Page 26 of Transporting a Ruthless Highlander
Struan smiled at Gavina. “I feel more human now,” he declared.
She hesitated for a second then returned the smile. “I dae as well,” she murmured. She was beginning to think about their night in the inn again. Perhaps Struan had been right to call a halt to their passionate encounter when he did. As he had pointed out, she could very well have conceived a child, and with both of their futures very uncertain, that would have been a disaster.
“Why do you think Kevin did not just kill me?” he mused. “After all, he could have done anything he wanted to. He still could.”
Gavina thought for a moment. “He told ye himself,” she answered. “Because he has power over ye. He can leave ye torturin’ yerself over whether he is goin’ tae kill ye or no’. He is enjoyin’ yer sufferin’.”
“Of course he is!” Struan growled as he thumped one hand into the palm of the other. “It is exactly how his mind works! Do you realize that I have come full circle from one cell to another, and worse still, I have brought you with me?” He stood up and paced the cell half a dozen times, then gave a bitter laugh.
“Then we have tae get out o’ here,” Gavina said grimly. She picked up one of the blankets on the bed and draped it over her shoulders, then walked to the lock on the cell door.
Gavina had plenty of experience opening cell doors, she thought wryly. She had opened many of them with crowbars and some with hairpins in the days when she had to deal with truculent prisoners. However, she had no crowbars today and no longer needed hairpins since her hair was only shoulder-length, so she was unable to use those methods. The only way was brute force, and she doubted that even Struan, with all his strength, could break out of this door. Even if he could, the noise would alert the guards.
She stood gazing at them for a while, thinking and wondering, before she turned back to Struan. “It cannae be broken doon by force,” she told him. “The jailers would hear it. We will have tae dae it by usin’ our wits.”
Struan sighed and moved forward to stare at the lock, as if by doing so he could open it by sheer force of will. Nothing happened, of course, and after a moment he growled in frustration and threw himself onto his thin straw mattress. He had achieved nothing since leaving the ship except to exchange one prison for another. Worse still, he had thrown himself into the hands of his hateful brother again.
Just then, they heard the sound of light footsteps coming along the passageway. They did not sound like those of a heavy-footed guard, and presently they discovered that they were not. They were those of a small woman with a pretty, heart-shaped face, light brown hair, and bright blue eyes that opened wide in shock as she took in Struan.
She looked him up and down from his head to his feet and back again. “Struan! I am so glad to see you! I thought you were dead!” There was a mixture of horror and relief on her face. “But what happened to you?” Then she looked around him to see Gavina. “Who is this?” she asked, frowning as she took in the tall, battered woman beside him.
Gavina lifted her chin defiantly and reached through the bars to shake the other woman’s hand. “I am Gavina McCartney,” she replied politely. “I was the captain of the prison shipWeeping Willow.An’ ye are?” She stared at the other woman defiantly.
May shook Gavina’s hand through the bars, looking rather stunned. “May Telfer, former betrothed of Struan,” she replied faintly. “How did you come to be in this cell together?”
Gavina’s heart sunk. She didn’t know this detail.
“It is a very long story,” Struan told her, sighing. “But Gavina saved my life.”
May’s eyes were round with disbelief. “Tell me what happened,” she said, “but let me sit. I have a feeling that this will be a very long story.”
She went away and returned a moment later with a rough, hard-backed chair. “I have ordered some fresh clothes for you,” she informed them. “And when you have told me your story, I will decide what to do.”
“What do you mean?” Struan asked eagerly.
May bit her lip and stared at him indecisively for a moment, then she made up her mind and nodded. “We will see,” she answered decisively. “Tell me everything. Leave nothing out, Struan, even if it is painful for you. I must hear every bit of information you have. It might be important.”
Struan frowned, thinking that May might have set them a trap. She was, after all, the wife of Kevin. However, she was their only chance of escape. He sat down on his straw pallet again and began to speak. “It started with a storm.”
As the story unfolded, May sat and stared at him, spellbound, while Gavina rolled into a ball on her mattress and watched the other woman as her face changed from horror to fear to anger to happiness.Neither of them interrupted during the half hour it took for the account to unfold.
I am not jealous,Gavina said to herself over and over again. Even if Struan had rejected her, it did not mean he was going back to his former betrothed. She was married now, and she could not undo that situation short of killing her husband, for the church would only allow divorce under very specific circumstances.
“So that is how we arrived back where we started,” Struan said heavily, shrugging.
“Then I believe I must thank you, Mistress McCartney,” May said politely, smiling. However, it was a strained smile, and her gaze did not quite meet Gavina’s eyes.
Suddenly it struck Gavina that she was not the only one who was jealous.
“Kevin has lost his mind,” May stated angrily. “He never stopped talking about you even while you were away and was triumphant when he heard that you were being transported to the colonies but hoped you would die there. He was so disappointed when you came back, but he is happy now that you are his captive. He was—and is—obsessed with you.”
“Why did you marry him?” Struan asked curiously.
May hung her head. “I am so ashamed of myself,” she murmured. “I had my suspicions about him all along. He has always been jealous of you, but my family put so much pressure on me due to our dire financial straits that when he asked me, I could do nothing else but say yes.”
Struan nodded slowly. “I have seen that happening to plenty of other women,” he said sadly. “Try to look after yourself, May. I would hate to see him put you in the same place as my father.”
“There is one way we can stop that from happening,” May said determinedly. “I must set you free from this place.”
