She reached up to push the trapdoor open, but when she applied pressure, it didn’t budge. Stuck on the stairs, afraid to return to the tunnel and try another way for fear she’d run into the men who were searching for her, she hesitated, looking down into the abyss. The men’s footsteps were still distant but growing closer every second, their footfalls echoing off the walls, making it sound like a legion was after her.
The trapdoor suddenly swung open above her, and in pain, she scrambled through the opening. The trapdoor dropped back in place, and a rod slid through a notch to keep anyone from reentering that way.
The ghost had rescued her.
“Where should I go now?” she whispered, hoping he’d aid her further, although she still was having a hard time believing a ghost existed and felt foolish for trying to speak to one. She glanced around the room, spying two doors. One probably led into a hallway, and the other, maybe into a bathroom.
The ghost didn’t respond, and she couldn’t see any sign of him. Maybe he didn’t have any other plan in mind and no way to help her out now.
She quickly scanned the room. A king-sized bed took center stage against one wall and was clothed in forest-green velvet from the bedcover to the pleated skirt. Dark green curtains draped down from the top rails as if to keep out the cold drafts or give the occupants privacy. The bed was taller than most, and she thought she glimpsed a copper pot underneath. Surely they had bathrooms in the castle.
A chest sat against one wall, wooden pegs situated above for hanging clothes. A fireplace on the opposite wall had kindling and logs in place, but it looked like they’d been sitting there for a very long time. No ashes remained from a recent fire, and the hearth was perfectly clean.
She limped quickly to the door in front of her, but the lock suddenly clicked. She twisted the door handle, but it was locked from the outside. Her heartbeat accelerated. The ghost was locking her in?
She fished in her pocket for her lock picks, but they weren’t there. What had happened to them? Had she dropped them in the tunnel when she fell? Her skin prickled with fresh anxiety.
She quickly scanned the room again. Another door. To a bathroom, maybe. Or a closet?
Maria would be furious with her when she learned that Ian MacNeill’s people had caught Julia inside the castle. But still, she hadn’t any plans to get caught just yet.
The trapdoor behind her shuddered. She jumped, stepped painfully back against the door that she presumed led to the hallway in the castle, and groaned.
At the tunnel door, a man growled, “Hell, how did she find her way up here?”
“Ian,” she said under her breath, barely breathing.
“She’s bleeding, Ian. Maybe Flynn came to her rescue?” Cearnach said, his voice tight.
Blood? She couldn’t have left that much behind for them to have taken notice. Although her shin did feel wet and cold and burned with a vengeance. And they were wolves.
“He doesn’t help strangers, and certainly not intruders, Cearnach.”
They had to be talking about the man or ghost or whatever it was that helped her into the room.
“But she’s a female red,” Duncan said. “He probably wants her for his own.”
She took her first deep breath, sampling the smells in the room. She smelled Ian’s faint scent in here.
“Damn it, Flynn, unlock this door!” Ian said. The trapdoor shook, but it didn’t open.
Cearnach laughed. “He’s aided her escape. If I know him, he’s led her out of the castle by now. If he can’t have her, you can’t.”
The tunnel door shuddered again. “We can’t even call our men to search the castle since the phone reception is nonexistent down here,” Ian said. “Come on. We’ll have to go up through one of the other tunnels.”
“Which will take us to the other side of the castle, Ian,” Cearnach said. “You know which room he led her to, don’t you? Think Flynn is trying to tell you something?”
She thought the room was too feminine to be a man’s. The tapestries on the walls were of women sewing on benches while Irish wolfhounds slept at their feet in tones of greens and golds and reds, and floral rugs covered the floor, picking up the colors of the wall tapestries. All appeared to be feminine in design. The room’s two paintings—one of the nearby waterfalls with rowan berries hanging over the water, and the other of a loch where a red deer sipped from the water—also made her believe the occupant was a woman.
But then she thought back to what Cearnach had said. She didn’t think a ghost would have something in mind other than rescuing her from the MacNeills. Unless he meant to play tricks on them.
“Maybe he didn’t aid her escape,” Duncan said.
“What do you mean?” Ian asked, gruffly. The trapdoor gave another hard rattle, and she thought the men might break through.
“Maybe he’s locked her in the chamber.”
Cearnach chuckled. “He might have. Maybe we won’t have to send out the clan to track her down after all. Maybe you can just keep her.”
Keep her? The contract came to mind.
She swallowed, her throat parched. She could imagine being locked away in the dungeon once they reached her and no one being able to find her while Ian tried to learn why she had broken into their castle. If she gave in and told them why she was here, they’d search for the hidden box. And then do what?The Scots had the reputation for being wonderful hosts. From what Maria had said about Ian and his not wanting to open his castle up to any strangers, maybe he didn’t believe in Scottish hospitality. Lupus garous lived by their own rules.
The men tromped down the stairs, and Julia felt even more panicked as she tried the door again. She called out softly, “Flynn? If you’re in here, please let me out.” Before it’s too late. She tried to sound commanding, but she was afraid she sounded a lot more like she was pleading.
The door remained locked. She considered the other door to the room, hoping this one was a way out and not a door to a bathroom, which it probably was.
If it was the story she was writing, the door would lead to an escape route. Too bad she couldn’t write herself out of this scene. With a pronounced limp, she rushed to the door and twisted the handle, which opened the door easily.
And she discovered another bedchamber. She sniffed the air. Male, gray wolf. Laird Ian MacNeill’s familiar and very appealing, sexy scent. She looked at the large bed dressed in black that dominated the room. His bedchamber. But it had a door that most likely led to the hallway, and she hurried to the door and twisted.
Locked.
Chapter 14
If Flynn wasn’t already dead, Ian would have strangled him. He didn’t believe Flynn wanted to give the wolf to him, not when Flynn had loved women, even Ian’s betrothed, so much—actually, too much, in that case. If Flynn had wanted to give Julia to Ian, why lock the trapdoor? To keep her from escaping?
No, he wanted some concession, Ian was fairly certain. Forgiveness for his earlier crime, maybe.
“You know him better than any of us, Cearnach. What game is he playing now?” Ian asked, stalking back through the tunnel.
“Going outside again probably would have been quicker,” Duncan mused.
“I had our men secure the trapdoor from the outside in case the intruder tried to slip out that way. Hell, if Flynn locks us down here, I swear I’ll have him exorcised. Do you hear that, Flynn?”
“It’s hard to believe he wants you to have the wolf, but he did lead her to your lady’s chamber and not the study or the great hall. You know how he is. No matter how hard it is to figure him out sometimes, he always has a good reason for doing what he does,” Cearnach said.
Ian gave Cearnach a dark look. “Except when it comes to women. His loyalty is a bit skewed.”
“Aye, but he’s had nearly two hundred years to change his ways, and this past year he has really made a concerted effort to leave the women alone.”
“Only because they don’t like his ghostly appearances and run shrieking from his presence.”
It took them another fifteen minutes to reach the next tunnel, which would exit through the kitchen. Ian yanked at the trapdoor. “Locked.” He growled. “I will kill him. We’ll split up forces. Once one of us gets through, we can help the others.” He banged on the trapdoor a couple of times, partly in frustration and partly in case someone was in the kitchen and could hear them, but it was too early for that.
“Which way are you going?” Cearnach asked as Ian headed back toward the trapdoor where Julia had entered.
Ian grunted.
Duncan cast him an elusive smile. “He’s going to try to sweet-talk the woman into opening up. Maybe Cearnach should try. You will probably scare the wee lass half to death after the way she left here in haste last night.”
His brothers laughed and headed off down the tunnel to try their luck at other trapdoor exits.
As much as Ian hated to admit it, Cearnach probably would have better luck convincing Julia to open up at this point. But Ian was dying to learn what she would say about what she had been up to this time.
Ian hadn’t gone far down the tunnel when he thought he heard the muted sound of pots and pans clanging in the kitchen through the trapdoor. His brothers had already made haste down the tunnel in the opposite direction, but Ian hurried back down the tunnel and then up the stairs to the trapdoor and banged hard.
A woman squeaked.
Hell, probably gave whoever it was a near heart attack. “It’s me, Ian,” he quickly called out.
“Ian?” a voice called back, sounding unsure.
“Unlatch the trapdoor, lassie,” he said, trying for more of a coaxing tone of voice.
“Ian?” she said again.
It sounded like his cousin Heather, but even he had a difficult time recognizing her voice through the stone and metal.
“Aye, aye, open the trapdoor.”
“What are you doing down there?”
She wasn’t making a move toward the door, and she still sounded skeptical.
“Heather? Go fetch one of your brothers. They’ll tell you we were chasing an intruder through the tunnels and Flynn locked us down here.”