Page 34 of A Laird and a Gentleman

Cameron smiled. “Now do you believe me?” His voice mingled with the sounds of the night. “You had nothing to do with the earthquake. There are many things in this world that cannot be explained. We can either make ourselves mad, trying to figure them out, or just accept what happened and move on.”

Mariam closed her eyes and let the words pour over her. “You’re right.” She released a ragged sigh into the night, letting Cameron’s certainty dispel her fears. How could she cause the world to shake? She might have an unusual gift that she didn’t fully understand, but to think she was capable of such a thing was almost absurd. Even so, their other troubles remained. She opened her eyes and sought Cameron out. The question she’d wanted to ask earlier came back to her. “What will you do with my father at Falkland Palace?” She shouldn’t care about what happened to him. He’d done nothing to deserve her concern. Though suddenly, she had to know what fate would await her father.

“It is my intention to turn him over to the king. It is not up to me to pass judgment.” Cameron released a heavy sigh. “And, if I am to be truly honest with you, I want him as far from you as possible. I’ll not have him inciting others to see you as he does. For you are no witch, no matter what he claims.”

But what am I? Mariam thought with a growing sense of despair. What if whatever was happening to her was only just the beginning of something much bigger, and more powerful? She might not have been the cause of the earthquake but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t be the cause of something else.

Chapter Ten

Mariam came awake with a start. Nothingness curled around her, black and thick and oppressive. Tension vibrated in the air of her bedchamber. She lay there on her bed, ramrod stiff, listening. Yet no sounds came to her.

Her heart sped up as she glanced around, searching for some source of light. She’d extinguished the candle when she’d lain down, and the fire in the brazier had long since died out. That there was no light filtering in from behind the shutters told her it was still night.

Everyone in the castle had gone to bed hours ago. And yet she couldn’t shake the sensation of peculiar oppression. Mariam brought her fingers to her brow, smoothing a sudden ache at her temple. Had she been dreaming?

Her eyes stared into the darkness as she tried to remember. Then recall came to her. Illness was coming to the castle. Mariam bolted upright in bed. It had been a fleeting dream—only images of the sick lying in makeshift beds in the great hall. Of her standing over them, not knowing what to do. The danger was real, and judging from her dream, it would affect many of those within Ravenscraig’s walls; she just didn’t know when.

Mariam lay back down, forcing herself to be calm. She focused on her breathing, pulling a soft breath in and releasing it in a gentle, regular rhythm.

A floorboard creaked.

Her heart gave a leap and then started to pound wildly. She sat up, and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. There was a presence she hadn’t noted before. She stood and, with her hand, searched wildly on her bedside table for the candlestick. “Who’s there?”

A low laugh came from the corner of the room.

Her stomach twisted into a cold, hard knot as she recognized the source. The darkness, and the knowledge that her father was in her room suddenly made it hard to speak. “How are you here?” How had her father escaped his chamber upstairs and made it past the two guards at his door?

“It was necessary to have a little help. You have a traitor inside this very castle. Does that distress you, Daughter?”

Suddenly she remembered Thea’s odd behavior. The way she wouldn’t look Mariam in the eyes, and she knew. “Thea helped you.”

“Very good. Despite her hatred of me, she couldn’t resist the bag of coins I offered.”

Mariam shuddered at the thought of what he’d done to Orrin and Kyle. “Are the guards dead?” She tried to keep the quaver from her voice.

A shuffle sounded as her father crept closer. “Drugged—perhaps poisoned. I’m not certain what she gave them in their food. Either way, it rendered them unconscious long enough for her to release me.”

With shaking fingers, Mariam struggled to light the candle with her flint and steel. After three tries, she created a spark. The wick caught, and as the flame grew, a yellow light spread across the chamber. She startled to see her father not two feet from her.

“You and I have unfinished business.”

She stepped back. “You’ve come to kill me this time?”

“Nay. That would be far too quick an end for someone like you.” He moved quickly, seizing her arms and pinching her cruelly. “If you raise your voice at all, I will not hesitate to render you unconscious.”

“You’re abducting me?” She tugged her arms. He grabbed her wrists. With a lightning-quick motion, he slipped a loop of rope over her hands, and drew the loop taut. Panic rose as he tightened the loop further, rendering her arms useless. “Release me!” Her voice rose louder than she’d intended.

“Are you trying to warn the others?” His hand cracked against her cheek with such force that she fell to the ground. “The louder you are, the more violent I will become.”

Mariam shook her head, trying to clear it of fear as well as the ringing pain of her father’s blow.

“Will you go with me quietly?” He raised his hand to strike once more.

She scooted as far away as the rope’s lead allowed, the room whirling around her. Memories of her childhood clawed their way to the surface of her mind. She saw herself as a young girl, bound at both hands and feet and forced into the confines of a dark cupboard. Nay, Father, not the darkness. Not again. But he didn’t listen to her then. He wouldn’t listen to her now.

“I will go, quietly.”

He smiled a soulless smile as he came to her and pulled her to her feet. “Very good. I would hate to inflict too much damage before we even had a chance for you to provide me with a confession that will send you to the stake.”