Amanda Scott (48 page)

“Where is she?” Duncan demanded, kicking the man’s sword away and standing over him.

“Find her … yourself. I’m … sped.”

“Damn you, MacCrichton, don’t die yet! Where’s Mary? Where’s my wife?”

“Please, sir,” Pinkie said from the gallery, “she and Chuff are in the floor.” With his last gasp, Ewan muttered, “Damned handfast brat.”

E
ERIE, DULLY THUMPING ECHOES
reverberated around the stone hall as two men pulled rocks and dirt from the pit wall below, widening the hole Mary had found. Patrick Campbell and his men had gone, taking their prisoners with them.

Someone had pounded rods into the pit wall halfway down, to hang lanterns, and the orange and golden glow turned the workers from dark shadows into recognizable figures as they moved into the spill of light and out again.

“They’ll be done soon,” Duncan said, putting a hand on Mary’s shoulder.

Glancing up at him, she saw that the late afternoon sun coming through one of the high windows had drawn a halo around his head. The thought of Duncan having heavenly connections of any sort surprised a chuckle from her.

“It is good to hear you laugh, sweetheart, but it is not wise to laugh at your lord and master.”

She grinned. “You’ve grown a halo, sir.”

“A what?” He looked astonished, as well he might, she thought. Then his dark eyes lit with laughter. “Your ordeal in that pit has unhinged you, I fear.”

“Master, we’ve got it!”

“We’ll lower ropes,” Duncan called down to them.

Mary said, “Do you think that’s how Daft Geordie got the chest down there in the first place?”

“Aye, it’s the only way. That pit’s all of twenty feet deep or more. He must have lowered the chest first, then himself. It’s no mean feat for any man.”

“He wasn’t as daft as Ewan thought him then, and he certainly must have been very strong.”

“Aye.” Duncan’s reply sounded absent-minded. He was busy with ropes. “Stand opposite me,” he said to Bannatyne. “Once they get it tied, we’ll hoist it up.”

After that, it was but a matter of minutes before they swung the heavy ironbound chest onto the hall floor. Taking it by handles at either end, Duncan and Bannatyne left others to help the men from the pit, and carried the chest to the table in the center of the hall.

Neil moved toward them from the great fire, where he had been chatting with Bardie and the two children. “It’s not nearly as big as I’d expected,” he said with a frown. “It cannot be but a foot and a half high, nor yet three feet wide.”

“It’s heavy enough,” Duncan said. “How big did you think it would be?”

With a rueful look, Neil said, “Judging by Ewan’s passion to find the thing, I’d expected something at least the size of a coffin.”

“Aye, sure,” Bardie said. “That’s all well and good, but what’s in the devilish thing? Open it, will ye? I’m fair awash wi’ curiosity.”

“Me, too,” Chuff said, moving closer.

“Me, too,” said his small, ubiquitous shadow.

Mary smiled at the children, then at Duncan. “Well, sir?”

He smiled back. “Well, my lady?”

“Do we not need the key to open it?”

In answer, he gestured to one of his men, who stepped forward to hand him an iron bar. Taking it, Duncan said, “This, my dear, is a universal key, for it will open almost any lock.” He tried to insert an end into the narrow crack between the chest’s lid and body, but his efforts proved useless. “I cannot get purchase,” he said.

“Let me try,” Neil said, taking the bar.

When he failed, they studied the lock. After some moments of this exercise, Duncan said with exasperation. “You’d think Daft Geordie would have had sense enough to bury the key with the chest!”

“Please, sir,” Chuff said, “Flaming Janet alius said folks should no call him daft. She said our mam didna like it. She alius called him George, and—”

“Aye,” Pinkie murmured. “He was no daft, she said.”

Mary and Duncan exchanged astonished glances.

Duncan said, “Do you mean to say that Daft Geordie was your father?”

“George,” Chuff said firmly.

Touching Duncan’s arm, Mary said gently, “Was his full name George MacCrichton, Chuff.”

“I dunno that,” Chuff said, frowning. “I thought it must be MacLachlan, the same as Red Mag and Flaming Janet.”

“But his name
was
Daft Geordie.” Seeing the protest leap again to Chuff’s lips, she added quickly, “Other people called him that, did they not?”

Grudgingly, Chuff muttered, “Aye.”

Duncan said thoughtfully, “Did Flaming Janet have red hair, Chuff?”

“Aye.”

“Did your mam?”

The boy shrugged. “I dinna remember her.”

Mary said, “Her name was Red Mag, Duncan, and both children are blond, like Ewan. I never knew his brother, but even if the children are his, Ewan called them handfast brats. He said Chuff was born after the handfast was broken.”

“He may have lied about that,” Duncan said. “He called Pinkie a handfast brat with his last breath, did he not, and Daft—” He glanced apologetically at Chuff, then went on, “George must have died before she was born. That would seem to indicate a continued relationship. Not that it matters. We know a handfast existed, and if a child came of it, even after the year and a day, that child is its father’s legitimate issue.” He looked thoughtfully at Chuff.

Mary, too, had been looking at Chuff, and an idea struck her now with some force. “Where is your charm, Chuff? You did not leave it in the pit, did you?”

“Nay, then, just stuffed it in my breeches when they hauled me up.” He reached in and pulled out the twisted length of rawhide he used as a belt. Dangling at the end was the grubby, oddly shaped metal piece that served as its buckle.

Mary caught the swinging bit of metal and held it up. “Duncan?”

“Aye,” he said, “it might be the key, though it doesn’t look like one. Let’s have it, lass.”

A moment later, the chest was open.

“Ooh,” Chuff said, his eyes wide.

Mary was certain hers must have looked the same, for the little chest was full of jewelry and gold coins. “It is easy to see why that iron bar failed to open it,” she said, gazing at a locking mechanism that filled the entire inside surface of the lid. Hooklike bits all round the lip fitted into opposing slots in the body’s rim. Without the key, the chest would defy any attempt to open it.

Pinkie reached in and touched some of the coins, stirring them curiously.

“So the treasure is real,” Mary said, still staring at it.

“It would seem that it is,” Duncan said.

An odd note in his voice dragged her rapt attention away from the treasure clinking through Pinkie’s fingers. To her surprise she saw that he was amused.

“What?”

“My father,” he said, meeting her gaze. “I was thinking what a pity it is that he did not live to see this.”

With a sudden sinking sensation she said, “I-I daresay the authorities will confiscate it, or … or …” She could not put into words the thought that the Campbells would most likely demand custody of it.

“Still don’t trust me, sweetheart?”

His tone was light, and when she met his gaze again, the deep understanding in his eyes banished the last vestige of worry from her mind.

“What will happen to it?” she asked.

“Here’s a letter,” Pinkie said in surprise. “It was buried in the coins.”

Taking it from her and opening it, Duncan showed it to Mary. Written in crudely formed letters, it contained the following message:
If ye find this without me, Ewan, ram dead and ye got the key from the lad. He is my son, and there is another bairn coming soon. I charge ye to raise them both as proper MacCrichtons, to look after Mag, my wife by handfast.
It was signed,
George MacCrichton.

Duncan looked at the children. “As I understand this, Geordie MacCrichton never broke the handfast, so now that Ewan and Geordie are dead, Geordie’s son is the rightful heir to the title, to Shian, and to all that may be found inside its walls.”

“Chuff?” Mary said.

“Me?”

“Coo,” Pinkie said when Duncan nodded.

“In the end, Geordie did a wise thing,” Duncan said, kneeling to sort through the items in the chest. “There does not seem to be much here to identify these things as MacCrichton property, and he says nothing in the note to identify it as such. Had it been found in the forest, anyone might have tried to claim it, but the fact that we found the chest inside the castle walls puts its ownership beyond question now.”

Mary said, “Won’t there be a fuss?”

“Not if I take Chuff and Pinkie under my protection. I think I can persuade Argyll that it’s the most logical solution. He certainly won’t want to turn the castle or the treasure over to Jacobite sympathizers; and, with Chuff here being underage and the last of the MacCrichtons, a veritable horde of them are bound to claim kinship and offer to look after him and Pinkie. Argyll is most likely to agree that I should do so instead; and, with an estate just across the loch, I’m in an excellent position to run this one until Chuff is old enough to take over.”

She was silent.

“I won’t let him down, Mary, or you either.”

“I know you won’t, but are you certain Argyll will permit it?”

“He will, because he knows he can trust me to see that young Chuff here grows up without having his head stuffed full of rebel notions. He’s a good lad, Chuff is, so if you are thinking he might be a burden—”

“Never!”

Duncan smiled. “Well, be that as it may, sweetheart, I mean to send him to a good school. He is going to need a proper education.”

“Pinkie, too,” Mary said firmly.

“Aye, if you like, but you’ll not want to send her away. We can hire a governess for the wee lass.”

He turned away to give orders about taking the chest under guard, and watching him, Mary felt a glow of something much stronger than pride.

She saw Neil watching her, and smiling at him, she said, “Did it occur to anyone to send Caddell an explanation of our absence from the christening?”

“Aye, it did,” he said grimly. “We sent Serena and her wench with two of Duncan’s men to tell them. She did not want to leave us, and we could ill spare the men, I can tell you, but when I explained what would happen to her if she stayed, she did not question which was the better choice.”

“Goodness, what did you tell her?”

“Only that if she did not take herself out of my sight at once, I could not answer for the consequences. She believed me.”

“I can see why she would,” Mary said, repressing a shiver. “You looked like Duncan at his most forbidding just now when you said that.”

“Mary, I wanted to strangle her. At the very least, I would have beaten her till she screamed for mercy. The only reason I did not do so at once is that she had saved Duncan’s life.”

“She did?”

“Aye. When she told Ewan that he was dead, Ewan believed her.”

“That’s right, he did. I wonder why.”

“Because she was the one who told them where and when to find us in the first place, that’s why. She said something that made me curious, and when I taxed her with it, she admitted that her maid had told them about the christening party, and Serena herself signaled them the night before we left.”

“The lamp in the window! But why? I know she was upset when Duncan married me, but I thought it was becoming a case between the pair of you.”

“It was not. Serena would flirt with any man. If I seemed to respond, it was only to keep her out of your hair and Duncan’s. She knew I was not interested.”

“Well, if she saved Duncan, I can forgive her nearly everything else,” Mary said. “I expect she told Ewan he was dead because she still cares for him.”

“I don’t think so,” Neil said with a sigh. “It’s true that she had a notion once to become a countess, but she told me that Duncan frightens her. I think, in the end, she just balked at murdering him. She was jealous of you, because the old earl’s death made you a countess, but I think she meant only to punish you. She did not foresee any other consequence to her actions. She just didn’t think, that’s all.”

“I think she does care for you, though, Neil.”

“Perhaps she does,” he agreed, “but I don’t want a wife who could even think of doing the things she has done. I told her that much when I sent her home, and I told her, too, that she had better confess to her father what she had done, for I mean to tell him if she does not.”

Mary nodded, agreeing that Caddell had every right to know. She looked for Duncan and saw that he was talking to two of his men near the door.

Neil said quietly, “You love him, don’t you?”

She said simply, “More than I ever thought it I could love anyone.”

“More than Gentle Ian?”

She smiled reminiscently. “Ian was very dear to me, Neil. He made me feel beautiful and loved, and he taught me to care deeply for the creatures of the land and for people in need. Before, although I tried to be kind, it was because it was my duty, but I don’t think I cared from my heart. I had held myself apart for too long from everyone who was left to love me. Ian took me out of myself.”

“You did love him, Mary.”

“Oh, aye, I loved him very much.”

Behind her, Duncan said lightly, “I hope you’re speaking of me, sweetheart.”

A little guiltily, she said, “We were talking about Ian.”

“He can rest in peace now that Breck has gone to hell.”

“Still, I’m glad that Allan’s blood is not on your hands, sir,” Mary said.

He put an arm around her shoulders. “I’m glad of that, too, lass. I’d have spitted the devil without a blink, mind you, but it was better done as it was.”

“Do you mean to report his death to the authorities?”

“I’ll drop a word in Argyll’s ear, and Rory’s, but I think that’s all I’ll do. We do not want a full inquiry, after all.”

Mary glanced at the children, back near the fire again with Bardie, warming their hands. “No, we don’t,” she said. “I’m not certain what did happen, it was so quick, but Pinkie and Chuff certainly had a hand in it. I think it likely that Ewan pushed him, but I don’t want the children questioned.”

“No,” Duncan said, “because from the way you’ve described it, it might as easily have been you who fell into that pit, sweetheart, and I don’t want them realizing that, either. In any event, we can’t know exactly what happened.”