There was still a dazed look in her pretty eyes and the flush of desire still on her cheeks, when he looked into her face. Harcourt could not completely resist the urge to kiss one of those lightly colored cheeks. He was pleased when she did not flinch away from that kiss. Her resistance to the passion between them was slowly easing. He just wished he could find out what caused it.
“I will send a maid down to tend to his wounds,” she said as she started toward the door only to turn back to take the keys from him, lock the door that led to the cellars, and reattach the keys to her belt. “There should be a guard with the maid, aye?”
“Aye. I dinnae think the mon would hurt anyone but he is verra frightened and could do some harm if he tried to escape.”
“I will see to it.” At the door she again halted and looked back to the door to the cellars. “Did ye see where Roban went?”
“After the mouse.”
“How is that cat wandering about the place with such freedom?” Annys shook her head and left.
Harcourt stared at the door she had just locked and frowned. That was a very good question she had tossed out before leaving, although he doubted she fully understood the import of it at the moment. Cats were agile and could get in and out of places one would never have expected them to fit through. Yet that cat appeared in places where there really was no way to explain its presence.
There had to be some secrets David had never shared with Annys. Another bolt-hole or some passages in the walls. It was the only explanation. Cats might be clever and agile but they could not climb up stone walls to squeeze through a narrow window or walk through those same walls. As far as he knew, animals did not know how to open doors or turn into spirits that could slip past you as you opened doors. The door to the bolt-hole she had mentioned needed the keys she carried but he would get her to show him where it was. But, in this keep there had to be ways to sneak in and out that Annys did not know about. He grew more certain of that by the minute. He just had to figure out a way to search for them without letting any of those secrets become too well known.
Inspired and fleetingly praying he did not end up looking like an idiot, he went to find Callum. That man had been forced to learn how to hide and how to find the ways in and out of a place at a very young age. Over the years, even as his life had greatly improved, he had honed the skill. If there were ways in and out of the keep that David had neglected to tell Annys about, Callum would sniff them out.
“Weel,” Callum drawled as he gave a futile attempt to brush the dirt off his clothes, “it would be a trial but someone could get in and out of there. A wee bit of work and it could be made a more comfortable little bolt-hole. I just dinnae understand what use it is. It goes under the wall and little else.”
Harcourt nodded slowly. “But it gets ye outside the walls without having to walk across the bailey where there are so many eyes to watch you.”
“Why dinnae they just use the bolt-hole ye said David had made for everyone to use?”
“Because the door to it is locked and Annys keeps the keys with her all the time.”
“Another set of keys?”
“That is a possibility but how would one get the key one wanted without her kenning it and it takes time to make a new one. The other keys, if there are any, would be given to someone she and David trusted completely. It is also accessible only from the ledger room and she is in there a lot. Nay, I think we need to look for things like this, although more accommodating. This would work for that cursed cat though. Any sign it has been used lately?”
“’Tis packed tight. I wouldnae have gotten so filthy if I had been a wee bit smaller.”
“Back to it being a woman again, aye?”
“Aye. I will keep looking though. Ye may take time to question Annys about any knowledge she might have about such bolt-holes. Just because she doesnae have a key to them, doesnae mean they are not there, or that David had nay done the work himself.”
“Weel, I would certainly have believed that ere he was mutilated as the mon did love the lassies but his parents were verra religious, verra pious, and he wouldnae have wanted them to ken he was sneaking out to tumble about with some wench.” Harcourt smiled as he recalled some of the tales David had told him while he had been so long abed while healing. “From the time he had his first taste of a woman until he was gelded by that jealous oaf, he was a randy beast.”
Callum nodded. “So, to go off rutting without having to endure the pious lectures of his parents, he would indeed want some secret way out of the keep. And it would nay be one he would have told Annys about, if only because he wouldnae have wanted to explain the reason he had it. I will keep looking.”
“Good. We need to find out how the traitor is slipping in and out of here nay matter what is going on or how many we have watching. That is a weakness that could end up costing us dearly.”
Chapter Nine
“Where is the wretched child?”