“I might let you do that,” Hawk said. His voice lowered, and trembling slightly, he added, “And I thank God, brother, that you’re alive.”
The two brothers embraced again. Then David turned, smiled at Skylar, and kissed her on the cheek. “Do forgive me, lass.”
Skylar gasped softly as he turned again to the wall by the side of the bed, touched a stone there, and caused a small doorway to open into a black void.
He disappeared into that void, and with the same faint rasping sound she had heard earlier, the stone closed back into a wall, and the passageway might never have been.
“My god!” Skylar breathed. “Your brother is alive. And something horrible is going on here.”
“It is. Thank God we’ve come, though David would have prevailed on his own, I am certain.”
“He seems very assured and powerful.”
“He is. More so now. He must have suffered greatly. He has hardened.”
“He bears a slight scar. But he is still…”
“Still?”
“Extraordinarily striking. He is a handsome man, despite his hardness.”
“Really?”
“Indeed.”
“So, he’s quite good-looking—and not even a savage.”
“Something tells me he is quite capable of being very savage.”
“Should I be jealous?”
“It would definitely serve you right.”
“I’m afraid I can’t be jealous.”
“Why is that?”
“I trust my brother.”
“But not me?” She hit him with a pillow.
He laughed, catching her, kissing her. The desire that had been so abruptly cooled burned through him once again. Yet she pulled away from him.
“You mean that the castle has these passages…everywhere.”
“Many of them. We were Jacobites in days of yore.”
“Jacobites?”
He smiled. “The Scottish Stuart line ruled Scotland and England. The line came down to James II, and for his second wife, James took a Catholic princess. The English people, and many of the Scots, refused to accept their son as an heir to the throne. James II himself was forced to abdicate when his daughter, Mary, and son-in-law, William of Orange, came to England to claim the Crown. James fled to France. His son became the ‘Pretender,’ then eventually, when he had his own son, he became ‘the old Pretender.’ None of James’s descendants ever did reclaim the throne, but many Highland families supported the Stuart’s efforts for years. Stuart supporters, priests, and others often had to be hidden. In places like Castle Rock, they could easily hide. The passages were a godsend.”
“Ah, but how very…disconcerting they might be now!” Skylar said.
Hawk grinned, pulling her back to him once again. “Don’t worry. David will not be back.” He left her by the bed, turning to extinguish the lights once again.
Skylar heard him returning. Then he paused and laughed softly in the darkness.
“What is it?”