Page 84 of Captured by a Laird
“Wedderburn is many miles away, but we’ve dawdled here long enough.” Patrick held out his hand to her again. “I don’t think we need to wait for him to die to share a bed, do you?”
“I’d die first.”
“Shame to make us wait for what we both want,” Patrick said, raking his gaze over her. “But you’re not truly necessary for this. Ye may remain here if ye wish.”
This had to be a trick. The Blackadders would not give up this easily.
“’Tis your daughters who are the heiresses,” Patrick said with a smile that sent a chill up her spine. He turned to his men. “Take the wee lasses.”
“Don’t touch them!” Alison cried. She fought to get to her daughters, but she was held fast. “Nay, ye can’t take them!”
Her daughters’ screams rang in her ears as two men wrested them off the ponies and onto their horses. The breath went out of Alison.Please, God, no!
“Ye can’t do this!” She kicked and bit the man who held her, but she couldn’t break free.
“I’ll take the mouthy lassie,” Patrick’s brother said.
“Mother!” Beatrix cried out as from he lifted her from the other man’s horse, plopped her in front of him, and fastened one beefy arm around her.
“Patrick, take me instead,” Alison pleaded. “Take me and leave my daughters!”
“Ye must know I can’t leave the wee heiresses behind—at least not alive,” Patrick said, then turned to her daughters, who were wailing their hearts out, and said in a falsely pleasant voice, “Ready to ride?”
“Don’t leave me here!” Alison cried. “I’ll do anything ye say.Anything. Just take me with my daughters.”
“And the good prior said ye were an unbiddable lass,” Patrick said. “But then, he doesn’t know much about women.”
CHAPTER 34
“David, wait,” Will called from the floor above.
“I can’t,” David said over his shoulder, and continued down the stairs two at a time, with Robbie close behind him.
“But I know where they’ve gone!”
David came to an abrupt halt and leaned back to look around the curve of the wheeled stairs at his youngest brother.
“Bea left a message,” Will said. “Come see!”
A short time later, David stood with his brothers examining a childish drawing scrawled on the stone wall.
“Bea must have used this blackened stick from the fire,” Robbie said, picking it up from the floor.
“Her mother will be angry—” David started to say, but then he remembered that both mother and daughter were gone.
“She signed it so we’d know it was from her,” Will said, pointing at the large smudged “B” beneath it.
“’Tis only a drawing,” David said, disappointment weighing him down like a boulder.
“Will’s right. See, that’s the three of them riding,” Robbie said, pointing to the three longhaired stick figures on four-legged creatures. “They’re going to this building with a wall around it. Do ye suppose it’s a castle?”
Perhaps the child did mean to leave them a message. David was afraid to hope.
“Isn’t that a cross on the building?” Will said.
“Then ’tis not a castle, but a church…” David thought aloud as he examined the scrawled drawing more closely. “Those are trees there, and that wavy line must be a burn.”
He ran his hands through his hair.Think! Where did Alison take them?It was obviously a place the child had seen before. There were only the three of them in the drawing. No matter how anxious Alison was to leave him, she would not take the girls very far on her own. It had to be nearby.
