Chapter 29

“How in the bloody hell did you lose a sleeping woman!”

The Duke’s booming voice froze Izzy in her tracks and she crouched low behind the nearest bush. She couldn’t make out what the soldiers were answering.

They’d been asleep when she’d crawled out of the tent and left her shelter. Everyone had. Between having slept the day away and the large number of men around she hadn’t been able to drift off, so when the guards had started to snore she’d slipped out and spent the night out in the bush. She just picked her way between their legs, grabbed up her bow and quiver, and walked out the entrance.

She’d only waited until she could sneak away because she hadn’t wanted any of the men to follow her. It had never occurred to her that they would get in trouble when she was not in the tent come morning. Nobody had ever bothered to know where she was before. If her clansmen had ever noticed her gone, they certainly hadn’t searched for her. Well, they had after she’d been gone several months, bu