Page 11 of A Rogue in Firelight

That renewed her determination and sensed of hope.

Soon she was seated at her desk, taking her manuscript from its locked drawer. She wanted to shape the story’s hero, an ancient Highland lord, to resemble the Highlander she had seen yesterday.

She smoothed a fresh sheet of paper, dipped pen in ink, and began.

The Highlander’s eyes, the deep blue of a lochan in summer twilight, went soft and sad as he remembered once more the hurt that had torn his heart like the sharpest blade. To see Lady Isabella again after five years was a blow to his very soul. He had immured his heart against her charms after she had dealt him a deep and unseen wound on the day that Isabella Grant had chosen the Earl of Strathearn over Ruari MacAlpin of Garslie.

Small laird by sunlight, poet by candlelight, cattle-thief by moonlight—yet Garslie’s strength, cleverness, and devotion could not compete with wealth and treachery.

He scrabbled a living on rocky land, scratched heartfelt words on parchment, borrowed cattle when it was merited, and loved a lass who looked away.

She crossed out a word, scribbled a change, wrote on.

*

“That’s a mournfultune, lad,” Iain MacInnes said. “Brings the ghosts out the very walls.”

Linhope shifted to a livelier melody while Iain flipped cards on the bench next to Ronan. They had cards, books, even a chess set. If the backward Whisky Rogues acted like fine lords, the Castle Governor had declared, more visitors would come.

Ronan leaned back against the wall, unaccountably irritated by the joyful song and Iain’s foot tapping in time. His nerves felt raw. Weeks of being trapped here threatened to break his usual reserve.

Arthur, Lord Linhope, was skilled in music as well as medicine; MacInnes was content with cards, books, sketching plans on the walls, and was annoyingly cheerful. Both were making the best of incarceration. Ronan knew he should take a lesson from them, but today he just needed a good glower.

He had no talent for whiling away the hours. Once he had aspired to bad poetry, and could cut a neat step on a dance floor. But he’d be damned if he’d dance to that fiddle to amuse the visitors here.

Cards, then. He dealt a quick hand on the bench.

“Ach,” Iain said, tossing a card to the floor. “Nine of diamonds! Curse of Scotland, they call it. More bad luck we do not need.”

Hearing footsteps and the chatter of a new group of visitors, Ronan did not look up. People often came to gawk, but the angel of a few days ago had not returned. He might show some interest if she did.

Miss Ellison Graham. Recalling her delicate loveliness, he reminded himself she had stared at them like all the onlookers before she left.

Linhope stopped playing. “The ladies enjoy the music,” he said in Gaelic. “May it stir them to plead for mercy for three captive lads. And if their kinsmen are court judges, that may help too.”

“Most justices are stonehearted fellows who do not give a damn what the ladies of Edinburgh think.” Ronan tossed down a card. “I know many of them.”

“I wonder when we will have word of a trial or a transfer,” Iain said.

“Fifty-eight days since the night of our arrest, fifty-three since we came to Edinburgh,” Ronan said. “I am keeping count.”

“What does it matter? It is too long.” Sighing heavily, Linhope sank to sit on the straw-littered floor. “Public sentiment favors us. That may help.”

“Perhaps the jury of fifteen will include someone who enjoyed your fiddling,” Ronan said. “Still, there may be a way out of this.”

“Escape?” Iain asked hopefully.

Ronan glanced at the cluster of muttering visitors and lowered his voice, even speaking Gaelic. “That was done here long ago when a cattle reiver went out a window in a high dungeon cell on bed linens and shirts, and climbed down the castle rock. He got away.”

“Huh. None of us would fit through that window, even if we could climb up there.” Iain pointed to a narrow aperture high in the rock wall.

“Well, escape is punishable by further imprisonment,” Ronan said. “There may be a legal way to get out of here.”

“How?” Linhope asked.

“I am thinking. If I could visit the Advocates Library down the street, I could find a solution quickly.”

“Not likely you’ll get there. If we were in Calton jail, we might escape,” Iain said. “I know the building’s plan.”