Page 33 of Tangled in a Highland Conspiracy
How can I help him?she thought desperately. Could she somehow find the escape tunnels under the castle, burrow in, and rescue him? Could she dress up in a guard’s uniform, steal the key to his cell, and sneak him out somehow? What about dressing as a maidservant? They had to go in and out of the cells all the time. But no, she would be too recognisable, even wearing a disguise. What if she could scale the walls of the castle and climb over the turrets? She knew the castle like the back of her hand. She could easily get down to the dungeons, but she would probably fall and die or severely injure herself.
Then she realised how idiotic she sounded. Her plans were nothing but foolish fantasies, and even if any of them could succeed she could not carry them off by herself. The fact that she was considering them at all showed how desperate she was becoming.
Ailsa sighed miserably as she remembered the hopelessness evident in Ramsay’s slumped shoulders as he was led away. What could she do? There must be some way out of this, but she could think of no one to ask for help, except perhaps her father. He was a well-respected Laird with plenty of influence. He could surely manage something.
Molly came in just as she was about to throw herself onto her bed. She took one look at her friend and her face clouded with anxiety. “Are you all right, Ailsa?” she asked anxiously. “You look dreadful. I heard about what happened outside. The whole place is abuzz with it.”
“I am fine, just very sad,” Ailsa replied. “Ramsay is innocent, but he is determined to make himself a martyr. He keeps saying that John’s murder was his fault even though he had nothing to do with it.”
Molly moved around behind Ailsa and began to undo her hair. “Why does he want to do that?” she asked, frowning. “Is he protecting someone?”
“No,” Ailsa replied. “He really believes this is all his fault. I want to start a search for the killer but I have no idea how to get started and I do not know who to ask for help.” She shrugged. “It’s hopeless, Molly.”
“You care about him, do you not?” Molly asked shrewdly as she teased out the last strands of Ailsa’s hair before picking up the brush.
“I love him.” There; she had said it out loud, and there was no going back now. “I love him with all my heart, Molly.”
“But you hardly know him!” Molly was incredulous. “Ailsa, you are infatuated because he is tall, handsome, and tragically blamed for something he didn’t do. I admit it is a very attractive combination, but he could be executed or jailed for life. Why waste your time on him? Find someone more worthy of your love.”
“There is no one more worthy,” Ailsa snapped. “Or if there is, I have never met him. I am not the kind of woman who is swayed by the sight of a handsome face. I am not so stupid!”
“Forgive me, Ailsa.” Molly was contrite. “I had no intention of upsetting you. I merely wanted to tell you to be careful.”
Ailsa saw her friend’s face in the mirror and immediately felt wretched. “Do not listen to me, Molly,” she told her. “I’m sorry, but it has been a very upsetting day.”
Molly smiled at her in the mirror as she finished with Ailsa’s hair. “Do not worry,” she said soothingly. “We all have them.”
Ailsa nodded, sighed, then stood up and made for the door. “I must go and see my father,” she declared. “Something very unjust is about to happen and I must stop it.”
“What do you mean?” Molly asked, concerned.
“An innocent man is going to be convicted of a crime he did not commit.” Ailsa’s voice was grim. “And I am going to stop it.”
* * *
Outside her father’s study, Ailsa squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. She gathered every ounce of determination she had before giving the door a perfunctory knock and barging in. She found her father sitting behind his desk, holding hands with her mother. They were very close together and Ailsa had the feeling that she was interrupting a private conversation.
“I need to speak to you,” she told the Laird firmly.
“It is customary to knock and wait for an answer.” Her father was deeply irritated. “Good manners cost nothing, Ailsa.”
Ailsa felt a surge of rage assail her. What did something as unimportant as a lapse of etiquette matter when a man’s life was at stake?
“Sit down, love,” Lady Davina said gently to Ailsa, before giving her husband a reproachful look. “Let her speak, Malcolm. It will do us no harm to listen.”
The Laird sighed, but as his eyes rested on his wife, Ailsa did not miss the slight smile that curved his mouth upward for a second, and the softening of his expression. It changed as he turned back to Ailsa, but by then the spell had been cast, and Malcolm McBain was now willing to listen to reason. The Laird of Mulrigg could simply not resist Lady Davina’s enchantments.
Ailsa knew that her mother was not really a witch, but she could twist the Laird around her little finger with hardly any effort at all. Ailsa had asked her once how she had learned to do her magic, and her mother had simply replied, “With love, my darling.”
However, that was not what she was thinking about now. “I wanted to talk to you about Ramsay Ormond,” she said. “He is being very unfairly treated.”
Her father chose to misunderstand Ailsa’s meaning. “As far as I know Laird Ormond treats all the prisoners in his dungeons very well,” he said, looking surprised. “I have seen them myself, and I do not think the Laird is a bad man, even though we are, to all intents and purposes, enemies. We were coming closer to an agreement about the disputed land when all this nonsense started.”
Ailsa shot to her feet as a spear of rage shot through her. “The death of a man is not nonsense, Da!” she roared. “It is a tragedy, and it is an even bigger one when an innocent man is blamed for it. Ramsay Ormond is not guilty of this murder, and it is a miscarriage of justice that he is sitting in a dungeon awaiting life imprisonment or even execution!”
The Laird’s anger was rising to meet her own. “And what proof do you have that he is not the killer?” he demanded harshly. “Did you see the killer?”
“Ramsay chased him and fought with him,” Ailsa replied furiously. “And I saw him when he came back. He had the killer’s blood on him, and when he saw John’s body he was devastated. Those tears were real, Da. No one could have pretended to weep like that.”
