Labyrinth (12 page)

Cat laughed as if the two of them strolling past fruit and vegetable stands on a small island in the north of Scotland was the most natural thing in the world…as if she didn’t know Margot really meant,
why a castle after killing Donny?

"It was bad enough the way people pitied me when I was a kid,” Cat said. “I couldn’t take it after Donny’s death."

Margot halted in surprise. A large body bumped into her back. She looked around. A woman smiled and pressed past.

Margot faced Cat.
“Pity?
What are you talking about? You’re one of the richest women in
Wilkinson
County
.”

“Money doesn’t buy respect.”

Margot’s heart thumped. A lesson learned too late?

“Did it ever occur to you that I left because I couldn't deal with being there where he died?” Cat said.

Margot stared.

“Don’t look so shocked.” Cat began walking again.

Margot cursed her stupidity and fell in alongside. “You never talked to me. How could I know?”

“I heard what people were saying,” Cat replied. "A girl from the wrong side of the tracks marrying the county's richest eligible bachelor…”

The old guilt surfaced. Margot had heard the rumors…had thought them herself. “That was one rumor,” she agreed. “That's how it is in a small town. Hell, that's how it is in big towns. People like to talk. So what? What did that have to do with you leaving?"

“We had been married only a few years.” Cat looked at her. “He was young and strong. He shouldn’t have died.”

“No one young and strong should die,” Margot said. “That’s what makes it a tragedy.”

“I know you blame me, Margot.”

“Blame you? It’s not your fault he—” her voice caught and she realized her heart was pounding again. She gave into the emotion. Why pretend she didn’t grieve over her cousin’s death. Why pretend she wasn’t angry he died? “I miss him like hell, but that’s got nothing to do with you.”

Cat looked at her and, for the first time since Donny's death, Margot saw doubt in her eyes. Maybe she should have given into her anger—and grief—a long time ago.

Cat broke the stare. “You said you wanted to pick up a souvenir for your dad. One of the best curio shops in town is at the end of the block. I'll meet you there in twenty minutes.”

Margot watched as Cat weaved her way through the crowd. Margot’s heart slowed, but the hot emotion that swept through her left a quiver in her stomach…and a bizarre question. Cat had come damn close to saying she knew Margot had figured out Cat murdered Donny. Why?

Twenty minutes later, Margot completed her purchase of a
sgian dubh
, a traditional Scottish dagger. Permits and postage were necessary to mail the dagger to the
U.S.
, but the clerk assured her she’d take care of everything for the right fee. It would be worth every penny to see her father's face when she returned home. A Southern boy like him appreciated a good weapon, and this would be one of a kind in
Wilkinson
County
. She laughed. He would likely use it to skin rabbits.

Margot stuck her credit card back in her tiny wallet and was slipping it into her back pocket when she noticed a plaque above a glass case that read
Clan badge belt buckles
. She stepped over and scanned the buckles until she spotted one that read
Clan Morrison of the Isle of Lewis
. The square, antiqued silver buckle showed a hand clutching a sword that rose above a castle tower sitting on the swell of a wave.

"Where is the Morrison buckle with the driftwood?" she called to the clerk.

The clerk looked up from the paperwork she still filled out.
“Which one?”

Margot glanced at the buckle. "I see you have the Morrison buckle with an arm coming out of a castle. Where's the one with the driftwood?"

The woman set down her pencil and came around to the case. “Which one are ye referring to?”

Margot pointed to the Morrison buckle.

“Aye,” the clerk said. “That's the Morrison badge.”

"I'm wondering about the other one."

"Other one?"

"The driftwood within a circle."
Margot scanned the other badges and saw more than one buckle design for some of them. "Maybe the circle doesn't matter," she said. "But the driftwood, wouldn't that be the badge?"

"Driftwood?" the clerk repeated, then, "Ah, you mean the Mac Gille Mhoire
badge. Their badge was the driftwood because Gille Mhiore, a Norseman they claim as their ancestor, washed ashore on the Isle of Lewis. But that's only a legend."

“Legend?"
Margot said. “But I saw—” she broke off, remembering where she'd seen the buckle. “You're telling me no one makes these driftwood badges?”

The woman looked startled. "No. There are different renditions of the Morrison badge, but only one design is approved by the Standing Council of Scottish Chiefs."

Dread crept up Margot’s spine. “These are all silver. What about leather?”

“Leather badges were common before silver came into use, but today, most people prefer silver.”

“Do you have a picture of the driftwood badge?" Margot asked.

"I've never seen one. I can ask, if ye like.”

Margot shook her head. "No…no, thank you." She smiled. "If you need any more information about shipping the dagger, please call me."

The woman nodded, and Margot crossed to the exit and pushed past the door. She stopped outside the shop. Her insides trembled. She wanted like hell to tell herself she'd seen Colin Morrison wearing it on Ghost Hunters Inc's site, but the picture hadn't included the lower half of his body. No. She'd seen him
and
that
badge
when it wasn't possible to have known either of them existed.

Chapter Eleven

Margot followed the guests of
Morrison
Castle
down the narrow stairs leading to the dungeon. She had to be right in figuring Cat had nothing hidden in the dungeon, or she wouldn’t be giving a tour of the lower level. Margot took the final step onto a brick floor and couldn't help an "Ohh.” An arched entry opened into a hallway that T'd left and right. The brick floor looked new. The walls were made of a sandy colored stone that gave them an airy look absent in the darker stone of the rest of the castle.

“The stone looks new,” Tory Hanley said.

“Thankfully, the previous owners redid this part of the castle five years ago,” Cat said. “If this stone hadn’t been replaced, this section of the castle would have collapsed.”

Like the east section Cat was having repaired now, Margot realized.

“Oh,” Tory intoned. “There are actual cells down here. Were they used for torture?”

Cat laughed. “Not torture, exactly, but imprisonment, for certain.”

“So Lord Morrison imprisoned people here,” Tory said with that same high school girl naiveté
  Margot
had seen on her first day there.

“He very well could have,” Cat replied. “Colin was the law in this part of the island and wouldn’t have hesitated to imprison a criminal.”

Margot shifted her gaze from Tory to Cat. Cat spoke of the Scottish Lord as if they were old friends.
“My castle, my ghost,”
she had said. Apparently, she took her ownership seriously.

Cat entered the first cell on the left. The small group crowded inside with her. Margot entered last and leaned against the wall as they examined the room.

"What are these two pieces of metal sticking out from the wall?" Tory asked. Before anyone could answer, she added, “Shackles—they’re for chaining people to the wall. They look so old.” Her brows furrowed. “But you said the walls had been replaced.

Cat brushed past Franklin Williams and Margot didn’t miss the way she glanced up at him through her lashes. His gaze dropped to Cat’s hips as she took the three steps to join Tory beside the left wall.

“This wall and the one opposite, in the cell on the other side of the stairs, are the only walls that weren’t replaced,” Cat said.

Tory’s eyes widened. “So criminals could have been shackled to these chains.”

Williams stepped up beside her and Cat, and examined the metal.
"Wouldn't be much need for these today."
His waggled his brows.
"At least, not as instruments of imprisonment."

The other men chuckled and a blush crept up Tory Hanley’s cheeks.

“Are the other cells like this one?” Leslie Evans asked.

“Yes,” Cat answered. “Though there are no remains of irons in the others.”

Tory looked disappointed and Margot nearly laughed.

“Come along and I’ll show you the secret passage leading from the dungeons to the first floor.” Cat started forward. She cast Margot a questioning look as she passed.

Margot shrugged and waited until everyone had filed out. She started to turn, but stopped when her gaze caught on the shackles. She recalled Williams’ joke about not needing shackles as instruments of imprisonment and thought of Charlie. A picture rose of her chained to the wall, an iron band across her neck to hold her head in place, legs chained spread eagle as he ran a palm up her breast, and across a sensitive nipple.

She shivered as much from pleasure as from the cold that penetrated bone-deep from the stone through the sensitive flesh of her back and ass. He grasped a nipple between thumb and forefinger and rolled the rigid areola. Pleasure spiked. Eyes locked with hers, he brought his mouth close to hers. He shifted his gaze to her lips,
then
abruptly dropped to his knees. Margot trembled when warm fingers splayed across her hips. He slid his thumbs into her dampened folds and slid upward, spreading her, more, more…more.

Cool air washed over her exposed sex. Moist warmth swept up through her drenched channel, the tip of his tongue flicking her clit as he lapped cream in that single stroke. Pleasure shot through her. Chains rattled when she jerked. He rose and stepped close again. Her eyes remained locked with Charlie's blue eyes as they morphed into Colin Morrison's dark eyes. He traced the seam of her lips with his tongue,
then
trailed his tongue along the inside of her lips, careful the tip barely penetrated her mouth. Hint of her tangy cream sizzled on the end of her tongue.

Colin undid the buckle of his kilt and allowed the plaide to drop to the stone floor. He shed the starched white shirt that hung over his groin and she couldn't stop her gaze from dropping to his erection. He wrapped thick fingers around the base and stroked the hard length. Light from the sconces glistened on the moisture that beaded on the crown. Her mouth watered to taste him, feel the hard shaft as she sucked him deep into her mouth.

He stepped close to her and covered a breast with his free hand as he continued to caress his rigid staff. Margot arched into his palm as far as her constraints allowed. With a groan, he pinched the nipple. She cried out. He shifted so that he stood directly in front of her and slid his cock up through her soaked folds. She lifted her hips off the wall, pulsing against the steel rod. Her blood heated. Colin shoved her back against the wall and crushed her under him, his hard length jammed between them.