His Woman (7 page)

The earth trembled as the riders closed.

A man shouted.

Isabel tensed as she lay beside Duncan. “Do you think Frasyer’s knights spotted us?”

“They are too far away.”

She started to rise.

Duncan caught her arm. “What are you doing?”

“I am going to look.”

He hesitated, his breathing harsh. “Be careful, lass.”

Kneeling against the stone, Isabel peeked above the boulder. She dropped beside Duncan. “They are headed straight toward us!”

“Bedamned!”

When Frasyer’s knights discovered them, how was she going to explain Duncan’s presence? Numerous reasons came to mind. She discarded each and every one. However untrue, Frasyer would believe Duncan’s releasing her from the dungeon was driven by amorous intent. Frasyer knew of her love for Duncan, of how it’d remained steadfast over time. He’d savored every moment of Duncan’s belief that she’d broken their vows for Frasyer’s wealth.

After uncovering her clandestine meeting with Symon and her father only days ago, Frasyer would believe she’d been meeting with Duncan all along. Once he’d questioned his guards and learned no priest had taken a lad to penance, Frasyer would deduct how Duncan had slipped through his castle’s defenses.

“Here.” Duncan pressed a dagger into her hands. “In case you need it.”

Fear threatened to freeze her, she squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them. “I am sorry to have drawn you into this.”

He shot her a hard stare. “Aye, with me you have made many a mistake.” He shifted into a crouch, visibly weak. Yet, his weapon was readied. “Get ready, lass.”

The cold rock pressed against her back as the steady thrum of hooves increased. Yes, she had made many mistakes when it came to Duncan, but now she wondered if her biggest one was not turning to him for help when Frasyer had first pressed her father for Isabel to become his mistress.

Too late to worry about choices made in the past. Now, nothing good would come from the revelation.

Still, she couldn’t stand here and do nothing. Duncan’s face was covered with sweat. His hand trembled around the hilt of his sword. Though he believed himself able, he was too weak to fight.

“Listen to me,” she whispered. “I am going to crawl a distance from here, then I will give myself up. They will not know you were involved in my escape. Once they take me away, head toward your brother’s home.” She dreaded returning to Frasyer, and the harsh treatment he would deliver, but no other option remained.

“And what of the Bible?”

The Bible! In the mayhem of the last few hours, she’d forgotten it. This time Frasyer would lock her in the dungeon, but with a guard. She’d never be able to escape.

And her father would die.

Unable to resist, Isabel softly traced her hand along the strong curve of Duncan’s face. Neither could she sacrifice Duncan’s life. “I will find a way,” she lied.

He caught her hand. “No.”

Frantic, she tried to pull free, but he held her tight. “Do you not understand?” Her voice trembled. “I cannot risk losing you as well.”

Duncan stared at Isabel, working to filter her words past the constant throbbing of his wound. “Three years ago you broke our betrothal to become Frasyer’s mistress. A long way from caring for someone if you ask me.”

A bird cried overhead. A cloud smothered the sun. The thrum of hooves grew louder.

“Let me go before the knights come too close,” she whispered. “They must not find you.”

The sincerity of her request resurrected his suspicions of her past actions. Since he’d freed Isabel from the dungeon, it seemed at every turn something else was awry.

“Nay. Whatever happens, we will face it together.” And once they were safe, he would find out exactly what she was about.

“You do not understand!” She jerked her hand free. He grabbed for her, but his injury slowed him. Before he could stop her, she crawled into the thick grass.

“Isabel!” The stubborn lass. Dizziness overwhelmed him as he tried to follow.

She disappeared from sight.

Sweat trickled down his face, and his entire body burned as if set ablaze. He sat and rechecked his injury, which was red and warning of infection if he didn’t tend to it soon. Blast it!

A stick snapped a distance away.

He glanced through the yellow-brown blades of withered grass broken by an errant thistle. Ten lengths ahead, Isabel stood. Caught within a gust, her straight whisky-colored hair that’d come unbraided fluttered around her face as if a defiant faerie.

“No!” The pounding of hooves drowned out Duncan’s cry as she faced the riders. With a curse, he struggled to his feet.

As if a miracle, the riders swerved toward the hidden exit.

Trembling, she turned toward him. And halted. Horror filled her face. “What are you doing exposing yourself?”

“Saving your blasted hide,” he growled, refusing to allow her to see how almost losing her had ripped his heart open all over again. He was a fool to care, but ’twould seem with her, it was his lot.

She waved her hands. “Get down.” When he remained standing, however unsteady, Isabel ran over and dragged him with her to the ground. “Do you want to be getting yourself caught?”

He scowled at her. “Nay, that was your intent.”

“Damn you. I was trying to save your hide.”

“So you say.” Through the swaying grass, he watched the knights as they slowed near the tunnel’s opening he and Isabel had emerged from moments before.

“John,” the lead rider ordered as he waved his men to a halt. “Ensure no one comes out.”

“Aye,” the knight replied as he dismounted.

Motioning his men forward, the knight kicked his horse into a canter; dry glass flew from their horses’ hooves as his men rode in his wake. Minutes later, the riders faded from sight.

Through his blurred vision, Duncan spotted the remaining guard. From his vantage point, how much of the field could the guard see? Or would his focus be only on the exit?

Thunder echoed in the distance. Duncan glanced westward. An ominous bank of snow-filled clouds rumbled toward them.

“The guard is going inside,” Isabel said.

“To keep dry.” A luxury they could ill afford. He sheathed his sword and then held out his hand. “Give me the dagger.”

Isabel handed him the blade.

As he stared at the weapon, his vision clouded to a giddy blur, his mind whirling with unbidden memories. He remembered the day his father had bestowed it upon him to celebrate his becoming a knight.

As well as the halved sapphire hanging around his neck presented by his grandmother during the ceremony. The other half now lay inside a bowl of her abandoned chamber in his eldest brother’s home, Lochshire Castle. A room the brothers believed contained magic.

He frowned. Duncan believed in the fey and of powers drawn from the earth, but he had doubts of the gemstone’s abilities. Though the sapphire was known for its powers of prophecy, wisdom, and its ability to help the clarity of mind, until the end, he’d never seen Isabel’s treachery coming.

As if summoned, the warmth of the stone pulsed against his chest. Duncan scrubbed his face. ’Twas fever claiming his thoughts. Little time existed to be thinking of his past, the fey, or Isabel’s betrayal. He clutched the knife.

“Duncan?”

Isabel’s worried voice dragged him from his hazed thoughts.

Somber eyes studied him. “Let me look at your arm.”

“We must find shelter first,” he said.

“I know of a cave nearby.”

He nodded. By the time they made it to safety, he doubted he’d care what Isabel did to him, much less remember anything.

She situated herself to give him her support. “We must keep low.”

Leaning against her, Duncan forced his aching body forward. Through the haze of pain, he noticed the softness of her curves, how she pressed against him with worry filling her eyes. Once he’d wanted her tenderness. That was before he’d known her tenderness was for sale.

He clenched his teeth and allowed his fury of her betrayal to fill him. He wanted nothing to do with her. But shamefully, a part of him knew he lied.

Snow slapped his face as they moved, the fat flakes icing his skin and further blurring his vision. Wind battered them with a merciless bite as they reached the shelter of the trees, but with his body burning with fever, he savored the icy drops.

Snow clung to Isabel’s hair like a faerie crown as she turned toward him. All he saw was a blur. Fragments of the woman he’d once loved. A woman who, damn her, could hurt him still.

“The entry to the cave is up ahead, behind that dense brush.”

He nodded, too tired, his body aching too much to speak. Or try.

Isabel guided Duncan over a moss-covered slope. Halfway down, he slipped.

“Duncan!” She grabbed his cloak to stop him, throwing him further off balance.

Clods of dirt flew as they slammed to the ground. Momentum plunged them down the steep incline. Branches, rocks, and sticks jabbed at him.

“Watch out!” she yelled.

The blur of darkness screamed toward them. Instinct had Duncan rolling to place Isabel behind him, and he took the full impact as they crashed into the brush shielding the opening to the cave.

And his mind gave in to welcome blackness.

“Wake up, Duncan!”

Caught within the tangle of limbs, Duncan fought to remain conscious. Everything hurt. Why hadn’t Isabel left him alone. For a second, he’d felt the empty bliss of nothing.

He pried open his eyes. Isabel’s face swam into view. Snow clung from her whisky hair. Worry hazed her amber eyes. And her face, though pale to him, couldn’t have looked more beautiful.

’Twas his fever misguiding his thoughts, he assured himself. But a traitorous part of him admitted that since he’d first caught sight of her in the dungeon, all his old feelings for her that he’d sought to destroy had become unveiled.

She caught his shoulders and struggled to lift him. “We have to get you inside the cave.”

His lids started to slide down. “Sleep,” he murmured, wanting only to rest and for a moment not to feel.

“It is too dangerous for you to remain here with Frasyer’s men searching for us. You must help me. I cannot carry you.”

Frasyer. Aye, couldn’t let the bastard find them.
Gritting his teeth, Duncan struggled to stand. Halfway, his legs started to buckle.

“Come on.” Isabel positioned her hand under his right shoulder and lifted.

Ignoring his body’s protests, he braced his feet apart and pushed. The cave blurred before him. By sheer will, he regained his focus.

“Easy now,” Isabel cautioned as she helped him into the dry interior. “Food stores and blankets are hidden inside. Once I have tended to your wounds, I will go for help.”

“No. Too dangerous. You must…” The room spun around him. Darkness threatened. He shoved his palm against the worn rock and braced himself.

“Duncan?”

“I—” His legs crumpled and he landed on his injured arm. Pain tore through him and he struggled to remain conscious. He felt someone shaking him. A frantic voice in his ear.

“Wake up.”

He forced his eyes open, but he couldn’t focus. Gray sliding to black. The room began to fade around him.

“Stay awake!”

The fear in her voice had him trying to rally, but darkness beckoned with a welcome hand. “A…” He fought to swallow over a throat gone dry with fever. “Alert me if anyone comes.”

“You are in no condition to move, much less defend me.” Isabel smoothed his face with her hand, her touch tender, her chastisement gentle, as if a caress. “I am going to Seathan for help.”

Duncan tried to reply, but pain blurred his mind and her words garbled. Darkness beckoned, an escape from the pain originating at his arm and tearing through his body. Dear God, the pain.

His lids began to droop again. A thought clawed its way to the fore. Forcing his eyes open, Duncan reached up. His hand shook from effort as he jerked the halved sapphire from around his neck. He shoved it into her hand.

“Gi-Give this to Seathan.”

To Seathan? At this moment Duncan’s oldest brother didn’t matter, no one did but getting Duncan home alive. Isabel frowned but took the chain holding the sapphire pendant, remembering the day his grandmother had gifted it to him upon his being knighted.

“Why?” she asked, as the gemstone dangled before her, surprised Duncan would entrust her with a possession he valued above all others.

“It is the only way”—he closed his eyes for a moment, then struggled to open them—“Seathan will believe you are telling him the truth.”

Isabel stilled. She’d never considered his brother not believing her, but it made sense. After Duncan’s father died, without hesitation, Seathan had taken on the responsibility of raising his younger brothers, Alexander, Duncan, and their adopted brother, Patrik. Throughout the years, Seathan had guided them and guarded them with a fierce loyalty. Then she’d ended her betrothal with Duncan and broken his heart. Seathan, like his brothers, had shunned her ever since.

Regret balled in her throat, hot and hard. Regardless, for Duncan’s sake, she would do whatever it took to convince Seathan she was telling the truth.

Duncan’s eyes rolled back in his head.

“Duncan?”

Silence.

Her chest squeezed tight as Isabel stared at his pain-filled face, the sweat streaking his brow visible in the muted light. Fear roared inside her, but she shook his shoulder with gentleness.

“Duncan?”

He didn’t move.

Sucking in a deep breath, she fisted the sapphire within her palm, the pendant a potent reminder of Duncan’s belief in her. As she clutched the gemstone, heat slowly warmed her palm. Surprised, she opened her hand to find the dark blue gem seeming to glow upon her skin. Ridiculous.

Many people believed in the properties of this gem, its presence giving them the ability to purge themselves of unwelcome thoughts, to cleanse the mind and bring inner peace. Many people claimed Duncan’s grandmother had the sight and had foreseen Duncan’s troubled future. Had she gifted him with the halved sapphire upon his knighting to bring him a semblance of comfort in his future?

As if the sapphire or its meaning mattered now. Isabel pulled the amulet over her head, tucked the sapphire beneath her chemise to lay against Wallace’s arms. She ignored how warmth continued to pulse within her palm where the gem had lain. Tiredness and her imagination spurred such thoughts.

She had to get Duncan to safety. Breaking down now would only hinder her journey ahead.

After preparing a makeshift bed, she rolled him onto the blankets and removed his garb to tend to his wound. Her hand trembled as she surveyed the depth of the cut combined with the amount of blood he’d lost. Guilt lanced her. He never should have accompanied her to Frasyer’s chambers to search for the Bible, much less spent the last few hours hidden beneath the earl’s bed, bleeding all the while.

Please protect him from infection,
she prayed, unable to prevent tears from burning in her eyes.

She wiped them away with the back of her hand. “Do not die on me, Duncan MacGruder.” Even as she spoke the words, she knew that if he lived, ’twould be more than the herbs she’d give him, but her heart, before leaving to find his brother.

Isabel secured a water pouch to her waist, drew on her cape and crept outside. The slap of cold air had her glancing up. The cloud-sprinkled sky of earlier now gave way to thick, dark clouds. The fresh scent of the air was rich with the promise of more snow.

She worried her lower lip. In the distance, a knight guarded the tunnel she and Duncan had slipped from a short time before. Soon, Frasyer would widen the search. She refused to reflect on the dangers of traveling in the forest alone with a snowstorm approaching. Duncan needed her, and she owed him a greater debt than he knew.

With a prayer on her lips, Isabel hurried off into dense forest.

The following evening, eyes as black as the devil’s own pierced Isabel as she forced herself to remain standing at the entry to Lochshire Castle. Her entire body trembled with a mix of fear and fatigue as Duncan’s oldest brother, Seathan MacGruder, Earl of Gray, strode toward her. Clad in his mail, he was every ounce the warrior.

Fat flakes of snow spiraled between them, each negating to shield her from the man she must face. A man who detested her with his every breath.

She shivered and glanced longingly toward the keep and the warmth waiting within. However much she wanted to, she couldn’t remain. A snowstorm that’d begun shortly after she’d left the cave had slowed her travel. The drifting flakes in combination with the night more so. Too many hours had passed. She’d hoped to have returned to Duncan by now.

Please, God, let Duncan be alive.

As another shiver racked her, Seathan halted before her.

With cold precision, he shoved back his snow-littered coif. Sweat clung to his face from his practice interrupted moments ago by her arrival and request for his immediate attention.

Freed from its bond, his black hair tumbled over his broad, well-muscled shoulders. A body honed for war. A mind quick and lethal in its attack.

“You dare much by showing your face at my home.” His deep burr reverberated within the tunnel of the gatehouse, his dislike of her clear. “You are not welcome here.”

Sadness threatened to overwhelm Isabel as she stared at Duncan’s brother, a man she’d known all her life, a man she’d laughed with and told jokes to as a child. Beneath his intense scrutiny, she felt as if a stranger.

For Duncan’s sake, she refused to leave. Isabel shook her head. “I cannot go.”

Seathan started forward as if to cast her out himself.

She put her hand out. “Wait! Duncan was gravely wounded helping me escape Moncreiffe Castle two days past. I left him hidden in a cave near Frasyer’s castle. I need your help in bringing him home.”

He glanced over her shoulder to the harsh, snow-covered land, where drifts were growing by the hour. His face, shadowed with the start of a full beard, iced to distrust as he turned back to her.

“Duncan left several days past on an errand of importance to help the rebels.”

“He was helping but one rebel, my brother.” Emotions threatened to storm her as they had countless times during her journey. By sheer will, she tamped them down. “On a death pledge to Symon, Duncan traveled to Moncreiffe Castle to rescue me from Frasyer’s dungeon.”

His eyes narrowed further. “You lie. I have neither received word of Symon’s death, nor did Duncan inform me of his pledge to help you escape.”

Her heart ached. Of course not. Duncan would never admit he was going to rescue her. For his vow to her brother, he’d set aside his shame.

“Duncan would not want you to know of his helping me,” she admitted.

Seathan’s mouth tightened.

“I have proof.” Her fingers, numb from her journey, trembled as Isabel tugged the chain and amulet from around her neck. Freed, the sapphire twisted amid the flakes of snow. Errant rays of sun flickered upon the gem to cast prisms of blue and aqua over her hand like a shattered rainbow.

“Before I left Duncan in the cave, he gave me this.” She held the jeweled necklace toward him.

Seathan’s nostrils flared as he seized the pendant. His ebony gaze filled with suspicion.

Isabel’s chest tightened with panic. Oh God, he didn’t believe her! “I am not lying. If Duncan is not rescued and tended to soon, he will die. Please, help me.”

Wood scraped behind them as the door to the guardhouse slammed shut. Hard steps crunched beneath the snow, closing fast. Isabel turned.

Dressed in mail, Duncan’s middle brother, Alexander, strode toward her. His lean build was similar to Seathan’s and Duncan’s. Hair, black as midnight, framed his hard countenance. A scar ran along his left cheek, adding to his daunting presence.

Alexander’s gaze pinned her. Suspicion seethed in his deep blue eyes hardened by an edge of violence. “I see she dares to try to enter our home.” He scowled at his brother. “Why have you not yet tossed her out on her arse in the cold where she belongs?”

Aware Alexander’s passions often guided him, Isabel held her ground. He was only protecting Duncan, a brother he loved against a woman he despised.

“Duncan is seriously wounded and needs your help,” Isabel insisted.

“So you claim.” Seathan handed his brother the sapphire pendant.

Alexander’s brow slammed together as he laid it over his gloved hand. “Duncan’s amulet?” He scowled at her. “Why does
she
have it?”

“Isabel said Duncan gave this to her to convince us she is speaking the truth.”

“There is only one way Duncan would part with this amulet.” Alexander took a menacing step toward her, the sapphire strangled in his grasp. He leaned forward until his nose was but a hand’s breadth from her, his mouth curled in a fierce snarl. “What have you and Frasyer done to Duncan?”

“I swear to you, this is not a trick,” Isabel replied, her voice unsteady. “Duncan was injured when he helped me escape Frasyer’s dungeon two days past. We reached a cave. Before he passed out, he gave me the amulet. You must believe me!”

Alexander snorted. “I would be believing that bastard Frasyer would toss his mistress into the dungeon. A fitting place for the likes of you. Now you want me swallowing that Duncan would be helping you escape Frasyer’s lair?” He shook his head. “Nay, lass. After you betrayed Duncan three years ago to wallow in the earl’s bed, he would not trust you with a maggot-infested chunk of venison.”

Seathan stepped closer. “She also claims Symon is dead and that Duncan gave her brother his vow to help her escape before he died.”

“Another bloody lie,” Alexander spat. “Think we are foolish enough to believe you?”

With Duncan’s brothers towering over her, needing distance from their fury, Isabel stepped back. And bumped against the hewn wall. Cornered by the intimidating males and pinned by the hard glares of the nearby guards, she wanted to sink to the ground and cry. Since she and Duncan had escaped the dungeon, she’d had no food, rest, or water. Her muscles screamed from strain of the arduous travel, her body ached from the cold, and worry for Duncan had weighted her every thought.

Isabel glared from one brother to the next. Damn them both. “Loan me a palfrey. I will retrieve Duncan myself!”