Page 44 of A Temptress in Tartan

Chapter Fifteen

Lachlan was in the midst of a dream where he was waiting at the gates of Whittingehame for Elizabeth to come home to him. The morning mists faded as the sky overhead brightened. And he heard her calling his name. “Douglas.” And louder a second time.

Suddenly Lachlan was yanked back to reality, startled awake, to find a man bending over him, his rancid breath in Lachlan’s face.

“Wake up, sorcerer, before I toss ye with cold water!” the man taunted as his fingers gripped tight around Lachlan’s arm. “Time to get up.”

For a moment, Lachlan wasn’t certain where he was. The dream had left him disoriented. But then he felt the weight of the manacles on his hands, the cold stone beneath him, and the straw that scratched his cheek, and it all rushed back.

He was in gaol. He’d been tortured. Was the man here to take him to Swinton again? After Elizabeth had left, Swinton had come back, and instead of taking him to the torture chamber, he had striped him there, in his cell, and he’d endured twenty more lashes.

One . . . two . . . three lashes had fallen on his back. Despite his determination to remain unaffected by the lash, a gasp escaped his throat as a sharp stab of intense pain tore through his already abused back.

The slip of sound had made Swinton smile. “Ready for three more?”

“Why don’t you just kill me now?” Lachlan struggled to keep the fear from his voice. He had to stay in control. He didn’t fear dying, but the pain was wearing him down. “I’ll never admit to the charges against me.”

Swinton’s smile slipped and became a frown. “Every moment of every day will be filled with slow agony until I get what I want.”

Three more lashes struck his back, leaving red welts burning against his flesh. Lachlan clenched his jaw.

Swinton might be ruthless, but he was no match for Lachlan’s own resolve. No amount of torture could pry a confession from him. And no force under Heaven would ever make him reveal the names of others who might be witches just to make his torment stop.

“Perhaps you need more persuasion,” Swinton growled as he gave him six more lashes, then six more, and more, until Lachlan trembled from the pain. Had that memory been days ago, hours, or only minutes? He no longer knew, except that it seemed like forever.

But now a different man stood over him. “What are you waiting for?” the man asked as his eyes glittered with a strange illumination cast upon his face by the torch. “The king has requested you be moved to better quarters, and that his physician attend you.”

Overwhelmed with emotion at the thought of no more torture, Lachlan sucked in a relieved breath. “I am freed?”

“Nay,” the man said, helping Lachlan stand. “’Tis simply a reprieve. But if I were ye, I’d be grateful fer that much. Others here are nae so lucky as that tae have friends in high places.”

King James, a friend? More like a madman. But Lachlan wasn’t about to argue if it meant putting some distance between himself and this place. He staggered to his feet and gratefully followed the man from his cell and into the bright light of day.

Outside the tolbooth, Lachlan recoiled from the light. After days of darkness, the sunlit sky was almost too much. He squeezed his eyes shut.

“Hurry up,” the man who’d released him said with a tug on Lachlan’s manacled hands.

“Give me a moment.” Lachlan remained where he stood, breathing in the fresh air, letting it slide through his lungs before exhaling. After a few moments, he slowly opened his eyes, allowing them to adjust to the bright light before he started forward once more.

A carriage waited several steps away. “Get in. Ye’re tae be delivered tae Haddington Tower. They’ve made up a room fer ye there. I’ll be yer warder. So, if ye make things easy fer me, I’ll make things easy fer ye. Agreed?”

Lachlan could only nod his agreement as it took all his energy to climb into the carriage and collapse back against the squabs. Pain sizzled along his nerves, his flesh, his back but he barely let the sensations register. All he could think about was perhaps, heaven help him, perhaps there was hope to survive.

*

Elizabeth stepped past the guard and into the room the king had made for her husband at the top of Haddington Tower. At the sight of Lachlan curled on his side on a narrow bed her heart stumbled. His clothing was soaked in blood and manacles still bound his hands. She turned back to the guard. “Please take him out of his chains.”

“I cannot.”

“Where can he go?” she pleaded, with her heart in her throat. “Can you not see he is in no condition to fight you or anyone?”

The guard pressed his lips together as his gaze shifted from Elizabeth to his prisoner then back again. “As you wish,” he finally agreed.

With one of the keys attached to a ring on his belt, the guard unlocked the manacles. They clanked against the floor. At the sound, Lachlan’s eyes opened and his hands flexed as though testing the feel of freedom once more.

The guard turned toward the door, but Elizabeth stayed him with a hand on his arm. “Might I ask one more favor? I will see you are compensated handsomely if you will find me a basin of water, and send someone to the Nungate Inn and ask Reid Douglas to send his cousin a spare set of clothes.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” the guard said, then left.