Heart Of A Highland Warrior by Anita Clenney Page B

name. The only connection he had in the midst of this darkness. Until her. She was bonny. Perhaps the most beautiful woman he ’d ever seen, and that made him nervous, but he didn’t know why.
    “I know Faelan,” she said.
    “You know him?” That was a bloody odd thing, for her to know someone by the name his captors were calling him. “And you’re familiar with his chest?”
    “Of course.” At his questioning look, her dark brows drew into a delicate arch.
    “How do you know him?” he asked, hoping the words didn’t sound as impolite to her ears as his.
    “He’s a friend.”
    Friend. That could mean anything. “Why would they call me Faelan if I’m not him? Is it a common name?”
    She continued to work on the shackle. “No. Uncommon, in fact.”
    Yet she knew a man named Faelan, the very name they called him. Very odd indeed.
    “Well, we know you’re Scottish.” She nodded to his kilt.
    “Do you want me to try?” he asked, looking at the shackle.
    “I think I can get it. We need to get out of here. We’ll have to set a trap and attack him. Maybe one of us can play dead, then we’ll attack him when he comes to check. I wish I had my dagger.”
    Damnation. What kind of woman carried a dagger? The shackle clicked open. He removed it while the woman, Anna, started working on his feet. The shackles there opened easier. When he was free, he stood, wincing.
    “Are you all right?” Anna asked, looking him over. “They’ve beaten the crap out of you.” She looked oddly guilty when she said it.
    He frowned at her rude speech. Obviously a whore, which made him wonder again if she was telling the truth about this Faelan. More likely he had used her services. She was the bonniest thing he ’d ever laid eyes on. He didn’t visit whores himself, but he ’d be sore tempted with this one. How could he know he didn’t visit whores when he didn’t recall his own name? He touched his face and winced.
    “Aye. If feeling like you’ve been run down by a team of horses is all right.” He noticed a streak of blood on her thigh, and his stomach knotted. “Did the guard hurt you?” Lasses like her were often ill treated, but whore or not, it made his blood boil.
    She followed his gaze to her thigh and then wiped the blood with the edge of her gown. “It’s his blood, so it doesn’t matter.”
    Cheeky wench.
    “Do you know how long you’ve been here?” she asked.
    “I’ve lost count. A fortnight or longer.”
    She seemed puzzled by that. “Fortnight? What do they want with you?”
    “They’re testing me.”
    “For what?” Anna asked, smoothing down her gown.
    “I don’t know.”
    “Is your leg still bleeding?”
    He lifted the edge of his kilt. Dried blood still crusted the cut on his thigh, but it had closed up overnight. “Thank you for tending me.”
    She glanced away. “No problem. We have to get you out of here and back to your family.”
    Family. Several faces rushed through his head so fast he didn’t have a chance to recognize them. It was damned frustrating.
    The woman, Anna, walked to the cell bars. He glanced at her bare legs, wondering why a whore would feel so familiar to him. Perhaps he had glimpsed her briefly when she was put into his cell.
    She grabbed one of the iron bars and tested it, then went around the cell testing them all, as he ’d done when he awoke in here. “They’re strong,” he said. “I’ve checked them all.”
    “We have to find some way out of here.”
    She was serious. Was she barmy? Women didn’t break out of dungeons and fight guards. “I’ve tried to escape. Then they started giving me potions to keep me under control, and one of them keeps a pistol aimed at me. If they got it close enough, and I wasn’t half asleep from their bloody potions, I ’d disarm them and kill them both.”
    She turned and looked at him. “I think I know what you…” Her mouth closed, and she shook her head slightly. He wondered what she had been going to say, but