His Woman (5 page)

Not answering, he pulled his hand closer to his side as he continued forward. Then she noticed he winced.

“You are hurt!”

“It is naught but a wee scratch.”

The stubborn fool, with an ego to match. “Try not to bleed to death before I can tend to the wound,” she couldn’t help but add, appeased when his mouth tightened.

“You would like that.”

She didn’t reply. She needed to keep her thoughts on finding her mother’s Bible and escape. Not on Duncan or the love she’d lost. Though, with him so close, how could she not help but wonder how their life might have turned out if they’d wed?

Or not want him with her every breath.

A muted shout of a guard echoed from below.

Another, father away, replied.

Duncan opened the outer door and nodded for her to enter ahead of him. Thankful for any excuse to change the topic, Isabel hurried inside. She didn’t miss his cool assessment of her, or the determination in his eyes to learn her secrets.

Why would he even care about her relationship with Frasyer? How could he after she’d broken their vows to wed and, from all outward appearances, willfully occupied Frasyer’s bed?

What if by some twist of fate, Duncan still did have feelings for her?

Instead of joy, the possibility resurrected the old disappointment that had never quite faded. That of a home and children with Duncan.

That of love.

And of forever.

Her heart ached with the knowledge that such dreams never would be. Their time together would be limited to a few hours at most. Then they would go their separate ways.

Taking a steadying breath, Isabel halted inside. The scent of chamomile mixed amid the rushes filled her every breath. The welcoming glow of the wax candles greeting her did little to ease her nerves.

She stepped past two large chairs that graced either side of an elaborate hearth. Ensnared by the beauty, Isabel paused before the chiseled stone. Engraved within the quarried borders stood two falcons, their wings arched high. She turned. Beneath the window sat a small, gilt table that held several unopened bottles of wine. Tapestries decorated the plastered walls, each as elaborate as those sprawled tastefully upon the floor. The bold colors of the decoration exuding a proud elegance, one befitting an earl.

Except there wasn’t a bed.

They’d entered Frasyer’s sitting room.

Duncan’s gaze swept the ornate chamber. “The luxury suits you,” he said, a trace of anger sliding through his words.

Turn toward me,
she willed, her heart breaking.
Look and tell me what you truly see. Wealth matters not to me. Only you. It has always been only you.

As much as she wanted to admit the truth, she remained silent. To try and convince him otherwise would further prod his suspicions of her reason for leaving him for Frasyer. God forbid Duncan’s anger if he ever discovered the truth.

He walked around the chamber. “You think he has hidden the Bible here? There are no chests, no compartments. Unless he planned to hide it in plain sight.”

Heat stroked her face as she tried to think of an explanation for her lack of knowledge about the room. A fool could see the Bible couldn’t be concealed here.

Except she hadn’t known otherwise. How could she. With her own chamber at the top of the stairs, she’d never been allowed entry into any of Frasyer’s private rooms. Her presence on the fourth floor was for appearance only.

“I was unsure.” Another lie. God, she was sick of them. “His bedchamber is beyond that door.” Isabel gestured toward an adjoining entry on the other wall and prayed she was right.

It should have occurred to her that unlike her own chamber, Frasyer would insist on an elaborate suite of interconnected rooms instead of a single chamber. As with everything else, he thrived on luxury, a show of his wealth.

Duncan crossed to the door and opened it. Fury hardened the sharp angles of his face as he surveyed Frasyer’s bedchamber.

She drew in a slow breath, aching at what he was thinking, even though for the last three years she was the one who’d encouraged him and everyone else into believing her actions were self-serving.

Not even her father and Symon knew the complete truth of her private arrangements with Frasyer.

“We need to hurry,” she urged.

“Aye,” he drawled, his burr rich with sarcasm. “I have no desire to remain in your lover’s chamber longer than necessary.”

With a heavy heart, she followed him inside. As with the adjoining chamber, wax candles fragmented the blackness of the chamber, framing within their tainted glow the massive bed centered against the back wall.

A bed Duncan believed she warmed.

Isabel tried not to focus on the large bed. Or on how the thick posts arched upward in a magnificent display, each adorned by swaths of crème linen that connected and curtained the massive oak frame.

In horrific fascination, her gaze was reluctantly drawn past the golden ties that secured the yards of the finely woven material and offered a blatant view of Frasyer’s intimate domain.

Bile rose in her throat at the notion of sharing such luxury with a man she despised.

Duncan walked past, his face carved with an ominous frown.

She tensed. Please let him credit her nerves to his believing she found embarrassment in his being in Frasyer’s bedchamber. She forced herself to browse the room as if not awed by the magnificence of the plastered walls, each adorned with wall hangings of painted wool. Or how she was humbled by the intricate biblical paintings gracing the ceiling.

At the sound of muted voices from the corridor, Duncan glanced toward her. “Where do you think he hid the Bible?”

She shot a glance toward the door. “I do not know,” she whispered back. “Upon our return, I was immediately taken to the dungeon.”

“Does he have a secret room off his chamber?”

“I…”

A muscle worked in his jaw. “Well?”

“I am not sure.”

With a curse, he strode to the nearest chest. “For a woman who frequents Frasyer’s private chamber, you seem to know little of his habits.” Duncan dug through a stack of finely woven silks of magnificent reds, greens, and even the coveted blue of royalty.

Her heart pounded as she moved to kneel before another of several chests within the room. She prayed they would find the Bible soon. The longer they remained, the greater the risk of Duncan learning the truth.

Or of them being caught.

Isabel opened the lid. Wrapped within cloths, the pungent scent of ginger, cinnamon, and several other spices reached her.

“Is it there?” Duncan asked.

She shook her head as she closed the lid. “No.”

He moved to another chest. A creak sounded at her side as he opened the top. “I have an idea. Where does Frasyer keep his jewels?”

“His jewels?” She frowned as she turned toward him. “You are not going to rob him are you?”

Duncan gave a rude snort. “I want nothing of his.” His emphasis on the word
nothing
struck clear to her heart. “I asked where he kept his jewels, because he would perhaps keep the Bible in a place where he stows his most prized possessions.”

“We need to keep looking.”

Duncan stared at her in disbelief. At her silence, his face darkened with temper.

“I am trying to help.”

“Are you?” he demanded. “After three years as his mistress, you expect me to believe that you do not even know where Frasyer keeps his jewels?”

“There were many things I was not privileged to know.”

Duncan shot a cold look at the bed. “For the length of time you have lived here, one would think you would know where Frasyer would keep his every article of clothing, along with those things he coveted. Or perhaps, like me, he has learned you are unworthy of trust.” He turned toward her, his gaze assessing. “If so, he is wiser than I believed.”

Her cheeks burned at the insult, but she let it go. “I will not speak of my private arrangements with Frasyer to you.”

“I assure you, they are not details I wish to know.”

Isabel’s body trembled as she knelt before one of the three remaining chests they had yet to search. “We will not find the Bible by arguing.” Her ignorance of Frasyer’s private living quarters already hinted that all was not as it seemed. The longer they remained here, the more Duncan’s suspicions of why she’d become Frasyer’s mistress would grow.

“Aye, on that point I will agree.” He turned to the next chest, then stopped. Duncan braced himself against the wall, and she noticed the sheen of sweat coating his face.

Isabel stepped toward him, but his glare made her stop. She glanced to his left arm; he was favoring it. “How badly are you wounded?”

“Continue searching.”

“Please, let me—”

He brushed her aside. “Search, so we can leave this wretched place—and I of you.”

Worry tightened in her stomach. By the paleness of his face and how his body was shaking, the wound was serious, but Duncan was stubborn and wouldn’t allow her to see the extent of his injury. Not without an argument. She hurried to the next chest. Please, God, let the Bible be inside so they could leave. Once away from here, she could tend to him.

She returned to the chest. Inside lay several bolts of silk, dark reds the color of blood. Frantic, she dug deeper.

No!

She shoved aside layers of the slippery material. The Bible had to be here somewhere. What if Frasyer had taken it with him?

Or what if he had hidden it within a secret chamber? Or had burned it for pure spite?

“It is not in this room,” Duncan concluded as he sat back with a frustrated sigh, cradling his arm.

“It is!” Her nails scraped bare wood as she shoved aside the remaining bolt of silk.

Duncan leaned over and caught her arm. “Leave it.”

“Do you not understand? With the guards scouring the keep for me, Frasyer having returned, and your wound, we need to leave.” She jerked free of his hold and started unfurling another bolt of silk. “Let me search through these bolts one last time, then we will go.” Her voice rose. “Perhaps in my haste, I have overlooked it.”

“Isabel—”

A thud, then the murmur of voices in the adjoining room had them both turning toward the door.

“Frasyer!” she gasped.

A sword’s wrath!
Duncan pushed to his feet and for a second, the room wavered before him. With their bloody luck this night, besides the earl, he wouldn’t be surprised to find an entire contingent of knights outside the door. “We must leave.”

Fear widened her eyes. She shook her head. “The only way out is how we came in. We must hide.”

He cursed low and fierce.

Angry footsteps echoed in the exterior chamber. “Isabel, and whoever helped her, could not have escaped,” Frasyer’s voice snarled.

Duncan smothered Isabel’s gasp with his palm, the action making him dizzy with pain.

“I want the guards to search the entire castle again!”

“Aye, my lord.” The clack of boots hurried out. A door opened, then thudded shut.

“Lad,” Frasyer said, “have a bath drawn in my chamber.”

“Yes, my lord.” Quiet steps sounded. The door scraped open and then closed.

“The fools,” Frasyer cursed, his voice growing louder.

Isabel pushed Duncan’s hand away and stepped back. “He is coming in here!”

“I can hear that for myself.” Duncan scoured the chamber for any sign of another exit. “Are you sure there is no other way out?”

“None that I am aware of.”

Why had he even bothered to ask? She hadn’t known if there was a secret passage or where Frasyer kept his jewels. Exactly what did she do here?

No, with the statuesque bed overpowering the room, her duties were all too obvious.

They must hide. Drops of sweat streaked along his cheek as Duncan bent over and lifted the blanket draping over the bed.

“Hurry,” he whispered.

Amber eyes pleaded with him as she knelt beside him. “I am sorry. I never meant for you to become involved.”

“Move!”

With one last apologetic look, she scrambled beneath the luxurious bed.

Duncan glanced toward the outer door. She was sorry? That wasn’t the half of it. Resigned to his fate, he protected his injured arm as he followed her under.

With his breathing labored, Duncan peered through the narrowed view beneath the bed covering as Frasyer entered.

The earl threw his gloves in a carved, oak chair. “That bitch. She will regret crossing me. When I am through with Isabel, she will be begging to return to the dungeon.” His booted feet pounded out his anger as he stormed to the bed. The mattress sagged from his weight.

Duncan glanced toward Isabel, her face illuminated by the dimmed light. Fear glazed her eyes, and her entire body was trembling. He pressed his finger to his lips. If she made any sound, she would give them away.

The clack of hurried steps echoed from the entry. A thin, nervous lad hurried inside. “If you will allow me to help you, my lord.”

Duncan sighed his relief. Frasyer’s squire.

Inches away from Duncan’s face, one of the earl’s well polished leather boots landed with a clunk, quickly followed by the other. The shuffle of fabric. Then a pile of what appeared to be Frasyer’s traveling garb began heaping on the floor as well.

Dizziness had Duncan closing his eyes. Blast, his arm burned as if on fire.

“Your robe, my lord.” The shuffle of cloth. “I will check on the status of your bath.”

Duncan opened his eyes as the squire hurried out.

The mattress shifted above them, then Frasyer’s feet appeared. Garbed in a thick blue robe, he walked over to a small, rounded table. The slosh of liquid echoed through the chamber as he poured himself a goblet.

What Duncan wouldn’t give for a drink. With his arm aching like a wounded boar, several.

As the earl settled into the chair, Duncan surveyed their surroundings, aware he and Isabel would be here for a while. Cobwebs cluttered the underside of the bed, and dust motes dotted the floor as if mounds of hay. He glanced toward the head of the bed.

And froze.

A big black spider, cradled within its web, hung a whisper above his face.

Duncan started to roll away, then held his position. The slightest sound would alert Frasyer of their presence. Sweat beaded his brow. Blast, he hated spiders. They reminded him of how, at the age of twelve summers, his brothers, Seathan, Alexander, and Patrik had hidden one within his boot as a prank.

Even after all these years, he could still remember the feel of it struggling against his skin after he’d shoved his foot inside the sewn leather. When he’d tore the boot free, he’d spied the largest, ugliest black spider he’d ever seen.

Aye, his brothers had laughed as he’d wrenched off his boot, but he’d obtained his revenge. The buckthorn he’d slipped into his brothers’ broth had kept them within a sprint’s length of the latrine for the next two days.

A cup clattered onto the table. The spider skittered toward the wall.

Duncan breathed a sigh of relief.

“What is wrong?” Isabel mouthed, the worry on her face framed in the meager spill of candlelight. “Your arm?”

He shook his head.

She frowned but didn’t press him.

Bare feet came into view as Frasyer returned to his bed. This time, he lay down. The bed sagged with his full weight, leaving a hand’s breadth between Duncan and the mattress.

Isabel looked away.

He wasn’t liking this any more than she was, but Duncan couldn’t help but wonder if what really bothered Isabel was that she was lying beside him, instead of in her chosen place alongside the earl. After Frasyer had thrown her into his dungeon, Duncan wanted to believe she’d wish otherwise.

With a grimace, he slowly stretched his aching arm. He couldn’t believe there wasn’t a secret passage. But without knowing where it was located, they didn’t have the luxury of time to search.

Once the earl had bathed, he would return to his bed to sleep. Then he and Isabel would be stuck here for the night.

The idea of spending the upcoming hours on the floor beneath the earl’s bed in accompaniment with a spider wasn’t a thought that filled his heart with joy. Especially stuck next to Frasyer’s mistress.

Lying in the silence, Duncan tried to ignore the persistent throb of his arm and the way the room was beginning to blur. He forced his eyes to focus, willed himself to remain conscious.

The exterior door scraped open and Frasyer’s squire entered.

“Be quick about it,” a stern voice ordered. “And if I see you spill a drop of hot water on the floor, you will be spending the night in the stable.”

Steps clattered on timber. A curse sounded. Several men carried a tub into the outer chamber. Time seemed interminable as steaming buckets were carried in and emptied. Finally, when the last lad carrying water had departed, the squire entered the bedchamber and bowed.

“Your bath, my lord.”

Frasyer’s bare feet appeared again as he stood and followed his squire into the adjoining room.

Duncan tried to envision himself anywhere else, riding through the fields on his steed, taking a long plunge into the icy waters of the loch, or battling an angry opponent on the field. The latter holding great appeal with his contender amazingly similar in appearance to the earl.

The slosh of water announcing Frasyer had entered the tub sliced through Duncan’s thoughts like a ragged blade.

Isabel shifted at his side.

Duncan waved his hand for her to stay still, his effort shooting a blast of pain throughout his arm. He smothered a groan.

She edged near him. “What is it?”

“Quiet!” he whispered. He gritted his teeth, as she leaned closer. With her entire length pressed against him, he could feel her every curve. He tried to ignore the softness of her breasts and smother his inconvenient thoughts in his wound’s mind-numbing pain.

Instead, his body hardened.

A cursed nightmare. As if at any moment he’d open his eyes and find himself in his bed at his brother Seathan’s home, Lochshire Castle. Then he’d laugh at himself and forget the entire chaotic event.

“Duncan?” she whispered.

Enough!
He turned to tell her to remain silent once and for all. And found her lips inches from his own.

“He cannot hear us in the other room,” Isabel whispered, “He is taking his bath.”

Duncan stared at her mouth, wanting to lean forward and claim its softness.

Isabel touched his brow.

“What are you doing?” He didn’t need her touching him. He was a man. Not a saint.

“You have a fever.”

He closed his eyes against her tempting mouth, convinced his last wisp of sanity had fled. It must be the pain in his arm making him giddy. His mind was befuddled as if caught in a dense fog. How could he want a woman who had betrayed him? A woman he now hid with beneath her lover’s bed?

A drip of sweat rolled down his cheek and plopped on the floor. Another wove along his neck to pool on his chest.

Isabel frowned. “You are trembling. We have to get you out of here.”

“How?” he hissed. “Walk past Frasyer and nod a good day? I am sure he will thank me for escorting you from his dungeon.”

Her mouth tightened. “I did not ask you to stay.”

“No, that was my own foolish decision.”

Isabel remained silent.

Frustrated, he turned his head sideways to scan the room through the gap in the bedcover. At the movement, more pain lanced up his left arm.

Duncan leaned his head on the floor, closed his eyes and waited until the dizziness passed.

“What is wrong?”

“Nothing.” Everything. “I was looking for another way out.”

“Oh.”

“As I trained with Frasyer often during my youth,” he said slowly, fighting to keep his breathing steady, “if nothing else, I learned that although the previous earl loved his wealth, he enjoyed the complex. I would be surprised if he did not have a secret passage leading from his chamber. Mayhap two.”

“He could have them, but like I said—”

“There were many things you were not privileged to know.” To find balance in her relationship with Frasyer, Duncan could understand Isabel conceding on some issues, but by all appearances, their relationship had little to do with fairness. Or respect. Both foundations of the woman he’d once known.

Or had he known her at all?

“Duncan—”

“Nay, lass.” Why did he mull over an event long past? He rolled away from her and onto his injured arm. Stars exploded in his head. He groaned and sagged back.

“Your arm?”

“Is fine.” Throbbed as if skewered by a hot iron. Heat poured over him as if standing next to a smithy’s fire. His hand shook as he mopped the sweat from his brow. He opened his eyes and forced himself to focus. They had to escape while he was still strong enough to protect her.

Shifting onto his good shoulder, he scanned the walls. In Seathan’s castle, a secret passage lay hidden in each of the family chambers.

“Bring me a cup of wine,” Frasyer ordered.

The earl’s squire hurried to do his lord’s bidding.

Once the lad left his view, Duncan continued scanning the wall for any hint of an opening, a fine line separating the rocks, or through uneven stone.

He followed the lower edge of the tapestry and started to move on, but an uneven shadow had him glancing back. There. Almost flush with the bottom of the woven cloth appeared to be the outline of a door. If he hadn’t looked for it, he would have missed the discreet indent altogether. Exactly as the lord of the castle would have wished.

“Look at the tapestry by the far wall,” Duncan whispered to Isabel. “It is hiding a door.”

She inched up on her forearms, and her breasts pressed against his shoulder; he all but groaned. “I do not see anything.”

“Along the lower edge.” It again struck Duncan as odd that Frasyer’s mistress didn’t know the whereabouts of his secret passage. What did they do, tear at each other’s clothes as soon as they entered his room? One would have believed they would have at least talked after they’d made love.

A bizarre kind of love if you asked him. What kind of lover threw his mistress into the dungeon? And how did her father, Lord Caelin, fit into all of this?

“I see it now,” she whispered with excitement. The warmth of her breath skimmed over his neck. “Perhaps it is where he keeps his jewels. If so, the Bible may be in there as well.”

“With the opening against the interior wall, more than likely, it is a secret passageway.”

She leaned back. “Oh.”

Though he didn’t want to return to Moncreiffe Castle, with his body growing fevered, he couldn’t risk remaining and, if challenged, being unable to protect her.

“Isabel?” he whispered.

“Aye?”

Duncan took a slow breath, hating his admission. “If the door proves to be an exit, we must leave, Bible or no. I must have my arm tended.”

Concern darkened her eyes. She glanced at his wounded arm and resignation settled on her face. “Then we had best pray the passageway leads out.”

Her calm acceptance surprised him. In the dungeon, she’d adamantly refused to leave Moncreiffe Castle without her mother’s Bible. What guided her decision to go without an argument now?

Isabel’s agreeing wasn’t out of concern for him. Her broken betrothal to him three years ago to become Frasyer’s mistress attested to that. Nay, something was amiss. Aye, she was afraid for her father’s life, but Duncan sensed her fears went deeper than that.

When he’d given his word to help Isabel find her mother’s Bible, he’d done so not only due to his vow to Symon, but for Lord Caelin’s sake. Now, he added another reason for staying—to learn the truth of Isabel’s relationship with Frasyer.

“Can you walk?” she asked.

“I have a wound on my arm, not my leg. Of course I can walk.”

A disgruntled frown dragged across her brow. “Or crawl if you had to. You are barely holding your own. Not that you would be admitting it,” Isabel charged. “You have not changed, Duncan MacGruder. You are still a stubborn, mule-headed fool.”

“Do not start flattering me now, lass,” he hissed through the pain. “Why, I will think you still favor me.”

Her expression faltered. “Duncan, this is serious.”

He grunted and then started to shift to a more comfortable position. A shadow on the far wall caught his attention. “Look, behind that tapestry on our left. There is another door.”

Isabel leaned forward. “That might be where he keeps his valuables hidden.”

“Mayhap. When we return, we will search there.”

She turned toward him, uncertainty haunting her face. “I am sorry. I never meant to involve you in any of this.”

A solid knock echoed on the outer door.

“Enter,” Frasyer said.

The master-at-arms strode in. “My lord, Lady Isabel is not within the keep.”

“Continue looking,” Frasyer ordered. “She has to be here somewhere. When she’s found, secure her in the dungeon, then inform me.”

“Aye, my lord.” The master-at-arms bowed, then left.

Water sloshed as Frasyer stood. “Incompetent fools. Once I have Isabel back, I will show them how to break a woman’s will.” His squire rushed to dry him off. After Frasyer had donned his robe, he stormed into his bedchamber and slammed the door.