Free His Woman by Diana Cosby

slowly, fighting to keep his breathing steady, “if nothing else, I learned that although the previous earl loved his wealth, he enjoyed the complex. I would be surprised if he did not have a secret passage leading from his chamber. Mayhap two.”
    “He could have them, but like I said—”
    “There were many things you were not privileged to know.” To find balance in her relationship with Frasyer, Duncan could understand Isabel conceding on some issues, but by all appearances, their relationship had little to do with fairness. Or respect. Both foundations of the woman he’d once known.
    Or had he known her at all?
    “Duncan—”
    “Nay, lass.” Why did he mull over an event long past? He rolled away from her and onto his injured arm. Stars exploded in his head. He groaned and sagged back.
    “Your arm?”
    “Is fine.” Throbbed as if skewered by a hot iron. Heat poured over him as if standing next to a smithy’s fire. His hand shook as he mopped the sweat from his brow. He opened his eyes and forced himself to focus. They had to escape while he was still strong enough to protect her.
    Shifting onto his good shoulder, he scanned the walls. In Seathan’s castle, a secret passage lay hidden in each of the family chambers.
    “Bring me a cup of wine,” Frasyer ordered.
    The earl’s squire hurried to do his lord’s bidding.
    Once the lad left his view, Duncan continued scanning the wall for any hint of an opening, a fine line separating the rocks, or through uneven stone.
    He followed the lower edge of the tapestry and started to move on, but an uneven shadow had him glancing back. There. Almost flush with the bottom of the woven cloth appeared to be the outline of a door. If he hadn’t looked for it, he would have missed the discreet indent altogether. Exactly as the lord of the castle would have wished.
    “Look at the tapestry by the far wall,” Duncan whispered to Isabel. “It is hiding a door.”
    She inched up on her forearms, and her breasts pressed against his shoulder; he all but groaned. “I do not see anything.”
    “Along the lower edge.” It again struck Duncan as odd that Frasyer’s mistress didn’t know the whereabouts of his secret passage. What did they do, tear at each other’s clothes as soon as they entered his room? One would have believed they would have at least talked after they’d made love.
    A bizarre kind of love if you asked him. What kind of lover threw his mistress into the dungeon? And how did her father, Lord Caelin, fit into all of this?
    “I see it now,” she whispered with excitement. The warmth of her breath skimmed over his neck. “Perhaps it is where he keeps his jewels. If so, the Bible may be in there as well.”
    “With the opening against the interior wall, more than likely, it is a secret passageway.”
    She leaned back. “Oh.”
    Though he didn’t want to return to Moncreiffe Castle, with his body growing fevered, he couldn’t risk remaining and, if challenged, being unable to protect her.
    “Isabel?” he whispered.
    “Aye?”
    Duncan took a slow breath, hating his admission. “If the door proves to be an exit, we must leave, Bible or no. I must have my arm tended.”
    Concern darkened her eyes. She glanced at his wounded arm and resignation settled on her face. “Then we had best pray the passageway leads out.”
    Her calm acceptance surprised him. In the dungeon, she’d adamantly refused to leave Moncreiffe Castle without her mother’s Bible. What guided her decision to go without an argument now?
    Isabel’s agreeing wasn’t out of concern for him. Her broken betrothal to him three years ago to become Frasyer’s mistress attested to that. Nay, something was amiss. Aye, she was afraid for her father’s life, but Duncan sensed her fears went deeper than that.
    When he’d given his word to help Isabel find her mother’s Bible, he’d done so not only due to his vow to Symon, but for Lord Caelin’s sake. Now, he added another reason for