No Other Woman (No Other Series) (28 page)

"I don't believe that," Hawk said firmly, returning her stare. "We have to look very carefully at all the facts and leave no stone unturned in all the mysteries that surround the place. Then, the truth will be known—and what one searches for can indeed be found."

Shawna suddenly found herself assailed with icy chills, sweeping in a fury along her spine. Hawk wasn't referring just to the disappearance of his sister-in-law. He referred to her—and the house of MacGinnis.

"What scares me," Alistair admitted, his mind still firmly upon Sabrina, "is that we can search forever now—and then, a decade hence, perhaps—oh, God, I keep doing this, Hawk! But we could search forever now, and find her bones a decade from now in some small place we missed in our search."

"That won't happen," Alaric said.

"Pray God you're right, but why not?" Shawna asked.

Alaric stared at her. "I do believe that she will appear—dead or alive—by the Night of the Moon Maiden."

Chapter 15

By two in the morning, Shawna remained wide-awake, pacing her tower room.

David had not made an appearance, but then, he hadn't planned on making an appearance. Hawk had told her so—he had simply failed to tell her what David would be doing.

She felt helpless herself, worrying about Sabrina. She assumed that David, most probably with his brother's help, would continue the search for Sabrina throughout the night.

She had to trust in them, and in God, she told herself.

She tried sleeping, tried believing that there would be a method and a plan to whatever David was doing. She tried to tell herself that he wasn't staying away from her because of what had happened in the tunnels, because he had decided she was guilty of deceptions so great that he could not bear to be with her, even to protect her life in his pursuit of the truth regarding Craig Rock.

Sleeping was out of the question.

Pacing the room did nothing to still the restlessness within her.

"David, where are you?" she said aloud to the empty room, but he was hidden somewhere in the walls, he did not respond, and an intuitive sense of emptiness led her to believe that he was definitely not within hearing distance.

In the end, she slipped a white linen robe over her high-necked, smocked nightgown, slippers upon her feet, and exited her bedchamber. She came slowly down the first flight of steps, and held very still on the landing. She stood not far from the master's chambers, near the room where Sabrina Connor had slept. And down the hall were the rooms Gawain, Alaric, and Alistair had chosen within the keep. Not a sound, aside from the wind whistling through the turrets, could be heard. Myer, Mary Jane, and some of the other servants kept quarters on the floor above, near her more recent tower abode, yet not a soul seemed to be about at this hour. Naturally. It was the middle of the night. All doors were closed. What went on behind them, no one knew.

Except, of course, perhaps David. Who roamed the walls at will.

Shawna hurried silently down to the great hall. Brandy remained upon a tray on the large planked table, and she helped herself to a snifter. Gas lamps remained lit there, and something of a fire remained in the great hearth. She sipped brandy, staring at the flames. She looked around at the walls.

"If you're here, come out and talk to me!" she demanded aloud.

She heard footsteps behind her and spun around, her eyes wide.

But David hadn't appeared.

It was Alistair, a snifter of his own in his hands.

"What are you doing here?" Shawna asked.

"Drinking. And you, cousin?"

"I've just come for the fire—and the brandy," she said.

Alistair took one of the high-backed chairs before the fire, watching the flames jump and dance. "It's a curious place we live in, isn't it?"

Shawna, watching him, shrugged. "Not so curious. It's home. We are what we are."

"Highlanders!" Alistair lifted his snifter to her. "A breed apart. We think ourselves great chieftains still, when Scotland and England are joined, when technology rules the rest of the world, and we all seek to rule it!"

She arched a brow to Alistair, convinced that he'd had his share of brandy already.

"I like what we are, Alistair," she told him. "We are more a part of the world at large than you imagine, yet distinct with our tartans, our pipe tunes, and more."

"We work like dogs in the mines," he said flatly.

"We are entrusted with the livelihoods of many."

He smiled, once again lifting his snifter very high. "The great lady magnanimous. Thank God that you are
Lady
MacGinnis."

"Is that a sore point with you, Alistair?" she demanded.

He shook his head, smiling his most charming grin. "Nay, for I've not your talent for leadership, cousin. And I love you—as a cousin should—with all my heart. I wouldn't begrudge you a thing. If you were not
Lady
MacGinnis, my father would be
Laird
MacGinnis, and after him Alaric. And God knows, if it were still the ancient days, Uncle Lowell might well want to battle me for the title, whether Aidan had an interest in it or not. But actually, I do like the sound of the pipes. I like our slightly strange holidays, and I like the wind in the rocks at night, and the whistling in the caves and caverns by the loch. I like our tartans, and our dress, and our stories of beasts and sea creatures and more. I just wish..."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Alistair?"

"I wish that the Night of the Moon Maiden would come and go. I wish that Sabrina would be found I wish that..."

"What, Alistair?"

"Well, there is evil, of course. And it must be rooted out."

"Evil," Shawna said, growing nervous.

But Alistair yawned suddenly, and stood. "Well, I'm for bed," he said quite casually.

"Alistair, wait a minute—"

"You should go to bed, cousin. Did you know that the castle has eyes? They watch you all the time. Ears, too, for it seems that the castle listens..." He cocked his head as if he, too, listened.

"Wait a minute, Alistair, you just said that you want to root the evil out. What are you talking about?"

"Strength," he said after a moment.

"Alistair, please, talk to me—"

"I'm wandering, Shawna, nothing more. Come on, I'll walk you back to your room."

"I'm fine. I can walk back on my own."

"I shall sleep better if I know you are safely in bed."

Shawna sighed. "Fine."

As they walked up the steps together, Shawna studied his face. "You came down just for brandy?" she inquired.

"Aye," he said, then shrugged, flushing. "Nay, I thought I heard something downstairs, something more than the usual creaks and groans."

"What did you hear?"

"Ghosts, I don't know."

"But—"

"Maybe I was dreaming. I heard sounds coming from the chapel, or so I thought."

"Did you go there?"

"I did."

"And?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all. Christ stared down at me from the old crucifix above the altar, and silently bade me go in peace. The chapel was quite empty, and the door to the crypts was securely closed. There. Now you know that I have carefully looked downstairs, and you must go to bed and stay there."

They had come to the door of her tower room. He gave her a cousinly kiss upon the forehead. "Go to bed, cousin."

"Aye. Good night, Alistair."

"And stay in there!" he admonished her.

"Aye, cousin. Good night."

The door closed. She waited until she heard his footsteps receding down the hallway, going down the stairs to the floor below.

Then she hesitated.

Wanting to go out again.

And suddenly, very afraid to do so.

* * *

The chapel in Castle Rock was exceptionally beautiful. Situated off the great hall and down a flight of circular stone stairs, it was half above ground level and half below. Massive stained glass windows that just caught the light of day rose on the upper half of the walls. They had been added during the fifteenth century. Otherwise, the chapel remained just as it had been originally, with old Norman stone design and great archways. The altar top was marble brought from Italy, the beautiful wooden crucifix hanging above it had been carved in Germany in 1256.

Church services hadn't been held there, other than an occasional christening or family event, since Scotland had embraced the new religion years ago—except, of course, in the days when the Stuart "pretenders" to the throne of Great Britain had still held out hopes of returning to rule in glory and the Stuart Catholicism had still held many Highlanders—and Lowlanders, at that—in secret communication. Prince Charles—the son of Charles I, one day to be welcomed back as Charles II—had found haven at Castle Rock along with a number of his supporters. He had sat in the chapel the night he had been hidden here by the Highlanders.

The chapel had always been a matter of great pride to the Douglases.

And staring at the historic crucifix, the windows, darkened now by night, the ancient walls, David was grateful to see that the MacGinnises had maintained it as carefully and lovingly as any family member might have done.

But he hadn't come to savor the beauty of the chapel that night.

Toward the far left of the altar was the iron gateway to the crypts.

The gate slid cleanly open to his touch—the hinges well oiled. The last burial here would have been his own, since his father, by choice, had been buried on his property in America.

Once inside the gate, David set down the steel bar he carried and struck a match, lighting the lantern he'd taken from the chapel. He lifted it high. A second curving stairway with thirty-six steps led down to the crypts below. He descended into the pitch-blackness.

Upon reaching the landing far below, he lifted the lantern once again, looking at the stone corridors that ran in a number of directions from a main hallway. The straight corridor led to steps—twenty-eight of them—at the top of which was a door that opened into the cemetery. But down here, the Douglases themselves were buried, along with priests and servants who had been close to the family. Tombs lined the walls, one for an ancestor who had fought with Montrose against the English, another for an ancestor who had fallen to preserve the life of Mary, Queen of Scots. He paused at the first gateway, where, deep within, the oldest tombs lay, ancestors rotted to bone in their gauzy shrouds. Chilly temperature had preserved what might have been lost, and the insects were kept from their tasks of breaking down the dead by that same cold as well. Services here in the crypt often reminded the living of what was to come.

David paused only a moment, then moved farther down the hallway, seeking his own name upon a vault.

He paused at length. He'd been given quite an extraordinary memorial. Winged angels and serpents guarded the doorway to the crypt where he'd been buried, Latin phrases abounded. Again, an iron gate barred his way to the tomb itself, but like the gate above, it was well oiled.

And unlocked.

He slipped inside.

His tomb sat alone at the rear of the small room, purple drapery over a fine, hardwood coffin. He realized that to the left and right of the room, numerous other coffins and shrouds had been placed as well. Very old burials, some in coffins, some in shrouds, plaques in the artistry of many different centuries proclaiming which Douglas lay upon each shelf. Mary Douglas with five of her children lay to his right, none of them having obtained an age greater than six. They had died by the beginning of the fourteenth century. Laird Fergus Douglas, Mary's husband, lay to his left, alone with Eugenia, his second wife, and four of their children. A second Laird Fergus, son of Fergus and Mary, lay with his lady, Helena of York, below his father's shelf. The script chiseled into the stone stated that Fergus the First had fought with William Wallace, while his son, Fergus, had gone on to fight with Robert the Bruce. Despite the age of the corpses, they were frighteningly well preserved, their features still painfully apparent beneath the gauze of their shrouds.

He had assumed that he might have been buried near his mother's tomb, but she was farther down the hallway, nearer the stairs, and there had been two memorials built to her memory, one above ground, and one below.

Despite the fact that he lay with ancestors who had been noble warriors, this tomb was now dedicated to him.

And he did not lie within it.

"So, my dear kin, who does lie with you here?" he asked aloud.

He walked forward then, removing the purple sheet from the coffin. He studied the closure of the coffin, then took his bar and began to wedge it beneath the lid. The coffin had been well sealed, and it was difficult to find a wedge, but he kept at his work, beads of perspiration breaking out upon his forehead. Eventually, the lid creaked and groaned, giving way to his efforts.

The noise was loud in the night, in the silence of the crypts.

He was quite certain that it would have sounded like a human moan, reverberating throughout the castle.

He needed to hurry. He set the bar down and lifted the lid of the coffin, wrenching free what remained of the nails. He set the lid aside.