Page 87 of Highland Ruse

Large hands clamped around Delilah’s shoulders. “What is the meaning of this?” she demanded with all the outrage of an offended noble.

“Ye’ve deceived me—and I know this because Lady Elizabeth Seymour just arrived an hour ago.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Delilah had expected the dungeon.

The guards were not kind in their act of half carrying, half walking her down the length of the hall. A quiet whimpering sound behind Delilah told her Leasa was sobbing.

They stopped before a door, but it was no dungeon—it was MacKenzie’s solar.

Delilah was shoved inside and Leasa was pushed into the room after her. She landed on the hard ground with a cry of pain. Delilah immediately bent to help her, but several men held her back.

“She can rise on her own, the clumsy wretch.”

Only after Leasa struggled to her feet did Delilah notice there were more in the room than the soldiers and MacKenzie.

There, standing beside his desk, were two women she recognized with such suddenness, she had no idea how she’d missed them in the first place—Liv and Elizabeth.

A part of Delilah wanted to run forward and embrace Liv, to bask in the affection of a familiar face when the last few weeks had held so much chaos.

The little gray cat, Fianna, peered at her from Liv’s lap. It was all she could do to keep from stretching an arm out to pet Fianna’s thick, silky fur.

Liv and Elizabeth both kept their faces impassive, but Delilah knew with stomach-clenching certainty what they must both be thinking of her betrayal. They sat perfectly still, Elizabeth regal in a burgundy gown with her honey-blonde hair piled beneath gold netting and Liv equally as beautiful in a plain blue dress, her red hair plaited in a simple braid.

She wished they were alone so she could explain. Instead they were separated by a heavy wall of silence and unspoken accusation.

MacKenzie turned toward Elizabeth. “Well? Do ye know them?”

Delilah’s heart scampered into an erratic beat. Elizabeth could condemn them with a single word. Then again, doing so would condemn herself as well.

Lady Elizabeth looked Delilah and Leasa over and shook her head. “I’ve not ever seen them before.”

MacKenzie’s eyes narrowed for a moment in consideration. “A MacLeod sympathizer, then,” he muttered in Gaelic. He nodded toward his guards and spoke with clenched teeth. “To the dungeon.”

The rough hands were on her once more, clamped at her shoulders and partially dragging her. This time the journey was a greater distance and down several flights of stairs. The final descent plunged them into near darkness where the air was wet, and the odor of metal and damp earth nearly choked her.

A dungeon.

It was a far cry better than the gallows. Though Delilah would have fought then. Most likely she would have died trying, but she would have regardless.

Their chances of escaping were far higher in the dungeon than facing certain death.

MacKenzie opened a large barred door despite its scream of protest. “Since ye were so concerned, I figured I’d ease yer mind before yer death.”

With that, the women were shoved hard into the room and the door immediately slammed shut behind them. Delilah turned to find MacKenzie twisting the key. He gave her one more hard look before slinking back into the darkness, away from their cell.

A single, narrow window framed the moon and allowed a square of its fair light to fall onto the floor before them. Something shuffled in the darkness beyond where they could see.

That something was in the cell with them.

A low moan sounded in the darkness, and shivers raked down Delilah’s spine.

Leasa pressed her hands to her mouth, but it was not enough to squelch the sound of her cry.

A shape emerged from the shadows, ragged and large.

Delilah slipped her fingers into her pocket where the lining had been cut away to make the dagger at her thigh more accessible. She crouched low, her muscles coiled to strike, to fight.