you see happening now?”
Precisely the question Angelica had been angling for. She frowned slightly. “Well, as you won’t give your son this goblet, and I gather that has to happen in the next few days, then once that deadline passes, he won’t be able to stop himself being ruined, so I won’t be of any further use to him—not that I understand why I was in the first place—but he’ll let me go, and once I reach Inverness I’ll send for help. Then someone from the family will come and fetch me and take me home to Somerset. The family will have put it about that I’ve been staying with friends somewhere, so there won’t be any scandal to come out of this at all—and if anyone tries to claim there was . . . well, what evidence would they have that would stand against my family’s word?
“And once I’m back at home, all will go on as usual.” She smiled, transparently savoring the prospect. “I’m only twenty-one, after all—the baby of the family—so next Season, I’ll go up to town and attend all the usual balls and parties with my mother, and find an eligible parti.” She sighed happily. “Because of you, ma’am, and your brave stand against your son, nothing in my life will truly change. Despite this horrible adventure, I’ll still be able to marry a duke, and Mama will be so relieved. I’m very close to her, you know.”
Mirabelle’s eyes had narrowed to shards; her mouth was pinched. “You’re saying that, as things stand, your mother, and you, will more or less be unaffected?”
“Oh, no—Mama must be in a terrible state, shocked and so concerned because I’ve disappeared, but once I get back, hale and whole, all will be well again.”
“I find it hard to believe, miss, that being kidnapped will visit no lasting damage on you or your mother.”
Angelica shrugged, her certainty blatant. “It’s just the way the ton is, you see. A kidnapping is ruination only if it becomes widely known, and even then, it’s only ruination by implication.”
“Implication?” Mirabelle stared. “What does that mean?”
“Well, because of the assumption that . . .” She broke off, fidgeted, then blurted out, “Not to put too fine a point on it, that a kidnapped lady no longer possesses her virtue. For a ton young lady, losing one’s virtue is what true ruination is, because it will prevent us marrying well, thus truly ruining our lives, our dreams, and dashing all expectations.” She didn’t dare cross her fingers but willed Mirabelle to follow the trail . . .
After a full minute of staring at her, Mirabelle said, “Are you telling me that if you lost your virtue—by which I assume you mean you were no longer a virgin—then you would truly be ruined, and that that would be true regardless of whether your kidnapping ever becomes widely known?”
“Well . . .” Drawing back into her crushed violet persona, she let her voice waver. “If I lost my virtue and was no longer a virgin, that’s not something even my family could fix. If I was”—she gulped—“ravished, that would mean irretrievable ruin for me, and Mama would be devastated . . .”
Letting fear trickle back into her posture, her eyes, she drew in a sharp breath, then nervously shook her head. “But that won’t happen. Your son . . . well, if he hasn’t yet, then he won’t, will he? Besides, although he’s been frightful and frightening, he hasn’t actually hurt me . . . well, not more than a bruise or two. And I gather he prides himself on his honor—the family motto and all that—so despite appearances, I really don’t think that’s likely. He might have kidnapped me, but he won’t stoop to that.” She drew a tremulous breath. “So I don’t think I need to worry about that. I just need to wait until the deadline for you giving him the goblet passes, and then this will all be over and he’ll let me go and I can go home and forget this ever happened.”
Drawing welling nervousness about her, she shifted on the chair, then hesitantly rose. “Thank you, ma’am, for your indulgence. I just wanted to let you know that I appreciate your support through this frightening time.” She bobbed a curtsy, then glanced at Brenda, standing, guardlike, by the door. She hung her head. “I’d better get back to my room.”
From beneath her lashes, she watched Mirabelle’s expression grow inward-looking, more intense, the lines in her face more harshly etched; the countess’s attention was no longer on her.
After a fraught second, Mirabelle brusquely waved. “Yes. Go. Get out of my sight.”
Silently exhaling, Angelica left the room.
Angelica next saw Mirabelle at dinner, when the countess entered the great hall and stepped onto the dais on which the high table stood. Her expression was fixed, her blue eyes staring, but not, it seemed, at anything; she was not just absorbed but obsessed by her thoughts.
Sinking into her chair on Dominic’s right, Mirabelle acknowledged neither him nor anyone else. The meal began, and she ate what was put before her, but her attention remained elsewhere.
Several minutes after the main course had been served, Dominic turned his head and arched a brow at Angelica. An accident on one of the f
arms had taken him out of the castle shortly after she’d gone into his mother’s sitting room; he’d only just got back in time for the meal, so hadn’t had a chance to learn what had transpired during their afternoon’s talk.
The change in Mirabelle set alarm bells ringing.
Although he looked at Angelica for several minutes—more than long enough for her to feel his gaze—she made no move to meet it, which escalated his wariness dramatically.
At the end of the meal, Mirabelle abruptly stood. She looked at him, then at Angelica. A heartbeat passed, then, frowning, Mirabelle turned and walked from the room.
Dominic watched her go, saw Elspeth scramble to follow her to the drawing room. When, distantly, he heard the drawing room door shut, he turned to Angelica. “What was that about?”
She glanced at him, then pushed back her chair, rose, and laid her hand on his shoulder. “Go and put the boys to bed. I’ll tell you all after that. I’ll be in the store room reading—come and fetch me.”
Reaching up, he closed a hand over hers. “And what if Mirabelle wants to speak with me?”
She grimaced. “Avoid her. You’ll need to hear my explanation first.”
Turning, he met her gaze. “So I supposed.”
Her green-gold gaze didn’t waver.
Releasing her, he rose. He glanced to where Mulley was waiting to escort her to the store room. “I won’t be long.”
He waited until she’d left, then headed for the boys’ room.
Sitting on the narrow trestle bed in the store room, a two-armed candelabra on a box beside her, Angelica was deep in Scottish history when the door to the secret staircase clicked, then swung open.
Looking up and seeing Dominic ducking under the lintel, she smiled, shut the book, and set it aside. Rising, she picked up the candelabra and trod the path through the boxes to where he’d halted just inside the room.