Highland Lover. Hannah Howell

hole.”

      “Sarcasm is unbecoming in a female,” Gregor said and grinned when she muttered a curse in response to that pious and condescending remark.

      “So is punching someone offside the head,” she muttered.

      He ignored that. “I think we could use one or two of the blankets as a rope of sorts if ye can find naught to use up there. Once we ken if ye can move that lump of iron, we can tie the blankets about your waist ere ye climb out of here. If I recall it aright, above us are several things ye could tie the end of a rope to.”

      “Ah, that may serve.”

      “The first problem we need to solve is how to hold ye steady enough upon my shoulders so that ye can open that cursed grate. How much do ye think ye weigh?”

      “Seven stone, mayhap a little more.”

      “I can lift that easy enough, but I have ne’er tried to balance such a weight upon my shoulders. But dinnae worry. I will catch ye if ye fall.”

      Alana did not feel particularly comforted by that reassurance. Six feet was not a great distance to fall, but the ground was hard. She still had bruises from landing on Gregor when the Gowans tossed her into the dungeon. Obviously unwilling to damage their prize too much, they had lowered her down by her wrists first, but it had still hurt when the man holding her had let her go.

      For a brief moment, she battled the urge to tell Gregor that she could not do it, but then she lectured herself sternly to banish that surge of cowardice. They needed to escape this place, and not just to save their families the expense of ransoming them. She needed to get out of the unrelenting dark before she began to cling to Gregor like some terrified infant. Each time the Gowans brought that blessed shaft of light and took it away again, she drew closer to that point. Her fear of the dark grew sharper and took longer to shake free of.

      It was also necessary to escape the chill and damp of their prison. Alana was surprised that Gregor was still so hale and strong after spending a week in such a dismal place. The man appeared to be annoyingly untouched by conditions she knew were slowly robbing her of the good health she had enjoyed before entering the prison. If fear of the dark did not drive her to attach herself to Gregor like a leech, then the chill creeping into her bones would.

      The thought that she was a pathetic weakling settled itself in Alana’s mind. Cold and damp were ever pervasive, annoyances she had thought herself inured to. She hastily shook that troubling thought aside. There had always been fires to warm one and dry clothes at hand. They were blessed with neither in this dark pit. If one could not get warm and dry from time to time, it was only to be expected that the cold and damp would settle in deep and hard. It was also not surprising that Gregor held up better than she did, for he was much bigger and had more meat on his bones.

      “What are ye scowling about now?” asked Gregor as he carefully packed away some of their food, a simple chore that was proving very difficult to do well in the dark.

      “How do ye ken what expression is upon my face?”

      “Ye make a little noise when ye are irritated.”

      “A little noise?”

      “A soft, weel, grunt, or the like.”

      “Ladies dinnae grunt.”

      “Of course not. My mistake.”

      She ignored that remark, for the words were heavily weighted with amusement. “What are ye doing?”

      “Attempting to secure some food. A simple chore. Or it would be, if we had a wee bit of light,” he grumbled and then asked, “So, what has annoyed ye?”

      Alana sighed. “I was just thinking on what a puling weakling I am.” Gregor made an odd choking noise and she decided it was probably flattering that he would find such a statement amusing. “I always told myself the dark unsettled me. Weel, I cannae lie to myself anymore. It frightens me. As for your plan to escape? Standing on your shoulders to try to open a way out of here is a good idea and I shall do my best, but thinking of how high up I will be also frightens me. I am weary of the cold and the damp, can feel it in my verra bones. Each time one of those fools asks if I will now say who I am, I have to fight verra hard to say nay. A part of me wants to cry out my name, where I am from, give them a clearly drawn map to get to my people, and demand that they be quick in the doing of it. And that part gets bigger every day. ’Tis a coward I am.”

      Gregor had to bite back a laugh as he sat down next to her and put his arm around her slim shoulders. She sounded extremely irritated with herself. He could understand that well enough, for he had battled with a few of his own fears in those days he had been alone. Being alone in the dark with no way out and nothing to do made one think about oneself and see oneself far too clearly. Gregor suspected few people would find that comfortable.

      “I suspicion many people are made uneasy by the dark and by being up high,” he said. “Each is a fear I think we are all born with and we ne’er fully shake free of. There is naught wrong with being afeared of something, only in letting it control you. As for the cold and the damp? There is naught wrong with ye for feeling that. So do I, and I grow most weary of it.”

      “Ye have been here longer than I have.”

      “And I have a lot more flesh for it to sink its teeth into. Takes a lot longer for it to burrow down into my bones, but ’tis there. Nay, lass, ye are no puling weakling for that either. Ye havenae wept, or needed a wee sharp slap to restore your wits, or complained incessantly.”

      Alana said nothing, just subtly pressed a little closer to him. For warmth, she told herself. She was not sure she believed all his kind reassurances, but they were comforting all the same. The urge to have a screaming, hair-pulling fit lurked inside of her, but his presence helped cage it. Alana did not think it would be wise to tell him so, however. If nothing else, it would not be fair or kind to put the weight of such a responsibility upon his broad shoulders. There was a good chance he was using her presence in a similar way, so there was no need to belabor the matter.

      For a fleeting moment, she wished she had never left home, and then she accepted the fact that she simply could not have continued to wait for some word from her sister. Hearing that Keira was a widow, that her home had been taken by a man whose evil reputation was widespread, and then hearing nothing from her for months had been hard to bear. Her fear for her sister had grown stronger with each day that passed without word or sight of Keira, only more rumors and all of them bad. The only thing that had kept Alana from blindly rushing off to find her twin immediately was the feeling that Keira was still alive. That and her dreams.

      She frowned as she realized she had had no dreams of her twin since setting out after her brothers. That should trouble her more than it did, yet she simply could not believe that Keira was dead. Alana still felt drawn toward her sister and suspected she would begin to sense in exactly what direction to go once she was free again. Yet it was odd that, in all other ways, she had lost that bond she and Keira had shared all of their lives. It made her feel intensely alone, and she pressed even closer to Gregor.

      “Troubled, lass?” he asked.

      “Nay, not truly,” she lied, still uncertain if she should tell him exactly why she had been alone and such easy prey for the Gowans. “I think the chance to escape is so tantalizing, I fear to let myself believe in it too much.”

      Gregor idly rubbed his hand up and down her slender arm. “I think I ken what ye mean. Now that we have a plan, we must face the daunting possibility of failure.”

      She nodded, feeling the soft wool of his plaid rub her cheek. Alana knew just how bitter failure tasted. Her arrogant plan to lead her brothers to their sister had been a failure of monumental proportions. It was something that still stung her pride and puzzled her as well. She really should not have failed so badly. All her skills and gifts had deserted her, and that made no sense. It was as if whatever power had granted them had abruptly taken them away, but she did not understand why.

      Alana inwardly shrugged. She could still sense that her twin was alive, could not believe that