Quinn: A Scottish Outlaw (Highland Outlaws Book 2) (5 page)

“Ye have my word,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

Grabbing the bundle, he turned back to Catarina, who had remained silent, clutching her baby close. “Follow me.” He crossed her large chamber and cracked the door, peering out into the hallway.

“’Tis empty,” he whispered, glancing back. “Just stay close to me.”

“Where are we going?” she whispered.

His eyes looked heavenward for patience, then he pulled the door closed. “We are escaping—with our lives I pray.”

She swallowed and straightened her shoulders. “There is a hidden passage in the lord’s bedchamber.”

A jolt of relief shot through him. “Lead on,” he said.

He followed her to the opposite side of the room and opened a large door that led into a massive chamber. The fire already burned bright in the lord’s hearth and candles were lit along the mantle and tabletops. 

She froze in the middle of the room, her eyes welling with fresh tears.

Quinn grabbed her arms, looking her hard in the eye. “Yer husband has no wish for ye to mourn him at present.”

She nodded and swiped at her eyes. “This way,” she said, walking toward a large tapestry. She pulled the heavy folds back, revealing a narrow door. “It winds down below the kitchens and comes out beyond the outer wall somewhere. Henry told me of its existence after James was born. Supposedly, no one else knows about it. He said I was to take James to safety if the keep were under siege.” Her voice dropped as she peered into the darkness.

Quinn grabbed a lantern from the large mantle. “Tread carefully,” he said. “These stairs are narrow.”

She glanced back with a regretful heart at the surrounding warmth and finery. Then, taking a deep breath, she stepped down into the bleak unknown.

Catarina cradled James close. Stale, musky air filled her lungs. Still, she breathed it deeply and evenly, focusing on the rhythmic sound instead of the hard, sinister stone walls, which seemed to ebb inward whenever she looked up, the tunnel becoming narrower and narrower.

“’Tis a trick of the mind,” Brother Augustine had told her when she first accused the walls of shrinking. The warm lantern light had softened the lines of his strong jaw. “I will lead us to safety. Ye think only of yer breathing and the babe asleep in yer arms. The rest ye leave to me.”

The tunnel began as a narrow stairwell and eventually leveled off, sloping and turning now and again. Stones and tree roots broke the surface of the ground, signally they had breached the keep itself. Given how far they had walked, she knew they likely had passed beyond the outer wall, and still the tunnel continued. For the briefest of moments, she glanced down at the baby asleep in her arms and to her surprise she smiled. Her husband had been murdered, her dignity and life threatened, and now she was escaping her home, her safe haven with nothing but the ruined dress on her back and a lone monk for protection—and still, she smiled. And the sole reason for the warmth that filled her heart was James. Since first she pushed his little body from hers, she had never once been allowed to hold him for so long. 

Brother Augustine glanced back, a frown marring his handsome features. “The tunnel stops up ahead.”

Her heart started to race, her breathing forgotten. She pulled James closer, not daring to take another step. Her eyes remained fixed on the path ahead. Brother Augustine hastened forward, but the lantern light reached the solid wall first. She gasped. “Our way is blocked.”

“It can’t be,” Brother Augustine said calmly as he set down the bundle and lantern. His hands splayed wide against the stone, feeling the surface, then moving to the periphery. He dug his fingers into the edge, disturbing bits of stone and dirt. Then, planting his feet one in front of the other, he bent his back, leaning into the stone and started to push. She held her breath, listening to his sustained groan and the pounding of her own heartbeat. Her eyes darted around her. The walls of the tunnel were closing in. The crushing weight of the earth above threatening to flatten them where they stood. 

“Do not panic,” she said out loud.

He turned, threw back his hood, and flashed her a smile so exquisite that it somehow expanded the tunnel in her mind and made her legs feel even weaker. “I never panic,” he said. “I promise ye that.” Then he turned and renewed his battle. The rock shifted. A torrent of dirt and stones rained down his back as the wall gave way to his strength. She breathed deep the fresh air. “I see the night. It is working!”

His hands shifted from the wall to his knees while he caught his breath. “Just a little more,” he said, glancing back. With a growl, he put his shoulder into it. Slowly, the opening grew wide enough for him to pass through.

As if to mark the occasion, James roused in her arms and started to fuss.  Stepping out into the night, she inhaled deeply and let her head fall back, savoring the cool air on her face. She did not wish to move. She wanted to savor that moment, the sweet relief of it all, but James’s fussing erupted into woeful tears.

Brother Augustine cupped the babe’s head. “’Tis a wonder he slept this long.” 

Catarina nodded and pressed kisses to James’s forehead and cooed, trying her best to calm him.

~ * ~

Quinn stepped back, giving Catarina space and time to soothe her baby, but after a while, he realized the babe’s sobs only worsened. Drawing close, he tried to decipher exactly what she was doing. She kissed his forehead again and again and hummed a gentle tune, but she barely rocked him nor had she fixed his blanket. The unshed tears gleaming in her eyes were all the encouragement he needed to offer his aid.

“His arms have come free from the swaddle,” Quinn said.

She looked up at him, her eyes wide, and nodded before turning back to her baby. Brows drawn, she started to tug on the fabric while at the same time trying to hold down James’s squirmy arms.

Once more amazement struck Quinn. “Do ye not know how to swaddle him?”

She looked up at him. In the bright moonlight, he glimpsed wet tears now streaming down her cheeks.

“No, I do not,” she said, her voice trembling. “My husband was very strict about James’s care. I…I was able to hold James once, sometimes even twice a day, but it was Elizabeth, my nursemaid, who tended him.”

Understanding pained Quinn’s heart as he looked at Catarina with fresh eyes—she was a mother who had never been allowed to mother. “Let me show ye,” he said softly.

He crossed to her side and untied the bundle he carried. He laid the blanket out and set aside some fresh linens. Then he gently took James from her arms. “First, let’s remove the soiled cloths.” He unwrapped the strips one by one. “We’ll bury those to avoid leaving a trail,” he said. Then he set about swaddling James in fresh strips, adding an extra layer beneath his bottom.

“There now,” Quinn said, scooping James into his arms. “Now, walk about like this and rock him. He’ll find the movement soothing.” He paced back and forth with a little bounce in his step. “Ye try,” he said to Catarina.

She backed up a step. “No,” she said, “You are doing so well already.”

Ignoring her protest, Quinn closed the distance between them and placed the baby in her arms. “Now walk about and rock him.”

She mimicked his movements and after a while, James’s cries lessened. She smiled at Quinn, and the sight of her unabashed joy broke his heart. To keep a mother from her child was unforgivable. He swallowed the anger that rose inside of him. It was too late to undo the past. He grabbed the bundle. “Come. We must away. I’m afraid he’s going to keep on fussing some until we find some milk.” 

With a gentle hold above her elbow, he led her away from the tunnel. Soon, they reached a wide field of flax. “Keep low,” he said, and they remained hunched over until once more a thick canopy of forest surrounded them.

It was nearing late spring, and they were close enough to the Highlands that the night sky never fully claimed its cloak of darkness. Under the prolonged twilight sky, Quinn could see a farm in the distance. James’s whimpers had turned to pained cries.

“His wait is over, my lady,” he said, pointing to the farm. Desperation flooded her eyes. He hated to leave her, but it could not be helped. “Keep rocking and soothing him just as I showed ye.”

Catarina had never felt more helpless as she watched Brother Augustine cross the open meadow, bent low to keep out of sight. James’s cries hurt her heart in a way nothing ever had. She had never been allowed to stay in the room when he had begun to fuss. Henry had often reminded her that she was a lady raising a lord, a master of men. Her role was not to nurture an infant. He feared she would be unable to part with their heir when he turned six and would be sent away to foster with another noble family. She had pleaded with him, arguing that she would rather make the most of the time they had together and deal with the heartache when James moved away. But Henry, as he had in all things, insisted he knew best. And now, she was a mother incapable of soothing or caring for her son. And although she was grateful to Brother Augustine for his help, it pained her that a celibate monk knew better to care for her baby than she.

She paced among the trees, staying out of sight but close enough to the forest edge to watch for the brother’s coming. Suffering imbued James’s hungry cries, twisting her from the inside out and bringing stinging tears to her own eyes. She pressed her wet cheek to his wet cheek and cooed in his ears promises of relief. When at last she spotted Brother Augustine hunched over, crossing the field, her heart filled with gratitude.

He jogged the last distance to her side, holding up a costrel. “Goat’s milk for James,” he said, smiling. Then in his other hand he held up a dead pheasant. “And for us,” he said. “Although ye and I will have to wait until later on.”

With a shaky laugh, she reached for the milk, but then her smile faltered, her joy smothered by panic and the continued din of James’s desperate cries. “How can we administer the milk? Surely, he cannot drink the same as you or I.”

“’Twill be alright, my lady,” Brother Augustine soothed. “After my sister birthed her third child, she fell ill and was unable to nurse for days, but her daughter did not go hungry.”

She chewed her bottom lip while she watched him open the bundle and set aside the clothing he had taken from Elizabeth’s cupboard and the extra linen cloths before he spread the blanket wide.

“First we’ll change over his swaddle again, and then we’ll feed him,” he said. “Lay him down.”

Catarina watched in amazement while Brother Augustine’s clearly practiced hands swaddled James in a flash. Then he gathered her son in his arms and took hold of one corner of the blanket. “Dip this in the milk,” he said.

She nodded and unplugged the costrel and dipped the tip of the blanket then handed back the sodden fabric. She watched him gently press the wet tip to James’s mouth, wide still from his painful cries. And then to her amazement, James latched right onto the fabric and began drawing out the milk.

“Miraculous,” she breathed. Kneeling beside them, she stoked her baby’s soft scalp while he fed.

“May I try,” she said to the monk and was surprised when he said, “Of course,” and immediately placed James in her arms.

She smiled nervously. “In my heart I expected you to refuse me just as Henry would have.”

Brother Augustine pressed her hand. “He is yer son, born of yer body.”

Catarina looked into his kind, black eyes and despite the horrors of the last day, she could not help but feel blessed.  A savior had come to her in the form of a holy and chaste man. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for all you have done. Truly, the lord will bless you for your kindness.”

She relaxed into the rhythm of feeding James. A magic filled her heart as though angels’ wings beat inside of her. Her face ached from smiling. She had simply never experienced a feeling so wondrous as feeding her own baby.

“This method will not sustain his health for long,” Brother Augustine said. “But it will satisfy his needs until we get where we’re going.”

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“We mustn’t linger. The farther we are from Ravensworth the better. Given what has already transpired, I hate to imagine what more Sir Rupert is capable of.”

Catarina shuddered at the mention of Rupert’s name, but Brother Augustine was right. If Rupert could murder his own brother and blackmail his brother’s widow—there were no limits to his wickedness. She pressed a kiss to James’s forehead. His eyes were beginning to show hints of amber like hers. “You will live,” she whispered in his tiny ear. “I promise you. Whatever I must do, whatever I must sacrifice, you will live and reclaim your birthright.” The tiny baby in her arms stared back at her, filling her with peace, and then slowly, his lids grew heavy.

“He sleeps,” Brother Augustine said, jumping to his feet. Then he took the blanket and folded it into a triangle and gently secured James close to the warmth of her chest. “This will help ye carry him. It’ll take some of the weight away.”

“But he is so light,” she said.

“Aye, but he might not feel so light after we’ve covered enough ground to consider making camp.”

“Making camp?” she gasped. “In other words, we are to sleep out of doors.”

Brother Augustine smiled. “Do not fash yerself, my lady. I’ll teach ye how to do that too.”