Betrayed (4 page)

And yet, he took the last step and stood beside the bed. His gaze was transfixed, feasting on his prize. Desire slaked his shaft. He was no longer just swollen, but aching with need. The meagre shift enhanced more than it hid. He shook his head roughly.
Not his.

And no prize, to be sure. She was a baggage of pure trouble. The kind of woman he galloped a mile from. Still, his pulse raced, carrying crazy messages to his head.
She’s too much woman for Stivin. She’ll destroy the lad.

A determined resolve glinted in his eyes as he rose to wet a strip of linen in the bath water and came back to cleanse the dried blood from her fingers. However tempting she might be, she was Stivin’s whore. Until he could box some sense between the boy’s ears, that was. Then she’d belong to no one, and most of all not to him.

Krayne threw a fur rug across her and built a fire in the hearth. When he turned back, Amber was just starting to stir. Soft groans quivered the fullness of her lower lip, a taste of what he could arouse her to. The long black lashes sweeping below her eyes fluttered. Krayne held his breath, anticipating the emerald depths that would pull him in.

He wanted it.

Desire pulsed a feverish need in his blood.

He wanted her to force the black and white of wrong, right and duty from his head, wanted to forget why he preferred lasses without a complex bone in their body, wanted her to render him so powerless that no argument could forestall his complete surrender, a willing fool with no regrets.

It would be so easy.

If he were a weaker man.

Krayne allowed himself one last moment of fantasy, sliding his gaze from raven hair to sculptured toes. Then his resolve hardened. He would not taint his honour for the want of a good rutting.

Steel control was an old friend. He’d used it time and time again to trap grief and rage while he planned and executed vengeance when a swift killing would not suffice. He’d never imagined himself in a position where he’d need, or want, to trap the fires of passion and desire, but they were as much elements of man’s nature as any other emotion. He could foresee no problem. Now that his mind was truly made up, the rest would follow. It was as simple as that.

Her fingers moved through the fur of the rug he’d laid over her, and Krayne knew she was coming around. With a decisive movement, he drew his dirk.

Amber fought against consciousness. She didn’t want to be pulled from the sweet lull of darkness. Here, she didn’t have to struggle against walls crushing her lungs, horrid little monsters nibbling her flesh, nightmare visions of Stivin begging for help while she looked on helplessly.

But she couldn’t stay. She was being dragged to the surface. Her lids opened sluggishly, then rounded wide and alert at the black-haired beast looming over her. Firelight glinted off steel and she would have screamed, but it felt as if her heart had jumped into her throat.

“Dinna fear.” The oak-smoked burr eased the pitch of terror, enough so for her to recognise the beast as Krayne. He sheathed the blade and showed her the raven curl he’d hacked off. “I need this fer yer uncle.”

Amber nodded, heart still throbbing against her ribcage, vaguely wondering if it was worth her time and effort to protest the futility of his actions once more. Then she became aware of her surroundings. “The pit…Where am I?”

A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “I thought ye might be more comfortable here.”

Relief bought him a return smile, but it didn’t last. Although the shock was gradually ebbing, the piercing silver of his eyes kept her blood high. She pressed a hand to her chest in a protective gesture, and gasped. Her eyes dipped, then shot straight up to his and froze.

Where was her gown?

What had he done?

“Nothing yet.” Krayne answered the accusation in her eyes with a gravel-hard voice, then promptly spun about and strode away.

Nothing
yet.
A shadow crossed her heart and chilled her blood.
He will be back, and he won’t find me lying half-naked in bed.

Krayne Johnstone might have saved her from the hell pit, but she wasn’t
that
grateful.

He stopped and turned beneath the open archway that led into the adjoining chamber.

What now?

He was just standing there, looking at her. His jaw was so tightly clenched, she imagined she could hear his teeth crunch. The wolf looked ready to pounce.

Wiping a hand across her forehead, Amber made a brave show of crumpling before his eyes, managing to pull the fur over her as she slumped down on the bed.

“Christ.” He hurried back.

“I’m fine,” she whispered, rolling her head away so she didn’t have to meet his eyes. “Please leave me. I fear that black pit has sapped my strength.” She turned a little to peer at him from beneath half-lidded eyes.

“Rest.” The word rumbled warmly with concern.

She closed her eyes and concentrated to slow her breathing. Finally she heard him move, the padded footfalls of his leather soles fading to silence, then a squeak as a door opened. Amber gave it a few more moments, then rolled onto her front and up on her elbows, glancing this way and that, but ready to drop into feigned slumber at the slightest sound.

The bold stamp on the room and superb, if sparse, furnishings told her she was in the laird’s bed. The thick pelt of an exotic brown bear covered the window. Various forest creatures had given their fur to warm the stone floor. The bed was made from birch rather than pine, stained a rich brown and stood high off the ground. A sturdy chair and writing table of the same stained birch completed the decor.

She lifted herself onto her knees, assured that it was now safe. This was her chance to escape to Spedlin and rescue Stivin, because a lock of her hair wasn’t going to do the job. If the Johnstone brothers would just refrain from tossing her over their shoulders and into pits long enough to actually hear—

“The laird said ta help wi’ yer bath.” A sullen voice broke into her thoughts.

Amber started, her gaze flicking to the arched doorway to see a robust woman of about two score years standing there. A halo of red-orange frizz escaped the braid draped across her shoulder to frame a rounded, ruddy face. Too late, Amber realised that she’d never heard the outer door squeak closed.

The idea of bathing was fairy dust to her weary body and battered spirit, and almost worth postponing her escape for, but Amber wasn’t smiling yet. At Spedlin, a bath was a wooden barrel sectioned off by a thin sheet strung across a kitchen corner. She’d tried it once, and that was once too many. The only
baths
she’d since enjoyed were courtesy of the frigid stream or a quick rub down in her chamber.

Muttering, “I’ve nae the time ta sit abou’ repeatin’ myself aw day,” the woman shook her head and disappeared from sight.

Amber threw off the covers and slid from the bed. She peeked behind the bear fur, but found only a series of arrow slits in the stone wall that were too narrow to squeeze through. The bed itself was pushed up against an oak door and, though she held little hope, Amber tested the knob. It turned, but the door was either locked or jammed. The only way out, it seemed, was through the archway.

The adjacent chamber was a living area. Two padded stools were arranged around a chess table. A set of chairs with wide seats, carved backs and sturdy arms graced the hearth. There was another table for more general use, tapestries on the walls and woven rugs to walk upon.

When Amber’s gaze reached the far wall, she found what she was looking for. An opening as large as a door led to a stone rampart that could only be part of the battlement wall. The large tapestry usually covering it had been looped up by two hooks on either side, allowing the dwindling daylight in.

The round-faced serving woman was on her knees with her back to the room, sorting through items on a low shelf. Amber would have to wait, and was more than happy to take that bath while doing so.

She walked deeper into the room, saw a large chest against one wall and a good-sized metal tub tucked away in an alcove. The air above the tub shimmered from the rising heat. A lightness stole over her mood at the prospect of a decent hot bath and imminent freedom.

The woman came back with a length of Johnstone plaid and a small vial that released the aroma of sun-kissed roses when a few drops were added to the bath water.

Amber smiled with delight, and the woman’s scowl deepened. Shrugging a shoulder, Amber removed her shift and stepped into the tub. Pleasure cascaded over her skin as she slipped low into the warm, fragrant water.

Turning a friendly grin to where the woman stood with crossed arms, Amber asked, “What is your name?”

Muddy brown eyes gave her a long, sour look. “Isla.”

“Do I know you?” Amber said, wondering what she’d done to earn the obvious disfavour. “Do
you
know me?”

“I ken ye fer a Jardin.”

Amber raised an eyebrow, waiting for more, but apparently the explanation was complete. She’d assumed the feuds and hate to be a singularly male pastime, as was the case in Cornwall, where women were insulated from the realities of war and seldom, if ever, came face to face with the enemy. A silly assumption, she acknowledged, considering her current hostage status.

Her fingers trailed drops of water over her thighs and abdomen as she mused on the ridiculous notion of an English lady being held captive by a close neighbour. But then again, neither could she entertain the picture of any gentleman she’d grown up with executing a raid—on the lord next door, no less. It wasn’t just uncivilised, it was…words failed her and the small smile of amusement vanished.

She looked inward, and it became personal.

For the first time, Amber saw her capture as more than a huge obstacle preventing her from saving Stivin. There was the pit, then the glint of steel so close to her throat. She’d assumed that no one had any reason to actually kill her…

A frown worked her brow and she nibbled her lower lip. She was a pawn, dragged from her home to be disposed of as the Johnstones saw fit. It mattered not if she were innocent or guilty of the
great betrayal.
No one was listening, no one cared. She was a possession, valuable enough to protect—for now. These were Stivin’s kin, but they’d been Jardin enemies for a half-score years or more. What would happen once they realised she was worth less than a crippled horse? What would they do when William Jardin rejected their terms of exchange?

“Leave me,” Amber ordered.

“I have nae wish ta be here, but the laird—”

“Asked you to help me,” she finished. Amber sat up straight and met the brown glare defiantly, wondering if the dour Isla honestly thought
she
wanted to be here. “Then help me to bathe in private.”

Isla didn’t need telling twice. She made a show of huffing and grumbling beneath her breath on the way out.

Amber hurriedly dried off and tugged her shift over her head. It had been sheer folly on her part to insist over and over again how worthless she was.

What was I thinking?

That they’d apologise for the inconvenience and send me back to Spedlin with a farewell pat on the shoulder?

She found her gown crumpled on the floor beside the bed. The rip all the way down the front was a reminder of Johnstone hospitality and how little her honour and dignity meant to these people. She dressed as best she could, pinching the bodice over her breasts with trembling fingers while she guided her feet into scuffed slippers.

The wind whipped the open flaps of her gown about as she stepped onto the rampart, the chill evening air cutting ruthlessly through her shift. Crouching low and close to the battlement wall, she ran, keeping a keen ear on the occasional shout and sound below lest it escalate to a raised alarm. The broody sky abetted the waning daylight and she was thankful for the cover.

Soon the walk broke away from the tower house and she was in the narrow passage dug along the top of the crenulated wall that enclosed the bailey. Approximately midway along the length of the bailey, Amber stopped and leant far over the side of the wall. The curtain wall had to be at least five or six men tall. Beyond that, the thickly wooded bog looked sinister with long shadows and the spongy ground of sphagnum mosses.

Amber experienced a moment of doubt about getting across the morass. Not that it mattered, she thought irritably, for in order to do that, she first needed to find a way down from this impossible height.

As soon as she pulled back from the edge, a blur of raised voices carried on the breeze. She couldn’t make out what was being said, but the direction it came from and the loud confusion set her heart racing.

She stilled.

She couldn’t go down and she wasn’t going back.

Her knees went hollow, cramped from excess energy at the thought of just standing where she was, a hare already snared and awaiting a predetermined fate.

The squabbling voices lured Krayne from the north solar, a private apartment above his sleeping chamber where he conducted business.

“Enough,” he ordered from the threshold of his chamber, and all eyes turned on him. Isla, Mungo and even Little Jock, the stalwart giant who’d just left his solar with the letter of exchange, fidgeted nervously.

A glance around the chamber told Krayne everything he needed to know.

“Ye left her alone?” he demanded of Isla.

“I didna want ta.” Isla could no longer meet his eyes. She’d failed her laird and felt enormous shame. Resentment for the woman responsible surged. “She ordered me out o’ the room.”

Krayne dismissed the serving woman with a nod. He hadn’t sent her to Amber as a guard. He’d left the lass as weak as a day-old lamb, only hoping Isla would see to her bath and help her back into bed.

He told Little Jock to fetch Alexander, a younger brother of the Raehills Johnstones and captain of the Wamphray moss-troopers, then turned to his steward. “Search every chamber and alcove within the castle.”

Mungo nodded and slipped from the room, Isla scurrying on his heels.

Krayne stepped outside.

He wasn’t overly concerned, for even if Amber had managed to steal down the stairway and out the front door, the gatekeeper wouldn’t let her pass beyond the castle. His gaze swept along the dusk-shaded outline of the curtain wall. The deep passage had shadowy hooks and knobs that provided many hiding places.

Krayne started down the long walk. He was not in the mood for a cat-and-mouse game, even if the mouse was trapped; the walkway came to a dead end at the portcullis. The Jardin wench was probably laughing right now at how effortlessly she’d duped him. He’d spent a long time staring at that curl of hair, so shiny and black against the yellow parchment he’d wrapped it in. And all the while, the teeth of guilt and worry at her sudden relapse had made their mark inside his gut.

Hah! His spine stiffened and his stride lengthened.

How in hell had she reduced him to a green sapling that could so conveniently be wound about her little finger?

A flapping movement caught his eyes and a grin broke the stern line of his mouth. This had been as easy as he’d expected. As he drew closer, however, his jaw squared firm and a tic worked furiously at his temple.

“The bloody vixen,” Krayne spewed, untangling the wool sleeve tied around a thick stone tooth. He roped the material in, cursing at the long drop even after the diagonal length of the gown was taken into account. He scanned the area below, and the heaviness lifted from his chest when he saw no mangled body sprawled on the ground. Bundling the gown under his arm, Krayne ran back along the walkway. The danger wasn’t over yet.

Alexander was waiting in the chamber, clearly as unconcerned as Krayne had been, until he saw the laird’s face.

“She went over the wall,” Krayne informed him at once, tossing the gown aside as he marched through the chamber.

“That isna possible,” protested Alexander as they went down the stairs to the great hall.

“First one foot, then the other,” Krayne snarled. “Very possible, I assure ye.”

Alexander had a lean frame despite well-trained muscles, a clean-shaven jaw and pale blue eyes that scraped years from his five and thirty years, and Krayne had never before seen such a haggard face on his captain.

Realising the cause, he added dryly, “Dinna ask me how, but she made it down alive.”

His friend’s expression relaxed with a gruff sigh that Krayne well understood. The gulf between battle blood and a hostage suicide—of a woman at that, was a vast distance neither of them ever wanted to measure.

“She may yet be hurt,” Krayne warned as they crossed the bailey to the stables.

Alexander hailed two moss-troopers lounging against a wall and ordered them to round up every available man who hadn’t ridden in from Stirling that morning. “I’ll harry the others later if we have nae luck,” he told Krayne.

“She canna go far.” Krayne led Cronus from his stall, stroking the proud Arabian’s neck absently. “The bog will slow her down.”

“Aye. If it doesna swallow her.”

Krayne mounted Cronus and kicked the stallion into a trot without answering. Some things didn’t bear thinking about. Old Giles had already been informed of the crisis and was cranking the portcullis as Krayne rode up.

“Keep a look out,” he shouted to the grey-bearded gatekeeper. The gate tower faced the river. Whether Amber knew it or not, the dale made by Wamphray Water was the only feasible road home to Spedlin.

The daylight was almost gone, the spongy moss and sinking mud more treacherous on horseback than foot, but Krayne knew the tracts through the morass like the back of his hand. The most likely danger that Amber faced was stumbling into the reeds and exposed roots that crowded the water’s edge and getting sucked into the muddy pools. He rode the bog systematically, keeping to the firmer tracts of ground, calling her name and yelling warnings of the dangers.

Moonlight slithered through a zigzag in the dark clouds to shimmer silver over the water. His men joined him, then later split up to search the wooded hills that bound the north and east walls, and to scour the dale in case she’d slipped past the gatekeeper. A terrible fear kept finding Krayne, no matter how determinedly he pushed it back. Blood pounded his temples as he shouted, “Amber! Ye canna know this bog land. Ye’ve scant clothing and the night grows ever colder. Come ta me, woman! Damn all saints, I weary of this business.”

Nothing. Not a sound or movement.

Once again, Krayne rode to the spot beside the wall where she would have landed. Horse and rider went absolutely still, listening for noises that didn’t belong. With little time to think, she would have headed straight into the cover offered by the bog. He was certain of it. Just as he knew her instincts would be to run rather than hide.

Unless…Krayne tossed his head back with a fierce shake. How could he have ignored the obvious? He dismounted with a curse and ordered Cronus to wait.

Amber held her breath as the rustling vibrations stopped directly beneath her. She should have run. In spite of her twisted ankle, every instinct had screamed for her to run and not look back.

From the height of the branch she’d chosen for its dense foliage, she’d watched with increasing alarm as Krayne kept returning to the scuffle marks by the wall. When he’d finally dismounted, she’d had no opportunity to scale down the gnarled and knotted trunk. He’d followed her clumsy trail, as blatant as that of any wounded animal, she supposed, in a direct line without pause.

“Come down.” The command was a low growl.

Amber bit her lip. He hadn’t even looked up. They were so unevenly matched, it just wasn’t fair.

“I mean it, lass.”

The top of his head was at least five feet below her. Mayhap if he were forced to climb up after her…she clamped her eyes shut to hold tears from escaping. What was the point? She’d never get away. She had never stood a chance.

“I could wait here all night.”

There was a rustling sound of movement at her feet. Her eyes snapped open and she looked down. His head was no longer visible. She stretched her neck, peering through a cluster of leaves close to the base of the branch and groaned silently. The arrogant man was leaning against the tree, arms folded, one knee raised with his foot pressed flat to the trunk. It wouldn’t surprise her if he started whistling a merry tune.

He continued in a bored tone, “But my men are weary and they’ve been kept from their pleasures. Mayhap they’ll enjoy the chase of climbing up after such a tasty morsel, but then I might feel inclined ta reward the man—” He cut off, moving with deadly accuracy into position as she tumbled straight into his arms.

So much for jumping on top his head and laying the brute flat.
Will I never learn?

“Do ye never learn, lass?”

How does he do that?
“Put me down.”

“Nay.” Holding her close to his chest, he strode through the undergrowth and muddy bog with a sure foot.

“I’m perfectly capable of walking,” she hissed.

He stepped out from the continuous wooded canopy into a pool of moonlight and stopped. Her cheek was pressed to his shoulder, and all she could see was the underside of his clenched jaw. She felt his chest swell with a deep breath, then slowly release. She was still staring at his sculpted jaw when he shifted her slightly and looked into her eyes.

“If ye weren’t hurt, ye would have run.” His voice wasn’t kind, but then neither was it angry or cold.

He was walking again, long strides that took them to the black stallion that was as dark and brimming with potency as its owner. He set her down and turned his back on her to mount the horse, arrogantly aware that she wasn’t going anywhere.

When he lifted her sideways onto his lap, she was unsettled by his gentle touch. Where was the outrage at her attempted escape?

The thigh muscles beneath her tensed as he spurred the horse around and set a slow pace. She was trapped between his arms, cradled against a chest that was becoming all too familiar, feeling the heat that surrounded her from all sides, and once again intimately aware of her state of undress. What was it about this man that she was doomed to be half-naked in his arms?

Suddenly she laughed, a weary laugh, and looked up at him. His hair flowed to his shoulders like a river of black silk. The raw power encased in his lithe frame exuded the endurance, strength and timeless arrogance of the Lammimiur craggy mountain heights. His mouth was just there, stoking a fire inside her. A sigh that came suspiciously close to longing trembled from lips that felt swollen with some imagined kiss.

His gaze dropped to capture her sensuous stare. “Don’t.”

She came abruptly to herself and stiffened, jerking her eyes away to look into the safety of the night. “Don’t what?”

Strong fingers grasped her chin firmly and forced her eyes back to his. “I’m just a man, Amber, and yer games are designed ta turn a man’s blood ta sin.”

She tried to avert her head, but he held fast.

At least she’d come to her senses.

“Aye,” she said, “and you’re a man designed to turn a woman’s blood to ice.”

He grinned. Dark and sinister, and damn him to hell, for she found that dangerous grin strangely seductive. “Be that a challenge?”

She shrugged a casual shoulder that took more effort than it should have. “A statement. I already have ample proof.”

His hand left her chin and moved down to her breast, cupping, fondling. A roughened thumb stroked her nipple, teasing it to a hardness that was made painfully obvious through the damp cotton.

“Unhand me.” Something inside her cracked, coaxing a foreign heat low in her belly.

“Why?” The grey in his eyes caught the moonlight to sparkle with amusement. “Ye have yer proof, and now I’ll have mine.”

“Beast.”

“Is that all ye can come up with?” His fingers abandoned their task to trace a fiery trail up her throat, tipping her chin to him once more. “This morning I was a bastard. Or was that a whoreson? Ye have an inventive tongue, I’ll give ye that.” He paused, and the moon must have dipped from sight for his eyes lost the light to a dark, almost pewter depth. “I wonder what else it is capable of?”

“Poison,” she vowed.

This time, when she jerked her chin free, he let her be. His roaming hand went back to the reins and she told herself she was grateful he’d lost interest.

But her pulse was racing and nerves tingled awareness up and down her spine. And deep inside was a curious emptiness she did not fully understand.

The silence held until they’d entered the bailey and dismounted. Once he’d handed his horse over to a young lad, she found herself hauled into Krayne’s arms. Amber made a token protest, in truth relieved to bury her face in the linen folds of his shirt when he carried her through the throng gathered on the front steps.

“Duncan, send word that the search is off,” Krayne called out.

“Where was the wench?”

“How did ye catch her?”

Krayne’s stride slowed. “Would ye believe, the lass fell straight inta my arms.”

“Och, ne’er.”

“’Tis the truth,” he assured them with mock indignation.

Amber’s cheeks burned. Then the hairs on her neck bristled as someone breathed over her. “A shoogle an’ a skelpin’ fer ye, I ken, what wi’ keepin’ decent folk from their supper.”

A chuckle rumbled deep inside his chest. “Aye, Isla, I couldna agree more.”

Her humiliation was complete.

The onlookers fell back as they moved up the narrow steps to the upper floor.

Amber pulled her face away from his chest. “And just what is a shoogle and a skelping?”

Krayne glanced down with a grin. “I’d say what Isla had in mind was a sound whipping.”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

A black brow lifted.

Amber looked away and clamped her lips. Had she already forgotten what her last challenge had led to? One day, she prayed, she’d learn to hold her tongue.

But not today, she revised when Krayne dumped her on the bed,
his bed.
She scrambled upright and hugged her knees close, glaring at his broad back as he walked away. “I’ll not share your bed.”

“I didna recall asking ye ta,” he issued over his shoulder as he rounded the corner into the next chamber.

Amber wasn’t the least bit placated. She doubted Krayne was a man who did much asking in the first place, not when he could just as easily take.

Her gaze flew up when he returned.

“Remove yer clothes.” He indicated her damp shift as he came to stand by the bed.

Her earlier fascination with his dark handsomeness had no place here.

She’d never been more aware of her vulnerability as a female, the weaker of the sexes. This man could rip her apart, limb from limb, without raising a sweat. Whatever struggle she offered would be flicked aside as if she were no more than a bothersome flea.

“Why do ye look at me like that?” asked Krayne.

Her gaze wavered. “Like what?”

“As if I were about ta rip yer head from yer shoulders.”

Was she that transparent? Or did he commune with the devil on a daily basis for his unnatural insight?