Warrior's Bride (30 page)

  "I am no threat, you stupid girl. I've come to save your life. But even that will be impossible if you don't follow me."

  "Fiona?"

  "I am here to help."

  Thunder rumbled all around them, charging the air with tension. "Why should I trust you?"

  A flash of pale blue-gray light filled the sky and Isobel saw Fiona clearly, her face filled with remorse. "I've given you no reason to trust me. But I'm asking you to do it, nonetheless."

  Isobel regarded her critically. "Who attacked me? You?"

  "I suspect it was Walter."

  "Walter? Why?"

  Fiona shook her head. "I don't know. But I do know you are still in danger. There's no time to waste."

  A low rumble of thunder sounded again, a slowly building sound, growing deeper, richer, more intense.

  Isobel remained where she stood. "Did you kill the kitchen maid?"

  "We don't have time for this." A flash of panic crossed Fiona's face. "Do you hear them now?"

  Again, a rumble came from the distance, growing louder. "What?"

  "The horses. His men are coming and they are coming for you."

  Hoofbeats thundered just outside the castle gates. The gates she'd left open to invite her enemy inside. Her heartbeat thudded dully in Isobel's ears as she scanned the bailey searching for her weapon.

  "Your crossbow will not help you this time, not against all those men."

  Isobel knew Fiona was right. She had prepared herself to face one opponent, not many.

  A flash of lightning cut through the darkness, followed immediately by the roll of thunder, drowning out the frightened cries of the animals and the shouts of the attackers. Approaching the gate, Isobel could see the shadows of men on horseback. They appeared like mystical creatures emerging from a void of nothingness.

  "Lead on," Isobel replied. Her chances of escaping Fiona were far greater than escaping a dozen or more men.

  Fiona turned and raced through the shadows to the southeast tower. Isobel followed. Once inside the circular stone building, Fiona shut and bolted the door before heading up the spiraling stone staircase. "This way."

  A sense of impending danger made Isobel pause. She pressed her palm against the doorway, feeling the pulse of the thundering hoofbeats just beyond. Were they friend or foe? It was hard to tell one from the other anymore.

  "Hurry," Fiona urged. A look of concern brought her finely etched brows together.

  Isobel hitched up the hem of her gown and ran up the stairs. In the tower room above, Fiona retrieved a length of thick rope from near the arrow slits. "We will have to lower ourselves down over the curtain wall. It won't take them long to figure out you are not here. We must move quickly."

  Again, a niggling sense of doubt plagued Isobel. "Who, Fiona? It won't take who long?"

  "The men who want to kill you." She turned her back to Isobel, wrestling with the rope, trying to shift it to the doorway leading out to the wall walk. "Help me lift this rope."

  Isobel remained where she stood. "I need answers before I go any farther."

  Fiona's gaze moved to the stairwell. "That door will not hold them off for long once they discover you are missing. They will search everywhere."

  "I'm willing to take that chance. Are you?"

  Fiona released an irritated growl. "They are a group of mercenaries who know who you really are and want to make certain that you never have a chance to make a claim for the throne of Scotland. They were sent by the king to finish the job if Walter was unwilling or unable to kill you."

  A cold chill crept down Isobel's spine. Fiona and now others knew the truth of her birth. How?

  "The man who was your mother's caretaker revealed your secret," Fiona explained, as if she'd read Isobel's thoughts.

  The air in the tower room suddenly stilled. A tightness clenched Isobel's chest, spreading across her ribs. She tried to draw in a breath, but her lungs refused to cooperate. Darkness narrowed her view of the room. Fear gripped her, twisted inside her. On sheer will alone, she staggered to the arrow slits. Forcing her panic aside, she drew in a shuddering breath. She had to remain calm. She had to maintain reason.

  Isobel clenched her right wrist with her left hand and massaged the abused flesh there, reminding herself that she was no longer a prisoner, would never be again, as long as she had strength and reason on her side. "I... I pose no threat to anyone."

  Fiona's bitter laugh hung in the tension-filled air. "How could you possibly say that? You are a Balliol, married to a Stewart."

  A stab of numbness returned. "What did you say?"

  Fiona's gaze became hard. "You married a Stewart. The favored bastard son of our current king."

  A whisper-soft silence hovered in the air as Isobel grappled with Fiona's words. The king's son. And suddenly it all made sense. Wolf’s odd behavior in his secret lair, when she'd said there were secrets between them. She'd meant her own, but had he misinterpreted her words? Did his own guilt weigh as heavy on him as hers did on her?

  And what about her secrets? Did he know who she was already? Or did that secret still hang between them, waiting to be revealed?

  Isobel brought her gaze back to Fiona. "How do you know who I am?"

  The hardness in Fiona's gaze vanished, and her shoulders slumped. "I have done some terrible things in my life. Things I am not proud of. For years now, I have worked the three men in my life to my own advantage."

  "Three men?" Isobel asked, uncertain of what any of this information had to do with her or her past

Fiona's gaze shifted between the stairwell and the rope in her hands. "I shall explain everything later. We must hurry."

  Isobel folded her hands over her chest. "Explain now, Fiona, or I shall go nowhere with you."

  Fiona released a heavy sigh. "I have played Wolf against his father and Lord Grange for years."

  "Lord Grange?" Isobel brought her fingers to her lips, trying to hold back the flood of emotion that threatened. "Why would you do that?"

  Fiona shrugged. "I was protecting myself. I needed money. The reasons seemed good at the time." She turned away. "It doesn't matter now."

  Isobel grabbed Fiona's arm. "How did you figure out who I really am?"

  "I overhead Eldon MacDonald reveal your birth to Grange."

  "And the king? How did he find out?"

  "I sold him the information."

  "Does Wolf know who I am?"

  Fiona shook her head. "Nay. Wolf knows nothing of your parentage."

  Relief washed over Isobel with such force that tears came to her eyes. "So it is my father who's trying to kill me and Wolf."

  Fiona shook her head. "Your father wants you alive. Through you he intends to steal the throne from the Stewarts."

  A numbness drifted through Isobel, weighing her down, making it hard to focus her thoughts. "My father has been trying to kill Wolf, while his father has been trying to kill me." Their fathers had doomed them to disaster. As had the secrets they both withheld.

  What about those secrets? Did she care who he had been born to, or what his surname was? Did it, in any way, change the man she had come to know and care about?

  Nay. A warm flush of hope rose in her cheeks. Would he feel the same when she told him about her own father? Could there be hope for the future yet? Isobel squared her shoulders and moved to where the rope lay waiting. She would do whatever she had to do to see that they got the chance to at least try. Even if that meant going along with Fiona now. "Let's go."

  Together, she and Fiona carried the rope to the wall walk. Isobel tied one end of the rope around the closest stone crenellation. "You go first," she said to Fiona once the knot had been tightly secured.

  Fiona didn't argue. She grasped the rope and lowered herself over the wall. Isobel watched her descend. Knowing she could move faster without the heavy mail shirt obstructing her movements, Isobel drew the shirt off, then tossed it aside. As soon as Fiona's feet touched the ground, Isobel pulled herself up onto the edge of the castle wall. With her heartbeat thundering in her chest, she grasped the coarse rope between her hands and allowed her body to slide down the cool stone wall, not stopping for a moment to think about what she was doing or what might happen to them if they were caught.

  When her booted toes touched the solid ground, she breathed a thankful sigh but did not give herself time to celebrate their success. The shelter of the trees was still far off in the distance. They would have to race across the open ground and pray that no one noticed their shadows fleeing over the wide-open space.

  A twinge of fear threatened, but Isobel pushed it away. They had to keep going. To the trees." She gathered the folds of her skirt in her hands and dashed across the open land.

  In that moment, the clouds parted and the sun appeared, ripe and glistening above the trees, bathing the open ground and the forest beyond it in rays of yellow-gold light. The branches of the trees were etched against the grayness in an eerie relief, making the trees appear like the bones of ancient skeletons. Isobel's steps faltered. Were these ancient and gnarled works of nature guarding against trespassers, or would they protect two women fleeing death?

  "Hurry!" Fiona called over her shoulder as she plunged into the edge of the tree line.

  Isobel surged forward into the trees and kept running, stumbling over a fallen branch here, an exposed root there, until her eyes adjusted to the hazy darkness. The forest smelled of earth and decaying leaves, and the scent of rain hung in the air. Her breath came in short, sharp bursts as she continued to run.

  Ahead, Fiona paused, hunched over, her hands on her knees, her breathing ragged. "Must... rest... a minute."

  Flushed and fighting for breath, Isobel stopped as well, grateful for the slight reprieve. They were not out of danger yet and could little afford the precious seconds it would take to regain their breath. "We must... continue."

  A shadow detached itself from the base of a nearby tree. "You've gone far enough for my purposes." The unfamiliar male voice had a deep, rich tone and was sinister enough to make Isobel shrink back into the shadows.

  She heard a coarse chuckle as he moved forward. "Thank you, Lady Fiona. I could not have planned this better myself."

  Fiona straightened. Her face was pale, her skin almost translucent where it stretched over her cheekbones. Fear glittered in her eyes as her gaze shifted between the man and Isobel. "I'll not hand her over to you."

  "That wasn't part of our plan." The man's voice grew hard.

  "Plans change," Fiona challenged.

  Overhead, the afternoon sky yawned and errant rays of sunlight filtered down through the trees above, casting the world in a yellow glow once more. The man turned toward Isobel. At the first glimpse of his face, of his dark, penetrating eyes, her breath became trapped somewhere between her throat and her lungs. There was no mistaking those eyes, for she had seen a much gender version in the reflection of her own face.

  A brisk wind whistled through the forest, tugging at Isobel's unbound hair. Dread iced her skin as she stared at the one man she feared more than any other. Her father.

  "Lord Grange," Isobel whispered into the cool afternoon air, not realizing she'd spoken his name aloud.

  A slight curl came to his lips. "How quaint that a daughter should recognize her own father before they are even so much as introduced."

  She knew him, all right—she knew his villainy, his deviousness, his treachery. She'd seen firsthand how he had destroyed her mother, what he'd done to Wolf in the forest, and how he'd used and abused his own men. But it didn't stop there. The reality of the situation hit Isobel like a cold, hard slap. She shifted her gaze to Fiona. "This was all a trap?"

  "I didn't know," she cried, her voice filled with both contrition and fear. "I was trying to help you escape."

  "Why, Fiona? Why would you want to help me? I still don't understand."

  "Jealousy drove me to murder." Bitter, haunted pain in Fiona's eyes brought a catch to Isobel's throat. "How can I live with that? How can I live with the knowledge that I am a despicable person?" Fiona staggered forward. "Helping you meant there might be some hope for me. I want to change. You have to believe me."

  Isobel didn't know what to believe anymore as her gaze moved between Fiona and her father.

  Cynicism twisted Grange's expression. "Payments for services rendered is what you always got, Fiona. Your morals were never part of the bargain. Now step back. She's mine."

  Like a deadly spider, her father skulked toward her.

  "Stay back," Isobel warned. "Stay away from me."

  "Or you'll do what? Scream?" He continued his slow crawl toward her. "Scream all you want. You are too far away for anyone to hear you."

  In a flash, Isobel bent to the forest floor and came up with a large, pointed stick, a branch that had been left behind by a previous storm. "Stay where you are."