His Woman

by Cosby, Diana

  Behind him, Isabel’s soft footsteps scraped to a stop.

  Needing to know what thoughts this chamber invoked for her, Duncan turned. Isabel’s gaze was trained on the bed, a flush stealing up her cheeks. She faced him, her amber eyes wide with guilt, then oddly, hurt echoed within her fragile features.

  Hurt? That made not a bit of sense. He waited for her to speak, explain, to say anything.

  She dropped her gaze.

  “What?” he demanded in a harsh whisper.

  A shudder flickered over her body. After a long moment, she shook her head.

  That was the way of it then? Fine. If she wanted Frasyer, she was welcome to him. He’d nay save her again. No, she’d not asked him to; Symon’s plea had brought him here—to this insanity of a mess.

  A cloud shielded the sun, pitching the chamber into gloom. Scowling, Duncan glanced around, finding the dismal shadows appropriate.

  Disgusted with the entire situation, he strode across the room, anxious to find the Bible and be far away from here. He ran his fingers up the wall in search of the near invisible indent they’d spotted only days ago when they’d hidden beneath the bed.

  Isabel moved to his side, her fingers mimicking his technique. All too aware of her, of her poor decisions that’d tossed them both into this mayhem, he focused on his task. As his finger slid near the corner of the wall, the tip of his thumb found purchase.

  “The outline for the door is over here,” he said. “Help me find the opening.”

  Isabel crouched below him, the top of her straight whisky hair at knee level. She looked up at him.

  Beyond her regret, he saw awareness in her eyes. He damned himself over and again for his inability to withdraw from her. “What?” he asked through gritted teeth.

  A long second passed. “We need to hurry.”

  Aye, they did, but with her looking like his every fantasy helped naught. In a foul mood, he began to follow the thin line of the hidden door with his fingertips.

  “Here,” Isabel exclaimed.

  He glanced down as sun spilled into the room. A hand’s length from the floor, a small indent lay within the wall. “Good.” He knelt beside her. With their fingers near each others, they pulled.

  Stone scraped as the door swung open.

  Isabel jumped to her feet.

  “Hurry.”

  She slipped into the secret chamber ahead of him. Stilled. “No, it cannot be!”

  At the disappointment in her voice, Duncan pulled the door wider. A sizeable stone pallet led to a set of stairs. “Another secret passage?”

  “So it appears.” Frustration strained her voice. “I was sure this door led to a secret chamber.”

  “It would seem we were both wrong.”

  “Now what? I have but days left to free my father and we have yet to find the Bible.” She crossed her arms over chest and turned away.

  Though she was trying to hide her emotions from him, her shoulders were visibly shaking. However much he wanted to keep his distance from her, he’d not allow her to suffer alone. Lord Caelin was a fine man, one he would risk anything to save.

  “We will find the Bible,” he said as he drew her to him.

  She turned into his arms, and her body trembled against his. “But we cannot be sure.”

  The echo of her heartbeat pounded unsteady against his; the angst in her voice clawed at his heart. “Nay, we cannot be, neither will we quit.”

  “No.” A quiet strength filled her voice as she looked up. Determination shown in her amber eyes, framed by the fatigue haunting them both. “We will find it.” She stepped back, composed once again and nodded. “Let us go.”

  Candlelight spilled around them in jagged shadows as he pulled the door closed behind them. Duncan held up the taper that fractured the darkness with its yellowed light. The widened flat stone led to a set of stairs that disappeared into blackness.

  “Where do you think they lead?” Isabel asked.

  He shrugged. “We will soon find out.” They started down, every curve, each angle drawing them deeper beneath mortar and stone. Several levels down, a sinking grew in Duncan’s gut as to their destination.

  The darkness seemed alive, like a thousand tiny eyes following their progress from some secret world. Despite himself, chills prickled up his spine.

  “Duncan?”

  He shrugged off the foolish sensation that they weren’t alone. “Aye?”

  “Should we have not found at least one door by now?”

  “One would think.”

  Chilled air tainted with a faint stench increased Duncan’s suspicion of their destination.

  And he prayed he was wrong.

  But with the putrid smell strengthening with each step down, when the stairway flattened out and a door lay before them, he had little doubt to where the passage led.

  “Bedamned,” he muttered.

  “What is wrong?”

  “Shhh.” He laid his ear against the stone. Muted groans melded with the drip of distant water beyond. Thankfully, there was no echo of guards’ voices as they made their rounds. It seemed Frasyer hadn’t added a permanent guard after their escape. He grimaced. Why should he? Only a fool would return.

  With care, Duncan inched the door open. Though he’d expected the scene before him, confirmation soured the fledgling of hope he was somehow wrong.

  “Duncan, where are we?”

  The nerves in her voice had him wishing he could offer her another truth. With a sigh, he pushed the door. “Look.”

  She peered through the opening. Even in the dim light, he saw her face pale. “God, no.”

  He jerked the door closed, the candle’s flame between them jumping wildly.

  “Why would this entry lead to the dungeon?” Isabel asked. “It does not make sense.”

  Duncan nodded, as perplexed as she. “No, it does not.”

  “If only we had known before.”

  “What difference would that have made?”

  “After you rescued me, had we known, we could have taken this route to Frasyer’s chamber to search for the Bible.”

  “We could have,” he agreed, “but your belief that the Bible was in Frasyer’s chamber was a suspicion proved false.”

  Guilt fueled Isabel and she turned away.

  “What is wrong?”

  “I should have known,” she whispered, damning her ignorance. “I have lived here for the past three years, yet I know little of this castle’s workings or routes of escape besides the common entry doors.”

  Hardness encased Duncan’s face and he remained silent, but she knew his thoughts, had witnessed the same damnable look several times as they’d searched for the Bible. He believed that as Frasyer’s mistress, her attention had been too focused on the earl’s bed to think of such mundane thoughts of strategy for the rebels or otherwise. If he only knew the truth.

  Regardless of her reasons, her ignorance of the castle’s layout far from alleviated her guilt. Because of her lack of knowledge, Duncan had almost died. As a covert supporter of the Scottish rebels, why had she not explored every inch of Moncreiffe Castle and shared her findings with her brother?

  Emotion tightened Isabel’s throat. “We have done naught but go in a circle and are no closer to finding the Bible.”

  “You are wrong. We know where the Bible is not.”

  Her heart aching, she gave a bitter laugh. “And that knowledge gains us what? Your injury? Days lost. In addition, Frasyer still has the upper hand over my father’s life.”

  “Isabel—”

  “Only a handful of days remain to bring the Bible to Lord Monceaux. Yet, I have naught the faintest idea of where it is hidden. For all we know, Frasyer might have taken it with him. And, if he finds you here, damn you, Duncan, he will gladly end your life.”

  Duncan’s gaze softened. “He will not find us.”

  “Empty words,” she breathed, tired of those she loved wounded or dying around her. “Even now his knights could be entering the sec
ret passage, our mounts seized.”

  “I doubt such. It was snowing when I followed you. Even a few hours behind you, with the storm intensifying, I barely was able to trace your path. By the time Frasyer’s knights awoke, even if they began trailing you, before long, any tracks either of us made would be filled.”

  “You are right,” Isabel said, reassured. “I have allowed my frustration to guide my thoughts.”

  “It is a difficult time for you.”

  “It is, but for us all. Symon touched so many people’s lives. I still cannot believe he is dead.” But thinking of him would only nurture the hurt, when time for that must come later. “And what of the Bible? Where could it be?”

  Duncan leaned against the wall and rubbed the worried indent of his brow. “We have searched several rooms, which narrows down where the Bible could be. I think we need to start at the dungeon and work our way up.”

  “How? We will need garb to cover us to get past the guards as before.”

  He sighed. “We will have to retrace our steps.” He pushed away from the wall. “If we do not find any clothes in Frasyer’s chamber, another room on his floor might provide us well.”

  She nodded.

  Duncan lifted the candle and turned toward the stairs. “There is one thing I cannot figure out.”

  “What is that?”

  “Why would Frasyer need a private passageway from his chamber to the dungeon?” He started up the steps.

  A frown wedged between her brow as Isabel fell into place behind him. “It makes no sense to me as well. It is not as if he has a covert chamber within the dungeon where he hides his secrets.” She stilled. “But what if he did?”

  Duncan halted, turned. The flicker of possibility in his gaze matched her own thoughts.

  “What if Frasyer has a discreet chamber down here where he hides what he wishes others to never find?” she asked. “If so, the Bible may be in there as well.”

  “Isabel,” Duncan cautioned, “there may be another reason for this secret passage.” Like Frasyer being so twisted he would covertly watch from a hidden chamber, enjoying as the prisoners within were punished.

  “Nothing else makes sense.”

  “There are other reasons, but on this I agree.”

  “It is here. I can feel it.” He looked far from convinced, but she knew in her heart it was so. “Wait. Why have I not remembered this before? At times, when Frasyer spoke with me, an odd, sour smell clung to him. I had dismissed it as that from hard travel, but I should have placed the smell before, that inherent of the dungeon!”

  “We will search the dungeon first,” Duncan said. “Though no guards are posted there, they will return on rounds soon enough.”

  “Then let us hurry.”

  They retraced their steps. Duncan pushed open the secret door, scoured the dank surroundings, then moved forward. “Stay close behind me.”

  Torches, spaced at regular intervals within the dungeon, cast splotches of yellowed light, leaving the musty stone walls a jumble of macabre shadows.

  Isabel scanned the dimly lit corridor. “Where should we begin?”

  “A fine question indeed,” Duncan replied. “I doubt that Frasyer would keep anything of value in one of the cells.”

  “True, but what if one of the doors does not lead to a cell, but a private room?”

  “Nay,” Duncan said. “When I was searching for you, I scanned most every chamber.”

  “But not all.”

  He grimaced. “Nay, not all. Fine then. We will search those cells I did not view first.” He pointed to several cells at the end of the corridor. “Those four are the only ones that I did not check.”

  She glanced past the door where she’d been imprisoned. Sickened by the stench, standing so close to where she’d once been incarcerated, made her want to wretch.

  “Isabel?”

  “I am fine.” She lied, but she couldn’t fail now, not when she was so close. “I will take the two doors on the right.”

  He nodded.

  With her stomach threatening to purge, Isabel hurried along the dank hallway, the groans of men suffering in the distance too clear a reminder of what awaited her and Duncan if they were caught. That was, if after, Frasyer allowed them to live.

  At the first door, she peered within the slats, half afraid of witnessing one of Frasyer’s unfortunate captives firsthand. Daylight filtered through the narrowed hole carved midway up the wall. Inside, she saw naught but abandoned straw.

  “Anything?” Duncan whispered.

  “No.”

  “Nothing here either.”

  Isabel hurried to the final room and peered inside the narrowed slit. Nothing. Her heart sunk. “Do you see anything?” she asked, praying he had.

  “Only another cell.”

  She touched the chain with Wallace’s pendant around her neck. “Damn Frasyer and his game. Where else could a chamber be hidden?

  Duncan shook his head and motioned toward the secret passage. “We need to return to Frasyer’s chamber and find garb to masquerade ourselves in while we search.”

  Isabel fell into step beside him.

  “Besides the cells,” he said, “there is only the stairs leading to the great room.”

  “What if a secret panel is hidden in the wall up the steps?”

  He shook his head. “If indeed another secret chamber exists, it could be anywhere.”

  The odds against them finding the entry to yet another secret chamber somewhere in the castle was enormous. Each moment lost deprived them of time needed to travel. She scanned the flame-lit corridor, the yellowed light dancing across the indents leaving macabre shadows.

  “We should check the stairs before we leave.”

  Duncan frowned. “Aye, a necessary risk. If we hear anyone coming from above, hurry to the passage.” With the groans of the prisoners around them, they hurried to the stairs leading to the great room.

  Vivid memories of Duncan’s initial appearance overwhelmed her. How he’d appeared within her cell when she’d believed all was lost. How he’d brought garb to help her escape. How he’d stood by her when he’d learned she could not leave without the Bible. And of how he’d been wounded in creating a diversion so they could safely continue their search.

  They started past the dark inlet behind the stairs, and another memory jolted her. The shelter she had used to change into the squire’s garb.

  As they passed the indent, a cool breeze had their candle sputtering. Light from the sporadic wick flickered along the dungeon walls and illuminated the black void behind the steps.

  “Wait.” Duncan lifted the candle. Yellow light illuminated the shielded door behind the steps, to yet another cell. Or was it. “Look there, where you changed into the garb when I came before.”

  “Another cell?”

  “When I first saw it, due to the lack of grates, I dismissed it as a room Frasyer used to flog his prisoners or worse.”

  “Mayhap it is a private chamber,” Isabel said, trying not to get her hopes up.

  “Mayhap.” He stepped toward the narrowed inlet shielding the entry.

  The creak of a door sounded above. Male voices echoed down the stairway.

  Duncan hurried over, jerked open the door. It slid soundlessly open. “Hurry.”

  She didn’t have to be told twice. Nerves slammed her body as she rushed into the chamber, Duncan in her wake.

  Candlelight illuminated a room complete with a massive desk, hand-drawn maps of Scotland, claymores, and myriad other war-honed items.

  The pounding of the guard’s steps on the stairs increased. Duncan pushed her inside, shut the door behind them, and caught her hand.

  The guards voices echoed from outside.

  Duncan hauled her behind the desk. “Get down.”

  Heart pounding, she ducked, and he knelt by her side.

  He blew out the candle. The room fell to blackness, the taint of smoke from the wick strong.

  “Do you think they saw our candle?�
�� Isabel whispered. “Or can smell the smoke?”

  “Shhhh.”

  Silence swarmed them, punctured by the sound of their breaths and the murmurs of the guards.

  Seconds passed.

  Nearby, a cell door scraped open. The voices grew distant.

  Isabel sagged back. “They did not see us.”

  “Aye, but now we must wait until they have left.”

  She relaxed, the darkness heightening her senses. Duncan’s warm breath slid over her neck with a soft, familiar warmth. He was so close she could feel the heat of his body, the honed muscles a fortifying strength to her frayed nerves. Though she fought to be strong, she wanted him to assure her that they would find the Bible and reach her father in time to save his life. And more, to forgive her. A foolish thought indeed. With all that she’d put him through, she deserved naught of his forgiveness, only contempt.

  The scrape of doors and muted voices from the corridor seemed to last forever, the wait made bearable only by Duncan’s presence at her side.

  Her mind drifted to thoughts of the tower chamber when she and Duncan had almost made love. Her skin prickled with awareness as she remembered the feel of his hands upon her skin, the male taste of him upon her tongue, the erotic sensations his touch invoked.

  No, they’d not made love, but for a while, he’d looked at her with the passion she’d believed she would never see in his eyes again.

  “They are leaving,” Duncan said, drawing her from her musings.

  Isabel angled her head and listened, thankful to hear the guards’ fading voices as they headed up the stairs.

  Leather slid against the stone floor as he shifted beside her. “Wait here.”

  She caught his arm. “Where are you going?”

  “To one of the torches outside so I can light the candle. Stay here until I return.” Quiet steps echoed in the silence. A soft shush sounded as he opened the door. Torchlight cut through the gloom a second before she was again plunged into darkness.

  Each scrape, each indefinable sound beyond the stone wall had her tensing.

  After a long moment, the door reopened. Duncan stepped inside. Candlelight breeched the blackness like a beacon, illuminating a surprisingly complex chamber.

  She gave a shaky exhale.