“Thomas?” William swept his gaze around the cave, starting to finally make out faint outlines. Rock. More rock. A blob. He moved past it only to go back. The blob was big. “Thomas?” he asked again.
“Aye, and lower yer voice,” Thomas whispered. “The guard assigned to watch me loves to give me a hit when I wake.”
“Where is Lady Ada?” a young lad asked, the voice very close, making William jerk instinctually. He scanned at the space around him, seeing no one, but when he tilted his head up, there above him, on a rock appeared to be someone whose face he could not see. Whatever had been touching his head disappeared and returned with a sharp kick. A foot.
“What did ye do to her?” an irate young lad demanded.
Images of Ada slid into his mind. Ada naked. Ada in the throes of passion. Ada naming him a traitor. “I did nae do a thing to her,” he said, his anger vibrating in his tone. The minute the words left his mouth, he clenched his teeth against the realization that he’d not spoken the entire truth.
“Filthy liar!” the lad accused, then kicked him in the head again. The throbbing pain at the base of his skull reverberated through his entire head and down his body. He hissed with the excruciating agony.
“Maximilian,” the woman chided. “Dunnae kick the man. Recall what Thomas told us. He is for the king.”
“Oh aye,” the lad, Maximilian, said, his tone sarcastic. “He’s for the king, but he’s here to use Lady Ada just as all men wish to use her.”
William was having trouble keeping up with the conversation because of the torturous throbbing in his head, but he could keep up enough to realize that Thomas had been divulging secrets. “What the devil, Thomas? Why are ye revealing things to our enemies?” William gritted out between waves of pain.
Thomas snorted. “Lady Ada’s companion and the lad that feeds her hounds are nae our enemies.”
“If they are her friends, they are nae to be trusted,” William growled, only to get kicked in the head once more. “Dunnae kick me in the head again,” he bit out.
“I’ll kick ye if I want to kick ye,” the lad challenged. “For one thing, ye’re tied up good. For another, ye are speaking lies about me and Esther, and—”
“Lies?” William bellowed, to which all three of his cave companions hushed him. William took a breath to calm his temper. “Lady Ada,” he whispered fiercely, “is the reason I’m in here! She named me a traitor and told her brother I was a supporter of King David.”
“Ye must have done something terrible to her,” the lad said, matter-of-fact. “Either that or it’s true.”
“Maximilian speaks correctly,” the woman, Esther, agreed, her tone disapproving. “Thomas, I thought ye said ye and this man were for King David.”
“We are,” Thomas said. “MacLean, what did ye do to the lady?”
An image of him kneeling between Ada’s lovely thighs and then hovering above her came to him, hardening him everywhere. “I wed her,” he said thickly.
“Oh!” Esther exclaimed. “Then has her gift—”
“How the devil am I to ken?” he snapped irritably. “She told Brothwell about me immediately, and I was hauled off. If yer lady supports the king, then why she would have told her stepbrother that I am the king’s man?”
“I suspect ye hurt her, and she reacted in anger,” Esther said. “And I can assure ye that Ada does support the king. We are in this cave, sir—”
“William,” he interrupted.
“We are kept in this cave,William,” she went on, “because Brothwell used us to force Ada’s hand in choosing a husband. The three of us tried to escape several times after her father died, and the last time, when Brothwell stopped us, he informed Ada that she would either willingly select a husband from the warriors he was assembling for a tournament or he’d kill us.”
“Still, how do ye explain why Ada told Brothwell my brother was for the king?”
He ducked at the swish of air behind him, and he glanced over his shoulder to glare at the lad. “If ye are untied, ye devil, why have ye nae released yer companions so ye could escape?”
“He’s nae untied,” Thomas answered. “His feet are nae bound, and Esther and I are chained, nae tied. The guard has the key. Ye, however, are tied, which is why we were trying to wake ye, so ye could try to stand. Maximilian tried already to reach yer wrist but could nae with how ye were positioned.”
“Why’d ye nae say so immediately?” William whispered. With considerable effort, he rose slowly to his feet. The room swayed, but he remained standing. “Now what?”
The lad jumped off the rock that he must have climbed upon and came quickly to stand in front of William.
“Put out yer wrists, ye swine.”
“Ye have the manners of a goat,” William grumbled.
“Ye smell like rotted swine,” the lad retorted.
William thrust his wrists at the boy, who turned his back to William, making William realize the lad’s hands were tied behind his back. The lad fumbled, trying to find the rope, and after a minute, he finally did and set to work trying to loosen the knots. “Lady Ada would have nae ever have told Brothwell that Bram was a supporter of King David,” the lad said. “She liked him, and she detests Brothwell.”
“’Tis the truth,” Esther said. “If Brothwell told ye that, he lied. He must have overheard Ada telling me her suspicions that Bram was nae who he presented himself to be. We were in her bedchamber one day when she said it, and we heard a noise in the corridor, only to see Brothwell pass.”
As Esther’s words sunk in, William stiffened. Christ, if that was all true, then all his anger at Ada was unfounded. Immediately, he thought of how coldly he’d treated her right after they’d joined, and how he’d flatly and unemotionally told her he’d wed and bedded her simply to use her. He had wed her to use her, but the joining had been solely about his desire for her, his burning need to touch her.
He was repelled by how he’d acted and wary at the tide of strong emotion he felt for Ada. He was a fool—a fool for believing Brothwell’s lie, and more the fool for allowing himself to feel for Ada. And if he had such feelings now after only just meeting her, how strong would they become in time? Too strong. Unacceptably strong. A vivid image of his father weeping in his bedchamber because William’s mom had left came to William. He never wanted to be hurt like that because of a woman. He did not want such attachments. He would take back the hurt he’d caused Ada if he could, but perhaps it was best if she now despised him. It would make it easier to keep distance between them.
“I still come back to why Ada would have named me a traitor to Brothwell if she intends to aid King David,” he said.
“Because, ye scurrilous beast,” came Ada’s voice, “I had to gain Brothwell’s trust so he’d call his guards off me.”
