No Other Woman (No Other Series) (29 page)

And he stared down in horror at what lay within the coffin.

At his own corpse.

Then he heard the noise.

Footsteps.

He paused. Listened.

Aye, someone was coming. Slowly. Very slowly. Moving down the steps that led to the main corridor of the crypts.

He swiftly doused his lantern.

* * *

Shawna brought a single candle from her room, sheltering the flame from the drafts within the castle by cupping her hands around it.

She sped down the stairs silently on her slippered feet, pausing on the second floor to be certain that she heard nothing.

She hurried on down to the great hall then, searching it out with her candle held above her head, trying to be quite certain that she wouldn't run into another of her kin.

The great hall was quiet.

She couldn't bear just remaining in her room any longer. And Alistair had heard something from the chapel. And now, she was certain, she heard noises coming from the crypts as well. Moaning sounds, as if the ancient Douglases cried out in protest of the events occurring now.

The chapel led to the crypts.

She shivered.

Well, she wasn't going to be afraid of the dead. Not when they might hold some secret to aid the living.

She hurried down the steps to the chapel, pausing within. The light from her candle was dim, but it slightly illuminated the windows, casting off soft, ethereal colors within the chapel. She circled around, looking for anyone who might sit quietly in the chapel.

Or for anyone who might stand behind the columns in the nave, watching. Waiting.

No one was in the chapel. Of that she was certain.

She found herself walking to the iron gate to the crypts below. It was closed.

But it opened easily.

She hesitated. There was a heavy brass candle snuffer, at least six feet long, for use on the towering altar candles, lying against the far wall. She grabbed it with her left hand and opened the iron gate with the same hand while balancing the candle in her right.

Slowly, she started down the stairs. She was certain that her footfalls were silent as she went down, step by step by step.

She had been in the Douglas crypts dozens of times. She had come often to bring flowers to set upon David's coffin.

But she had come by day.

She had never seen such stygian darkness as she walked deeper and deeper into the bowels of...

Death.

She should turn, she told herself. Turn, and flee back up the steps.

The dead would not hurt her, she reminded herself.

Step by step...

She reached the landing. Iron gates walled in the ancient dead, sleeping with hands folded in prayer throughout the centuries. She tried not to look. She couldn't help but let her imagination fly, for the candlelight was so very tricky. She could swear that she saw movement, a soft fluttering of shrouds.

She could imagine a corpse sitting up, staring at her, accusing her of complicity in murder...

Shawna...

Then, she suddenly heard the sound. An awful groaning. As if a dead man had been struck anew, as if he screamed with pain from the agony of hell.

She nearly screamed herself.

She forced herself to breathe. To look straight ahead. Determined not to see the corpses in their shrouds through the iron gates of the various crypts.

She held her brass snuffer tightly in her hand, moving very slowly, using her free hand to keep herself flat against the wall. Her candle didn't shed much light. The corridor seemed filled with shapes and shadows.

She knew where David's supposed tomb lay within the crypts.

Ten more steps perhaps.

One at a time. She reached the tomb.

Just outside of it, she stood very, very still.

Waiting. Listening.

Then she stepped within the tomb.

She held very still. In the dim flicker of light her candle provided, she saw that the lid of David's coffin had been removed!

She swallowed back a scream, then turned to flee, dropping the brass candle snuffer. But a hand clamped firmly over her mouth and a powerful arm pulled her back to the dead.

Shawna's heart pounded with relief when she heard a familiar voice ask in astonishment, "What in God's name are you doing down here? I've warned you of the danger you face time and time again. Sabrina has been kidnapped, and still, here you are!"

David,
she thought dizzily.
Thank God, it
was
David!
He released her, and still holding her candle, she turned to face him.

"I was downstairs earlier. And Alistair had heard something—"

"Alistair heard something—and sent you down here?"

"No—"

"That damned Alistair—again!"

"It wasn't Alistair's fault!"

"It never is."

Shawna sighed. "He has no idea that I'm here. I couldn't sleep."

"You missed me."

"Don't be absurd. You plague me to madness, appearing and disappearing into the walls, showing up, not showing up, being there, vanishing into the morning mist."

"Ghosts are supposed to do such things," he said, looking into the coffin again and adding angrily, "You shouldn't be here!"

"Alistair and I both heard noises—"

"So you felt you had to find out what the noises were?" he queried softly.

"You do seem to hold me responsible for anything that happens here," she said coolly.

He shook his head. "I can't leave you alone for a bloody second, so it seems. You heard noises, so you just walked down into the crypt, completely unarmed."

"I am not unarmed. I brought the candle snuffer—there. I dropped it when
you
nearly scared me to death."

"Fine weapon!" he mocked.

"It is solid brass and very heavy and I promise, if I were to whack you on the head with it, you would feel it!"

"It didn't occur to you to stay safely locked in your room where you belonged—especially considering everything that is going on here? You're an idiot."

"How kind, Laird Douglas, how genteel! I pray you, m'laird, do bear in mind! There was nothing going on here—until you returned from the dead!"

"Well, I am returned from the dead, and unfortunately, there are things that I have to do here."

David walked around the coffin. He used her candle to light the lantern he had apparently brought down with him, blew out the candle, and used the lantern light to study what remained of the man in his coffin.

Her stomach turned in knots.

"Oh, God, David, what are you doing?" she whispered.

He glanced her way. "Trying to discover just who this bloke might be. I'm assuming he's the convict whose place I took doing hard labor."

The knots in her stomach twisted more tightly. "You were a convict all that time? Doing hard labor."

David glanced at her, realizing that he'd never even given her that much information before.

"Yes," he said simply. "I'd like to try to figure out a way to make sure that this is the body of Collum MacDonald. Then, maybe I can figure out how and why he and I were exchanged for one another."

"David, this man is burned beyond recognition."

"I'd hoped for a ring, a pendant of some kind."

Shawna shivered. Most of the corpses, so long dead, smelled musty and nothing more. But it seemed that the charred inhabitant of this coffin still carried the horrible smell of being burned to death.

"David, please, there's nothing to be learned from this man," Shawna whispered.

"Charming," he muttered bitterly. "He's been kilted in my best tartan."

"We thought he was you!" she said, her voice trembling with emotion.

"Aye, well, there's nothing left to tell who he might have been! Burned to bone, and not much more. I'm amazed anyone managed to dress this mess of humanity."

"Again, I tell you, we thought that it was you."

He sniffed.

"I awoke next to that abomination after the fire!" Shawna told him with soft, furious vehemence.

She was startled when he suddenly came back around to her, his fingers curling around her wrists. He swore softly. "It makes no sense! What happened between the time we both blacked out—and the fire raged? It seems someone wanted me dead, while someone else just wanted it
believed
that I was dead. You were rescued, and I was sold into bondage." He shook his head, confused and irritated that he couldn't seem to figure out where the missing piece to the puzzle lay.

She wrenched free from him, unnerved by his manner, backing against the gate to the vault.

"David, I swear, there is nothing more I can say that will help. After the fire, Gawain found me. He—"

"Gawain. And Gawain instantly knew it was my corpse at your side?"

"Well, I did start shrieking and screaming and crying your name. That probably added to his belief that the corpse was you."

He almost smiled. "What then?"

"What then? For God's sake, what do you think, what then? I was in shock. I was sedated, but I knew that you were dead, that I—"

"That you—what?"

Her lashes fell, sweeping her cheeks. "That I had caused your death."

"What else, what then?"

She shook her head, not understanding. "We wrote to your father and brother. They started work on the memorial. We called the undertaker and the constable."

"Aye, and there was an investigation."

"Of course, there was an investigation. Your father was grief-stricken; your brother demanded no less. He spoke with everyone. He spoke with me. You were buried. Here. In that coffin. And I wasn't afraid to come here tonight because after the fire I came almost every day until—"

She broke off, wincing.

"Until what?"

"I ran away."

"You ran away?" he inquired. "From Castle Rock?"

She nodded. "I—I felt I had to leave."

"Why didn't you stay away?"

She hesitated, knowing she couldn't bear to tell him the whole truth.

"Alistair found me."

"Alistair again."

"All I did was go to Glasgow. I didn't think that anyone would mind much that I had gone away. But Alistair..."

"Alistair what?"

"He eventually convinced me that I had to live on despite the past, that I needed to come home because Craig Rock needed someone to really see to the everyday lives of the people here. He said that aye, he and my uncles and other cousins could easily manage the properties, but that none of them had the heart to keep the character of a Highland village in proper shape and warmth. And I was... I was ill at the time. So I came home again."

"You were ill? With what?"

She shrugged, staring at the ground again. "Shock, despair, melancholy—I suppose."

"Despair?" he queried, a harsh note to his voice.

"I don't intend to continue insisting that I never meant you any ill. If you don't believe me by now, you have become an embittered madman."

"M'lady, it's quite a miracle that I'm not a madman—seeing as how I've lived life for another while I lie here charred beyond recognition."

"I don't know how you came to be where you were!"

He stared at her a moment, then turned away. He lifted the lid back on top of the coffin, fitting it into place, managing to set each nail more or less back into its slot.

"You are always questioning me," Shawna said very softly. "And always refusing to answer me when I ask you questions. David, please, I realize now that someone managed to switch your body with that of a convict, but you owe me more. Please, what happened to
you?"

He set down the steel bar he had been working with. Hands upon his hips, he stared at her.

"I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"You woke up that night, next to a corpse. I woke up days later, on board a convict ship with men sentenced to hard labor for murder and other such crimes. I insisted over and over again to the good captain that I was not the murdering bastard he thought me, but by then, news of the 'death' of David Douglas had traveled far and wide and the fool didn't believe a word I said. I worked his ship in chains for two years, and then I broke rocks in a quarry in Australia for nearly another two before I managed to escape, and, with the help of a friend, began to make my way back here. No matter what I said to anyone in all that time, no one believed I was David Douglas, especially not that good captain. But I don't blame him. I supposedly slit the throat of a poor young girl in Glasgow, and apparently I was spared the hangman's noose because I appeared to be good for heavy labor. I imagine the captain of that ship would have killed me if it hadn't been for a friend with whom I escaped."

"A friend?"

"Aye," he said dryly, "a fellow who managed to keep me alive by convincing me I might find my revenge against you if I did manage to live long enough to escape."

"You've had your revenge these last five years and beyond. I will pay for that night until the day I die," she assured him.

"Will you? Then I can't possibly let you die as quickly as it seems you are trying to do, running about on your own when you know that there is foul play afoot!"

"I cannot just sit still—"

"You will sit still in the future. I promise you."

"Are you quite finished with your corpse?" she demanded as she spun around and hurried to the gate.

Suddenly David was beside her and his whisper sounded against her ear. "Nay, lady, shush, listen!"

Shawna held very still. She heard footsteps in the corridor beyond the vaults. Footsteps.

At least two sets of them.

And the metallic sounds of swords clanging slightly in their scabbards.

Then whispers.

Whispers...

So hushed she couldn't tell if they were voiced by a male or female. She couldn't hear if they were deeply burred or more Anglicized. She couldn't tell anything about the people who were approaching...

Except that their intentions were not good.

David quickly blew out the flame in the lantern he carried, setting it down in silence. He barely mouthed words against Shawna's ear. "Don't move."

The whisperers began to argue with one another. The sound increased, amplifying and echoing as they entered into the vaults Shawna and David had so recently vacated.