Chapter 21
Where had they taken her?
William paced the small cell in the dungeon. Reid sat in the corner with his head resting back against the wall. But William was too restless to join him on the filthy floor.
The last he’d seen of Kinsey was when the English warrior she’d been fighting ripped off her helm and stared at her. He’d then pulled his off as well, and she’d crumpled to the ground, unmoving.
Helplessness knotted in William’s gut. He’d tried to free himself from the man holding him in place, to get to her, to safeguard her. The bastard’s grip had been too tight on him.
Before William could ensure she was safe, the man without his helm hefted her into his arms and carried her away. What did they mean to do? Rape her?
Rage tore through him. If they so much as laid a hand on her, William would rip them limb from limb.
Footsteps sounded. He stopped abruptly and stared outside the cell to the narrow aisle dimly lit with a single torch. “Where have ye taken her?” he demanded. “What do ye mean to do with her, ye filthy bastards?”
His own voice echoed back to him. No reply followed. Though he hadn’t been expecting one, emotion crumpled inside his chest.
“Mayhap they have a healer attending to her?” Reid said.
William cast his friend a hard look. “Aye, and afterward, they’ll invite her to their victory feast.”
Reid shrugged. “I dinna think they took her somewhere to kill her.”
Mayhap she was already—
William slammed the lid on his thoughts, refusing even to let the words enter his mind.
“Did ye lay with her?” Reid asked abruptly.
William frowned at his friend’s question. “’Tis no’ any of yer—”
“They’re going to hang us.” Reid gave a mirthless half-smile of resignation.
It was true. They would be hanged for trying to usurp the castle. William suddenly understood Reid’s point.
Footsteps echoed off the stone walls and thumped louder as the guard came closer. A tall man with dark hair stopped before the cell. The one who had taken Kinsey?
“Where is she?” William asked. “What have ye done with her?”
“She’s no’ any of yer concern,” the man replied.
“A Scot?” William scoffed in disgust at the man’s accent, at the side he’d chosen. “Ye do our people an injustice by siding with the English.”
“Why did ye come here?” the traitor asked in an even tone. “Was it ye who attacked before?”
William glared at him. “This is my land, stolen from us when Balliol decided to yield Scotland’s bounty to the fool English king.” He curled his fingers around the cold bars of his cell. The odor of damp, dirty iron filled his nostrils. “I want it back.”
“That willna happen.” The man squared his shoulders. “Lord Carlyle is no’ pleased about the number of men ye’ve killed in the two attacks. He is a good man and has agreed to hang ye rather than torture ye first, as other lords might have done in his position.”
“How good of him,” William said bitterly. “And what of Kinsey? The lass who was with us. Our archer.”
“She’s no’ yer concern.” The man’s dark eyes narrowed, and a flash of a memory teased at William’s thoughts. Before he could identify it, the recollection was gone.
His head ached from where it had been struck, addling his mind so his only focus remained on Kinsey’s safety.
“She’s every bit my concern.” Panic scrambled in William’s chest. He had to fight to keep it under control. Being irrational would not save her life. “She’s with child.”
It wasn’t true as far as William knew, but it could be. They’d lain together twice. And mayhap it would spare her a few months in which she might somehow manage to escape.
Something flicked in the depths of the man’s gaze. “What did ye say?” he bit out.
“She’s with child,” William repeated with more force. “My child.”
The man’s nostrils flared.
“What of Kinsey?” William demanded. “I can pay for her freedom. Tell yer baron that. Tell him to seek out—”
“Ye hang in the morn.” The calm was gone from the man’s voice, replaced with the chill of malice.
“Tell him to seek out Laird MacLeod,” William finished.
But the man was already walking away, most likely not listening. Anger and helplessness exploded through William. “If ye touch her, I’ll kill ye,” William shouted into the darkness. He slapped an open palm on the bars in a strike that reverberated up the iron and echoed around them.
Kinsey should have stayed outside the castle. She was never meant to join the fight.
Regret soured in William’s stomach. It was his fault.
He should never have taken her on. He’d been selfish, not realizing the risk he’d placed her in when he’d recruited her as his archer. All he’d thought about then was himself and what his army needed to win. To impress his father.
And now she would likely hang.
He sagged to the ground beside Reid.
This would be their last night alive, trapped in a cell with nothing to do but wait for death. After years of fighting together, now they would die together. And William wished it were any other way.
William’s heart squeezed painfully.
Reid shouldn’t have to pay the price with him. Nor should Kinsey.
She was too bright a light to be doused from this world. Her determination, too fierce. He would never hold her again, kiss her again, have the opportunity to tell her he loved her.
A stubborn ache settled in the back of his throat.
He should have told her he loved her. He should have told his father he would rather forego being laird, that he would marry no woman but Kinsey.
It was so easy to picture in his mind now, the idea of Kinsey as his wife. She was half English, aye, but she had the heart of a Scot. She was a warrior, powerful and beautiful.
He gritted his teeth against the hurt swelling in his chest.
He should have realized it sooner. Before it was too late.
Before now when everything was coming to an end.
“Do ye think they’ll spare her?” William asked aloud the question burning a hole in his brain.
Reid looked down at the floor and pressed his lips together. “We’ll find out on the morrow.”
That was what William was afraid of. To go to his death with the pain that he had also killed Kinsey, the woman he’d been too afraid to admit loving.
He truly had lost everything.
Kinsey’s body ached everywhere. Exhaustion fogged her brain and left her thoughts thick as pottage.
Something pillowy cradled her body. A mattress? Was she on a bed?
How had she arrived there?
Flashes of memory came to her. Bodies. Blood. The sweep of a blade. Ducking away.
William.
Her heart beat harder, and her breath caught. A blaze of pain fired through her chest at her gasp. She groaned, a low, ugly sound that rose from her soul.
The last she’d seen of him, he’d been fighting. Had he made it? Had he been captured? Had she?
Somewhere nearby, a door closed.
Alarm spiked through her, and her eyes flew open. Anguish erupted in her brain at the light coming toward her. She put her hands to her face and moaned against the brilliance.
“Kinsey.” The voice was soothing. Familiar.
The light shifted away, so the glowing red behind her eyelids faded to a soothing black. A quiet thunk came from the table beside the bed, and she knew the candle had been set aside. The splintering creak of old wood indicated someone sat on a chair near her bed.
“Kinsey, look at me.”
She pried one eye open by sheer will and choked out a sob. Fire blazed in her chest. “Drake? Where is William? And Reid?”
Her brother, always so confident and sure, now looked at her with tears shimmering in his eyes. “Kinsey. I’m sorry. God forgive me. I dinna know—” He swallowed thickly and put his head in his hands. “I dinna know it was ye.”
“Am I a prisoner?” she asked in a weak voice.
“I’m sorry, Kinsey,” Drake repeated. “I dinna know.”
She reached for him and gently pulled his hands from his face. “It wasn’t yer fault. I didn’t think ye’d be here, or I’d never have agreed to be part of the attack.”
Drake scrubbed a hand over his hair. “The king has been knighting men for providing additional protection on the border. Lord Werrick knew how much I wanted it.” His gaze wandered over her face, and issued forth a pained sigh.
“I’ve no’ been knighted yet on account of our Scottish blood, but if I do well here with Lord Carlyle… ”
“They’re going to make ye a knight?” Kinsey’s heart splintered open.
They were.
Surely, they wouldn’t award it to him now. The weight of her guilt hurt more than any of her wounds. He’d finally had a chance for the knighthood he’d worked his entire life to achieve. And she had ruined it for him.
Drake’s lower lip trembled. “I’ve injured ye so badly.” A tear escaped his eye. “I dinna know it was ye, Kinsey. God, I’m so sorry.”
“Good thing I’m not so easy to kill, eh?” She offered him a smile.
He gave a shallow laugh. “Ye’re a commendable fighter, little sister.”
“I learned from the best.” She grabbed his hand and held it.
He glanced down at their clasped hands, and his expression turned serious. “Do ye think…do ye think ye’ve lost the babe?”
Kinsey blinked at him, certain she’d heard wrong. “Babe?”
“I was told ye were with child.” His face twitched in myriad emotions: sorrow, horror. Rage.
She shook her head and immediately regretted it as the room began to spin. “Nay. I’m no’ with child.”
“The man in the dungeon said ye were.”
Kinsey stiffened. “William. He’s alive? Reid too?”
Drake scowled. “Did he touch ye?”
“Drake,” she cried out impatiently. Her chest was almost too tight to breathe, compounded by the press of fear. “Are they alive?”
“Aye, they’re alive.” Drake frowned. “But if he took advantage of ye—”
“I’m a grown woman,” she said in a firm voice. “This is one of the reasons I left. Ye all think of me as a child. I’m a woman. I have fought in battles. I have made my own choices. And, aye,” her throat clenched. “I have loved a man.”
“And ye love him still?” Drake’s brown eyes were hard, his jaw tight.
Exhaustion lapped at her awareness, promising her relief from her injuries. She closed her heavy eyelids. “I do.”
“We’ve all been worried about ye, Kinsey,” he said tenderly.
“I should have insisted ye return home when I saw ye at the tavern. I hadna received the news ye’d left home so abruptly then.
Ye should be at the manor. Safe. Ye shouldna have been here.
I shouldna have—” His face stretched in a silent wince, and he rose abruptly to his feet.
Panic swelled in her. She had too many questions unanswered. “Where are ye going?”
“To find a way to get ye out of here,” he said with stoic resolve.
“Ye can’t.” She reached for him again. “Don’t sacrifice yer chance at knighthood for me.”
Tears burned in his dark gaze. “I almost killed ye.”
“But ye didn’t.” She shook her head. “And I can’t leave. Not without William and Reid.” The hurt exhaled from her wounded chest.
Drake turned from her.
She reached for him. “Wait, please.”
“I have an idea.” He said it so low, and her head swam with such discomfort, she wondered if she’d heard him correctly.
But before he could elaborate or confirm what she’d heard, he slipped out the door and was gone.
Kinsey turned her face toward the pillow and gave way to the wave of emotion drowning her. Because no matter the outcome, the cost would be far too great.