Page 68 of Rogue with a Brogue
“Linens and winter bedding. If your father comes in here, he’ll open every door, Mary.” Her aunt frowned. “Fortunately, for a time I thought Sean or I might have to hide ourselves—until I finally realized that Walter considered my exile to be a worse punishment than being murdered.”
A few weeks ago Mary would never have believed her father had such a vindictive side. But that was before she’d met Arran, and before she’d been shoved at Roderick MacAllister and then at Charles Calder. They continued on to a door halfway along the hallway. Sarah pushed it open, and they walked through what was clearly an unused spare bedchamber. As far as Mary knew, her aunt and uncle had no children. Had this room been meant for young ones? Or was it for guests who never came visiting?
She shook herself. She and Arran might be in similar circumstances, but they were different people. And there might yet be young Campbell-MacLawrys in their future, even now. They walked to the back of the room and pulled open yet another door, this one leading to a small storage closet. There Sarah stopped and knelt down, pushing aside a stack of hat boxes and a valise to reveal a bare, scratched section of floorboard. Putting her fingers beneath it, she lifted. A section of wall pushed upward, revealing a small, narrow room beyond.
“I’m going to hug you now, Aunt Sarah,” Mary said, and knelt beside the older woman to throw her arms around Mrs. Mallister’s shoulders.
“Goodness! It’s unfinished, because we didn’t feel the need to plaster or paint the walls. And there’s no window, but once we get a lantern and some bedding in there, then you can hug me.”
Together they pulled a careful selection of the winter bedding from the back of the linen closet, rearranging the storage so it didn’t look like anything was missing. The hidden room was perhaps twelve feet long, but it was barely wide enough for one well-built Highlander to lie down in it. Even so, four people could squeeze inside in an emergency. And an emergency was precisely what she predicted.
At the sound of bootsteps on the stairs, Mary hurried back to the front of the house. Arran was on his feet, eyes shut and leaning heavily on Peter and Howard. She wanted to fling herself into his arms, the need so strong it made her hands shake. He was the reason she could be brave. And without him, none of this would matter.
Since pouncing on him now would send them all to the floor, she settled for carefully touching his right cheek. Seeing him so pale and unsteady hurt her heart. “Arran, can you hear me?”
“Aye,” he answered, leaning into her palm. “Keeping my eyes closed seems to make it less likely I’ll cast up my accounts.”
“Then keep ’em closed, m’laird,” Peter put in. “I’ve nae another coat to wear.”
“Do you know where we are?” she asked, moving in to take Howard’s place and draping Arran’s arm over her shoulders.
“I can guess.” He opened one eye to look sideways at her. “I dunnae like it, but I meant it when I said I trusted ye, my sweet lass.”
“Good, because you’re going to spend the next day or two sleeping behind a storage closet.” She adjusted his solid weight, the way he leaned on her enough to tell her that he certainly wasn’t ready to resume their flight north. “And this is my aunt Sarah.”
He lifted his head a little more, the motion making him stumble. “Tha mi toilichte do choinneachadh,Mòrag.Thank ye fer taking us in.”
Tears filled her aunt’s light green eyes. “I haven’t heard Scottish in a very long time,” she said a little unsteadily. “I’m pleased to meet you, as well. And surprised.” She cleared her throat. “My niece is very persuasive.”
“Aye, that she is. Twisted me all up aroond her little finger, and I’m glad to be there.”
“I’ve never met a MacLawry before. Your fellow called you my lord.”
“He’s Lord Glengask’s younger brother,” Mary put in.
“Ah. You’rethatArran MacLawry.”
“Aye.”
Between the four of them they got Arran into the hidden room, which felt even smaller with the tall, broad-shouldered Highlander inside. More than anything Mary wanted to lie down beside him, to feel his soft breath on her cheek and know he would be well. But now she needed to see to the safety of not just the four travelers, but her aunt and uncle and their household, as well.
“Peter, please stay with him.”
“Aye, m’lady. But he’d flay me alive if I didnae see that ye got some rest, yerself.”
“I will. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Howard headed back downstairs to help Uncle Sean dispose of the coach door and to hide Duffy, Juno, and the team at a neighbor’s property. Aunt Sarah’s housemaid carried up a bowl of stew to Arran and Peter, while Mary and her aunt settled into the small breakfast room to eat.
“Thank you again, Aunt Sarah. Thank you so much. Will your servants…”
“There’s only Susan and Levitt,” she said. “They’ll do as we ask. I suppose it’s a good thing that we’ve thought about this day coming. Not you bringing a MacLawry into the house, but Walter Campbell appearing on our doorstep.”
Uncle Sean walked into the room and sat in the chair beside his wife. “The horses are at the Finnegans’,” he said. “They’re not the nearest neighbors, but they’d fling themselves off a cliff before they’d tell the Campbells anything. And the coach door’s at the bottom of the pond beneath some stones. That one-eyed fellow with you wept when we sank it.”
Mary gave a brief smile. “It was his coach that rolled over. We hired it—or Arran did, rather—in London. Now we seem to have adopted him.”
“So you fled London for Gretna Green, with your father on your heels?” Sarah asked, sipping at her tea.
