Eyes of the Cat Read online

  “Aye,” Angus agreed, glancing downward. “Who are they, Gabby dear?”

  “I dinna ken for sure.” Tabitha batted guileless eyes at him. “They only boarded the stop afore this one, and we had such a wee time for speech.”

  Angus’s eyes abruptly narrowed, drawing his brows together into one big fuzzy blond caterpillar creeping across his forehead. “The lassie wears MacAllister tartan!”

  “Oh, aye.” Tabitha quickly laughed. “The poor dearie was splashed by a carriage just afore boardin’, and she hadna another gown, sae I made her take one o’ me own.”

  “Ah, now there be a MacAllister for you, generous tae the core,” Angus boomed. “Come alang now, Gabby dear. Me lads be fair hoppin’ oota their kilts tae see you.”

  “Aye, Uncle Angus.” Tabitha beamed up at him.

  I must be completely mad, she thought, following his broad back off the train.

  * * *

  “They’re mad!” A disheveled tartan-clad fury stormed across the dim chamber, flailing cobwebs out of her face as she went. “All of them!” She fumed back to the thick wood door, kicking through a pile of ancient straw on her way and startling a family of rodents. “Every last man Jack of them—completely and utterly stark raving mad!”

  Grabbing the door’s heavy iron handle with both hands, she braced her feet, threw her weight backward, and tugged with all her might.

  It refused to budge.

  Which was pretty much what she’d expected, having already tried to open it eleven times and gotten the same result with each effort. She hadn’t been able to resist a twelfth attempt, however, just in case it wasn’t actually locked, but merely stuck, and a really solid pull would jar it loose. A fancy born of desperation, of course, because she knew well and good that the horrid door to this horrid tower prison was horridly locked. She had very clearly heard its horrid latch scraping horridly into place when they had thrown her in there barely thirty horrid minutes before.

  It took two of them to do it, though.

  Tabitha studied the blood under her fingernails—none of it her own. That was some satisfaction, at least. The tartan gown was rather the worse for the tussle, her long hair had tumbled loose and probably looked like a banshee’s at the moment, but other than that—and a few definite dents in her pride—she was basically intact.

  So far.

  Which was more than anyone would be able to say for Duncan and Douglas. Or had it been Donald and Dunstan who had imprisoned her up here? Douglas and Donald, perhaps?

  She shook her disheveled head. Angus’s four sons all looked so alike, how could anyone be expected to tell them apart? Probably it made no difference. They were four peas in a pod—all insane, like their father. Some kind of congenital defect, no doubt. Only insane people could be thinking what they were.

  After all, they knew the truth now. She had admitted who she was long before they’d come in sight of this adobe monstrosity. She’d had to hold off a while, naturally, to insure Captain Lawrence and Lady Gabrina an adequate headstart, but she hadn’t waited a moment longer than necessary. Scarcely three hours out of Abilene Station, she had told all. It had been right as they were passing that other wagon, the one with the pleasant looking Mexican family. It had seemed such a providential time because, once the MacAllisters realized she wasn’t Gabrina, they certainly wouldn’t want her anymore, and she should have been able to hitch a return ride to Abilene with the Mexicans.

  Except…

  “Ah well”—Angus had shrugged after listening silently to the confession—“what canna be cured, mun be endured.”

  “Thank you so much for your understanding, Mr. MacAllister.” Tabitha had twisted around on the wagon seat, straining to see if the Mexican family was still in earshot. The explanation had taken longer than she’d intended. “I must say, you’re being very gracious about this.”

  Where was that other wagon? That couldn’t be it, could it? That pinprick on the horizon?

  “Oh, dear.” She had turned back toward Angus. “I’m terribly sorry about this, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to drive me back to Abilene.”

  “Why?” He had flashed her a big toothy grin. “Gabby or Tabby, ’tis such a wee dif’rence. Dinna you fear, lassie. Alan’ll still wed you.”

  A high-button shoe stomped onto a filthy wood floor.

  But I’ve no intention of wedding Alan! I don’t care if he’s Prince Charming, himself, I don’t even want to meet the man.

  The truth of the matter was, she had no intention of wedding anyone. Ever. Her Aunt Matilda had always preached that wedlock was a lock, indeed, little better than slavery for women. Tabitha wasn’t sure if that was entirely correct; she had known some girls who seemed content in their chains. But they were generally the type of Lady Gabrina, girls who hadn’t much stored in their attics, so to speak. She agreed with Matilda Jeffries that she, herself, was not especially well suited for marriage.

  “You are too intelligent and far too independent to tolerate such a union,” she could almost hear her aunt saying. “For you, Tabitha, marriage would feel like being nibbled to death by ducks. A slow torture. Leave it for the girls who can think of nothing else to do with their lives. You will be far better satisfied if you forge your own way in the world, as I have.”

  Right,” Tabitha answered aloud, stalking away from the locked door. “But the only way I’m interested in now, is whatever way will get me out of here.”

  Stopping in the center of the circular cell, she peered about, trying hard to determine her options, and harder to ignore the fact that there didn’t appear to be any. Except for the gloom, the must, and the dust—of which there was plenty—the cell was practically bare. Nothing but one heavy door with a small iron grate letting in scant light from the passage beyond, one narrow, deep-set window letting in a bit more from the nearly full moon outside…one torch in a wall bracket, offering no light at all, because it was unlit…one comforting manacle dangling from a short chain in the wall (the comfort being that it wasn’t dangling from her)…one foul smelling heap of straw…one small, scarred wood table…

  Was that all?

  But there had to be something here. Something she had missed. Something she could use?

  Swallowing down anger, frustration, and a rising panic, she forced herself to make another deliberate inventory. Table. Straw. Manacle. Torch. Window. Cat. Door…

  Cat?

  She rushed to the window. There on the floor below it, stately and dignified, like a king holding court, sat the biggest, blackest, most magnificent tomcat she had ever seen. He was almost too beautiful to be real.

  “Why, you marvelous creature… Wherever did you come from? I’m sure you weren’t here a moment ago.”

  The cat stared solemnly through large golden eyes as she reached down to him. He sniffed her fingers, rather with the air of a courtier kissing a damsel’s hand, and then began a deep bass purr while she stroked between his ears.

  “I wish you could show me how you got in,” she said, “because maybe I could get out the same way.”

  The cat stood up, gave a long regal stretch, and leaped neatly into the window crevice.

  “Oh, now don’t tell me you came in through there.” She shook her head at him. “We must be at least three stories high. Did you scale the tower, or simply fly? I don’t see any wings on your back.”

  “Nor I on yours, and I thought angels always had wings,” came a low voice from behind her.

  Her heart in her throat, Tabitha whirled about to confront a tall young man lounging against the closed door and studying her with obvious amusement. He was fair-haired, like most of the MacAllisters, but he spoke with a distinctly American accent and wore trousers instead of a kilt. Which meant… She allowed herself a discreet sigh of relief.

  He wasn’t Alan.

  “Who were you talking to just now?” he asked.

  The fellow might not be Alan, but he was someone with an apparent vision problem. Even in the gloom, h
er feline visitor was hard to miss.

  “The cat, of course,” she answered warily. “Don’t you see him?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “But you must.” She glanced over her shoulder and suffered a sudden weird tingle down her spine. “Oh! It…it’s not there anymore.”

  “Well, don’t let it trouble you,” he drawled.

  Although Tabitha wasn’t sure what he meant by “it”—the cat’s disappearance, or the fact that she had seen it when he had not. Either way, she didn’t care for the man’s tone, nor the idea that he’d gotten into the cell without her hearing him.

  “Who are you?” she demanded.

  “At the moment, I rather wish I were Alan.” He grinned, and she didn’t care much for that either.

  “No, you don’t.” Her eyes slid over him like a glacier.

  The grin broadened. “Perhaps you’re right. I saw what you did to Duncan and Dunstan. I’m Simon Elliott.” He looked as though he thought the name might mean something to her. When it didn’t, he shrugged and continued a bit cryptically, “You could call me a…a friend of the MacAllisters. I’m engaged in some…well, let’s just say some research here at the castle. Among other things, I’m studying old Highland customs.” He gave her another irritating grin. “Angus has been telling me all about you, Miss Jeffries. A fascinating situation you’ve landed yourself in, I must say.”

  “I’m so glad you find it amusing.”

  Her expression, which must have looked anything but glad, seemed only to increase that amusement.

  “Oh, come now, buck up”—he chuckled—“I’m sure things aren’t nearly as bad as you think they are.”

  “How would you know?” She turned her back on him.

  “I’m a wizard. Wizard’s know everything.”

  Marvelous. He was insane, too.

  “Look at it this way, perhaps, when you two finally meet, Alan will decide that he doesn’t care for you—as unlikely as that seems. Or, you may decide that you do care for him,” Simon suggested. “I don’t, of course. He’s a little too odd for me.”

  Tabitha gave a strangled laugh as she spun back to him. “All the MacAllisters are odd!”

  “Perhaps. But Laird Alan is the oddest of the lot.”

  Double marvelous.

  “Did you climb all the way up here just to tell me that?” she asked icily.

  “I came to cheer you up,” he replied warmly.

  “Well, I’m sorry to inform you of this, Mr. Elliott, but you have been anything but cheering.”

  “How unfortunate. I must try to do better.” He stooped to retrieve a black wood box from the floor near his feet. “See? I’ve brought you a gift to brighten your stay here. It’s one of my latest toys.”

  Curiosity driving back her upset for a moment, Tabitha reached for it. It was a little heavier than she had expected from its size, and it had a glass globe covering a wire coil sticking out of its top. “How do you work it?”

  Her interest appeared to please him.

  “Place it on the table, and I’ll show you.”

  When it was positioned, he touched something on its back with one hand, while flourishing the other in the air, declaring, “Let there be light!”

  And there was. While Tabitha stood blinking in the glare of it, Simon quickly and quietly left.

  “I told you I was a wizard,” she heard him whisper just before the lock clicked back into place.

  “Yes, and I’m Cleopatra,” she said, unable to take her eyes off the contraption. What an annoying man. Rather ingenious, though. This was a very serviceable electric lantern. Smaller than the one Mr. Edison of New Jersey had come up with a few years earlier, but it produced even more illumination. The compact size with the increased brightness, in fact, were two of the improvements her aunt had been trying to perfect right before she died. If Tabitha had been older at the time and had had the funding to continue the work, she might have worked out something like this, herself. But the investors had been appalled. A woman scientist had been dubious enough—regardless of her sterling credentials—but a teenaged girl?

  She shook her head. There had been nothing to do but finagle her way into a paid position with that prestigious service agency, ignore the foibles of the wealthy women she companioned, and plan for the day when she had enough money saved to continue her aunt’s research. It was a bit aggravating, naturally, to realize that someone had beaten her to the punch on this lighting device. However, modifying Mr. Edison’s idea had been only one of Aunt Matilda’s projects—everyone and their brother had been working on the same problem, it seemed—and there were so many more interesting and original discoveries waiting to be made.

  But I’ll never get a chance at any of them unless I get out of here!

  Reaching around the back of the box—obviously some sort of power storage unit—Tabitha felt for the trigger… Ah, there, a small lever. She flipped it and the bright glow popped out with a distinct crackle.

  “That didn’t sound good. The voltage is unstable,” she muttered. “You had better be careful with your toys, Mr. Elliott. I don’t believe you’re quite as clever as you think you are.”

  Something nudged the side of her foot. She jumped, certain it was one of the rat colony from the straw, and then laughed with relief.

  “Oh, you’re back, are you? Where did you disappear to before?”

  The black cat gave a long, resonant yowl.

  “Goodness! You sound like an alarm siren, and I entirely agree. This predicament is alarming. But what can I do? I know it seems absurd, but I’m like one of those fairytale damsels-in-distress. Complete with the imprisonment in a genuine towered fortress.” Kneeling by the cat, Tabitha stroked him from the top of his satin head to the tip of his long tail, his purr rumbling like a steam engine at full throttle.

  “I don’t suppose you know of any knights-in-shining-armor who could come to my rescue, do you? You’d think a castle this size would have at least one Sir Lancelot or Galahad. A Robin Hood, perhaps?” She sank back on her heels. “Right now, I’d even settle for Friar Tuck.”

  Studying her intently, the cat yowled again, then leapt onto the table. He sniffed the lantern, arched his back, and gave a ferocious hiss.

  “Yes, I agree with you there, too. Mr. Elliott won’t be any help. I’d already discarded that possibility, myself. Any other ideas— Oh! Be careful, you might hurt yourself!”

  Her four-footed confidant had just lashed out and batted the lantern clean off the table. The glass globe shattered, and the box split open, spilling wires and coils all over the dusty floor. Tabitha stared at the mess, feeling her eyes bug. There, in the center of the jumble, was what must have caused the unstable current. A long, curious iron key.

  The key to her prison? The key to freedom?

  She looked at the cat, sitting motionless in the center of the table like a big furry black Buddha.

  “Oh my,” she breathed. “Do you think we could possibly have misjudged Mr. Elliott?”

  The feline’s only answer was to leap off the table, snatch the key in his mouth, and dart pell-mell across the cell.

  “No! Bring that back!” She raced after him, but he’d already disappeared through the narrow recessed window. “I thought you were my friend!”

  She could almost have sat down and cried, but that certainly wouldn’t have solved anything. There was nothing to do but slide into the window crevice after him. Due to the thick walls of the prison tower, it was nearly three feet deep and a bit of a squeeze, but she thought she could manage it.

  However is he getting up and down from here, anyway?

  “Heavens, what a monstrous tree! Why didn’t I notice that before?” she asked aloud, staring in fixed fascination at the massive branches grazing the outside of the tower.

  “Because you didn’t check the window before, you nitwit,” she answered herself.

  An understandable oversight, though. The window was so deep-set it was difficult to see out of, unless one
actually climbed into it. And she’d known she was too high to make escape that way a possibility. Also, she just happened to have this absolutely ghastly horror of heights. It was the one habit her aunt had never even tried to cure her of. Because Aunt Matilda happened to be horrified of heights, too.

  Probably an inherited trait, Tabitha mused, clutching the adobe sill with a white knuckled grip and trying desperately not to be sick as she peered out into the new spring leaves. There sat the cat among them, just out of reach, with the key jutting jauntily out the corners of his mouth and what appeared to be a highly amused expression in his large amber eyes.

  “Oh, you think this is funny, do you? Don’t you dare yowl and drop it, you little imp. Bring it here to me.”

  He stood up on his branch, stretched, and padded a few steps toward her.

  “That’s right…that’s a good boy…come here…one more step…come on, angel,” she coaxed. “Oh! You naughty little devil!” She glowered as he spun and flitted back the way he’d come.

  Key in mouth, he strolled about the nearest branches, pausing here and there to sharpen his claws, stopping occasionally to level that warm golden gaze on her. “I’ll give you the key if you’ll come here,” he seemed to be saying. “Come on, it’s perfectly safe. Look at me. It’s easy.”

  It’s insane, Tabitha thought. Everything was crazy, the situation, the castle, the MacAllisters, the cat…

  “And I’m the craziest of all. Oh, how I hate heights,” she groaned, sliding through the open window.

  It was a heart-stopping scramble from the sill to the first branch. Tabitha never was quite sure how she accomplished it, because she’d had her eyes squeezed shut during the whole process. When she did dare look, there was the cat sitting two branches below and staring encouragingly up at her, as if to say, “You did that very well. For a human.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “Now may I please have that key?”

  “No. I’ve changed my mind,” he said. “It’s a cat’s purr-ogative, you know.”