Dreamer (Highland Treasure Trilogy) (27 page)

He stared at it, his face growing
paler as his fury grew. The new map clearly pointed out the next stop on this
endless chase. There, a bright red ‘X’ sat in the burying ground of his own
ancestors at his manor house in the south of Yorkshire.

Indeed, this was the last straw.
Well, he wasn’t going to travel to the south of Yorkshire. He wasn’t going to
the south of anywhere. By the devil, he was through letting those three wenches
lead him around by the cock.

Sir Arthur Courtenay turned and
stared into the fire. It was time for those Percy bitches to pay.

*****

John Stewart’s inspection of the
first two trap doors and the tunnels beneath them turned up nothing. Now,
moving across the courtyard, he paused as Tosh and his men rode in through the
low, arched gate. Dawn was just breaking gray and cold, and a steady rain was
beginning to fall. Athol did not even notice.

“Nothing, m’lord!” The veteran
warrior leaped from his horse. “The hills are as quiet as can be. There are no
fresh tracks of anyone around the castle that we could see. But I do not know how she--”

“How about the village? Any new faces? Anything?”

“We searched, m’lord. And we checked every crofter’s hut and hovel for leagues in every direction! ‘Tis as if she just
disappeared from the face of the earth!”

John Stewart stared at his man,
suddenly conscious of the blood pulsing in his temples. It was as if his heart
were crying out in pain, and he didn’t know which way to turn next. Unlike his
wife, he was not a religious man. But, by the saints, just about then, even
he
could see the value of reaching out in his need. Silently, he sent a plea up to
the heavens.

“I will question my mother.” He
spoke the words almost to himself. What other options remained? he wondered. He
climbed the steps and entered the Great Hall.

“Perhaps I should alert Mistress
Susan to prepare the dowager first.”

Tosh’s words had merit. The last
thing he needed to do now was to frighten his mother with the news that
Catherine simply could not be found.

“Aye. Go on. I still have one more
thing that I need to check on. Tell Susan I’ll be with the dowager in her
chamber presently.”

As Tosh moved off, Athol turned to
the now empty Great Hall, and his mind was immediately flooded with images of
the recent past. Of the first time he’d seen her here, searching for food. Of
the first time he’d escorted his wife into this Hall. Of her beautiful face,
accepting the proffered oaths of fealty from his people. It was almost too much
for him, and he strode quickly to the stairwell.

In a few moments, he was standing
by her door. In his mind’s eye he could see them both, making love by the
window, and he found himself engulfed by the vision of her bewitching smile. Of
those midnight blue eyes that had cast a spell over his heart. Of her
goddess-like body that drove him to madness.

He paused and took a breath by her
closed door. What could ever replace the way her soul had opened up to him from
the day they’d met, giving him glimpses of her innermost thoughts?

But even in her absence, he still
could sense her around him. He could feel her and that tortured him even more,
because he could not find her. This, he thought sadly, is what it is to be
haunted.

Resting a hand on her door, he
gazed at the ledge across the corridor, wishing her here. The sky was gray
beyond it, and he called with his heart and his soul for her to come back to
him. Once again, to be a part of him. To stay forever and ever by his side.

“Catherine!” Involuntarily, he
pushed at her door and it swung open easily on its hinges.

He didn’t have to look into the
darkness, nor even step in, to know that she was back.

“Catherine!”

“I am here, John.”

Her voice came quietly out of the
darkness of her chamber. At that moment, he was quite certain he had never
heard a sound so magical.

Suddenly, he was at her side,
enveloping her in his arms, drawing her so tightly to him that they were molded
as one.

“Catherine.”

Her body was shaking. Her mouth was
as greedy as his, and as their lips met, all his prayers were answered in an
instant. And while his mouth tried to punish and yet find relief, his hands
searched, caressing her body, making sure that she was not harmed. Making sure
that she was real.

He clutched her fiercely to him and
whispered in her ear. “Catherine! Where were you?”

“Hush! Just hold me.”

Her mind was troubled. He could
feel her concerns pounding inside his own head.

Seating himself on the bed and
gathering her on his lap, Athol just held her as she’d asked. She was not the
only one who wanted to be held. He, too, needed her embrace. He still could not
believe that she was real. That, indeed, his wife had returned.

Only a moment of silence passed,
but in that moment the realization struck him that he knew would change him
forever--without her, he was not complete. He was only whole with her beside
him. She was his wife as he was her husband. Catherine possessed him, possessed
his love, possessed his very soul.

“Catherine!” he said at last. He
could still hear the concern in his voice, but he was much calmer now. “Where
were you, lass?”

“I...I had to come back to my
room.”

Athol’s spine stiffened. He could
feel a shadow darken the space between them. The incompleteness of her
statement, her unspoken words, made the answer a lie. He pushed her away from
his chest and tried to look into her eyes in the darkness of the room. He had
been through too much tonight to be able to stomach any more games. She
shivered slightly and held on to his arm.

“You left my bed, but you didn’t
return here. Catherine, what is this all about? Where did you go?”

The sound of steps coming to a
sudden stop by the open door of her chamber startled them both, and Athol
leaped up, turning his anger on the intruder. Tosh stood with a lighted taper
in the doorway. The initial look of shock on the warrior’s face quickly turned
to concern as he stared at his laird’s wife. Athol whirled and looked at
Catherine.

“By St. Andrew!” he exploded. “What
is this?”

She was a mess. A scratched and
bloody mess. Shouting at his man to bring in the light, he placed her on the
edge of the bed and ordered Tosh to fetch Jean.

Kneeling before her and turning her
face toward the light, he tried to get a better look at the source of the
blood.

“‘Tis nothing!” she said softly.
“Just a bit of carelessness...a briar bush...”

They were scratch marks, indeed.
Running his hand through her soft mane of hair, he found thorns from briar
bushes still tangled in her tresses.

“Where did you disappear to? I
searched every inch...”

The sudden appearance of her
serving woman with more light stopped Athol’s questions. Stepping back from the
bed, he watched observantly as Jean began fussing over her mistress. A moment
later, another serving woman appeared with an ewer of water.

Going to the window, Athol pulled
open the shutter and glanced around the chamber. These walls were solid stone.
The iron-barred window offered no escape, either.

One of the kitchen workers arrived
and quickly began to build up the fire. Her gaze, too, flitted about the room,
collecting information to report to the castle’s inhabitants.

“Leave the rest of the wood. Out
you go,” he ordered, shooing her out the door. Catherine was watching him as
Jean dabbed gently at her face. He moved around the chamber. Spotting her cloak
on a small settle beside the hearth, John walked toward it and studied it
closely. The garment was caked with dirt, and the thick wool cloth had thorns
and pulls in the material, attesting to her confessed encounter with a briar
bush. But there were no briars inside the castle, that much he knew.

As he picked up the cloak, his gaze
fell on his own dirk lying beneath the garment. Picking up the weapon, he
turned it in his hand. He looked up and found Catherine’s eyes on him.

However hard he tried to be
angry--knowing that she was holding back, that she was not trusting him with
something of the gravest importance--still, all he could see in her eyes were
tenderness and affection for him. And that was enough to undo him, for his own
emotions were raw and far too close to surface.

Going to the door, he stepped out.
Tosh was there with a number of others.

“Go and tell Susan to put my mother
and the household at ease. Find Auld Mab, as well.”

Without another word, Athol strode
back into the chamber and crossed to the window. Jean had finished doctoring
Catherine’s face and was taking clean clothing out of the wooden chest. As she
prepared to dress his wife, Athol moved to the hearth and crouched before it,
building up the fire himself.

More than anything else right now,
he wanted to gather Catherine in his arms and carry her to his own chamber
where he would assail her first with questions before making love to her.
Somehow, he needed to release some of this madness that roared in his veins,
and he was uncertain which one of those two things would work best. But he would wait, knowing that first of all, she must be tended to.

But there was no way that he could
bring himself to leave her--not for any reason. The fear of losing her
again--fear based on his lack of knowledge regarding where she had disappeared
to and how she’d gotten back--put him quite on the edge.

Catherine’s soft spoken dismissal
of her serving woman gave him the sign to turn around. He kept his mouth shut
and his temper in check until Jean had shut the chamber door on her way out.
Then there was no holding him back.

“Catherine Percy Stewart! From now
on, I will have a guard accompany you between the rooms of this keep. After
what you did tonight, under no condition will I trust you to be left alone for
even an instant. After the pain you caused me in finding you missing...after
what my people had to go through...” He went on, pacing back and forth, venting
his anger, scolding her energetically...at first. But soon, the words began to
lose their vigor, fading gradually. Trying to retain his glare, he found his
throat tightening with emotion. He couldn’t stop himself from admiring his
tough, little angel.

Now dressed in a white, long sleeved
nightshirt, with her hair uncoiled and spread like a silky blanket around her
shoulders, her misty eyes shining in her scratched face, John Stewart lost all
desire to scold. He stopped and took a step toward her. Immediately, she rose
from the bed and threw herself into his arms.

He gathered her tightly against
him, pressing his lips against her hair, her brow, lingering on the long, deep
scratches on her face. “Catherine! I thought I would go mad. Where did you
disappear to?”

She didn’t immediately answer, and
he once again felt a stab of pain in his heart. He took a fistful of her hair
and pulled it back gently so he could look into her face.

“Do not, Catherine! Do not think of
a lie.”

“I thought I would be able to,” she
said softly. “But I cannot.”

“Then tell me where you went! And why is it that no matter how hard we searched, we could not find you?”

She used the tip of her fingers to
trace the line of his jaw. “I discovered a secret tunnel.”

“The one at the bottom of stairwell
in this section of the keep?” It was the only one he had not yet checked.

“Aye.” She nodded. “I went through
it to the end.”

“That tunnel is blocked. You
couldn’t have gone out that way!”

“But I did! There is a small
opening high in the wall blocking the passage. I was able to slide through it. But when I reached the end, there were briar bushes blocking the opening into the cave. I didn’t
see them, and before I knew it, I was tangled in them.”

He knew she was speaking the truth.
This much of it, anyway.

“That’s how I got the scratches on
my face. And the dirt on my dress.”

“But why, lass?” he said
exasperatedly. “Why did you decide to do something so absurd in the middle of
the night? And how did you learn of the tunnels beneath the castle?”

She averted her eyes and pressed
her cheek tightly against his chest. “Please, John. Please do not ask me
questions that I cannot answer. I
did
have a reason for this madness,
and I
will
tell you the truth...as soon as I can.”

“And this is the trust of husband
and wife?” John pulled her back so that he could look into her face. “Do you
expect me simply to forget about this and be happy with such a cryptic answer?”

“I simply ask you to trust me.”

“As you trust me?” His hands
tightened on her shoulders. “Catherine, from the first moment we met, you have
never once done as I’ve told you. You have never obeyed any direction I’ve
given. When have you, even once, trusted my judgment? And now you just expect
me to remain silent and trust you regarding something that may jeopardize the
safety of people who depend on me?”

She reached up and took hold of his
hand, pressing it to her shoulder. “I know I’ve been a difficult wife. I admit
I’ve been persistent and stubborn. And I accept the fact that I am nothing like
what you would desire in a woman.”

She leaned her face against his
arm. The simple gesture, added to her softly spoken words, had an effect on
him. Athol’s anger melted away, and in its place he could feel the rippling
tide of affection and love.

“But despite of all my flaws,” she
continued, “I want you to trust me when I tell you that I’ll never do anything
to bring harm to you or your people. Though you believe I have no regard for
the value of your judgment, I have opened up my heart to you, husband. I have
given you a place with the things I value most. I...”