And just like that, they were best of friends once more.
Men. She wanted to spit.
She was still muttering to herself when they came to higher ground, a sparser wooded area that must once have been a clearing. It was peppered with stone ruins so thick and old, they could be of nothing else but a long-ruined castle. Overgrown with clinging plant life, low broken walls seemed to tumble over the uneven land, and the foundations of a round tower stood open to the sky, a few worn steps leading up to nowhere.
“We’re here,” Niall said.
They dismounted and tethered their horses. Pulling a heavy key from his pocket, Niall stepped into the circle of stone and reached through a layer of dirt and dead branches that seemed stuck to the hard-packed forest floor.
Not by a quirk of nature, though—by design. His fingers found a concealed padlock and fitted the key inside. It opened with a rusty click, and he tugged it off, hefting a wooden trap door that lay hidden beneath.
“Go ahead,” he said.
After staring for a moment, Kendra followed Trick down a steep stone staircase, pausing when the trap door thudded shut and plunged the space into blackness.
Holding her breath and her husband’s hand, she felt her way to the bottom.
It was a dungeon, deep in the earth. The only light was a tiny shaft that came through the tall ceiling from behind an iron grille. As her eyes adjusted, the sparse illumination revealed gruesome instruments of torture. A musty smell seeped from the packed dirt floor, making her imagine the ground wet and red with the blood of prisoners.
Hugging herself, she shivered.
Near the center of the chamber a human cage swung, its door hanging drunkenly from ancient hinges. The wooden rack sitting in a corner would have been used to pull a man apart. Along the far wall, four sets of ankle manacles were anchored near the floor, with matching sets for wrists higher up.
She heard the scrape of steel on stone, then the soft hiss of a wick catching fire. “They’re gone!” Niall burst out behind her, his voice laced with disbelief. She swung about to see him holding a candle high, his eyes wide in the flickering light. “The treasure chests are gone!”
FIFTY-ONE
TRICK LAID a calming hand on Niall’s arm. “Where were they?”
“Here, I tell you. Here, and here, and here.” He paced the dim chamber, indicating bare spots where Trick could see that heavy, rectangular objects had once sat. “I saw them but two days ago—the morning of the day you arrived. They were here, same as always. As they’ve been since before I was born. Before any of us were born.”
The dungeon was damp and stuffy. While Trick found another candle and lit it from Niall’s, Kendra slipped her cloak off and hung it from one of the manacles on the wall. “Whatever were you doing here two days ago?”
Niall hesitated but a moment. “This was Mam’s secret retreat. I came…to feel closer to her. To escape the clamor of the wake for a wee while. How can all that treasure have gone missing since then?” He held out the padlock, staring at it. “How did the thieves get this open?”
Trick took it from his hands. “It wasn’t forced or picked.”
“How can you tell?”
“There’d be marks.” Avoiding Niall’s eyes, he handed the lock back. “Who else has a key?”
“Only Rhona and Gregor. So far as I know, nobody else is even aware this place exists. It makes no sense. Twenty-three enormous chests, all gone.” Niall rubbed his brow, his face looking sallow in the light from the candle in his other hand. “Will you help me find them?”
Trick blinked. He’d planned to leave for England tomorrow—a search could take days. Weeks. “I must get home. This isn’t my responsibility. But of course I will bring the news directly to the king.”
“What if the thieves start selling the treasure, aye? Gold and silver platters and goblets? We’re a poor country. Should anything so rich as that treasure show up, surely someone will figure out whence it came, and then an inquisition will be made, and Mam and Da could be implicated.”
“She’s dead,” Trick said. “What does it matter now?”
“Hamish isn’t,” Kendra reminded him.
But he didn’t want to be reminded. He still didn’t know how he felt about his new father, and the last thing he wanted was a reason to stick around and find out while the rest of his life remained on hold.
“He could hang, Patrick.” The flame wavered, ruffled by Niall’s impassioned words. “Or worse. Stealing the Royal plate is treason.”
“Treason,” Kendra whispered. “Punishable by hanging, drawing, quartering—”
“I know the penalties for treason,” Trick snapped. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I must get home. And, heart’s wounds, it’s been thirty-five years since the crime.”
Surely no evidence remained to tie the misdeed to his parents now. John Ferries, the only witness, was dead. These fears were groundless. Emotional rather than logical.
“Trick.” She came close, capturing his gaze with hers. “Even should the crime continue undiscovered, King Charles would never regain what his father lost.”
He hesitated but a moment, realizing his clever wife had deciphered him already. Always it came down to what would be best for Charles Stuart. “Very well,” he muttered. “I’ll spare a day or two to help find it.” That was the most he was willing to delay his return to England. “But let’s not go off half-cocked. There may be some clue here of who took it or its whereabouts.”
Niall’s breath rushed out in relief. “Da may have ideas as well. Maybe someone else knew of the treasure or had a key to the lock. And in any case, he’ll want to hear of this loss immediately.”
“Go ahead, then, and speak with him. Kendra and I will remain behind to search for clues.”
“You know the direction to Duncraven?”
“Aye.
