Page 14 of A Highland Healer Captured
“Coward,” she muttered, and he huffed the ghost of a laugh.
He led her up a turn of steps to a door banded in iron. It swung inward onto a small chamber revealing a bed with clean linen, a chest, a hearth already kindling, a pitcher and basin, a narrow window arrow-slit widened long ago into something human.
He stepped back.
She stepped in. “A dungeon?”
The door shut between them with a finality that rattled her bones. She spun for the latch, but it did not yield. The lock clunked home. Her fists struck the oak once, twice, thrice.
“Zander Harrison! Ye tiresome brute!” she shouted, fury filling the room to its corners. “Ye open this door this instant!”
He said nothing from the passage. She heard only his tread diminishing, his voice, low and clipped, giving orders to someone waiting.
Skylar thumped her forehead once, hard, against the wood. Then she dragged in breath, squared her shoulders, and started cataloging the room as she had the ruins that morning. If she had to break out, she would. If there was a way to make a lock regret being born, she’d find it.
She needed to get to Ariella. She must. She wasn’t done fighting.
Not by half.
5
By the time she’d tested the narrow window slit, which was too slim for a body but perhaps wide enough for a note, the oiled hinges, and the solid oak bed frame, the latch lifted, and a woman stepped inside with the stride of someone who’d no time for nonsense.
“Lady,” the woman said briskly, without a hint of the same Isle accent in the word that the riders had, to Skylar’s surprise. “I’m Katie. Ye’ll be wanting food and a bit of sense of where ye’ve landed, I presume. I’ve both.”
Katie was small and sturdy, her sleeves rolled to the elbow, her apron clean, her hair trying and failing to escape a kerchief. A tray balanced on one hip like it had grown there. The smell that rolled off it. It was her favorite, barley porridge. With it was a heel of fresh bread and a ramekin of butter, and something green and clean like nettle soup.
“I’m nae a lady,” Skylar said automatically, taking the tray before Katie could set it down and devouring with her eyes. “I’m Skylar.And I’m being held against me will. Cannae ye help me escape from here?”
“Aye,” Katie said mildly, lighting a taper from the hearth. “I imagined as much. Eat while ye tell me the rest.”
It was disarming, the way the woman didn’t flinch or scold. Skylar ate. With gusto. She told herself she was shoring up strength for the battle ahead, not accepting kindness from the enemy.
The porridge went first — hot, salted just shy of properly, perfect. The bread she slathered with a scandalous amount of butter and nearly moaned at the taste. The nettle brew was bright and good against her raw throat.
Katie watched Skylar’s jaw work with an approving nod that reminded Skylar painfully of Shioban. “Better,” Katie pronounced. “Ye’ve color in yer cheeks again. I’m set to see to ye while ye’re here. I’ll bring what ye need within reason, and I’ll say when a thing is beyond me say-so. I’ll translate Hebridean foolishness when it’s useful, and keep it to meself when it’s not.”
“Useful,” Skylar said, swallowing. “They’ve more foolishness than most,yerlot.”
“Aye,” Katie agreed without offense. “But we’re clean and orderly with it.”
Skylar’s laugh startled both of them. It died quickly. “Tell me about… this place.”
“Strathcairn? Walls are strong.” Katie ticked things on her fingers. “The laird? Stronger. His son? Poor bairn, but sweet as honey. He needs ye badly.” Katie’s eyes softened for the first time, earnest enough to tilt Skylar’s heart. “We’ve hopes for ye, mistress. Mind me saying so.”
Skylar set the spoon down. “I’ll nae be bribed by porridge and flattery.”
Katie’s mouth twitched. “Then let me try honesty. Ye’re feared, and ye’re resented, and ye’re admired. Most daenae ken what to call or think of ye yet. I’ll call ye Skylar, as ye wish, me Lady.”
It was so plain, so unadorned a truth that Skylar had to look away to keep her eyes from stinging. “And Laird Strathcairn? What will he call me?”
“Trouble,” Katie said promptly. “And remedy. Both, if ye’re any use.”
Skylar considered the door, then the window, then the line of Katie’s shoulders. “The laddie,” she said, because in the end all roads ran to him. “Grayson. If I help him, I’ll go. That’s our bargain.”
Katie did not answer. She wiped her palms on her apron and lifted the empty tray. “I’ll fetch water,” she said. “And a comb. And I’ll ask the laird when he means for ye to see the bairn.”
“Ask?” Skylar seized on the word. “Ye can… ask him such things?”
