Until you deliver. The words weren’t spoken but they hovered heavy in the air. Aye, she had no doubt she’d be treated like a queen until the day she bore the heir to Neamh Álainn.
He meant to kill her child. Ewan’s child. And replace it with his own seed. The mere thought had her gagging again, and she inhaled sharply through her nose to prevent vomiting all over the bed.
“Here, ’tis better to have it done with. Drink it down. I’ll summon the palace healer to help you through the worst of it. ’Tis said it can be very painful.”
He was so calm about it. How could he discuss murder with a tender smile? The man was a monster. A demon from hell.
“Why would you waste valuable time?” she choked out. She tried frantically to come up with a plan, something, anything to sway him from murder.
He frowned. “What mean you?”
“You seek to rid my womb of the child I carry when I am already nearly half done with the carrying. Losing a babe at this advanced stage can render a woman barren. ’Tis no guarantee I’ll become pregnant right away or at all. You’ve already claimed to all that the babe I carry is yours. If it matters not who I’m married to, why should it matter whose babe I carry? As long as I deliver a child, control of Neamh Álainn is yours. Why would you wait and risk my not becomg pregnant again?”
His frown deepened, as if he hadn’t considered such a possibility.
“I want my child to live,” she said softly. “Regardless of who it calls father. I’d do anything to protect him. In that regard you have the advantage, Laird.”
Duncan stood and paced restlessly in front of the bed. He stopped every once in awhile and eyed her as if trying to determine the truth of her words.
“ ’Tis often said a mother’s love knows no bounds. All right, Mairin Stuart. I agree to your terms. I’ll spare your child’s life, but from this day on you are mine. You’ll not fight me when I seek to avail myself of your body. You will never utter a single word to contradict the account I have given Lord Archibald. Are we understood?”
May God forgive me.
“I agree,” she choked out.
“Then be prepared to depart the castle. We leave in an hour’s time to return to Cameron land.”
“Ewan! Ewan! Wake up for God’s sake.”
Ewan found himself shaken roughly as he gained awareness of his surroundings. He cracked an eye open and glanced around only to find himself cloaked in darkness.
“Caelen?” he rasped.
“Thank God.”
The relief in Caelen’s voice was staggering.
“Mairin.”
The single word sent grief splintering through his head and chest. Bile rose in his throat at the knowledge that right now his wife was with her tormentor.
“Mairin,” he said again. “Where is she?”
The silence was oppressive. He heard his brothers’ breathing in the darkness, knew they dreaded the telling they must do.
“I’m sorry, Ewan. Duncan departed hours past, bearing Mairin with him,” Alaric said in a grim voice.
Ewan sat up, pain ripping through his head. His brothers caught his shoulders and guided him back down again when he nearly fell.
“Where are we?” he demanded.
“The king’s dungeon,” Caelen said, fury laced in each word. “The little bastard Archibald had us all tossed in here after his soldiers bashed you in the head.”
“Cormac and Gannon?”
“Here, Laird,” Gannon returned.
Ice filled Ewan’s veins as everything came back to him in a rush. “Diormid. Where is he now?”
“I’m not certain, Laird, but he’ll have gone from here. He knows any of us will kill him on sight. ’Tis possible he went with Cameron, since it looks that he was working with Cameron all along.”
“The attempts on my life. The arrow. The poison. It must have been him. He had orders from Cameron to kill me. When that didn’t work, he put his petition before the king.”
“I suspect he had the petition working even before Diormid’s attempts on your life,” Alaric said. “He had every angle covered from the start.”
“The question is, if David is involved in this along with Archibald or if Archibald acts alone with Cameron,” Caelen mused.
Ewan put his hands on the rough floor of the dungeon and pushed himself into a sitting position. “Archibald said that David was indisposed and castle rumor confirmed that the king is very ill. I wouldn’t be surprised if Archibald is behind that as well.”
“Are you all right, Ewan?” Alaric asked. “Does your head pain you overmuch?”
Ewan touched the side of his head, felt the warmth of blood, but it was thick and it no longer flowed freely. “I’ll be fine. What’s important is that Mairin not stay in Cameron’s grasp a minute longer than she has to.”
“I’ve sent a message to our men,” Caelen said. “ ’Tis my hope we hear from them soon.”
Ewan stared around the darkened dungeon. “How did you send a message to our men?”
“I might have threatened one of the guards who tossed us into the cell,” Caelen admitted. “I told him that unless he informed our men of our fate that I would spit him on my sword, castrate him, and feed his cods to the buzzards.”
Alaric chuckled. “The man couldn’t leave us fast enough to bear Caelen’s message to our men.”
“How long have we been down here?” Ewan asked as he rubbed more of the blood from the side of his head.
Caelen sighed. “Several hours. One of the guards who obviously feels ’tis best to remain on my good side informed me of Cameron’s departure a few hours past.”
“Son of a bitch,” Ewan swore. “I can’t believe that bastard allowed Mairin to fall into Cameron’s hands. This was all a setup from the beginning. Archibald never had any intention of presenting this matter before David, and he damn sure never had any intention of listening to Mairin or to me. Diormid’s testimony just gave him the sway of public opinion so that when he rendered his judgment, there was no backlash from the other lairds who might have thought he intervened unfairly.”
“I’m sorry, Laird,” Cormac said, devastation in every word. “I should have seen it. I spent every day in Diormid’s company. I fought with him. Ate with him. We trained together. We were as brothers. I would have never dreamed he would betray us.”
“ ’Tis just as much my fault as anyone’s,” Ewan said bleakly. “I trusted him with Mairin’s safety many times.”
Ewan rubbed his hand tiredly over his face and tried to put the memory of Cameron’s hands on Mairin out of his mind. He couldn’t imagine Cameron hurting Mairin because it would drive him insane. The only way to survive this was to turn it off. Turn off his emotions. Turn off the images flashing through his mind with torturous precision.
“Cameron will expect a full-scale attack on his holding,” Caelen pointed out. “He’ll know that Archibald cannot hold us in the king’s dungeon forever, and he knows you’ll come for Mairin. He’ll know it and expect it, so he’ll be prepared.”
“I can’t risk Mairin’s safety by attacking his keep with the might of my entire army. If she was not in residence, I’d give him the fight he expects and not give a damn that he expects it. I’d swarm over his lands like the plague and decimate everything in our path. But I won’t take the risk that Mairin would be caught up in the battle. And if Duncan knew all was lost, he’d kill her out of spite.”
“Aye,” Alaric agreed. “What then do we do?”
“We steal into his keep and take Mairin back.”
Caelen let out a deep breath, the sound loud in the quiet of the dungeon cell. “You make it sound like a simple raiding mission, Ewan. Cameron will expect such a trick as well.”
“We’ll succeed. We have no other option.”
Caelen, Alaric, Gannon, and Cormac voiced their agreement. Silence fell once again as they waited.
An hour later, a sound outside the cell stirred them to action. Caelen leaped to his feet and charged toward the iron bars as a guard shuffled down the corridor, torch in hand.