The Scottish Bride - Catherine Coulter [71]
“As I told you, she escaped me last week. She actually managed to run away from me. And she escaped me again yesterday. She moved very fast. I was reaching for her, and then she was in the water, being swept downstream. She’s a strong girl. She pulled herself out, since there was no one else about to do it.”
Sir Lyon wasn’t much impressed. “She’s a female. Find a way to get her. Hold her down so she can’t run away.”
Erickson looked toward the fireplace, its grate empty now, and the painting of Sir Lyon’s great-grandfather, William Thatcher Vallance, hanging above it. He’d been a terrifying old man who had left more bastards in the area than anyone before or since. He said, “When Ian and I were boys, we were always searching every nook and cranny of Kildrummy, trying to find secret passages. We didn’t find any, didn’t see a single ghost. We just got tangled up in a lot of spiderwebs and our boots run over by a battalion of rats. But we did find a very private way into the castle, through a very narrow ivy-covered door that gives onto a private garden just outside the library. The Kildrummy steward, Miles MacNeily, spends a good of time in there, but he is soon to leave, I hear.”
“Yes, he came into an inheritance,” Sir Lyon said. “A good-sized one, I hear. Miles wouldn’t care what you did with Mary Rose, in any case.”
“The odd thing is that I believe he would. I remember he was always asking about her, always seemed to enjoy seeing her. I also remember that he was always very nice to her when she was younger, gave her treats, that sort of thing.” Erickson rose and began pacing back and forth in front of Sir Lyon. He looks heroic, Sir Lyon thought, a very fine-looking young man with clear eyes and a noble brow, possibly even more handsome than poor Ian, who shouldn’t have died stumbling drunk over a cliff. He still didn’t understand how it could have happened. But Ian was long gone now, and how it had happened simply didn’t matter anymore.
What mattered was right here, staring him in the face. Erickson MacPhail, the man who was willing to buy his niece and overlook her unfortunate parentage. And his dearest Donnatella would benefit once she got over her snit. He would take her to Edinburgh, introduce her to every suitable gentleman between the ages of twenty and eighty. She would be fawned over, poetry written to her lovely eyebrows; she would be feted, spoiled rotten. That would make her happy, perhaps even content, once away from her cousin, who had somehow managed to steal Ian away from her. No one could credit it, but it had happened. Sir Lyon had marveled at it. He doubted now that anyone remembered Ian had wanted Mary Rose. No, most folk would think of Mary Rose, see her next to her cousin, and it would be Donnatella who’d lost her betrothed in that dreadful accident. And Donnatella, bless her lovely self, never corrected anyone who showered condolences upon her beautiful head for her Ian’s death. And Donnatella, who surely couldn’t have been involved in Ian’s death.
Sir Lyon said now, “Whatever, Miles MacNeily isn’t important. I suppose you could try your plan. As you know, however, the Griffins have returned and also Lord and Lady Ashburnham, Lord Barthwick’s sister and brother-in-law, have come to visit. What with the servants also hanging about, there are a lot of folk for you to avoid. Do you know how you’re going to get her out of there?”
“Not as yet, but I shall think of something. Time grows short.”
“Aye, it does,” said Sir