Betrayed (3 page)

She promptly swung her hand toward his cheek.

His fingers laced her wrist before she could land her slap. “Ye try my patience sorely.”

Amber’s attention was momentarily snagged by the thin white scar revealed at his temple, and her thoughts went to battle and blood and Stivin. “Where is he? Where is Stivin?”

“I was hoping ye’d be able ta tell me.”

Had Stivin not returned from the raid last night? “How would I know?”

“Dinna play a fool’s game.” A look of disdain settled on his features. “Ye betrayed Stivin’s trust and we both know it.”

Amber paled.
He knew.

“Aye, I see the truth in yer eyes.” He shook his head and spat on the ground.

“Do
you
deny all responsibility for sending an untrained boy to battle?”

“I know better than ta expect a straight answer from a Jardin.” He forced her hands behind her back and pushed her forward, one stumbling step at a time as she resisted. “Yer body alone will serve my needs.”

Bile rushed up her throat and she almost gagged. “I’ll not be your whore.”

His laugh was bitter. “Aye. Better ye save that particular talent for Stivin when he returns.”

“Returns from where?” She threw a hot look over her shoulder. “What do you want from me?”

“Yer no more than the bait ta bring our Stivin home.” He shoved hard, turning her head forward again. “And I’ve little taste for worms,” he added.

“You cannot mean…”
Had Stivin run off before his kin could make a reiver out of him?

“That I’d use a woman as fair trade fer my cousin?” he finished. “If ye didna involve yourself in a man’s affairs ta begin with, I wouldna have ta barter ye ta the Jardin.”

“No.” At the mention of her uncle, Amber feared the worst. “Stivin was taken captive last night?”

“It will be my sweet pleasure ta return ye, the sooner the better.”

“You don’t understand,” Amber cried, twisting wildly. “I cannot be your hostage.”

“Ye can and ye will.” His tone made it clear that this was his last word on the matter.

She fought him then, uncaring that she was doing herself more damage than him. When she kicked backward and struck shin, the brute barely noticed.

“Let me go! William Jardin cares naught for me. He’d never agree to exchange Stivin for me. You’re wasting precious time. I can move freely within Spedlin and help Stivin escape.” Her wrists rubbed raw as she twisted her hands within the brace of fingers that were callused and unyielding. “Passion’s teeth, why will you not listen? I must return to Spedlin.”

He ignored her, simply dragging her along when she struggled too wildly to walk.

Frightened and desperate, Amber shrieked, “Bastard fool! Ignorant whoreson! Stivin’s life depends on me—”

“Enough.” He pushed her from him and she stumbled to the ground. “Duncan!”

Picking herself up, Amber saw another dark-haired man appear from a cluster of trees on the threshold of the embankment and remembered Krayne had earlier called out to an accomplice. The man led two horses, a black stallion standing at least three hands above a golden brown.

Duncan.
Stivin spoke fondly of this cousin, the Wamphray laird’s younger brother. Surely Duncan would hear her out.

“The mist is yet thicker than the bog’s sour breath,” Duncan called to Krayne on his approach, “but I’ve no seen grass nor leaf stir from the river ta the edge of the woods. I ken no one’s missed the wench yet.”

“Duncan,” Amber interrupted, “please listen. William Jardin loathes me. I am a worthless hostage.”

Duncan’s scathing glance cut through her. “Are ye no the hoary toad’s niece and heir?”

“No.”

“She lies,” Duncan informed his brother. “The Jardins are as useless at breeding as everything else they attempt.”

“Aye, I am his niece.” She turned to Krayne. “But not his heir. My uncle would gladly let Spedlin and the whole of Applegarth turn to wasteland before giving it to me.”

Krayne shrugged one of those massive shoulders. “He’d marry ye ta a strong ally.”

“Never.” William did intend to marry her off, but only to a man who’d surely kill her either by accident or intent within a month, to break the curse in time for William to beget his own heir.

“Or ta an enemy ta forge a truce,” Duncan added. “There’s no a Scotsman born that’d see his bloodline run dry or yield his land to Jamie’s greedy crown.”

Amber could only look from one foolhardy brother to the other and shake her head with a looming sense of disaster. “He cares not if I live or die. My uncle hates me and I despise him. Why will you not see?”

Krayne regarded her with a closed expression.

Duncan stepped forward into the tense silence. “Stivin wasna taken in the ambush. We were well clear across the burn when the lad turned back ta ride inta Spedlin with a sheathed sword, all ta ensure his wench had no come ta any harm.”

“What is this?” Krayne turned sharply with a frown on his brother.

“When he realised we’d been betrayed, he feared the worst. Stivin swore that Jardin must have beaten a confession from the chit.”

Amber gasped.
Oh, Stivin, no…

The gasp swung Krayne’s frown from his brother to the wide-eyed lass. Her skin was creamy ivory with the lightest dusting of freckles over the bridge of her nose. Perfect. Untouched. Not a single blur marred her lovely face.

He stared, and stared, his mood blackening by the second.

“I see no marks, no bruised cheeks nor swollen jaw. Jardin beat the truth from ye, did he?”

Amber shrunk back as he lunged for her, but still he caught the trimming on her bodice and, with one powerful tug, ripped the gown in half from top to bottom.

“No,” she screamed. “I swear, lay one hand on me and Stivin will never forgive you.”

Krayne caught her flailing arms and locked both wrists in one hand. Shielding her from Duncan’s eyes with his body, he lifted her shift up about her neck. The flawless beauty of endlessly long legs, a flat belly and deliciously ripe breasts made him instantly hard. Grunting, he spun her around to examine her narrow back, the tempting flare of curve at her hips and the pert shape of her backside. His shaft bucked and throbbed.

Devil take it, he knew what she was, and here he was, aching with the lust he’d only just brought under control.

Despising himself, he spun her about again and jammed the two halves of her torn gown together. “Cloak yerself, wench, or I’ll no answer ta my actions.”

Amber backed away from him.

“Bring her,” he commanded Duncan, shoving her into his brother’s arms as he grabbed the leather leads tethering Cronus and deftly mounted. Damn the Jardin witch ta hell, for he’d seen with his own two eyes that her betrayal had not come at any bruising price.

He reined his stallion about and, not trusting his fury, headed north at a terrifying gallop.

His temper a fit match for the devil’s wrath, Krayne rode hard and recklessly as he thought on Amber, on those fistfuls of thick, glossy hair that hung to her waist, begging a man to bury hands and face deep into its fresh, flowery scent. His shaft thickened as he recalled the fire-and-ice gaze she’d played him with, that practised whimper of pleasure parting her lips when he’d crushed her to his chest.

“Christ!” he swore, adjusting his seat. The lass was a siren sent to squeeze a man’s balls until the last drop of moral fibre, dignity and honour stained the ground. She was an enchantress with more Scottish fire than English blood thrumming her veins, and had no business putting horns on a naive lad such as Stivin.

Krayne had no time for women who contrived silly adventures as amusement, and even less for those who turned on one as young as Stivin, sending a deluded boy into the enemy’s arms to slay imaginary dragons. Whatever tales she’d carried to Stivin right before tattling to her uncle, he knew not, knew only they were as tall as the loftiest highland mountain.

He knew, for the Amber he’d met today feared naught.

No woman had ever raised a hand to him. Not a dainty slap either, but a fist to the jaw. Most men would have retaliated instantly, and it would have been their right. But Amber hadn’t even flinched. She’d gone on to taunt him with a steady voice and eyes flashing an angry green. Here was no abused woman with a broken spirit, mishandled by a wicked uncle. Krayne was an excellent judge of character, and it was his guess that she’d never known a day’s fear in her pampered life.

Krayne slowed to a steady gait as he entered the broad valley winding up to Wamphray. In a direct line, not three miles west, lay Lochwood Tower, stronghold of the Johnstone chief. His cousin Adam would damn them all to a cold purgatory if he knew about last night’s raid.

With a disgruntled sigh, Krayne rubbed the grit from his eyes and swore that Adam would never find out. He stretched his muscles as best he could on a loud yawn. His body was stiff and weary, his head felt stuffed with straw. Suddenly Krayne grinned at his own dilemma. He’d had little nourishment and even less sleep in the last day and night. No wonder his cock was confused as to when and where to rear its head.

Wamphray Castle was an impregnable fortress with a tower house and large bailey enclosed by a toothed barmekin wall that was nine feet thick and over twenty-five feet high. The castle stood sentry on the heath and moss-carpeted lower slopes of Dundoran, the passage chiselled by Wamphray Water being the only one through the lofty mountain ridge that ran the full length of the parish.

On his approach, the gatekeeper cranked the portcullis with a wary welcome. The laird’s black rage had been heard from the tower house to the forge when he’d arrived with the dawn to find his parting orders disobeyed and Stivin missing.

Krayne handed his stallion over to a groom and crossed the pebbled courtyard eagerly. As he passed through the great hall, servants stopped in their work of sweeping up the ale-sodden rushes to regard him with silent questions in their eyes. The upturned table had been righted and the debris of the wooden stool he’d smashed against the wall cleared.

“Have a bath prepared in my chamber,” he called to Mungo McAllister, his steward, then climbed the spiral stairway on leaden legs.

He had no ready answer to reassure his people with. On any other day, his course of action would be resolute. He’d take a full complement of Johnstone troops and flatten down the walls of Spedlin if Jardin refused to meet him on the field. Today, however, his hands were tied, and would remain so until the king realised that Scots justice would prevail with or without royal consent and recanted the law that effectively declared private wars an act of treason.

Krayne had no doubt that stealing his neighbour’s niece would not meet with Jamie’s approval, but it afforded a certain subterfuge that a bloodied battlefield could not.

Once his bath was full, he stripped off the plaid that had been a second skin for the last four days and sat down in the steaming water.

Within minutes he was fast asleep.

Amber couldn’t breathe. The walls were closing in, suffocating her. The blackness was thick and putrid, clogging her lungs. Dear Lord, she was going to die down here. She thought of Mary. Timid, cowering Mary.
 

I didn’t know.

I laughed in the face of fear because I did not understand.

Amber had flaunted her reckless courage like a banner of pride. She’d loved nothing more than to dare to the edge of danger and over, eluding her nannies to secretly tame her father’s wildest stallion, challenging the local boys to swim a flooded stream and, as she grew up, flirting mercilessly with the fiercest lords. She’d bravely held back tears when her mother applied a herbal paste to her latest bruise, giggled atrociously after she’d narrowly escaped Matthew Harden’s amorous kisses, and thought herself invincible. Was it any wonder, when all she’d known was her gentle bear of a father and the comforting embraces of her sweet mother? Even William Jardin could not touch her, for she’d quickly learned to play to his weakness and fear of her.

For that arrogance, she now paid. She’d kicked Duncan in the groin as a last attempt to flee, and he’d kept good on his oath to toss her into the deepest pit Wamphray Castle had to offer.

She shuddered as the fingers of darkness reached for her. She couldn’t see a thing, but she could hear the scuffling sounds of miniature claws advancing through the few rushes covering the cold, damp stone. She could hear them sniffing, sharpening their claws, gnashing their teeth…
Rats. Only rats.

“Hell’s fury,” she hissed determinedly. “If I’m to die in this place, so be it, but devils and angels will duel for my soul before I die of fear!”

Breathe. The walls cannot move…cannot close in on you. This black hole cannot crush you.
She started to draw a shallow breath, but it ended in a choked scream as something nibbled at her slipper.

Rats. Harmless rats.
Her body froze at the prick on her toe as the tiny sharp teeth reached skin.

Stamp on it.

Squash it.

She couldn’t move. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t be this strong. Another prick and Amber spun about, kicking her foot hard into the wall. The rat fell off with a high-pitched screech, or maybe that was her. She sank into a heap on the floor and applied pressure to the throbbing pain in her stubbed toe. Tears streamed from her eyes and, after wiping angrily a few times, she gave up.

Her terror and pain combined with an overwhelming feeling of helplessness. An oppressive pit stood between her and rescuing Stivin from her uncle and, for the first time in her life, Amber didn’t have a plan. She couldn’t think. Since when had she become so pathetically weak?

She was crying, but not from the self-inflicted pain in her toe.

She was shivering, but not from the rank cold.

Fear had finally come to claim her, and she hadn’t the power to fight it.

Krayne awoke with a start. The water was long cold and he stood up abruptly to rub his prickled skin with a linen cloth. Once dry, he strode through the wide opening that led from his chamber to the battlement, wrapping a clean plaid about his hips and shoulders, and using an emerald-studded silver pin to secure it. The day was nearly done, the sun hovering above the distant mountains like a fat orange about to drop.

“I’ve slept the day away,” he muttered in disgust, returning inside to drag a brush through his hair and bind it back with a leather thong. His stomach growled, another reminder of how much time he’d squandered. He quaffed down the entire tankard of ale brought up earlier with his bath, then started on the hard bread and chunks of white cheese beside it. The bite gone from his hunger, his body refreshed and his mind alert, Krayne stopped worrying at the sleep his body had demanded.

Duncan was in the great hall, staring morosely into the flames spitting from the central hearth.

“Brooding over yer sins will do naught ta alter the outcome,” Krayne issued firmly.

Duncan swung around on his stool. “I’ve bin waitin’ fer ye.”

Krayne waved the ransom message he’d scripted at his brother. “All we need is a token of proof and Little Jock will ride it over. Where is she?” he added, looking around.

“In the pit.”

Krayne knew he’d heard wrong. “Where?”

“The pit.” Duncan thumbed the floor, indicating the ancient dungeon dug below the kitchen’s storeroom that was no longer even good enough for storing wheat and oats due to excess damp.

“How long?” He’d already knocked his brother off his feet once today and was sorely tempted to make that twice.

“Ye needn’t mince me with that wolf look,” Duncan groused, cupping a hand between his thighs. “The bitch kicked my bloody balls in! Were it up ta me, I’d throw the keys away.”

Krayne winced in sympathy, but made an instant decision. As tempting as the prospect was, he couldn’t relegate their hostage into Duncan’s care and be done with the little wildcat. “The idea is ta keep her alive,” he barked before turning abruptly to make his way down to the kitchens.

Brayan McAllister looked up from rolling oatcakes. “Aboot time. The wee lassie’s screams near curdled my custard tarts.”

Krayne gave him an apologetic grimace as he passed through into the larder. The castle was thick with yellow-headed McAllisters, his mother’s clan, but the European-trained cook could have been a reviled Maxwell, and Krayne might still have been tempted to keep him. “I wouldna allowed this had I known.”

There’d never been a key, of course. Krayne drew his dirk to slash the twined rope that bound the hatch door through iron rings, wagering Brayan was in for a rude surprise when he met the girl properly. Wee lass, indeed!

When he raised the heavy oak slab, Amber neither answered his summons nor came forward. He swung down the rope ladder, cursing the stubborn wench. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust.

Dread stole into his blood when he saw the slumped figure on the floor.

“Brayan,” he shouted, rushing to Amber’s side. He slipped his hands beneath her knees and waist and lifted her into his arms. He put an ear to her chest, and was relieved to feel the steady rise and fall. “Brayan!”

“Aye, here I am.” The McAllister cook popped his head into the hole. “Mary and Joseph,” he exclaimed as Krayne came toward him, “ye’ve killed the lass.”

“No one’s dead
yet,
” Krayne muttered, thinking he’d like to toss Duncan down here for the night. He’d forgotten that they’d reinforced the trap door years ago and blocked the breathing gaps to keep the rats from entering the kitchen. Supporting her neck, he pushed the limp body up so that Brayan could grab Amber beneath the arms. “How long was she screaming fer?” he demanded as he hauled himself from the pit.

“Och, ’twas but the one wee scream,” Brayan said sadly as he lowered his burden to the floor, horrified now at his exaggerated complaint.

Krayne lifted Amber into his arms again and carried her through the kitchen. In the light of the fire, he saw the dirt streaking her cheeks, the pale bluish tint beneath her eyes.

She looked so young, so incredibly fragile.

She weighed nothing in his arms.

The two halves of her ripped gown trailed to the floor, leaving her exposed but for the sheer cotton shift, and he felt an instant bastard for doing that to her. Then the swell of her breasts drew his gaze like a lodestone and his self-loathing took second place.

The firelight and the semi-transparent shift revealed just enough of dark areolas centred on firm breasts to tease his imagination. Even as his groin tightened, a fiercely protective urge arose within him. He couldn’t deny the hot need filling his shaft, but he didn’t have to feed it. He adjusted her gently, wrapping the torn gown about her. It was then he saw the dried blood on her fingers.

“Find Mungo and have a fresh bath brought ta my chamber,” he roared to Brayan and stormed up the kitchen steps with Amber held tightly to his chest. He stopped in the great hall and confronted Duncan. “What in Christ’s name did ye do?”

“Nothin’. I didna touch her.” Duncan paled when he saw the lifeless body. “Is—is she—”

“Starved fer air, but not dead.” Krayne’s glare softened when he saw the worry on his brother’s face.

Amber had caused plenty of trouble for one day. He wouldn’t condone deliberate cruelty, but he wasn’t about to join Stivin and blindly rush to her defence. He was her captor, not her protector. And she was far from the innocent victim.

“I don’t want ta start a war,” he warned Duncan, no longer angry but still sensible. “The lass must be returned unharmed.”

He carried Amber up the steps to his chamber. While the steward organised the bath to be emptied and fresh water brought up, Krayne slid the gown from Amber’s shoulders and laid her carefully upon his bed in the inner chamber. His large hands could almost encircle her tiny waist. One slender leg was displayed where her shift had caught and, before he could stop himself, his finger trailed the satin-soft skin, up and up, lifting the shift higher as he worked toward the juncture of her thighs. His shaft filled and he pulled back, acutely aware that his sudden hunger could never be satisfied.

But, God’s truth, had he ever seen a maiden so perfectly formed? Even the mess of knotted black hair clouded about her face tempted the devil’s heat inside him. He had to get away. Before she opened her eyes and sucked his will dry with the green fire that seemed to burn from deep within.

He moved to the doorway, saw fresh water steaming in the tub and the men gone. His eyes went back to the bed.

The sleeping beauty could hardly bathe on her own, now could she?

He took a step closer, then another, all the while cursing himself for a fool. She’d bewitched him, he decided.

He’d never been short of a pretty face and willing body to warm his bed. He didn’t need this one. He’d go downstairs now and spend his lust. Gayle always welcomed him, no matter the hour of day.