Page 104 of The Scottish Bride
“The tunnel you mentioned?” James Lindsay asked.
Listening, Tamsin remembered that he had once asked her why she had not simply taken the tunnel out of the castle on the day she escaped. It seemed so long ago.
“Aye. It starts in the hillside and goes under the postern gate to the back wall of the keep. I can get inside by the servant’s staircase tucked in the width of the wall and get up to the parapet. It is narrow though. Only a few of us can go that way.”
“Gil and I will go with you. We all learned the way as lads,” Gideon said. “The rest can distract the soldiers with some commotion, while we go up to the parapet.”
“Good. For now, we will wait on the villagers and more darkness,” Liam answered. “Lady Tamsin can wait here with the lads who are tending to the horses.”
Listening, Tamsin scowled. Waiting was not her preference, but Liam had been adamant that she could not risk going inside. Yet as she stood with nothing left to do, fear swamped her again. She knew how dangerous this was for all of them. If anything went wrong, Liam and the others could be killed.
“I will go up the hill to see if the castle gate is open,” she told Liam.
He nodded. “Be careful. Stay out of sight.”
Walking up the hill between the trees, she glanced again at the disturbing sight of the cage on the battlement. In the increasing darkness, a torch flared high up, revealing a girl’s silhouette there. Someone moved nearby, presumably a guard. Tamsin moved upward, hidden by thick scrub and overgrown shrubs. She searched for a better vantage point to watch the gate.
Nearing the top of the slope where the massive castle block rose, she could not see the gate that was recessed behind the arched barbican. But she saw that the drawbridge was down. They were expecting someone—perhaps the Samhain revelers. Perhaps the garrison did not mind a little celebration.
Edging her way up the slope, she stood at the top, keeping near some upward-thrusting trees, careful not to be seen. But her cloak billowed outward in the wind, even as she held it down. As she turned to go, she heard horses’ hooves thudding toward the drawbridge.
Were the guisers coming now, some on horses? Poised to run, she knew Liam would want notice when the guisers were coming. She could help in that at least. She turned.
Not guisers, but four knights riding for the drawbridge. Tamsin backed away, recognizing the leader—Malise Comyn. She whirled away, but heard one knight shout and heard another canter toward her over the grass.
She ran, cloak flying out, but felt her cloak yanked upward, the brooch and fastening choking her. Stumbling, she fell to a knee only to be dragged up by her cloak. Then strong gloved hands grabbed her arm and lifted her as if she were a straw doll, tossing her over the saddle and into his lap.
He controlled his horse, rounding it, and peered closely at her, ripping away the linen veil that obscured the side of her face. Sir Malise grinned.
“Lady Thomasina! I thought it was you. Welcome home.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Climbing the slopewhen the plans were in place, Liam heard shouts and laughter from the direction of the village. Torch flames floated toward the castle, carried by men and women in strange costumes with odd beastly and comical shapes. Liam went back down the hill among the trees.
“Get ready,” he said, then looked around. “Where is Tamsin?”
His brothers turned. In their disguises, he was not certain which was which; he had not noticed which one donned the green hooded cloak, mask, and antlers, and which dressed like a nun, masked in black robes and white veil.
“She went up the slope,” one said. Even their voices were similar. “She probably came down a while ago.”
Hearing a shout, Liam turned as one of the grooms tending the horses ran toward him. “They got her! They have her!”
“What is it?” Liam and James Lindsay ran toward him.
“The lady! They took her! A knight on a horse—she went up to look for the open gate just as the men rode through. One came like the very devil and grabbed her.”
“I will meet you on the parapet,” Liam growled. He did not wait to hear more, but strode through the woodland and up the hill closer to the back of the castle. Behind him came the green man and the brawny nun. He waved them on. He and his brothers knew every inch of Dalrinnie and could get inside faster than the others.
But he shook with fury now, and must collect his ire, let it fuel him. Now, damn the man, Malise had Tamsin as well as Agatha. The worst had happened, with worse to come if he did not get inside to snatch the women from danger—and make short work of the man who had plagued him, one way or another, for years.
Sir Malise Comyn had harbored rancor against the Setons for too long. But Liam knew that his own grudge, now, was far more justified. The time had come for recompense, retribution, and an end to this—Malise, the fate of Dalrinnie, all of it.
He cleared the hill, driven by urgency, fear, anger, his brothers behind him. In the shadows at the back of the castle, he found what he was searching for under heavy undergrowth and arching branches—the old stone that blocked the entrance to the tunnel he and his brothers had used as boys. With a heave and shove, and the help of the nun’s strong hands—Gideon?—he pulled the stone aside to reveal the tunnel.
Crouching, he stepped inside, coughing from musty earth and timber. He had not been inside the tunnel for years; he and the twins, their sister, too, had used it in their games, but their father had forbidden it, fearing a collapse. Now it was shored up by old wood and overgrown roots. He tore at roots as he went, crouched and on his knees in places, half-standing in others. His brothers came behind him, doing the same.
“We have passed the postern gate above us,” he said. “We are nearly to the walls of the keep. Where the way slopes up, we will step out into the space between the keep’s double stone wall. The we can find the steps up to the parapet.”
