knocked ye out. ’Tis how I kenned to do it. I’d ne’er seen it ere that,” Donnan announced, getting to his feet and backing away to make room as Tildy rushed forward with a plaid in hand.
“She did?” Conran asked with surprise.
“Aye. Donnan thought she was molesting ye,” Gavin announced, drawing Conran’s gaze around to see that the room was full of people. His brothers, his sister, their mates, Donnan, Gavin, Fearghas, Tildy and even Betsy were all there, he noted, and then turned back to the bed as Tildy helped Evina sit up and wrapped the plaid around her to cover her up.
“Me wound got wet,” Evina mumbled, sounding apologetic of all things.
“What happened?” Conran asked, moving closer to the bed, and just barely restraining himself from picking her up and holding her. Color had flooded her face, just emphasizing in his mind how pale she’d been when he’d first entered.
When Evina shook her head with bewilderment, Tildy said, “I was going below to fetch another linen for her to dry with. But halfway down the stairs I thought I should take the dirty tunic and bed linens down with me fer laundering to save a trip later, so turned back.”
“Aye?” Conran said impatiently. He’d seen her leave and turn back. He wanted to know what had happened to Evina.
“When I came back in, there was a man bent over the tub, holding m’lady under the bathwater,” Tildy said with a shudder that spoke of how much that sight had affected her.
“What man?” Fearghas snapped. “Where’d he go?”
Tildy turned to her laird and shook her head with bewilderment. “I do no’ ken. He just . . . disappeared,” she said almost plaintively.
“What?” Conran asked with disbelief.
Tildy nodded firmly. “Truly, he did. I screamed, and he did no’ even glance around. He just let m’lady go and ran toward the fireplace. I rushed forward to grab m’lady and try to pull her out of the tub, and then looked for him, but he was gone. Just gone. Like a ghost.”
“Did ye see who it was?” Fearghas asked grimly.
Tildy shook her head unhappily. “All I saw was his back.”
A curse from the Maclean drew Conran’s gaze just before the man barked, “Everyone out but me daughter and her betrothed.”
Conran stared at the man with surprise. He had to admit that while the Maclean had seemed thin and frail-looking from illness since his arrival, he appeared powerful and strong in that moment. Conran wasn’t at all surprised when everyone began to shuffle out the door.
“Aulay,” he said quietly, and when his eldest brother stopped and turned a questioning face his way, Conran asked, “Would ye and the boys wait in the hall, please? Ye may yet all be needed, and Rory definitely will.”
Aulay nodded, and then ushered everyone out.
Conran settled on the edge of the bed next to Evina then and wrapped his arm around her to draw her against his chest. She was trembling and shivering, so he rubbed her arm soothingly as he glanced to her father and spoke his guess aloud. “A secret passage?”
“Aye,” the Maclean growled, and hobbled over to the fireplace. Reaching up, he grasped the torch holder on the left of the fireplace and turned it on the wall until it was upside down. As he stepped back, a portion of the wall slid silently open. “From what Tildy said happened, this is the only way he could have escaped.”
Nodding, Conran eased Evina away, and stood to cross the room and join Fearghas at the entrance to the passage in the walls of the castle. Squinting into the darkness, he asked, “Who else kens this is here?”
“Evina, Gavin and meself,” he answered promptly.
“Who else?” Conran asked.
“No one,” the Maclean responded, and his expression said it all. It hadn’t been him, and Evina was the victim. That left Gavin.
“’Twas no’ Gavin.”
Conran turned toward the bed at that raspy growl from Evina. She was sitting up straight now. Her shivering and trembling had stopped. It looked as if anger had chased them right out of her, because there was no mistaking she was angry.
“How can ye even think it, Da?” she asked now, her voice painfully hoarse and getting worse each time she spoke. “Gavin would ne’er hurt me.”
“I would no’ believe it o’ him either, lass,” her father said wearily. “But there simply is no one else who kens about the passages in the walls, and how to open them.”
“Obviously, there is,” Evina countered. “Because it could