Betrayed by Claire Robyns Read Free Book Online

enormous shame. Resentment for the woman responsible surged. “She ordered me out o’ the room.”
    Krayne dismissed the serving woman with a nod. He hadn’t sent her to Amber as a guard. He’d left the lass as weak as a day-old lamb, only hoping Isla would see to her bath and help her back into bed.
    He told Little Jock to fetch Alexander, a younger brother of the Raehills Johnstones and captain of the Wamphray moss-troopers, then turned to his steward. “Search every chamber and alcove within the castle.”
    Mungo nodded and slipped from the room, Isla scurrying on his heels.
    Krayne stepped outside.
    He wasn’t overly concerned, for even if Amber had managed to steal down the stairway and out the front door, the gatekeeper wouldn’t let her pass beyond the castle. His gaze swept along the dusk-shaded outline of the curtain wall. The deep passage had shadowy hooks and knobs that provided many hiding places.
    Krayne started down the long walk. He was not in the mood for a cat-and-mouse game, even if the mouse was trapped; the walkway came to a dead end at the portcullis. The Jardin wench was probably laughing right now at how effortlessly she’d duped him. He’d spent a long time staring at that curl of hair, so shiny and black against the yellow parchment he’d wrapped it in. And all the while, the teeth of guilt and worry at her sudden relapse had made their mark inside his gut.
    Hah! His spine stiffened and his stride lengthened.
    How in hell had she reduced him to a green sapling that could so conveniently be wound about her little finger?
    A flapping movement caught his eyes and a grin broke the stern line of his mouth. This had been as easy as he’d expected. As he drew closer, however, his jaw squared firm and a tic worked furiously at his temple.
    “The bloody vixen,” Krayne spewed, untangling the wool sleeve tied around a thick stone tooth. He roped the material in, cursing at the long drop even after the diagonal length of the gown was taken into account. He scanned the area below, and the heaviness lifted from his chest when he saw no mangled body sprawled on the ground. Bundling the gown under his arm, Krayne ran back along the walkway. The danger wasn’t over yet.
    Alexander was waiting in the chamber, clearly as unconcerned as Krayne had been, until he saw the laird’s face.
    “She went over the wall,” Krayne informed him at once, tossing the gown aside as he marched through the chamber.
    “That isna possible,” protested Alexander as they went down the stairs to the great hall.
    “First one foot, then the other,” Krayne snarled. “Very possible, I assure ye.”
    Alexander had a lean frame despite well-trained muscles, a clean-shaven jaw and pale blue eyes that scraped years from his five and thirty years, and Krayne had never before seen such a haggard face on his captain.
    Realising the cause, he added dryly, “Dinna ask me how, but she made it down alive.”
    His friend’s expression relaxed with a gruff sigh that Krayne well understood. The gulf between battle blood and a hostage suicide—of a woman at that, was a vast distance neither of them ever wanted to measure.
    “She may yet be hurt,” Krayne warned as they crossed the bailey to the stables.
    Alexander hailed two moss-troopers lounging against a wall and ordered them to round up every available man who hadn’t ridden in from Stirling that morning. “I’ll harry the others later if we have nae luck,” he told Krayne.
    “She canna go far.” Krayne led Cronus from his stall, stroking the proud Arabian’s neck absently. “The bog will slow her down.”
    “Aye. If it doesna swallow her.”
    Krayne mounted Cronus and kicked the stallion into a trot without answering. Some things didn’t bear thinking about. Old Giles had already been informed of the crisis and was cranking the portcullis as Krayne rode up.
    “Keep a look out,” he shouted to the grey-bearded gatekeeper. The gate tower faced the river. Whether Amber