are you, lass?” His whisper melded with the echo of men’s groans. Was Isabel hurt? Sick? Lying helpless and unable to yell for help?
If he didn’t find her soon, with daylight fading, he might never be able to. With his mind steeped in emotions he’d rather not feel, Duncan moved to the next cell.
He peered inside. Wisps of the waning light embraced the profile of a woman standing near a pathetically small window. It outlined her slender body, the soft curve of her jaw, the paleness of her cheeks, and the lush whisky-colored tresses that settled over her shoulders like dying embers.
Isabel.
The years peeled away. Her laughter rushed over him, deep and warm. How her fingers had trembled as they’d skimmed across his chest with a nervous touch, and the need that had exploded between them as he’d stolen his first kiss.
Duncan smothered memories of their past, angry he could still be moved so deeply when it came to her. He removed the bar that bolted the thick wooden door and shoved it open.
Torchlight spilled into the dank chamber.
At the scrape of metal against wood, Isabel turned, her amber eyes wide and unsure. She frowned. “Father?”
Duncan glanced behind him, half expecting to see a priest. He muttered a curse and shoved back his hood. “Nay.”
Isabel paled. “Duncan?”
“Quiet, lass.” He kept his voice soft. “The guards will be making their rounds soon, and you will be giving us both away.” With one last glance toward the steps, he jumped into the cell and landed on the stiff bed of stale straw. “Hush.”
“But—”
Duncan stepped forward and caught her arms.
A mistake.
He was close. Too close. The moment was too familiar, as if no time had passed. As if he could blink and make the nightmare of the last three years disappear.
Her full lips had parted in surprise, but wrapped within the soft luminescence of moonlight, all he could think of was her taste. Of how she had once responded to his touch. Except he’d never claimed what was rightfully his—that she’d given freely to his enemy. Nay, even worse, a false friend, as Frasyer had been during their youth.
Duncan released her as if burned. Isabel stumbled, then recovered.
“Why are you dressed like a priest? Or”—Isabel angled her chin—“has Frasyer sent you?”
“Frasyer? Nay. I came to help you escape.”
She studied him as if trying to decide if he was telling the truth. “Why?”
His anger shoved up a notch. “Look around you, lass. You want to stay in this filth?”
She shook her head and slowly exhaled, drawing his attention to how her dress hung on her slender frame. The bastard was starving her. What other brutalities had Frasyer inflicted upon her?
“You should not be here,” she said. “You are putting your life in danger.”
He gave an indignant snort. “And you would be worrying about me?”
“Please leave.”
He ignored her frantic warning. It didn’t make sense. Unless…Duncan caught her wrists. “Is this a trap you helped Frasyer set up?”
Outrage spilled across her face. Isabel tried to yank her hands free. “I would never do such a thing.”
“Like you would not break your betrothal with me to go to Frasyer’s bed?” Bedamned! He hadn’t meant to ask. He had no desire to relive the bitter betrayal of that time, but the words had already slipped from his mouth.
Isabel stiffened. “I would not see you harmed.”
Oddly, he found himself believing her. In the scarred light, Duncan scanned the dismal cell. Except for a wooden bed piled with aged straw and a moth-eaten woolen blanket along with a half-empty bowl with contents he didn’t wish to fathom, the chamber lay bare.
“I see Frasyer bestows his mistress with only the best of lodgings.”
A blush scalded her cheeks, but she didn’t turn away. “Why have you come?”
He released her. “Because Symon asked.”
At the mention of her brother, her face lost any trace of color. Then, like the first rose of spring, her expression bloomed with hope.
“Symon?” A smile quivered on her lips. She stepped forward. “He is alive? Thank Mary, I thought he had died.” She laid her hand on his forearm. “Where is he? I must—”
“Isabel.” At his rough tone, her hand fell away. A dull pounding built in his head. He’d not wanted to tell Isabel like this, with her hopes soaring and her looking at him with such tender belief.
“Duncan?” Amber eyes watched him with fragile hope. At his silence, she clenched her hands into trembling fists. “Where is Symon?”
There would be no easy way to tell her. He handed her the embroidery. “He is dead.”
“Dead?” Isabel’s breath strangled in her throat as she clutched the delicate fabric. She’d allowed herself to hope, to believe the impossible. The cell blurred around her.
Symon.
Her brother, mentor, friend.
Dead.
Somewhere in the blackness, hands, strong and firm, caught her shoulders and brought her up against something warm. Something solid.
“I am sorry.”
Duncan’s whisper echoed in her mind. She’d foolishly allowed herself to believe the impossible—that her brother lived. All she wanted now was to cling to Duncan and allow him to protect her from this heartbreaking reality. To pretend the past three years had not happened. To imagine Symon healthy and happy, and Duncan’s arms around her a common occurrence, not a gesture of borrowed support.
A yell from the courtyard startled her back to reality.
“We need to leave before the guards make their rounds,” Duncan said.
Numb, she allowed him to lead her to the door.
Steps echoed from the stairs.
With a curse, Duncan released her. He peered out the door. “Someone is coming. Stay here. I will return once they have left.” For a second, he looked as if he wanted to say more, then he climbed from the cell. As he secured and then barred the door, blackness encased her. The soft echo of his footsteps faded.
Isabel sagged against the cold stone, wrapped her arms around her trembling body as she clutched the embroidery she’d given Symon, and tried to accept this twist of fate.
Duncan was here.
How she’d prayed for him to rescue her. Within that empty, forbidden world of her cell, she’d replayed the scene in her mind a thousand times. His smiling face framed by sun-bleached hair, the hair of a wayward faerie she’d always teased, laughing as his arrogant locks fell onto his shoulders in the haphazard tumble she so adored.
She would cry with joy as he swept her into his arms and claimed her mouth with possessive fierceness, that of the man who loved her, that of the man who could find it in his heart to forgive, and that of the man who understood she’d had no choice but to become Frasyer’s mistress.
The rattle of keys down the corridor shattered her thoughts like pottery upon stone. They were naught but foolish dreams.
Symon would not rise from the grave.
And Duncan would never forgive her for becoming Frasyer’s mistress as he believed. As much as she wanted to explain the circumstances leading to her role as Frasyer’s mistress, she must not forget Frasyer’s threat to kill Duncan if she ever told him of her