Not Mine to Give (17 page)

“Now I will show you what it will be like,” he whispered in her ear.

Ever so slowly, he moved within her until all thoughts vanished from her mind and all reasoning ceased to exist. Again and again he thrust until he had carried her to a place far above her. Faster and faster he moved, and higher and higher they climbed, until she soared somewhere above even the clouds.

Just as her tears had made the candlelight streak bright white arches above her, so had her passion left a trail of sparkling embers. She shattered to a million twinkling starbursts and simply floated.

Duncan stilled above her, then trembled in her arms. He released a loud moan and collapsed with his face nestled against her neck. Katherine held him tight as he gasped for breath with her.

A heavy sheen of perspiration covered his body, and she skimmed her fingers over the rippling muscles of his shoulders and down the banded cords of his arms. The pounding of his heart echoed in her ears. She lifted her head to touch her lips to his skin.

Everything had changed. With this one act, everything had changed.

From the moment she had accepted Duncan’s proposal, she’d thought she could be a wife to him with no risk to herself. She thought she could use him to escape a life of torture with Bolton, profit from his protection, yet keep the one thing he wanted away from him.

She still thought she could. Only now she knew the price she would pay. Now she knew how easy it would be to lose her heart, and how easily Duncan could hurt her if he possessed it.

Katherine blinked away the tears that welled in her eyes. Duncan seemed no more in control than she. As she listened to his ragged breathing, a cold hand squeezed her heart. Leaving was no longer an option. Her small circle of safety had grown considerably smaller.

“Are you all right, Kate?”

“I am more than all right,” she breathed.

He rolled to the side and pulled her up against him.

She placed her arm around his chest and snuggled closer. She welcomed the blanket he threw over them.

“I could
na let you go,” he whispered, then breathed a deep sigh.

Katherine didn’t ask why. The answer was better left unsaid.

The fire had gone out in the grate. She should be cold, but she wasn’t. She should feel something, but she didn’t.

…

The Ferguson had taken her as his wife. Even though she was English. Even though he loved another, he had consummated their marriage. Leaving was no longer an option.

Katherine swallowed a cry of despair.

He moved away from her and slipped out of the bed, his absence creating a cold void.

“I must go downstairs to speak with Malcolm,” he said lifting his shirt over his shoulders.

Katherine remembered the feel of his muscled flesh beneath her fingers. She couldn’t lift her gaze from his body. “Are you worried the McGowans haven’t left?” she asked, pulling the covers up to warm the chill his leaving caused.

“It does
na hurt to check.”

Katherine watched him go, then sat up in bed and wrapped her arms around her knees. His absence would give her time to be alone with her thoughts. Time to pray for another answer. For God to give her a sign to tell her what to do.

She crawled out of bed and washed in the basin on the stand, then put on a clean gown and went to the chapel to pray. She and her mother and Elizabeth had always spent time each morning and each evening in prayer. It was a habit she had not given up. Now, the time she spent talking to God was even more important than ever. Never had she needed God’s help more than she did now.

She took a deep breath and repeated her heartfelt petition that God would forgive her sins, curb her wicked tongue, and watch over Duncan and all the Fergusons who would go to England with him. She added a special request for them to return with Brenna unharmed.

Then, she prayed that somehow she would find a way to get the crown and return it to England.

Before she finished, Katherine clasped her hands tighter and added one more prayer. She pleaded that God would protect her heart from a man who would, when she gave the crown to her father, regret having made her his wife.

She was so deep in prayer she didn’t hear the door open behind her. It wasn’t until she heard the soft patter of footsteps that she realized she wasn’t the only one who had come to the chapel to pray.

She made the sign of the cross, then whispered her final amen. She made to rise, but before she could get to her feet, a jolt unlike any she’d ever felt exploded behind her eyes, sending bright, searing stabs of pain to every part of her body.

She reached for the railing, but her hand grasped only air. Release from the excruciating agony came fast and complete, taking away the hurt, and cloaking her in blessed numbness.

…

Duncan opened the door to his chamber and searched the darkness for Kate. He breathed a deep breath, praying he’d done the right thing. She had been going to leave him.

He thought of the way she’d stood up to him. The way she’d fought with him, battled him, and reasoned with him. The way she’d given herself to him with more openness and uninhibited abandon than he thought it was possible to receive from a woman.

He walked toward the bed, aching to hold her in his arms again. To make love to her as he had earlier. His heart clenched in his chest with an uncomfortable sense of longing he pushed aside.

Duncan lit a candle from the torch on the wall outside. He had stayed downstairs talking to Malcolm and Angus far too long and had lost track of the time. Only one more day and he would leave to get Brenna back from England. Only one more day and Bolton would be dead. Duncan closed his eyes and savored the sweet taste of revenge.

He sat on the stool beside the bed to remove his boots, then lifted the candle. Kate had probably fallen asleep long ago. He stood and stared at the empty bed, the covers still rumpled from their lovemaking. A frown covered his face. Without a doubt, she had gone to the chapel to say her evening prayers. She went there every night before she retired, just as his mother had done.

After he returned with Brenna, he would make it his habit to go with her, as his father had gone with his mother. There were many things the two of them would make their habit once Brenna was home…

…and Bolton was dead,

…and Kate had given him the crown.

Duncan crossed the room and walked down the shadowed hallway to the chapel. Last night she had been late coming back from her prayers, too. He’d waited for her, and by the time she returned, she was shivering as violently as a fish thrown out of water.

He opened the chapel door and stopped beside the first wooden bench. His brows shot up in surprise as he looked around the room. He’d been sure he would find her here, but only one short candle flickered in the empty room.

He closed the door behind him and went to the other rooms; Brenna’s room, his parents’ chambers, the garderobe on this level and the one below. She was in none of them. His heart tightened with a hint of anger.

Perhaps her lovemaking had been an act, and she had taken the first opportunity to run away.

“Morgana,” he yelled, walking to the room where Kate’s handmaiden stayed so she could be close to her mistress. He covered the distance to her chamber almost at a run, ignoring the blood heating in his veins.

Morgana
came to her door, pulling a covering around her night dress. “Milord?”

“Have you seen your mistress?”

“Not since she went to the chapel, laird.”

Duncan was already down the hallway to search each room again when he ran into Malcolm. “Is something amiss, Duncan?”

“Kate is na in our chamber. Have you seen her?”

He shook his head. “She has
na come down the stairs or we would have noticed.” Malcolm matched Duncan’s hurried steps as they went back to the room he shared with his wife.

“We’ll check each room on this level again,” Duncan said, opening the door to the side room, “and if we do
na find her we will search the entire keep.”

Duncan tried to control the anger building within him. “Send someone to check with the guards at the front gate and the postern.”

“Oh, Duncan. She would na try to leave now. Not in the dark.”

“Send them,” Duncan ordered, his voice sounding strangely calm considering the turmoil building within him.

Duncan checked the chambers another time and Malcolm met him at the chapel entrance. Duncan looked around the empty room then walked to the front. He lifted his eyes to the statue before him. “Do you think it possible that someone could have come for her?”

“Nay, Duncan. The hall has been crowded all night, and Conan spent hours in a dark corner by the door, kissing that comely lass from the kitchen. His mind was occupied with other matters, but not so much that someone could have taken the mistress out of the keep without his notice.”

“Where did you see her last, Duncan?” Malcolm asked, resting his hand on the railing next to Duncan’s.

“In our chamber, just before I came down to you. There was nothing amiss with her, and—” Duncan stopped and cocked his head to the side to listen. “Did you hear a strange sound, Malcolm?”

Malcolm listened, then shook his head. “Nay,” he answered, “but—”

Malcolm stopped too. A soft whimper, barely audible,
seeped into the silence in the chapel. Duncan quietly listened. They heard it again. A soft, muffled moan from somewhere near, yet far away.

Every muscle in Duncan’s body tightened in alarm. He moved around the railing toward the altar and the whimpers coming from somewhere behind it. A cold, uncomfortable sweat covered his body. Stabs of deadly fear prickled the hairs on the back of his neck.

He heard it again. With Malcolm at his side, Duncan ran to a small storage chamber behind the altar. “Blessed mother, nay,” he whispered as he removed the square cut of wood that barricaded the small opening from the outside. “Do na let her be in here. Dear God, nay! She fears small, dark places.” Duncan pulled open the door and Kate’s pathetic whimper assaulted his senses.

“Bring torches!” he bellowed, and at almost that same instant, Malcolm held up a bright light. Duncan didn’t have to enter the tiny room to find her. Kate had her arms clutched around her knees. Her trembling body was curled into a tight ball before the door. Her chest heaved with each low demented moan while her eyes darted wild with fear. Being locked in the small, enclosed darkness had almost driven her to the point of madness.

He reached for her and lifted her up in his arms. She wound her arms around his neck with strength that defied her small frame. “’Tis all right, Kate. You are safe now.”

Duncan carried her out of the chapel, past the small group of Fergusons crowded in the hallway. Someone gave him a cover and he wrapped her in it to keep her warm. The men and women parted as he walked past. He read the confusion
on their faces.

On everyone’s face except for Regan’s.

Regan leaned against the stone wall with her hands crossed over her chest and watched as he left the chapel. She raised her eyebrows when he passed, and smiled. The amused look on her face sent a shiver down his spine. Their gazes locked, and Duncan paused. “Leave my keep, Regan. You will na come near my wife until I return from England.”

Regan shrugged her shoulders and pushed herself away from the wall. She swaggered down the hall as if she didn’t fear him. Duncan gritted his teeth. God help her if she had done this to Kate.

“Malcolm,” he ordered. “Send someone for Angus, and have everyone return to their beds. Then come back to me.”

“Aye, Duncan.”

He carried Kate into their chamber and sat with her on the edge of the bed. He couldn’t have pried her arms from around his body if he’d tried.

He pushed the hair from her face, then held her close. Eyes filled with wild terror stared out at nothing and he stroked her flesh with his hands while she trembled in fear. “Kate?” he asked when her breathing had calmed some.

He slowly eased her arms from around him, releasing her death grip. He stared at the blood still smeared at the ends of her fingers from where she had clawed at the door to get out.

“Kate? What happened? Who locked you in the room behind the altar?”

She stiffened against him and refused to answer. A small part of him did not want to hear her answer.

“Did you go there to get something?”

She shook her head then buried her face harder against him. He cupped the back of her head to hold her close, but her soft moan of pain stopped him. He eased his grip and felt the lump there. “How did you get this?”

She closed her eyes and frowned as if the knot on her head slowed her ability to think. “I must have fallen,” she muttered with a great deal of effort.

“Do na lie to me, Kate.”

“Leave it be, Duncan. It doesn’t matter.” She tried to push away from him, but he would not release her.

“I’m tired, Duncan. I’d like to sleep now.”

She fell against his chest and he pulled her away to hold her straight. “You will
na fall asleep until Angus looks at you. It is na wise to—”