Seduced by a Rogue (22 page)

On the thought, she stepped to the chamber door and touched the latch. Hesitating long enough to send a prayer aloft, she
lifted it.

Gibby had not locked the door.

Rob made a mental list of things he needed to do before his departure, then sought out Fin Walters to tell him to look after
things in his absence.

“Don’t share this information with anyone,” he added. “Especially Dow.”

“Aye, sir,” the steward said, nodding. “I’m mum.”

Rob then told his oarsmen to slip out of the tower without drawing attention. “Prepare the galley now,” he told his helmsman,
Jake Elliot. “I’ll meet you at the beach as the tide begins to turn unless a storm blows up. If we row out of the bay then,
we’ll be ready to sail toward Annan on the spring tide.”

The helmsman nodded. “A good notion, sir. We’ll find ourselves against the outflow from the Firth for a time, but ’tis better
than fighting a spring tide out o’ the bay. If ye truly want to go quiet, though, we could leave from the beach and pick ye
up in the cavern afore the tide gets too low. Then none would ken that ye’d gone.”

Agreeing to that plan, with full confidence that Jake could get the men to the boat without drawing attention, Rob retired
to his chamber to prepare for bed.

As he did, an enticing image of Mairi as she had looked at supper captivated his thoughts. The candlelight had turned her
smooth skin golden and her hair to silver-gilt. She had not worn a veil or caul that evening but had worn her thick plaits
simply, coiled at her nape.

A few tendrils had escaped, and a long one had persisted in tickling her cheek. Again and again, she tucked it behind her
right ear with a fingertip. It would stay for a time only to escape as soon as she gestured or nodded her head.

More than once he had nearly reached to tuck it back but restrained himself. He found it harder each day to remember that
she was a captive and not a friend.

He knew now that abducting her had been a much graver mistake than he had realized, because no sensible woman would ever forgive
such an act or the man who had committed it. At the time he had thought only of his goal, and Alex’s, and his belief that
he had hit upon the way to achieve it.

The best thing he could do for her now, and for himself, was to persuade her father to submit quickly, so he could take her
home again. He could not hope that Mairi would ever forget what he had done, but perhaps, in time…

Rob’s thoughts went no further, because he was sure that his lifetime—however long it might be—would not be long enough for
him to win forgiveness, let alone to win her heart. He was a fool even to be contemplating such things.

He would do better to get on with the business at hand.

Accordingly, he retired, giving himself a mental order to wake before low tide. Then he slept deeply until his appointed time.

Awakening in a chamber filled with moonlight, and hearing the rhythmic sounds of the waves below his window, he got up, dressed
quickly, and stole downstairs, past the hall where many slept but all was quiet and into the kitchen where embers in the fireplace
cast orange-gold light on the hearthstones.

Taking a lantern from a shelf there, he lit a twig from the embers and used it to light the lantern. Then he went down one
more level to the storage cellar.

A small room opened off the cellar, where they kept buttery stores—jugs of whisky, ale, and claret. At one corner a tall door
led into the tunnel. He unbarred it, leaned the two heavy bars against the wall, and opened the door. Coming back on the long
ebb, they would be unable to use the cave, so he did not bother to pull the latch chain through before he shut the door and
rapidly descended to the wharf.

The galley awaited him there with several of the lads holding it against the swell. The water was already lower than he liked,
so he doused the lantern, jumped in, and they were off. They emerged from the cavern without incident, and headed toward the
mouth of the bay. By the light of the full moon, he could see that beaches below the northern end of the eastern cliffs were
already showing.

A full moon or a new one produced spring tides, rising higher and falling lower than normal. Leaving before the tide reached
low water meant a shorter, easier departure from the bay and opportunity for him to use the cavern.

Waiting outside the bay for the tide to turn would add time to their journey, but it would spare the oarsmen, because once
it did turn it would be swift enough to carry them to Annan by dawn.

Spring tides were the most dangerous ones to ride up the Firth, because they ran so swiftly, and the initial inflow up the
narrowing vee of the Firth could create a wall of water as high as eight feet. His men were all experienced, though, and they
knew the Firth well. Even so, they would have to take more than usual care.

“Did you have trouble entering the cavern, Jake?” he asked his helmsman as they waited, rocking with the waves, for the tide
to be right.

“Nay, laird, rode in as sweet and smooth as honey, we did.”

“Aye, we did,” a familiar voice said cheerfully, drawing his attention for the first time to the small shadow between two
of his oarsmen. “I thought sure we’d crash on the rocks, laird, but we did nae such thing.”

“What the devil are you doing here, Gib?” Rob demanded.

“Herself did say I ought to learn all I could whilst I were wi’ ye, so I thought I ought to learn about the rowing.”

“He said ye’d given him permission, laird,” the helmsman said grimly.

Rob shook his head, but said only, “We’ll see what Fin says to you about telling lies, my lad. I doubt you bothered to ask
him
if you could come along.”

“It come on me after I heard ye talking,” Gib said. “I didna like to trouble Fin, so I betook me out the window and followed
some o’ your men to the boat. We be rocking a good bit just a-sitting here, like. Will we be off and away soon?”

“I hope you enjoy yourself when we do, because if you get sick, I’ll likely throw you overboard,” Rob said sternly. “Sakes,
but it would serve you right if I took you straight back now and woke Fin up to hand you over to him. I cannot do that, so
I’ll leave you to explain your absence to him yourself when we get back.”

“Aye, sure,” Gib said, undaunted. “It’ll be grand, though, meantime.”

Rob turned away to hide a grin, then glanced back at the tower, where doubtless the lass lay peacefully sleeping.

Mairi, dressed and wearing her cloak, waited at the window until she saw the galley row in toward the cave below the tower
and depart soon afterward toward the mouth of the bay. In the moonlight, she saw Rob clearly, standing in the stern near the
helmsman as he had before. She had no idea what time it was, only that it was late, the moon was high in a cloudy sky, and
the tide had not yet begun to turn.

She made her bed, picked up a bundle of the few necessities she would need and, taking a candle to light her way, hurried
downstairs. Tiptoeing past the hall landing, then on down and across the kitchen, she hurried down to the lowest level.

E
asily finding her way to the room with the cave entrance, Mairi took a last peek outside the storage chamber to be sure no
one had followed her. As she turned back, her candlelight revealed two heavy bars leaning against the wall between tall sets
of shelves. Relieved that Rob had not arranged with someone to replace the bars after he left, she examined the long iron
door handle, seeking its latch.

At first, she saw none and, with a sinking feeling, wondered if there was a secret to opening the door. Perhaps, the laird
did not want anyone, inadvertently or otherwise, leaving such a door open to an enemy. Still, there had to be a latch. She
saw a heavy bolt at the bottom, but it was open. Even so, the door would not budge.

Holding her candle higher, she spied the iron latch at once—a strong-looking one—attached near the top of the door, much higher
than ordinary latches and well above her natural eye level. A chain at the free end of it ran through a ring near the center
of the door. But the chain was long enough for her to reach on tiptoe.

Spilling a small pool of wax from her candle onto the floor far enough back to be out of the way of her skirts and still cast
candlelight on the door, she set the taper in the wax and held it so until it would stand alone. Then she moved back to the
door and pulled the chain. The latch lifted, but the door still resisted her tug. So she let go of the chain to use both hands.

The latch dropped right back into its iron notch.

She would have to hold the chain with one hand and pull harder with the other at least until the door opened enough to let
the latch clear its notch.

The process was awkward, because the thick timber door was heavy and fit snugly. But she managed it at last. Turning to retrieve
her candle, she moved into the colder air at the threshold of the spiral stairway with a sense of accomplishment.

Lifting her skirts with her free hand, she stepped carefully down to the first step and reached back to adjust the door so
that no one looking into or entering the storage area would see at once that the door was ajar. Such a likelihood at that
hour was small but not impossible. And she did not know how much longer it would be until low water would give her access
to the shingle beach.

As she neared the end of the spiral portion of the stairs, she felt her skirts stir in an icy draft that slipped under them
and swirled up around her feet and legs.

Her candle blew out, and she heard distant moaning.

With a shiver and a few second thoughts, she decided against going back to find another candle and peered into the blackness
ahead. As her eyes adjusted, a pale glow from below penetrated far enough up the stairway for her to discern its narrow stone
steps. Putting one hand to the slimy wall and realizing she had forgotten her gloves, she reminded herself that the stairs
would be slippery, too, and continued carefully down them, seeking the light.

Her intent was to take advantage of the low water to follow the shore outside the cave until she came to a path leading up
to the clifftops. There had to be such a path below Senwick, where Rob beached the galley. How much any guard might see of
her from the ramparts she did not know. She had not been able to see the shore below when she had stood up there. But the
water then had been high.

Even in the light of the full moon, she thought she could keep the watchman from seeing her if she hugged the cliff face as
she made her way along the shore.

She ought likewise to be able to conceal herself on the way up the path. And, once she was atop the cliffs, she would be able
to see where she was going without having to concern herself with any vagaries of the shoreline.

She and Rob had ridden the track north along the clifftop, and Annie had told her that at Senwick, it met the track heading
west to Borgue village. It went the six miles straight on to Kirkcudbright as well. Mairi’s intent was to follow the cliffs
to the head of the bay and make her way from there to Castle Mains, where she would surely find someone willing to help her
get home to Annan House.

The light improved, and as she emerged from the enclosed spiral stair to the steep open stairs against the cave wall, she
saw moonlight pouring through the tall arch of the cave opening below to her left. The long stone wharf stretched along the
wall toward it, and the shiny dampness of the cave floor gleamed below.

She could feel a stronger, more direct breeze through the opening, and the moaning she had heard was louder. It was, she decided,
as if a wind god outside were blowing over and across the bay, sending his breath humming past the opening and creating the
odd sensation of wind dancing over the cave walls and drifting up the stairs, as if to see where they led.

Then, as if her wind god had inhaled, the fickle current of air drifted down again, giving her cheeks an icy caress as it
passed her on its way back outside. She was smiling at her own whimsy when she heard a distant dull thud above.