Betrayed (9 page)

“Of course,” Amber said carefully, wondering if she were somehow responsible for his souring mood. But what had she said? Other than admit that, despite her midnight fantasies, she could never have abandoned herself to him while fear ruled her head. Before she trusted him with her life.

With the barest of movements that straightened his shoulders and adjusted the position of the reins, she was no longer folded in the protective cocoon of his body.

Krayne had never felt so bloody ridiculous in his life.

It wasn’t so much that he desired her. He did and that was that, no matter what she was or what her goals were. He was a powerful Johnstone laird and heir to the chieftainship. Women threw themselves at him for many reasons and, if he was interested, he seldom took the time to question it. Amber was no different. He’d already contemplated this possibility and concluded that once her legs were wrapped around him, he wouldn’t give a damn one way or the other.

But now he found that he did give a damn. He felt as if someone had taken a dagger and shredded his pride, and then gone on to other vital organs. All that passion and heat. Just to buy herself out of a hole for the night. He could almost not credit her performance.
“I’m not a whore.”
Red streaks flashed inside his eyelids.
Nay, yer that much worse, fer ye lead a man to hope…

Amber might have argued further. She very nearly did. But Krayne shifted in the saddle and for a moment his arms closed around her as he adjusted the reins again, enfolding her in his masculine presence and warmth. That moment was all she needed to reassure herself. Whatever was bothering Krayne had naught to do with her.

The journey was completed without further talk. Amber contented herself with admiring the landscape, so breathtakingly rugged, green with bursts of colour from the wild heather scattered up the sloping hills. Her hair and gown were almost dry, thanks to the ceaseless wind carrying the May warmth. She was very much aware of Krayne’s aloofness, but she had to admit that there was nothing abnormal about it. For whatever reason, he’d reached inside himself for that infernal control he’d mastered so well, but she’d discovered a hot layer of passion beneath it and took comfort.

Red John was the only one to greet them in the deserted bailey. He watched them dismount, and he came down the stone steps and waited at the bottom. Clothed once more in McAllister plaid. But with no shirt, Amber noted. She was at once ashamed that she’d dumped his clothes along the way with no regard. She stayed close to Krayne, running to keep abreast of his long strides, all the while keeping a vigil on Red John’s impassive expression.

She laid a tentative hand on Krayne’s arm, hoping to remind him of her pleas on Red John’s behalf.

Krayne shrugged her off and issued in a deadly tone, “Lock her in the dungeon.”

Amber swallowed a gasp of shock. She tugged at his arm. “Krayne, no…why?”

He slanted his head her way.

Her breath caught at the fiercely furrowed brows over eyes drawn to cold slits. “Ye had fair enough warning.”

“Yes…No!” Her fingers clawed his arm. Even with his blackened mood, she still believed he would protect her. Had she truly been that mistaken? “You cannot mean this, Krayne. Please, I beg of you—”

“Enough.” Krayne plucked her fingers from him and shoved her at Red John. “Ye have yer orders. See ta it.”

“No,” Amber shrilled.

The pitched terror cut through his spine. Krayne grit his teeth against it. He pushed past the pair of them and climbed the steps. He wouldn’t look back. He wouldn’t be manipulated. When Amber came to his bed, and he swore that she still would, they’d both know it was for pleasure and not bought favours.

At the top of the steps, one hand on the oak door, Krayne looked back. Red John had a firm grip on her upper arm, leading her around the stables to the dungeon built into the curtain wall. Her back was stiff and she offered no visible resistance. From the set of her head, he could tell she held her stubborn little chin up high.

It took him a moment to realise that he was waiting for her to glance back at him, be it to beg for pardon or curse him to hell. But Red John disappeared around the corner with his captive and Krayne was left with an uneasy feeling. He leant back against the door and stared at the rough stones edging the corner of the west tower.

Damn the woman. And damn himself. His fist slammed into his palm. He’d not be bought with a kiss.

She’d take her punishment and he’d damn well let her.

Amber could feel Red John’s grip to her bone, but she said nothing as her quick steps stumbled over loose pebbles. She kept telling herself to breathe, the walls were not crushing in yet, but her frozen lungs seemed reluctant to function. Such was her panic, she didn’t notice that Red John was leading her along the curtain wall and not down the kitchen steps to the pit.

“Ye’ll nae swoon,” Red John said.

“Is that an order?” Amber hissed between teeth grit in concentration.
’Tis only a black hole. You survived before.

“Aye.”

She glanced up to find Red John’s eyes on her. He looked more unhappy than angry. “I won’t swoon,” she promised, feeling a little stronger already. He had his own tortures to worry about, thanks to her. “I truly am sorry for everything.”

His fingers clenched tighter in reply, but what had she expected? She had no right to his forgiveness. Krayne was another matter altogether. Amber dropped her gaze to the ground at that.

She
did
have some right to Krayne’s forgiveness. He’d kissed her senseless and then forsaken her. Why did he have to be so hard and righteous? So she’d ignored his threat and outwitted his guard.

But he’d kissed her breathless.

He’d made her feel warm, safe, protected.

She was jerked to a stop and became aware of her surroundings as Red John pushed open a sturdy wooden door built into a thickened part of the outer wall. For a moment, she thought the door led outside and he was helping her escape. The dark shadows beyond crashed her hopes. “What’s this?”

“The dungeon.” He ducked inside the low framework and came back with a crude iron key. “In with ye, me lady. I’d like as not add brutality ta my deeds this day.”

Amber stepped up to the door with squared shoulders.

Whatever this dungeon was, it wasn’t the black pit, she reassured herself. In the threshold, however, her nerve failed. The dark room was little more than a narrow passage built into the wall. A single window was secured with three bars and offered scant light and no sunshine to keep the stone dry. She’d never had a fear of closed spaces until she’d come to Wamphray.

Red John shuffled his feet. “Come now, me lady, ’tis only fer a day or—”

“Halt.”

The familiar deep timbre spun them both about.

Amber observed Krayne’s approach with narrowed eyes. If he thought to witness her defeat, he was sorely mistaken. She might not have felt quite so stubborn had she been facing the black pit, but she wasn’t.

When he was almost upon them, she raised a disdainful brow. “Have you come to see me shackled to the walls? Afraid this puny passage you call a dungeon will not hold me in?”

“Aye,” Krayne agreed. She’d just given him the perfect excuse for actions he’d never explain in a month of summers. In the end, he found he couldn’t stomach the thought of Amber in that dungeon, alone and fearful. “I’ve reconsidered the wisdom of letting ye out from under my eye.”

“I’d nae be caught by the same trick twice,” Red John protested, losing his last quota of pride to a mottled blush.

Krayne gave him a gruelling look. “Once was bad enough,” he said in a voice that warned the matter would still be dealt with. He crossed his arms over his chest and stood with his feet wide apart. His face was solemn when he turned back to Amber. “Come with me.”

Amber had a flippant remark ready for Krayne, but lost it as their eyes met and locked. He was so sinfully handsome, the strong features of his face set in lines made even more ruthless by his grim command. But his eyes, with silver speckles in an otherwise cold grey, introduced a certain vulnerability to that harsh glare.

Whatever excuse he used, she suddenly knew it for what it was. His need to protect her had fought with his honourable word and won. A smile touched her lips, and she quickly grimaced to disguise it. There was no reason to take his pride. She did, however, intend to make him work for forgiveness.

She swept past Krayne, leading the way inside the castle and up the stairs to his chamber. He could easily have overtaken her, of course, grabbed her arm and forced her into the role of captive, but she wasn’t in the mood to feel any appreciation for him not doing so. In the chamber, her eyes found the massive bed and the memory of their kiss resurged as a flush on her cheeks.

Was she brave enough to submit to his desire?

Was she strong enough to resist?

She curled her fingers into tight fists as she watched him walk over to the bed. If she gave in to him, was she truly any better than the whore she swore she wasn’t? How on earth did this man manage to strip her of her very moral fibre every time he came close? Krayne heaved the bed down the length of the wall to unblock the mysterious door she’d tried earlier.

One way or another, thought Amber, this would soon be over. Once the exchange failed, which it certainly would, Krayne must admit that she was of no further use and return her to Spedlin. And why wouldn’t he? She’d never been his responsibility.

She had other plans, anyway. Once she’d freed Stivin, she was taking Mary and herself back to England. Her future might be uncertain, but she had a fair idea of how she intended to shape it.

As Amber catalogued her future, she watched Krayne collect a key from a nearby chest and unlock the door. Curious, she followed to peer inside the back room. It was a fair size, and well lit with two uncovered windows, but it was completely bare. And dusty. And cold.

Krayne went to one of the windows and looked out. “I’ll send Isla up with cleaning things.”

“You expect me to clean for you?”

Krayne turned. “It will keep ye out of trouble.”

“I think not.”

“As ye like. I’ll see ta a bed and coverings, but if yer happy ta sleep in dust and cobwebs, so be it.”

“Sleep? I’m to sleep in
here?
”

“I want my bed back,” Krayne said bluntly. He met her arched brows with cool detachment.

What had she expected?

What had she wanted?

To have her morals and inhibitions swept away, Amber admitted ruefully as she allowed herself to be drawn into the depths of his steadfast gaze.

Tomorrow she’d be gone from this place. Tomorrow her new life would begin, and end with marrying one of the boring old toads her father had turned down countless times before—the young admirers she’d left behind in England were subject to their parents’ will and she was in no position to plead with William for her dowry. Still, old and boring was a vast improvement over the men her uncle was offering.

But tonight…Tonight she wanted to relive that kiss a hundred times over. She’d been stubborn and highhanded, when all she wanted was to fall into Krayne’s arms and submit. Even as the bold thoughts tumbled inside her head, the heat of shame flared up her throat.

But why not? She’d safeguarded her maidenhood, and for what? To give to Sir John Langdon, a man well into his sixties who’d never been married and needed a nursemaid more than a wife? Or Lord Carraway, thrice married with eleven children?

Should she—could she—truly deny herself one night of passion that would have to last a lifetime?

As if he could read her mind, Krayne’s eyes darkened. His jaw clenched, setting his expression in stone.

Whatever she wanted to offer him, his answer was clearly,
Don’t.

“Very well,” Amber said in a surprisingly normal voice. “I’d best start then if this chamber is to be readied by nightfall.”

She strode deeper into the room and walked up to the opposite wall so she wouldn’t have to face him. Krayne had brought her to life in a whirl of emotions, everything from fear to fury to desire. In his arms, she felt safe and cherished. At his kiss, her world had melted and reformed.

It made no sense.

She knew he was cold-hearted, arrogant and dangerous.

She didn’t want sense.

She heard him leave and held her breath to listen. There were no sounds of a door closing or a lock turning. There’d be guards, she was sure, but the unlocked door gave her the pretence of freedom and she welcomed it.

Amber sighed as she crossed to the window he’d recently deserted and stared out over the battlement wall to the rugged outline of mountains that seemed to go on forever. She shouldn’t welcome anything to do with Krayne and she certainly shouldn’t want him the way she did. What she should be, was grateful for his noble decree. A young, virtuous lady did not jump into bed with the neighbouring laird without severe consequences.

Krayne stopped in the passageway and let out a low curse. The lass sent out signals that could pump life into a dead man’s cock.

His fist smashed into the stone wall and his knuckles came back bloody. The pain had a soothing effect and he continued walking, away from temptation. He’d seen her tiny smile at the dungeon door and knew she’d seen straight through his ruse. Well, she could have her little victory, but he was not about to take a thank-you rutting in return, however genuine her lust might be. One part of that lust would be gratitude and another part the rush of power. Nay, he’d wait ’til the only part that remained was lust of the body. He’d wait until she was free to come back to him of her own accord.

“Krayne,” Gayle exclaimed as she turned the last step leading down from his private solar and bumped into him. She jumped back and straightened her skirts. “There ye are. I must speak with ye about Red John.”

“Ye’ve come ta beg my pardon fer him as well?” Krayne growled.

“Have a heart.” She gave him her dimpled smile and ignored his tone and scowl. “The poor man’s had a time of it. He’s getting under Agnes an’ May’s feet, pacing the hall on tenterhooks. Forgive him an’ send him back ta the practice field.”

Krayne’s eyes went to her wide lips and stayed awhile. “What makes ye think I’ll not flay the man?”

A twinkle set off her tawny eyes. “He answers ta Red-Handed John now, have ye not heard?” At Krayne’s disinterested shrug, she elaborated, “Caught with his hand in the honey pot, ye ken. He’ll nae live that one down in this lifetime.” She giggled, then noted his darkening expression and added soberly, “He’ll wear his shame fer long, Krayne. He has no need of more punishment.”

“That is not yer decision, Gayle.” With the too-vivid vision of Red John and his honey pot, Krayne caught Gayle about the waist and pushed her up against the wall.

When Gayle pressed her palms to his naked chest in welcome, he thrust a thigh between her legs and brushed her mound suggestively.

“Not here,” she whimpered.

“And not yet,” Krayne said. He kept up the pressure with his thigh and kissed her deeply. When her eyes glazed over, he released her. “Be a sweet and fetch Isla ta me.”

“Now?” The question was both a protest and a plea.

Krayne didn’t blame her. He wasn’t in the habit of playing games, but his balls were sore and heavy and he’d had his fill of women petitioning for Red John. “Aye.”

Gayle pouted her lips, not daring to disobey. “Should I return?”

Krayne hesitated. His shaft was thick with Amber’s scent. He needed release, and only wondered if his bruised balls would survive the sport. His gaze lingered on her flushed face, admiring the pretty features. “Hurry back.”

As she disappeared around the corner, Krayne cursed again and returned to his chamber. The battle between pride and lust had tangled his head to such an extent, he’d forgotten to place a watch on Amber. He pulled one of the older guards off battlement duty and positioned him at the outer door. Andrew was happily married to a bonny lass half his age and was not known for a wandering eye.

“Have ye heard what she did ta Red John?” warned Krayne.

Andrew snorted. “Ye mean Red-Handed John?”

“Aye. I assume I need not tell ye ta keep yerself ta yerself?”

Andrew stroked his silver-streaked beard as he regarded his young laird. “Meanin’ no disrespect, me laird, but I’m blessed with my sweet Ellen. The Jardin lass be fair, I ken. Even so, I’ve little taste fer other women.”

Krayne made his way back down the passage and found both Isla and Gayle awaiting him at the bottom of the north solar stairs. He gave Gayle a saucy slap on the rump. “Upstairs with ye. I willna be long.”

Isla smiled inwardly at the obvious intent. If the laird had any sense, he’d marry Gayle, steward’s daughter or not. As Isla listened to his instructions, however, her smile quickly soured.

“See ta it,” Krayne ordered and mounted the stairs to join Gayle.

Isla fetched a dusting cloth and besom broom from downstairs. Irritation stained her cheeks redder than normal as she made her way to the laird’s chamber. When she stood at the door of the inner room that hadn’t been opened for close on twenty years and saw the black-haired girl staring serenely out of the window, she tossed the broom across the floor. “The laird said ta put ye ta work!”

Amber turned abruptly, but smiled through her resentment. The miserable Isla had just thrown down the gauntlet and she was of a mood to pick it up. “Actually, I suggested it might be amusing to see what I could do with this wasted space. Krayne is such a darling, he simply cannot resist anything I ask.”

That she likely spoke the truth choked Isla. Had the laird not instructed her to show Amber to the attic so she might select whatever she required from the stored chests? ’Twas apparent the prisoner was to decorate to her own taste. To what purpose? The girl would be gone tomorrow. Unless…The blood drained from Isla’s face. “Ye canna think ta assert yerself in this household. The laird has nae use fer the likes of ye and after tomorrow ye’ll be gone.”

Amber was in full agreement, but the caustic tone tempted her to give Isla a secretive smile as she picked the broom up and began to sweep.

Isla sucked in deep breaths. Since Krayne had occupied the master chambers, she’d been expecting the command to open up the adjoining chamber that his mother had abandoned after the old laird’s death. When it hadn’t come, she’d approached him on the matter, and Krayne had stated that the day he married would be soon enough.

God’s blanket! Her knees went weak and her blood ran cold. The laird couldn’t possibly be thinking straight. To take a Jardin, especially
this
Jardin, to his bed. And even possibly to wife?

Isla glared at the usurper across the threshold she’d not crossed since happier times. The girl was young, proud, beautiful
and
alive. Why would she give herself to a man who’d kidnapped and humiliated her? But then Isla thought of Krayne’s dark good looks and powerful virility and had her answer.

She could not allow it.

Her glare hardened with bitter memories of lost loved ones and arrogant men who played God with their seed, leaving a trail of suffering behind. If the tale behind Stivin’s capture held any merit, and she thought it surely did, then Amber was just like her father and not shy to dally with Johnstone lives either.

Before she could dither over the consequences, Isla said loudly, “The laird said ta show ye the draperies in the attic.”

Amber stopped her sweeping to look up. “Krayne promised to send up a bed and coverings.”

“Aye. Mungo will be bringin’ up a bed from one o’ the spare chambers, but the laird wants ye ta choose whatever tapestries and rugs ye’ll be needin’. He also requested ye attend him in the north solar fer a private word.”

Amber suspected a lie somewhere in there.
First he kicks me out of his chamber, and now he gives me a free hand to decorate?
She shrugged and slanted the broom against the wall. This was one bizarre order she was just curious enough to follow.

They were challenged on the way out by a silver-bearded man.

“The laird gave me permission ta take her up ta the attic,” Isla told him. “I’ll nae stop ye taggin’ along, Andrew, but mind ye dinna interfere wi’ woman’s business.”

Andrew rolled his eyes, more than pleased to keep a few steps behind.

At the bottom of the north solar stairs, Isla stopped and gave Amber a prod to go up. “There’s but the one door at the top. The laird’s expectin’ ye, so there be no cause ta knock.”

She watched with grim satisfaction as Amber ascended. Once the storm erupted, no one would care what had brought Amber to the scene in the first place. Isla crossed her arms and stared blankly at Andrew. She was counting on Amber’s pride and the laird’s lack of tolerance for hysterics. The Jardin chit could flee or the laird could toss her out. Isla had no preference either way.

The stairs wound upward in a tight spiral. At the top, Amber paused on the narrow landing. Despite Isla’s advice, she rapped lightly on the door. Strips of blackened steel indicated that the door was reinforced and probably thicker than was custom. She put an ear to the door and heard nothing. She knocked again, louder, and then realised she might not have heard Krayne’s command for her to enter.

With a careless shrug, she turned the knob and nudged the door slightly, giving herself space to put her head around.

Her gasp stuck in her throat as her shocked gaze landed on the couple. The woman was perched on the edge of a sturdy table, long legs wrapped around the solid waist of a man Amber knew instinctively to be Krayne. Her face was buried in his neck and obscured by a flowing mass of golden blond hair. Thoroughly mesmerised, Amber’s attention moved to the muscled slab of Krayne’s back and down his thighs to the britches pooled at his feet.

Look away.

Leave.

Her eyes lifted to the dimple carved into the side of his buttocks cheek, deepening each time he thrust forward to produce a moan of pure pleasure from the woman. Even with her innocence, Amber could not mistake what they were doing.

“Faster,” the woman purred.

“Slower,” Krayne countered.

The woman’s hands slid down his back to his buttocks and squeezed.

“Christ, Gayle.” Krayne grunted and suddenly started moving faster in a series of jerks.

Snapped from her trance, Amber withdrew her head and closed the door as quietly as she could. Her hands were shaking. Her legs wobbled so much, she was forced to sit down on the top step.

She felt strange. Flustered and tearful. And she couldn’t stop shaking.

Wrapping her arms about her stomach, Amber ordered herself to calm down. She had no hold on Krayne. He had every right to—to do whatever he saw fit with whomever he—he—The tears broke loose in silent sobs that came straight from her heart.

When at last she regained some meagre control, she made herself see reason. That woman was a part of Krayne’s life, whereas she’d be a fading memory come tomorrow night. Amber stood and snapped her spine stiff.
Gayle.
She’d never forget that name, nor the way it had sounded on Krayne’s lips.

They’re welcome to each other,
she told herself. ’Twas a lie that Amber held onto as she made her way down the stairs to where Isla waited.

“Did ye see the laird?” Isla demanded.

Amber looked at her blankly. On whose command had she witnessed that scene? Either Krayne or Isla had deliberately sought to hurt her. Or to show her how things stood.

Amber kicked her chin up high. “Take me to the attic.”

She had no intention of ever mentioning what she’d come across in the north solar. But the light had gone out of her day and she couldn’t seem to care a whit for the abundant attic treasures.

“You choose,” she told Isla and went to sit upon a dusty chest. “I find I don’t give a fig what Krayne’s spare chamber looks like after all.”

Krayne put a shoulder against the jamb and did a cursory scan of the room. Mungo had brought the bed with the apricot silk hangings, he noted with an approving nod. For the floor, Amber had chosen rugs woven from Johnstone sheep instead of the animal furs he favoured. Krayne recalled his mother ordering those rugs specially made for this very chamber. The tapestry strung over one window was his mother’s favourite, a black stallion nuzzling a snow-white mare at the edge of a tumbling stream in springtime flood. He frowned when he recognised the other tapestries, as well.

Krayne strode to the bed and pulled aside the silk curtain. Amber lay with her back to him, her legs curled in tight.

“Amber,” he called softly, touching her arm.

She stirred with a drowsy groan and he knew she’d been fast asleep.

He sat on the edge of the bed and lifted her hair to expose the delicate sweep of throat. So smooth and creamy and tempting, he couldn’t resist trailing his thumb over the satin skin all the way down to her collarbone. She rolled onto her back and uncurled her legs. He saw the crude stitching where she’d repaired her gown, and swore they’d both be happy to burn the thing once this ordeal was over. Then he saw only the rise and dip of perfect, upthrust breasts and his shaft refilled. He realised that no matter how many times he took Gayle, or any other, he’d not be sated until he’d had Amber, over and over and over.

Soon, he promised himself. He shook her arm firmly and her eyes fluttered open. A moment later she jerked upright, wide awake. “What—what are you doing?”

God’s blood, she seemed to slip from Saracen siren to virgin maid at will. “If yer hungry,” he informed her, “we should go down ta supper.”

Amber scrambled up the bed until the wall blocked her retreat. “We?”

“Aye. I’ve not let ye starve yet.”

Amber wondered if she’d ever grow accustomed to waking up to a man’s face, least of all Krayne’s, staring her down, then lost that thought as her gaze slid over his clean linen shirt and instantly recalled how well she knew what lay beneath. But obviously not as well as
Gayle.
“I’m not hungry.”

“I’ll have food sent up,” Krayne said.

“Thank you.” She managed a smile while she waited politely for him to leave.

Krayne glanced casually about the room. “Did Isla help decorate the chamber?”

“Aye.”

His eyes came back to her. “’Tis exactly as my mother had it before. I wanted ye ta have a free hand.”

Not about to explain her lack of enthusiasm for decorating, Amber shrugged. “It seemed foolish to stamp the room with my taste on the eve of my departure.”

She had, however, learned two things. This had been his mother’s chamber and Isla had apparently created some sort of shrine to her previous mistress. She shrugged again. The information was irrelevant. She’d be gone tomorrow.

Krayne didn’t think it would be foolish at all. He considered informing her that she’d soon be established here as his mistress, but knew the timing was treacherous. To know she came to his bed willingly and for one reason only, first he had to set her free. He hoped he had what it would take to get her back.