Page 110 of Seduced By the Reckless Highlanders
Angry and depressed once more, she threw herself onto the bed, and despite all her turbulent thoughts, she fell asleep, fully clothed and with a deep frown on her face.
Minna was woken next morning by Jamie’s hand shaking her roughly by the shoulder. She jerked into wakefulness, startled, then looked up into her brother’s face, which wore an expression of peevish annoyance. He threw some fresh clothes onto the bed for her.
“Lorna said I must give you these,” he informed her. “She is worried about you.”
“Then let me see her!” Minna yelled. “Why are you keeping me here?”
“To stop you embarrassing both me and yourself!” Jamie was once more absolutely furious for no reason. “I am not having my sister behaving like a nun, giving out alms to all and sundry. It is embarrassing.”
Minna felt as though she was banging her head against a brick wall.
A maid set a tray of breakfast on her table and brought in some washing apparel before giving Minna a sympathetic lookand hurrying away with the supper dishes. She sighed. At least she could be thankful that the staff were on her side.
“Are you going to let me out?” she demanded. “Because if you do not, I will find my own way out.”
She looked at the window. The walls on this side of the castle were covered with thick-stemmed ivy, and Jamie knew that his sister was as agile as a monkey. If she said she would climb out of a window she would do it; he had no doubt of it.
Jamie sighed irritably. “If you give me your word you will not leave the castle,” he said sternly. “Because if you do I will send the guards after you and I really will put you in the dungeon this time.”
“I will not leave the castle.” she promised solemnly. The words were meaningless to her, since she had already planned to make her escape as soon as she could, but she could see that her brother believed her. He always did, since he had never known her to tell a lie.
“Eat your breakfast,” he ordered. “After that you may go as far as your bedroom and no further. You will not go down to the village or anywhere else.”
Minna nodded. She ate and washed quickly then went to her room to change. As soon as she opened the door she saw Lorna standing by the window with a cup of ale in her hand, her face a mask of anxiety.
Lorna turned at the sound of the door opening, dropped her cup, then came rushing over to Minna and threw her arms around her. “Oh, Minna, I was that worried about ye!” she cried, burying her face on Minna’s shoulder.
It was not lost on her that Lorna had called her by her given name, something Minna had always asked her to do, but which she had always steadfastly refused to, saying that it was not her place.
Minna held her friend in her arms while Minna wept, and after a few moments, when she had calmed down a little, Lorna looked at her mistress, studying her face minutely for a few moments while she cupped it in her hands.
“Did he hurt ye, hen?” she asked anxiously.
Minna decided not to worry her friend more by telling her about Jamie’s slap. “No, he just angered me beyond endurance,” Minna replied as she stroked a tendril of Lorna’s hair behind her ear and smiled at her. “I think the whole exercise was meant to intimidate me, Lorna. If that is so, then it has not worked, since I am more determined than ever to do what needs to be done.”
“Please dinnae dae anythin’ dangerous, Mistress,” Lorna begged, gripping Minna’s hands tightly.
“I will not, Lorna,” Minna assured her friend. “Now, you will stop calling me ‘mistress.’ I insist on it. My name is Minna, and that is the only name I will answer to from now on.”
Lorna nodded. “If ye wish, Minna,” she answered with a smile.
“Now, I am going into the village,” Minna said. “But I need my brother to think I am occupied with something else.”
Lorna thought for a moment. “A bath? He willnae dare come intae the room then!”
Minna laughed, clapping her hands. “That should give us at least an hour’s grace. “Lorna - you are a genius!”
“I have been tellin’ ye that for years!” Lorna laughed.
CHAPTER 11
The bath was duly ordered, but Minna was long gone by the time it arrived. She had changed into her breeches and shirt, added an old, patched sweater and a workman’s woolen bonnet into which she tucked her hair. Then she sneaked down one of the secret passages with which the castle was riddled, and out into the fresh air. She crept under the shadow of the few trees that grew around the castle and headed for the village.
The quickest way to get there measured no more than quarter of a mile away from the castle, and once the path had passed through the few trees that grew around the castle, it skirted the loch before going around the edge of the woods and into Cairndene. Minna was striding along, looking at the ground to try to avoid the mud from the previous night’s rain, when a familiar voice rang out in front of her.
“I knew it!” Jamie cried as he stepped out in front of her. “I knew you would try this!” His blue eyes were blazing with anger, but for once he did not reek of whisky.
Minna stopped short, then tried to dodge around him, but he caught her easily, grabbing her by the upper arms and forcing her backwards towards the loch.
