Page 23 of Claimed Highland Brides

1

KIDNAP AND RANSOM

W hile Delwyn had left his sister’s room trying to find out where she was, he heard a loud scream. “What’s going on?” he asked a passing footman.

“I don’t know, my lord. Shall I find out and let you know?”

Delwyn hesitated, wondering if he had the patience to wait until the footman had gone to see what happened and come back to tell him. He shook his head. “I’ll go myself and have a look.” Could something have happened to his sister?

The noise was coming from the north wing where his sister’s chambers were in addition to his parents’. He quickened his footsteps as another scream rent the air. It sounded like his mother and his heart pounded in fear even as he increased his pace.

He skidded to a halt in front of Maegan’s open door as he caught sight of his mother sitting on his sister’s bed, head bent, hands fisted around a piece of paper.

“Wha..?”

He took a tentative step into the room. “Mother?” he whispered.

Bronwen began to sway from side to side. “Mother?” His call was louder as he became fearful as to what could have transpired. “Do you know where Maegan is? I was looking for her.”

To his surprise, his mother thrust the paper at him, not bothering to look up. He slowly took it from her hands and then straightened it out to read it, his face paling with every word.

“Where did you find this?” he asked, heart sinking.

His mother pointed to his sister’s pillow. How did he not see that himself? He just saw that she was not in the room so he assumed she would be somewhere else in the estate.

“Where’s Father?”

His mother just wailed louder.

He looked down at the note.

Dear Family,

I am in love and we have eloped. Please do not worry about me, I shall be fine.

I love you all.

Maegan

His brow furrowed as he read it again and again as if new information would emerge if he just read it enough times.

“I do not understand.”

“I have summoned her lady’s maid.”

Delwyn brightened. “Yes, that is a good idea.” He wondered where Maegan could possibly have met her beau. As far as he knew, she never left the compound unaccompanied either by their mother, a chaperone, or her lady’s maid and a footman.

Who can this man be? And how did he get to her ?

He flexed his hands, feeling as if he should be doing something but not sure what. His older brother, Aaren, appeared next to him, eyebrows raised. “What is happening?”

Silently, Delwyn passed him Maegan’s note. As Aaren read it, his eyebrows rose higher and higher until Delwyn thought they might disappear into his hairline. “Where’s Father?” he asked, looking at Delwyn with urgent eyes.

Delwyn shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Aaren looked around his sister’s chambers where their mother continued to rock herself, crying softly. He sighed, gave the note back to Delwyn, and hurried away.

“Where are you going?” Delwyn called.

“To get Father,” he called as he disappeared down the corridor.

* * *

The Duke of Dargue felt rather put upon by the disappearance of his daughter. He had little use for her already. Girls did nothing but drain the estate with their endless need for gowns and dowry. The fact that Maegan had saved him the need to pay any dowry with her elopement was a source of celebration to him. He did not understand why the countess insisted on carrying on as if the girl had died.

“Father, do you not want to know who this man is?” Delwyn’s brow was furrowed with his customary concern and it was all Francis could do not to snort in disgust. It was clear as day that whomever Maegan had chosen to...mate with was extremely unsuitable. Why would Francis want to know who it was? Sooner or later, she would come crawling back begging for forgiveness and he could give her away, free of charge, to one of his peers in need of a fourth wife to look after them in their old age.

“I do not care. Maegan has made her choice. She will deal with the consequences.” The Duke nodded once to indicate that the matter was closed and was quite put out when Delwyn continued to regard him with censure as if he had done something wrong.

“You’re dismissed!” he hissed, and still the boy hesitated. Finally, he turned on his heel and left, annoyance apparent in the set of his shoulders and the loud clip of his heels on the stone floor. Francis expelled a breath and sat back in his chair. He knew that sooner or later, his second son would be a problem. He was too headstrong and opinionated.

One would almost think that he was the heir and not the spare.

* * *

Delwyn went in search of his mother, who had been devastated to learn that their father would not be pursuing the matter of Maegan’s groom. He found her in the den, interrogating the lady’s maid.

“Who has she been speaking to recently? Who has she been meeting? You must know something!”

The lady’s maid was in tears, shaking her head frantically. “I don’t know anythin’. If I did, I would have said. Please madam, I don’t know!”

His mother exchanged glances with Delwyn, her eyebrow arched, asking wordlessly if he believed the woman. Delwyn’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the lady’s maid before shaking his head. The girl knew something. It was clear in the way she shook with fear, eyes darting hither and thither as if she was a trapped animal.

Delwyn stepped closer and cupped her chin, raising her head so he could look into her eyes. She continued to tremble as she blinked fearfully up at him. “Tell us the truth. Nothing bad will happen to you. I promise,” he said as gently as he could.

She shook her head frantically, eyes wide and glimmering with tears. “I...she...I…” She burst out crying and Delwyn sighed with impatience, exchanging cynical glances with his mother.

Suddenly the countess grabbed the girl’s head and pulled it back, glaring into her eyes. “Listen to me, you will tell me who has my daughter or I will have you thrown in Newgate for aiding in the kidnapping of my child!”

The maid stiffened, eyes widening as Delwyn crossed his arms and glared as well.

“I didn’t help her! Or him! She told me I must take the letters to him otherwise she would say I stole her brooch.”

Delwyn stepped closer, looming over her menacingly. “Who did you take the letters to?” he asked coldly.

The maid’s voice trembled with fear. “A Scotchman. He would wait for me at the crossroads every day at five in the afternoon. I would take him a letter and he would give me one for the lady. I don’t know what was in them. Yesterday she told me to pack her a bag and say nothing to anyone or I would be sorry.”

“What was his name?” Delwyn gritted his teeth with impatience.

“I-I-I don’t?—”

“Girl, do not lie to me,” Bronwen growled, wagging her finger in the maid’s face.

“Sh-she called him...Neacel. Neacel H-Hunter I believe. Sh-she said he would marry her and she would go and live with him in Scotland where he owned a goldmine.”

Delwyn’s eyebrow shot up. “Really? If he owned a goldmine, why could he not just court her like a self-respecting gentleman would?”

“I-I don’t…” She looked frantically from one to the other as if they were asking her impossible questions with no answers.

“When did they leave here?” Delwyn asked.

“Last night. Late in the evening. He had a carriage.”

“And they were headed to Scotland?”

The maid nodded, dropping her head and avoiding their eyes. Slowly, she reached into her apron and removed a piece of folded paper, and handed it to Delwyn. “He said to give this to you, specifically to you and no one else, after three days had passed.”

Delwyn frowned, snatching the note out of her hands. He opened it quickly, his mother standing up and moving to his side so they could read it together. He froze at the words on the page, while Bronwen screamed.

* * *

“We are not paying a ransom for her. She made her bed, and now she’ll lie in it.”

Delwyn stepped closer, eyeing his father in disbelief, looming over the Duke as he sat at his desk in the study. “You cannot possibly be serious, Father! She’s your daughter . Your only daughter.”

The Duke waved a hand dismissively. “Pah! She’s always been stubborn. Serves her right. Always thought she knew better than everyone.”

Delwyn blinked at him, unable to fathom how his father could say such things. “We cannot just leave her with a group of brigands, undefended.”

“It’s too late now. Whatever they mean to do with her, it’s already done.”

Delwyn just gaped at his father. He had always known that the Duke was cold and distant. He barely spoke to any of his children except Aaren, who was his heir and therefore warranted rambling talks about their history and heritage. Sometimes, when Delwyn returned from hunting with particularly large game, his father might grunt and nod in approval but that was it.

However, whenever he went off to the capitol, he always returned with some trinket for his youngest child—a new gown or a comb for her hair. Something that showed he had been thinking of her while he was away. Delwyn had always thought that Maegan was the only child that the Duke loved. Now he was throwing her away like she was nothing.

“She will suffer.”

“She went WITH A MAN. She left us!” his father shouted.

“Did you NOT SEE the letter?” Delwyn shouted back at him on top of his lungs.

“Listen to me boy. You have no idea how any of this works. You just turned twenty. You know nothing.”

Delwyn paused for a second.

His father continued. “This,” he said pointing at the letter. “is just a trick.She was seeing that man. And he has no gold mine - trust me. If he had he would marry another girl, a cousin of the King perhaps. And if he loved your sister and had so much wealth he would ask her hand properly. But he has nothing, I am sure of that. He is a bastard! The letter you are holding is an attempt to drain us. To take every last piece of wealth we have.”

This was not completely illogical but still his sister was probably in danger. He had to do something. “What if it is not as you are saying. What if she is in danger.”

“We can not know that for sure. And I will not risk our wealth and the wellbeing of our tenants just in case she is in danger. She put herself in that situation. She made her choice.”

Delwyn could not believe his ears.

“Do not look at me like that boy! You do not understand these matters. That is why you will never be the Duke.”

Delwyn took a deep breath. “If you won’t get her back, then I will,” Delwyn declared.

His father sneered. “And how will you do that? Do you have a source of income I know nothing about?”

Delwyn narrowed his eyes. “If I cannot pay them the money, then I will have to rescue her some other way.”

“How?” The derision in his father’s voice was obvious.

Delwyn hesitated, not having an answer. “I will find a way,” he said at last.

“Mmmph.” His father turned and walked out of his study as Delwyn watched with disbelief. Aaren stood leaning against the wall while his mother sat hunched over in a chair. Delwyn looked from one to the other. “What will we do about this?”

Aaren shook his head. “What can we do? There is nothing. If he won’t give us the ransom, or the men to rescue her with, I do not see that we have any other options.”

Bronwen raised her head from her lap. “There is one thing you can do. It will take more time but...we might be able to get her back. Eventually.”

Delwyn took a deep breath. He would have preferred something fast and decisive but Aaren was right. Without their father’s resources, they had next to nothing to bargain or bully with. “What is it, Mother?”

“I heard tell of a mine in Scotland. A goldmine, rich in ore. That is the mine in question. The man probably works there, or has some connections to it. The mine is operated by a family named Douglass. Before the father died, he arranged it so that the ownership was transferred to the daughters to be given, if they so wished, to their husbands as dowry. Only one of the daughters is married. That is all I could learn.”

Delwyn froze with alarm. “What are you saying, Mother? You wish me to travel to Scotland and broker a marriage in order to pay the ransom?”

Bronwen dropped her head into her hands again, shaking with grief. “I wish you to rescue your sister. I would hope that unlike your father, you are willing to do whatever it takes.”

Delwyn noisily expelled a breath, turning away from his family to stare outside the window. “This thing you’re asking of me…”

“Oh please dear, hear me!” Bronwen cried. “I do not ask you to do anything. I simply present you with a possibility. I cannot ask you to make this sacrifice. Only you can decide to do it.”

Aaren stirred and Delwyn turned to face him. “If I could, I would do it myself but you know that Father has already contracted a marriage union for me.”

Delwyn nodded. He did indeed know. His father had touted the contract as the greatest coup he had ever achieved. The lady was the daughter of a duke, albeit disgraced, and came with a slew of connections that no amount of money could buy.

Delwyn suspected that part of his father’s reluctance to chase after Maegan lay in his fear that all his hard work would be undone should the duke’s family find out about this.