She hesitated the breadth of a heartbeat, then linked her arm with his. “Aye, sir, I will,” she agreed with a slight tremor in her voice. “Such is my debt as Dunlaidir’s mistress.”
Not the most flattering answer, but still…
Her acceptance of the task sent warmth coursing through him.
“Then lead on, my lady,” he said.
And as they moved down the darkened corridor, he breathed another silent prayer of appreciation for this small victory.
He hadn’t yet won the battle, but with a spot of unexpected help, he’d successfully laid the groundwork for besieging his lady’s heart.
Chapter 18
Caterine led the way into her bedchamber, a sanctum she’d never have dreamed to welcome a Sassunach, champion knight sent by her sister, or otherwise.
Yet here he was, and Sir Marmaduke Strongbow passed through her privy quarters with all the lordly confidence of the master of the keep.
Without even glancing at her great curtained bed, its coverings already turned back for the coming night’s rest, he entered the chamber’s tiny ante-room.
“Behind the chest and tapestry?” he guessed, his gaze latching on the secret door’s hiding place.
Caterine nodded.
Words weren’t necessary.
The ante-room’s walls were bare save a small assortment of cloaks hanging from pegs, a few sputtering torchlights, and two very narrow windows facing straight out onto the night.
Heart in her throat, her pulse louder in her ears than the howling wind, she watched him shove the large iron-bound strongbox out of the way, then lift the Flemish tapestry to reveal a low round-headed door cut into the thickness of the wall.
The door’s rusty hinges screeched protest when he opened it, and a whoosh of stale air sailed into the little room, the musty smell a clear challenge to any daring enough to breach the dark threshold and mount the curving stair beyond.
“Can we not speak here?” Setting Rhona’s healing unguent on the chest, Caterine rubbed her arms against the chill damp streaming in through the unshuttered window slits.
Better to freeze than suffocate on age-old dust and mold.
Rather than answer her, Marmaduke took one of the resin torches from its bracket on the wall, and, holding it aloft, indicated the worn stone steps circling upward into the darkness. “My sorrow that such a measure is needed,” he said, his gaze compelling her to follow him.
For here was a man whose commanding presence held such power, a stone carving would melt at his feet.
A female stone carving.
Caterine hitched up her skirts and climbed the winding stairs behind him. He’d already thrust the torch into an iron holder on the wall when she stepped into the closeness of the laird’s lug and the flames cast dancing shadows all about them, lending a dreamlike atmosphere to the tiny chamber.
Little more than a widening in the thickness of the wall, the laird’s lug offered two spy holes. One gave a fair view of the great hall directly below, while the other allowed a glance straight into the minstrels’ gallery just beyond the farthest wall.
The cramped space made the English knight seem taller, his broad shoulders wider, and the poor lighting erased his scar and shadowed his bad eye, leaving only the proud, masculine lines of a nobly formed, strikingly handsome face.
One he no doubt wanted to show her but could never have done by the light of day or in the great hall with scores of blazing torches everywhere, the many candles that lit the long tables.
But he showed her now, and what she saw was a face that won hearts.
Arabella’s heart.
Suddenly needing air, she went to the spy hole that looked down on the hall. She stood on her toes to draw in great gulps of the less offensive air pouring in through the small opening.
Air seasoned with the tang of wood-smoke and roasting meats rather than the stifling scent of old stone and closed places.
Far below, men clustered at the trestle tables, noisily tucking into the evening meal. They argued, for their raised voices carried, the deeper ones echoing off the spy chamber’s walls and ceiling.
