Betrayed (25 page)

As that was precisely the answer he’d hoped for, Krayne left her to sulk. When the first of the stragglers emerged from the line of trees, he asked her, “Have ye ever ridden astride?”

“Only most of my life.”

“Good.” He lifted the edge of her plaid, sliding her down his lap and snugly between his thighs as he repositioned her legs either side the horse’s flank.

When all the men had gathered, he kicked the stallion into a fierce gallop toward the dale of Lochar Water. Amber’s buttocks drove backward into him as she moved with the stallion’s rhythm and his semi-erection sluiced between her bottom cheeks and immediately went rigid. This was going to be a long, uncomfortable ride. Krayne clamped his jaw into a grimace that lasted the full four hours of their journey. He was starting to accept that no matter what Amber did, his body just didn’t seem to care and that was something he’d have to live with until he figured out this mess.

They rode into Annan on the late afternoon sun. The market had dwindled down to a handful of stalls, leaving the seafront to glisten lazily before the sparkling turquoise vista. Amber felt delicate between her thighs from the hard ride and bruised at the small of her back. Once she’d realised, with a furious blush, exactly what was prodding so insistently from behind, she’d savoured each bruising jolt with triumph. After leaving her in a state of near delirium the night before, she was ecstatic to learn that Krayne was not as immune as he might want her to believe.

Krayne lifted her to the ground before dismounting, then led her up the boarded walkway. “We’ll sleep on the
Joanna
tonight and leave fer Wamphray at first light.”

Relieved to have the small respite before getting back into the saddle, Amber offered him a smile. “Would it be terribly inconvenient if I took another bath?”

“Would ye care for anyone else’s inconvenience?” His hard grin froze her smile and she followed in silence as he saw her to the cabin. “I’ll send up food and a bath.”

“And where will you be?” Amber asked, hating that she cared that he looked exhausted and in desperate need of sustenance, as well.

“I need ta see Alexander.”

The door was already closing behind him when a horrid suspicion struck Amber. She lunged forward and pulled it all the way open again. “Alexander forbade me to interfere. He’s close to bedridden and had no idea that I went with Hob.”

Grey eyes judged her harshly. “I didna doubt Alexander fer a moment.”

Not like he doubted her, Amber read in that look. “I was only trying to help.”

The glare softened somewhat. “Ye’ve yet ta learn the consequences of yer rash behaviour, Amber.”

“Oh.” She stamped a foot. “And I suppose you intend to teach me?”

“That duty does, unfortunately, appear ta have been left ta me, sweet wife.” With that, he deftly pried her fingers from the door and slammed it in her face.

“The ungrateful swine,” Amber muttered as she paced the floor. He might recall that he’d still be in that dark, damp cell if not for her
rash behaviour.
“Why did I bother saving him? Better he hang ’til dead on some lonely gallows than live to torment me another day!”

On that thought, Amber sank upon the berth and stared out the porthole.

Why
had
she saved him?

Krayne was right. She’d rushed to his aid without pausing to consider the danger, not only to herself, but to Hob, as well. She shook her head slowly, remembering the desperation to rescue him or die trying. There’d never been any alternative. If Krayne was no more, then what was the use of living in the empty world he left behind?

“I hate him,” she murmured softly, blinking back a tear.

And there she sat, blinking back tear after tear, telling herself how much she despised the husband she couldn’t seem to contemplate living without, until the shrivelled sailor she remembered from yesterday entered with a wooden tray. A procession of friendly giants followed with buckets to fill her tub.

Once she’d bathed, and dressed in the same britches and shirt, Amber sat down at the table and uncovered the simple fare of boiled white fish, turnips and freshly baked bread. Her stomach rumbled at the veritable feast after surviving the day on naught but a couple of rock-hard oatcakes.

Amber ate her fill, then paced in utter boredom until the sky faded from its brilliant blue to a sombre grey. Thinking to seek Mary out for company, she threw the plaid cloak about her shoulders and made her way to the deck. As she stepped outside, a crisp breeze stung her cheeks and the deep breath she gulped down was invigorating.

A quick stroll, Amber decided, and then she’d go below to see how Mary was doing.

On her second lap around the main deck, ignoring the curious glances she drew from the few crew members who seemed to be about, Amber saw Hob emerge from a door beneath the quarterdeck and head for the plank thrown between the ship and the boarded walkway.

“Hob,” she called, running after. “Hob.”

He didn’t slow or turn around. Certain that he had heard her, Amber stopped at the plank and watched him walk across it without further harassment. She couldn’t blame him for being mad at her, not after Krayne had smashed his jaw in. She only noted the chequered bundle slung across his shoulder when he was almost at the end of the walkway.

Dread sank to the bottom of her belly. She glanced around wildly, found the first pair of eyes that were too slow to look away in time, and hurried over. Unlike the other giants, this half-naked sailor was thin and small, his skin burned close to black by constant exposure to sun. His gaze remained firmly on the sail he was mending and his fingers continued to bend the thick needle in and out.

“Where is Hob going?” Amber demanded.

He raised his brown, withered face to her. “Kirkcudbright be my guess, me lady.”

“To one of the other Wamphray ships?” she asked hopefully.

“If Hob be leavin’ the
Joanna,
he be leaving the Grey Wolf an’ all.”

Amber spun about, anger slowly replacing dread.

Her chin set high, her hands fisted at her sides, she went in search of Krayne. He wasn’t in the infirmary, but she made herself calm down sufficiently to enquire after Captain Jack’s health and was happy to hear he’d awoken for a short while during the day. Alexander was also faring well, apparently, and resting in his cabin.

As she followed the directions to Alexander’s cabin, thinking to find Krayne there, she passed the galley and saw the man himself, sitting ever so casually on top a long oak table and sipping from a battered metal tankard.

“You,” she hissed.

His eyes came around, sharp and narrowed.

She marched up to Krayne, hands on her hips, well aware of the rotund, clean-shaven man who tried to slink into the shadows but beyond caring. “How dare you dismiss Hob?”

“Out,” Krayne ordered in a deadly quiet voice, turning from her as he slid to his feet.

“I’m not going anywhere until you—” Amber saw the other man hurry off and realised the order had not been for her.

“I willna tolerate a screeching crow, Amber.”

Her eyes came back to Krayne. “And I will not tolerate deliberate and needless cruelty. How could you?” She took a step closer and poked him in the chest with her forefinger. “How could you dismiss Hob?”

“I didna have ta dismiss him.” He looked down to where her finger indented his shirt, then slowly lifted an empty stare that might have chilled her to the bone, had she not been roasting on her own fury. “The man did wrong and shame will not permit him ta remain.”

Amber pulled her hand back to her hip and put some distance between them. She knew her husband well enough by now to realise that if he were merely angry, he’d have grabbed her wrist and forced her finger down himself.

Right now he was furious.

But then, so was she. “Go after Hob. Convince him that he has naught to be ashamed of. All he did was rescue you!”

“I willna do that.”

“Why not?” She threw her hands up and tossed her head back. “He didn’t want to take me along, but I couldn’t stay here and do nothing.”

Krayne folded his arms as he regarded his wife, expecting her to stamp her feet and blow steam from her ears any moment. If she were a child, he’d put her in a corner to consider her show of temper. She wasn’t. She was his wife. And he might still do exactly that.

“Hob did nothing wrong,” Amber insisted in that shrill tone.

“He should never have brought ye inta that dungeon. He shouldna have allowed ye ta leave Annan.”

Krayne’s jaw hardened as he relived the moment of fear that had gripped him on seeing Amber outside his cell. The agony of knowing that had it worked out differently, those scavengers might very well have raped her over and over right there in front of him, beaten her and tossed her limp, torn body in a dark corner, and there was not one damn thing he could have done to save her.

Never before had Krayne felt so absolutely impotent and scared, and God help Amber if she ever put him through that again. “This land of ours doesna allow fer mistakes, Amber, it doesna give second chances.”

“
My
mistake. Why should Hob be made to suffer for my mistake?”

“’Tis the way of the world,” Krayne said, his voice brittle in an unguarded moment of too many unwanted memories. “A woman acts thoughtlessly with no regard fer consequence and somewhere a man suffers.”

“And yet you have the power to prevent it.” Her mouth turned down in scorn. “All you need do is call Hob back.”

“Did God not leave be when Eve corrupted Adam?”

“Eve?” The floorboards quivered as she stamped a booted foot. “You would compare me to the woman responsible for the original downfall of mankind?”

Krayne shrugged. Adam’s Eve would have a hard time keeping up with Amber and his mother.

Green eyes flared just before Amber swirled about and stormed from the galley. His breath of relief stuck halfway down his throat when she poked her head back inside to glare at him. “Don’t for one moment consider yourself to be the benevolent God in this scenario. You, Krayne Johnstone, are the slithering snake that lured Eve to that miserable Maxwell dungeon and I hate you.”

Amber didn’t wait for his reaction. She whipped her head up straight and marched to Mary’s cabin. If her husband opened his eyes wide enough to see beyond his own narrow-minded arrogance, he’d realise exactly how grateful he should be to both her and Hob. He’d know that she could never stand idly to the side while his life was in danger.

And he’d know the reason why!

Once Amber had reassured herself that Mary was fully recovered, she regaled her on the day’s adventure, then went on to vent her frustration. “He thinks I did it all for one big lark! As if I enjoy being terrified witless and have naught better to do with my time than spend an entire day in the saddle.”

“The laird is not unreasonable, child.” Mary took Amber’s hands in hers and looked her in the eye. “Did you ever stop to consider that he cares too much to see you risk your life?”

“He has a strange way of showing it.”

“Men get angry when they are frightened. ’Tis what they do. You or I might tremble and weep, while all they know is to attack.”

Amber was not convinced. “Nothing frightens Krayne except the horror of lost pride. He is angry all right, angry that he had to be rescued at all, and especially by his wife. Hob and I are merely the sorry pawns for him to blame.”

“That is not true and I doubt you believe it.”

Didn’t she?
Amber wasn’t sure.

As she made her way back to her own cabin, she rethought all she knew of Krayne. Their week spent together at Wamphray had been a magical interlude of sorts. She remembered the single sword lesson he’d attempted, his regretful grin when it became apparent that she could barely lift the heavy blade, let alone swing a wide arc over her head. She’d expected him to mock her, demand she do better. He’d laughed, not at her, but with her.

Aye, he’d done some things to crack her heart open, but when it had healed, he was firmly trapped inside.

She’d fallen in love with that Krayne, charming and gallant, kind and tender, all the more so for bearing witness to his midnight rampages. Against her will, against her better judgement, knowing that it was a love that could never be, she had tripped and fallen hard, and then continued to stumble up the hill of his rocky determination.

Amber stomped into her cabin, pleased to see it was empty, and looked for a bolt on the door. There was none. Only a keyhole, and no key in sight.

Would he come to her tonight?

A perverse thrill tingled down her spine and she wished she could lock both it and her husband out.

She loved Krayne.

Bother the man, but she loved him still.

Thankfully, she hated him more.

Even so, she had little faith in her body after the way she’d discarded every last morsel of dignity beneath his hands last night.

He wouldn’t come, she decided, crossing to the porthole and looking out wistfully at the starry heavens beyond as she stripped her clothes and boots, leaving on her shift to sleep in.
Would he ever come to her bed again? Was theirs to be a marriage in name only?

If so, she should be grateful. Yet, even as she tried to tell herself that ’twas the barren life she’d miss with no children of her own, the memory of his touch, those tantalising strokes that carried her from peak to peak, mocked her lies for what they were. Just thinking about it brought a pulsing ache to that newly discovered inner core between her thighs. There was more. However high she’d soared last night, instinct told her that she should have crashed, and with that crash would come a release that made the torturous flight of burning tension so very worth the sweet agony.

But not tonight. Amber crawled beneath the covers in the middle of the berth and commanded her body to relax. Even if he came, she was too angry. As was he. When—if she ever discovered the secret of crashing, it would be given in love and not thrust upon her in anger.

He came.

She had no idea how late it was, how long she’d been lying absolutely still and counting snowflakes to bring on sleep. The door clicked softly shut and the dull thud of footfalls on the rug-protected planks came closer, then stopped. She couldn’t keep her eyes squeezed tight and pretend. The suspense was utterly debilitating. She brought the covers up with her and glared across the room until she found him, sitting on the chair and removing his boots. “What are you doing here?”

“This
is
my cabin.” Krayne didn’t look up and neither did he show his surprise. He’d known she wasn’t sleeping at a glance, but he hadn’t expected her to give up the pretence.

“You intend to sleep here?”

“Do you have a better suggestion?” He untied the laces at his throat, but kept both his shirt and britches on as he stood and walked to the berth. Robert Maxwell would only follow him to Annan if the bastard truly had no brain, but Krayne was taking no chances. He had a rota of four guards posted throughout the night and, while he needed to catch up on some sleep, he would not be caught with his breeks about his ankles.