Page 58 of Winter Longing
“Shit,” he hissed under his breath, hindsight coming as it did, too late.
"Seize him," Tavis growled, red-faced with rage, his command slicing through the cold air like a blade.
Chapter Sixteen
Time was cruel, stretching endlessly in the damp, airless dungeon. The only markers were the faint shifts in the shadows cast by the single sputtering torch and the occasional creak of the iron-bound door as guards came and went. Cole had tried to keep track of the changes in their keepers, but it didn’t really matter. Most of them avoided speaking to him anyway, brushing off his questions with gruff indifference. Only Rory and Somerled, and less generously Davey, when their turns came, offered scraps of news.
Tank was amused by their short shifts, anywhere from two to four hours, but with no regularity that they could figure out a pattern.
“Must have a pretty good union here,” he’d remarked.
In the beginning, when they’d first been thrown in here, Tank had talked quite a bit, trying to keep up their spirits. Cole wasn’t sure if he should be worried now, as the hours dragged on, that Tank had become increasingly silent. Cole felt terrible for Tank—he hadn’t done anything wrong. There was no reason for Tavis to have imprisoned him as well. Apparently, the Sinclairs employed a mindset ofguilt by association.
The stink of the chamber was unbearable. The pot they’d been given for their needs was foul and humiliating, sitting in the corner, a nasty reminder of their indignity. Cole hated it. Hated that they were fed—better than he expected, to be fair—but treated like animals all the same, with metal plates being slid under the gate of the iron cage.
He paced when Tank didn’t, muttering curses under his breath, his fists clenching and unclenching.
He thought the Sinclairs must not keep many prisoners, as there was only this one cell, which he and Tank shared.The generous size of it might suggest that many people could be jammed in here, Cole figured fifteen to twenty if the laird didn’t care too much about a person’s comfort. He might guess that was of little concern since there were chains on the wall, dangling to the ground, the end of them outfitted with thick iron cuffs just large enough for a man’s wrist. He supposed he should be thankful that wasn’t their circumstance, chained to the wall.
It was Somerled, many hours after they’d first been thrown in here, who finally brought the first news Cole had been clamoring for.
Ailsa was all right.
“The lass was carried straight away to her chamber when we returned,” he’d whispered through the bars, “half the women in the household fussing over her. She’s warm, safe. Sleeping off whatever draught they gave her.”
Cole relaxed slightly, though he still kept his fingers curled tightly around the bars. “Good,” he murmured, though his tension didn’t fully ease. “And Anwen?” He thought to ask.
“She’s fine too. They’ve been seen to, both of them. Luck, if you ask me, that they went into the woods when they did.” He’d paused, awkwardly adding the reason they’d done that. “Seeing to personal business—what timing, eh? The maid said they felt it—the snow crumbling down the mountainside—heard a roar, and sadly, came to the tree line just in time to see the men being buried. Anwen said they were frozen, shocked. Then when it was done, Peile was the only one they saw. His hand was sticking out of the snow. They dug feverishly, she said—and I dinna ever see that maid do anything feverishly—and pulled him out. He wailed all the way, she said, as they dragged him into the trees—well, ye saw his leg, I’d be wailing, too.”
The anger that had been constant since he’d been seized by the Sinclair soldiers gave way to a surge of relief. He letout a long breath, pressing his palms into his eyes. “Good,” he muttered, the word heavy with exhaustion.
But even the knowledge that she was safe didn’t erase the bitterness. It wasn’t just the injustice of it—it was the sheer absurdity. Yeah, he’d overstepped boundaries, he was sure—but damn, you didn’t put a guy in jail for kissing a woman! He had plenty of time to reflect on that, by the way, why he’d kissed her. He hadn’t planned it, obviously. Hadn’t thought to himself if we ever do find her I’m going to take her in my arms and kiss her. He’d just reacted, his relief—his joy!—at the moment possibly being the most overwhelming emotion he’d ever known. He hadn’t thought, he’d just acted. And touching her, needing to feel her, to know that she was alive, had been his unconscious priority. The kissing part, well, that was just a furtherance of his joy, seemed natural at the time, in that moment.
Tavis didn’t see it that way, obviously.
He got that part, too, how it must have looked to the MacLaes standing, open-mouthed, watching. It didn’t look good, not for the woman who was expected to wed Alastair MacLae to be kissing another man.
Still, it didn’t mean he needed to be locked up. Certainly, Tank shouldn’t be made to pay for Cole’s crimes.
“Will he hang us, you think?” Tanks’ voice broke into Cole’s thoughts. “He’d hang us, right? Or...what? Do they have medieval firing squads, stand us in front of those archers? The ones we trained with?”
Willing to be distracted, Cole suggested, “Maybe they’ll pit you against me in an arena, a fight to the death—knowing damn well you’d be the likely winner.”
“Hey, don’t count yourself out so easily,” Tank argued. Cole could plainly hear the smirk in his voice. “You’re a scrappy little guy.”
Cole chuckled despite himself. “That’ll take me far in the 14thcentury.”
Quiet for a moment, until Tank spoke again. “Disembowelment?”
“I think that’s used with something else,” Cole mused. “Like drawing and quartering.”
“That sounds like a good time,” Tank laughed.
“Flaying,” Cole offered as another possibility.
Tank grimaced. “I’ll take the hand-to-hand combat with you—sorry, dude.”
Another minute of two of quiet while Tank stood at the gate, leaning against the bars, and Cole sat with his back against the wall, his knees drawn up, arms laid over them.
