His Woman (MacGruders) Page 3

  With quiet steps, Duncan rounded the last bend, only to collide with the ripe scent of the poorly kept cells. “God in heaven.” Isabel lived in this? Had Symon known, he would have urged Duncan to kill Frasyer outright.

  At the first door, he squinted through the tiny peephole.

  Empty.

  A tormented groan, he recognized as male, echoed from inside the next cell. Despite his assurance that Isabel meant nothing to him, his blood iced. Please, God, let Isabel have been spared such brutality.

  Duncan moved on. Meager rays of light filtered through the small, narrowed windows. He couldn’t make out if a prisoner was inside. After listening for several seconds, he concluded it was empty.

  Frustrated, he hurried down the corridor. If possible, the stench grew worse. He almost heaved. Aye, he and his brothers had taken prisoners, a casualty of battle, but they’d ensured the men were treated with basic decency. This filth, that of rotting food and unkempt cells, wasn’t fit for a maggot.

  Whatever Isabel had done to upset Frasyer, she didn’t deserve this.

  “Where are you, lass?” His whisper melded with the echo of men’s groans. Was Isabel hurt? Sick? Lying helpless and unable to yell for help?

  If he didn’t find her soon, with daylight fading, he might never be able to. With his mind steeped in emotions he’d rather not feel, Duncan moved to the next cell.

  He peered inside. Wisps of the waning light embraced the profile of a woman standing near a pathetically small window. It outlined her slender body, the soft curve of her jaw, the paleness of her cheeks, and the lush whisky-colored tresses that settled over her shoulders like dying embers.

  Isabel.

  The years peeled away. Her laughter rushed over him, deep and warm. How her fingers had trembled as they’d skimmed across his chest with a nervous touch, and the need that had exploded between them as he’d stolen his first kiss.

  Duncan smothered memories of their past, angry he could still be moved so deeply when it came to her. He removed the bar that bolted the thick wooden door and shoved it open.

  Torchlight spilled into the dank chamber.

  At the scrape of metal against wood, Isabel turned, her amber eyes wide and unsure. She frowned. “Father?”

  Duncan glanced behind him, half expecting to see a priest. He muttered a curse and shoved back his hood. “Nay.”

  Isabel paled. “Duncan?”

  “Quiet, lass.” He kept his voice soft. “The guards will be making their rounds soon, and you will be giving us both away.” With one last glance toward the steps, he jumped into the cell and landed on the stiff bed of stale straw. “Hush.”

  “But—”

  Duncan stepped forward and caught her arms.

  A mistake.

  He was close. Too close. The moment was too familiar, as if no time had passed. As if he could blink and make the nightmare of the last three years disappear.

  Her full lips had parted in surprise, but wrapped within the soft luminescence of moonlight, all he could think of was her taste. Of how she had once responded to his touch. Except he’d never claimed what was rightfully his—that she’d given freely to his enemy. Nay, even worse, a false friend, as Frasyer had been during their youth.

  Duncan released her as if burned. Isabel stumbled, then recovered.

  “Why are you dressed like a priest? Or”—Isabel angled her chin—“has Frasyer sent you?”

  “Frasyer? Nay. I came to help you escape.”

  She studied him as if trying to decide if he was telling the truth. “Why?”

  His anger shoved up a notch. “Look around you, lass. You want to stay in this filth?”

  She shook her head and slowly exhaled, drawing his attention to how her dress hung on her slender frame. The bastard was starving her. What other brutalities had Frasyer inflicted upon her?

  “You should not be here,” she said. “You are putting your life in danger.”

  He gave an indignant snort. “And you would be worrying about me?”

  “Please leave.”

  He ignored her frantic warning. It didn’t make sense. Unless…Duncan caught her wrists. “Is this a trap you helped Frasyer set up?”

  Outrage spilled across her face. Isabel tried to yank her hands free. “I would never do such a thing.”

  “Like you would not break your betrothal with me to go to Frasyer’s bed?” Bedamned! He hadn’t meant to ask. He had no desire to relive the bitter betrayal of that time, but the words had already slipped from his mouth.

  Isabel stiffened. “I would not see you harmed.”

  Oddly, he found himself believing her. In the scarred light, Duncan scanned the dismal cell. Except for a wooden bed piled with aged straw and a moth-eaten woolen blanket along with a half-empty bowl with contents he didn’t wish to fathom, the chamber lay bare.

  “I see Frasyer bestows his mistress with only the best of lodgings.”

  A blush scalded her cheeks, but she didn’t turn away. “Why have you come?”

  He released her. “Because Symon asked.”

  At the mention of her brother, her face lost any trace of color. Then, like the first rose of spring, her expression bloomed with hope.

  “Symon?” A smile quivered on her lips. She stepped forward. “He is alive? Thank Mary, I thought he had died.” She laid her hand on his forearm. “Where is he? I must—”

  “Isabel.” At his rough tone, her hand fell away. A dull pounding built in his head. He’d not wanted to tell Isabel like this, with her hopes soaring and her looking at him with such tender belief.

  “Duncan?” Amber eyes watched him with fragile hope. At his silence, she clenched her hands into trembling fists. “Where is Symon?”

  There would be no easy way to tell her. He handed her the embroidery. “He is dead.”

  “Dead?” Isabel’s breath strangled in her throat as she clutched the delicate fabric. She’d allowed herself to hope, to believe the impossible. The cell blurred around her.

  Symon.

  Her brother, mentor, friend.

  Dead.

  Somewhere in the blackness, hands, strong and firm, caught her shoulders and brought her up against something warm. Something solid.

  “I am sorry.”

  Duncan’s whisper echoed in her mind. She’d foolishly allowed herself to believe the impossible—that her brother lived. All she wanted now was to cling to Duncan and allow him to protect her from this heartbreaking reality. To pretend the past three years had not happened. To imagine Symon healthy and happy, and Duncan’s arms around her a common occurrence, not a gesture of borrowed support.

  A yell from the courtyard startled her back to reality.

  “We need to leave before the guards make their rounds,” Duncan said.

  Numb, she allowed him to lead her to the door.

  Steps echoed from the stairs.

  With a curse, Duncan released her. He peered out the door. “Someone is coming. Stay here. I will return once they have left.” For a second, he looked as if he wanted to say more, then he climbed from the cell. As he secured and then barred the door, blackness encased her. The soft echo of his footsteps faded.

  Isabel sagged against the cold stone, wrapped her arms around her trembling body as she clutched the embroidery she’d given Symon, and tried to accept this twist of fate.

  Duncan was here.

  How she’d prayed for him to rescue her. Within that empty, forbidden world of her cell, she’d replayed the scene in her mind a thousand times. His smiling face framed by sun-bleached hair, the hair of a wayward faerie she’d always teased, laughing as his arrogant locks fell onto his shoulders in the haphazard tumble she so adored.

  She would cry with joy as he swept her into his arms and claimed her mouth with possessive fierceness, that of the man who loved her, that of the man who could find it in his heart to forgive, and that of the man who understood she’d had no choice but to become Frasyer’s mistress.

  The rattle of keys down the co
rridor shattered her thoughts like pottery upon stone. They were naught but foolish dreams.

  Symon would not rise from the grave.

  And Duncan would never forgive her for becoming Frasyer’s mistress as he believed. As much as she wanted to explain the circumstances leading to her role as Frasyer’s mistress, she must not forget Frasyer’s threat to kill Duncan if she ever told him of her and Frasyer’s bargain.

  She could only imagine Duncan’s anger if he learned the truth. There was no telling what he would do. His knowing would only make a horrible situation worse.

  Aye, now Duncan was here. Not by choice, but due to his loyalty to Symon.

  Symon. Oh, God. She squeezed the embroidery tight within her palm. Tears burned her throat. Never again would she find comfort in her brother’s arms. In his strength. In his compassion. Or in the sage advice of a brother who’d suffered his own personal misery when he’d learned of her decision to become Frasyer’s mistress.

  By agreeing to Frasyer’s demand, she’d thought to protect her father and to save their home. Never had she imagined her choice would one day play a role in ending Symon’s life.

  But it had.

  She shouldn’t have gone to visit him that day, but she had wanted to give Symon her embroidered gift.

  Now he lay dead.

  A sob racked her body. Then another. As tears rolled down her cheeks, she turned to stare through the window where the cold gray of the night stole toward blackness.

  She had to get out of here. To push past the pain, to remember that more than her brother’s life was at stake. Her father depended on her.

  Somehow, she must find the Bible.

  Steps outside had her whirling to face the door. She shoved the embroidery into her pocket as the slide of a wooden bar clattered through the dungeon. Guards’ voices murmured in the dank corridor.

  A scuffle.

  Terse voices shouted in argument.

  Duncan! Isabel ran to the door. She pressed her ear against the cold wood and strained to hear.

  Moments later, the voices stilled. Boots scraped to a stop outside her cell.

  She stumbled back.

  Wood grated as the bar to her door was lifted, then opened with a vicious shove. Yellowed torchlight raced through the blackness and one of the guards stepped into view.

  “Here.” He held out a half loaf of hard bread and a wedge of cheese.

  She forced herself to step forward and accept the fare as if nothing was amiss. They hadn’t seen Duncan. Another prisoner must have offered resistance.

  “Move back,” the guard ordered.

  In silence, Isabel complied.

  He jerked the door shut.

  Darkness, cold and ugly, closed in around her. A cool breeze crawled over her skin. Outside, not even a star welcomed the oncoming night.

  A shiver rippled through her as she laid the unappetizing food aside, her hunger having long since fled. She tracked the guards’ movements by the slam of doors as they went from cell to cell to deliver the evening fare.

  At last, except for the whistle of the wind and the moans of prisoners lost in their own misery, a morbid silence claimed the dungeon.

  Like that of a living tomb.

  Where was Duncan? With each passing second that he didn’t return, her fear grew. She’d lost Symon. Her father’s life was in jeopardy. She couldn’t lose him as well. “Where are you, Duncan?”

  Seconds crawled past.

  The passage of time building her fear with destructive intent.

  When Isabel thought she’d go mad, the bar grated. She whirled as the door scraped open. Framed within the entry by the flicker of distant torchlight, Duncan appeared as if he were a defiant god challenging the world.

  And as unreachable.

  After a cautious glance into the corridor, he jumped down and shut the door. Darkness consumed them. “Isabel?”

  The fear she’d harbored at his safe return vanished, the concern in his voice further weakening her resolve to remain aloof. She ran to him, and his arms wrapped around her without hesitation. His familiar touch unfurled an ache deep inside, a longing for Duncan that would never fade.

  “Thank God you are safe. You were gone so long. I thought the guards might have caught you,” she admitted, amazed she sounded so composed when she felt anything but.

  He released her. “As if it would matter?”

  “Yes,” she breathed, wanting only to tell him how much. Or how she still loved him. And always would.

  He gave a snort of disbelief. “Worry not, lass. I will help you escape. I have given my vow. I, unlike others, keep my word.”

  She flinched, grateful for the dark. Yet, she deserved his anger. But she couldn’t change the past, nor, it seemed, the future. To explain the truth would not only expose her father’s shame, but if Frasyer ever learned that Duncan knew her reason for leaving him, as he’d vowed on that fated day three years ago, he would use every bit of his power to hunt Duncan down and kill him. A vow she knew however ill achieved, Frasyer would keep.

  “Believe what you will.” She took a step back, too aware of him, of how her need for him had grown to a dangerous level.

  “Aye, I will.” His voice was grim. “Come.”

  Isabel followed him toward the door. If this was only about her, she might risk braving Frasyer’s wrath. Now, her father, as well as the fate of the rebels, depended on her, too.

  Once she’d retrieved her mother’s Bible, she would bring it to Lord Monceaux, King Edward’s Scottish adviser. A fair man her father had stated on many an occasion. Now she would entrust the English lord with the greatest of tests.

  That of her father’s life.

  What would she do if the Bible wasn’t in Frasyer’s chamber? When she found the Bible, how would she deliver it to England? Stealing a horse was a crime punishable by hanging, but lack of time demanded desperation.

  Not that it would change her fate. Once her father was freed, Frasyer still held documentation that would ruin her father. Frasyer would use this information to continue blackmailing her to remain as his mistress. Whether she lived within his chambers or his dungeon, the latter to prove his complete control over her, he would never allow Isabel her freedom.

  Duncan opened the door and glanced back. Torchlight spilled over Isabel. Her wide, expressive eyes, haunted by the loss of her brother, watched him. For one weak moment, he was tempted to hold her and promise he would protect her always, but he quelled the urge.

  He gestured her forward. “Let us be gone.” His tone was deliberately rough.

  When she continued to stare at him, vulnerable and lost, he caught her hand. He silently cursed himself at the jolt of awareness that swept through him from a mere touch. A heat that betrayed logic. He didn’t need to feel any connection with her or of how right it still felt to be in her presence.

  Outside her cell, he led her to a dimly lit corner beneath the stairs subtly shielding a door to yet another chamber. From the lack of grating at the door, the cell beyond was designed to deprive prisoners of light. God knew what other atrocities to deliver pain lay within.

  “Why are we stopping here?” she asked, clearly confused.

  He retrieved the bag of clothes he’d hidden behind a barrel of water. “Put these on.”

  She opened the sack, removed the garments and glanced up at him with surprise. “Garb for a page?”

  “You are needing a disguise. I doubt they will be allowing you to pass through the castle otherwise.” He pointed to the darkened corner beneath the stairs where he’d hidden while the guards had made their rounds. “Change over there.”

  After a brief hesitation, she slipped into the blackened nook.

  The rustle of her gown assured him she was stripping at a fast pace. As he waited, an errant gust of wind sent the torch in a wild jig. For a second, he caught a backlit view of the tempting curve of her bared breasts.

  Duncan gritted his teeth and turned away, but he could all too easily envision her n
aked and stepping into the light. Her straight, whisky-colored hair cascading to frame full, taut breasts. How the flat stomach all but invited his gaze lower.

  He wasn’t sure which was worse, the emotional torment she had put him through, or the knowledge that his body still welcomed the sweet torture of her physically.

  “Hurry up,” he hissed.

  “I am ready.” She stepped into the light, her willowy body now hidden within the folds of a page’s clothes and her hair concealed beneath the hood of the cloak.

  “That should hide you well enough.” He silently cursed the vision of her naked etched in his mind.

  Isabel frowned. “What if they do not believe I am a lad?”

  “For both our sakes, you had best pray they do.” He drew up his own hood. What more could he say? Surely she knew the risks if they were caught. After living under Frasyer’s roof and spending time in his dungeon, she should have become well acquainted with his cruelty. “This way.”

  At the landing, he was pleased to find the guard and the serving wench he’d passed earlier thoroughly immersed in their carnal act.

  He motioned Isabel past the lovers. When she caught sight of their coupling, she lowered her gaze. Duncan frowned. With her role as mistress, he would have believed any innocence long past.

  They approached the door to the great hall and Duncan paused. “Stay with me,” he ordered under his breath. “Whatever happens, do not look around.”

  They’d barely entered the bottom floor of the keep when two guards heading toward the dungeon passed them. He increased his stride, the hard set of the men’s faces prodding his unease.

  With Isabel at his side, they crossed the large room. Appearing too tired to bother with comings and goings, the servants cleaning the trencher tables never looked up.

  Once Duncan and Isabel had climbed the tower steps to where they were hidden from view, she halted. “Why are we going up?”

  A faint smile curved his lips. Why indeed. He opened his mouth to inform her of their foul escape route when a shout arose from below.

  “It is Lady Isabel,” a man yelled. “She has escaped.”

  “Search the keep,” another man’s voice boomed.