Page 156 of Wicked Highland Heroes

She would be forced to go to the storeroom. Truth be told, she burned to learn if St. Claire knew of the room.

“How fares the rest of Castle Glenbarr?” Rhoslyn asked. “Mistress Muira? St. Claire has not overworked her in the kitchen?”

“Oh no,” Lorna, a younger maid, interjected. “Muira warned him that she will no’ tolerate misbehaving from the men. She threatened to cut off the bollocks of any man that touched the women. Sir Talbot told her that if any of his men harassed us, he would hold the dog down while she used her knife.”

“He did not say that?” Rhoslyn blurted.

Sheila nodded. “He did.”

“He is handsome,” Lorna said. “Very handsome.”

Rhoslyn gave the girl a critical look. “Your father would not be pleased to learn you are lusting after an English knight.”

The girl hung her head.

“What of Duncan?” Rhoslyn asked. He could help her escape. She had elevated him from steward to lord in her absence.

“He was very angry,” Sheila said. “We feared he would challenge Sir Talbot, but when he read King Edward’s letter saying you and he were to wed, he left.”

Duncan gone? “Where did he go?”

“To your grandfather at Banmore House.”

So the craven turned tail and ran. Her grandfather wouldn’t be pleased.

“Return to your beds,” she ordered the maids.

They obeyed and Rhoslyn headed for the storeroom.

* * *

Talbot eyed the form beneath the blankets on the bed. Lady Rhoslyn hadn’t even troubled herself to make the pillows look much like a sleeping person. It had been longer than he could remember since anyone underestimated him. He grunted. She hadn’t underestimated him. He foolishly left her alone in a room that she had escaped in the time it took her to shove pillows beneath a blanket. He should have tied her to his bed. His cock pulsed at the thought. There lay just as dangerous a road as did her escape.

He scanned the room. The door had been locked from the outside. Either someone helped her and was wise enough to lock the door when they left, or there was a passageway in the room. Talbot crossed to the hearth where the wall on each side was paneled wood, and immediately noticed the panel to the right was slightly misaligned. He slid a fingernail into the seam, drew open the panel, and peered inside. A narrow passageway disappeared into darkness.

He got a torch from the hallway, then returned to the passageway and examined the floor. The dust revealed small footprints. Talbot started forward, grimacing when his broad shoulders brushed the walls several feet inside. He reached the end of the passageway to find himself in an empty bedchamber. He recognized the room as one in the west wing. A hint of candle wax scented the air but he saw no candle.

Where would Lady Rhoslyn have gone from here? The stables? Another hidey hole? Was there another passageway in this room, or had she doubled back to this wing, where a secret passageway led from the chapel to a concealed door in the castle’s wall. No. Lady Rhoslyn cared too much about her possessions to leave just yet. Which meant there was one place she would go before leaving.