Arsenic and Old Armor (26 page)

Marion scratched her head. The twitch in her
eye was getting worse. She felt a corner of her cheek jump, as
well.

“
This poison,” she asked.
“How do you get it?”

“
I mix it myself,” Margaret
said proudly. “You remember, I was always good at mixing
remedies.”

“
She is still good at it,”
Judith agreed.

“
What is it that you mix
with the wine?” Marion asked.

“
Arsenic, of
course.”

“
Arsenic,” Judith
explained.

Of
course
, Marion thought. Arsenic. She had
heard of it. She knew it was very common. In fact, she remembered
one of the nuns saying it was quite good for external wounds. If
one took it internally, of course, one was dead.

“
Of course,” she said
aloud.

Margaret folded her hands modestly in her
lap and looked at her sister. “Everything didn’t always work out
for us, though. Things don’t always happen the way you like them
to. We did have some bad years.”

Judith nodded. “A few of them.”

“
Bad years?” Marion asked,
wondering what could be worse than killing visitors who showed up
at your door.

“
There were months and
months when no Englishman dropped by,” Margaret said.

“
None.”

“
Sir William at times grew
quite impatient.”

“
Quite,” Judith
drawled.

“
But there was nothing to
be done.”

“
Nothing.”

“
Some of it was because of
bad weather we had during the winters,” Margaret
explained.

“
All of it was because of
that,” Judith corrected.

Thank the Lord for the bad weather, Marion
thought. To think that King Jamie and ten thousand Scots didn’t
have to die at Flodden Field. All he had to do was to send these
two women south to feed the English.

“
These past few weeks have
been the best,” Margaret said excitedly.

“
The very best,” Judith
agreed.

“
We’ve never had an English
nobleman stop by before.”

“
And now we have three.”
Judith smiled broadly.

Marion started to sit on a chair, but nearly
missed it. She caught herself at the last moment.

“
Three?” she asked
weakly.

They both nodded enthusiastically.

Of course. There were three Englishmen
missing, Marion thought. How foolish of her to give anyone else the
credit for their disappearance.

“
And we know all of their
names,” Margaret said proudly.

“
Sir Francis Hastings, Sir
William Eden, and—”

“
Sir George Harington,”
Margaret finished. “Judith entertained him today while I was out at
the village across the glen.”

“
Yes, I know. You told me,”
Marion whispered.

Margaret stood up and looked over the table.
“It was so nice to have this little chat, but we still haven’t set
the table. The laird should be coming in any time.”

“
Any time,” Judith repeated
excitedly.

“
You can nibble on these
while Judith and I get everything ready.” Margaret looked at Marion
with concern. “You look quite pale, my dear.”

“
No. No. I’m well enough, I
suppose.” Marion touched her face. Her cheek, her eye--one side of
her face was jumping. “I just have no appetite.”

“
Nonsense. Your appetite
will come back by the time we are ready to celebrate that lovely
secret about you and Iain.”

Margaret left the room with her sister on
her heels. At the arched doorway Judith paused. “I feel so much
better that you know everything, dear.”

Marion looked up.

“
As do I, Aunt Judith,” she
lied.

Iain guessed he might have left his bride a
tad too long with her slightly eccentric aunts. He could tell by
the bewildered look on her face when she’d been leaning out of the
window. As much as Marion had defended her family and accused him
of one horrible thing or the other in his treatment of them, he
knew she was not actually prepared for the reality. When her uncle
hadn’t recognized her, she’d obviously been hurt. And the two sweet
aunts, chattering on nonsensically and ignoring everyone else but
each other, had to be another disappointment. But Iain was hardly
one to gloat. He just hoped that she now realized why he felt he
had to keep her away from Fleet Tower for all these years.

Iain took the courtyard steps two at a time
up to the door to the great hall. As he went in, there was no sound
of the aunts’ voices. He guessed they might have gone up to the
residence floors. There was so much that Marion wanted to see, so
many old memories that she wanted back. Selfishly, he hoped to be
with her when she went through those moments of remembrance. He
wanted to be a part of her life in everything.

He didn’t have to go far, though, to find
his wife. Marion was sitting on a bench with her head buried in her
hands. Before he could say anything, he saw her stand up and whirl
around. He watched in silence as she walked to the window. Leaning
over the window seat, she peeked out through the shutters and then
backed up a step.

Iain leaned a shoulder against the wall,
watching her. She was a bundle of worry. He could tell by the way
her hands were fisted at her sides.

She was talking to herself. She looked up,
still whispering, or perhaps praying. Knowing her, he decided she
could just as easily be cursing.

She walked back toward the window and closed
the shutters tighter. Iain saw her push aside the pillows and lift
the lid of the window seat.

Margaret's and Judith’s voices drifted in
from the stairwell. Marion jumped back, and the lid came down with
a slam.

“
Why are you so tense?” he
asked.

Marion leaped a foot off the ground. She
whirled toward him, holding one fisted hand to her chest. Her face
was flushed, and she looked slightly distracted.

“
What are you doing here?”
she asked.

“
I just came in from
outside.”

“
No, you were to go to
Blackthorn Hall.”

Iain glanced at the arched doorway first,
making sure there was no sign of her aunts and her uncle. “No, I
wasn’t. I’m spending the night here at Fleet Tower…with my
bride.”

“
You cannot,” she said in a
panic.

“
We’ve had this discussion
before, my love,” Iain said, walking toward her. “I can and I
will.”

She shook her head frantically and backed
away from him. “You have to go. This instant. You have to get away.
Go as far as you can from me, from this place.”

“
Marion.” He reached for
her, but she put a chair between them. “What is this all
about?”

She shook her head, her lips shut. Iain saw
her glance at the door. He looked that way, too. There was no one
there. He turned back to her. She was totally different from the
woman he had left behind not even an hour earlier.

“
What’s happened to
you?”

“
Nothing,” she said
tensely. “I want you to go, Iain. I mean it.”
“And I mean it, too,” he said in the same tone. “I thought we were
done with all these childish antics.”

“
Childish?” she asked. “I
am making an appeal. A civilized request for you to let me be
tonight.”

“
I’ll let you be,” Iain
said with annoyance. “I won’t touch you, if that’s what you want.
But I am not going anywhere tonight.” To prove his point, he walked
to the table and sat down on a chair beside it.

She threw her head back, looked up to the
ceiling, and then began pacing the floor. There was some more
mumbling under her breath. Iain decided that whatever she was so
wound up about would soon spill out of her. She was not one to hold
anything in for too long. He glanced at the food on the table.
Everything looked very appetizing. He was more thirsty than hungry,
though. He pushed aside the pitcher of cider on the table. He
smelled the contents of another pitcher. Ale. In the open cupboard
were several more pitchers. He stood up and walked across the hall.
There was wine in the first one. Picking up a cup, he poured
himself some.

“
You’re not upset because I
took my time with the men outside, I hope,” he said, putting the
pitcher back.

“
I wish my troubles were so
trivial,” she told him. Her gaze suddenly focused on the cup in his
hands.

“
Put that down,” she
ordered, starting toward him.

“
I will not,” he replied,
stepping away from the cupboard and lifting the cup to his lips.
“What’s wrong with you?"

“
No
!” she screamed. She hit him like a charging boar, knocking
the cup out of his hand as the two of them went sprawling on the
floor. Marion landed on his chest.

“
What was that for?” he
asked, gaping up at her. “Are you mad?”

“
Yes! I’m mad. And I didn’t
want you to drink from that cup.”

She tried to get up, but Iain’s arms
tightened around her. “What was wrong with that cup?”

“
Nothing.”

She wasn’t looking at him. “What was wrong
with that cup?” he asked again.

“
Nothing
!” she yelled into his face.

He rolled her on the floor until she was
pinned beneath him. “This is the last time I am going to ask this
question,” he said, glaring at her.

Her dark eyes focused on his face. It wasn’t
his imagination; he saw tears glistening on the onyx orbs. Her face
was flushed, her breathing uneven. She grew in beauty, in passion,
with every moment they were together.

“
Answer me,” he said less
harshly.

“
I didn’t want you to drink
out of my cup. That was my cup.
My
cup,” she said, trying to push him
off.

He pinned her hands at her waist, leaned
down, and kissed her. She didn’t fight him. In fact, he felt the
desperate hunger in her. It was there in the way she kissed him
back.

“
Get off of me, Iain.
Please. They’ll be coming back any moment,” she told
him.

“
Let them.” He didn’t
move.

“
This is completely
improper.”

“
We’re husband and wife.
We’ll tell them the truth.”

The pained look quickly
clouded her face again. “No! We’re
not
married.”

He stared at her for a
moment. “We
are
married, Marion.”

“
No. You have a way out,”
she said grimly. “Luck is on your side. Brother Luke didn’t tell
anyone of the truth except your mother. She’ll gladly keep our
secret. Granted, I made a mistake of mentioning it to my aunts, but
they’ll keep the secret, too. So accept it. We’re not married. And
we will not get married at Blackthorn Hall. The entire marriage is
off.”

“
Are you trying to drive me
mad?” he asked, frowning down at her.

“
No, just the opposite.
Take my word for it. Trust me.”

The tears were back again. She was a jumble
of raw emotions. Iain got up. She scrambled to her feet, too, and
tried to walk away from him. He took her hand and forced her down
on a bench.

“
We are starting from the
beginning.”

“
We are not. You’re going.”
She tried to stand up. He pushed her down again.

“
What happened after I
walked out of here?” he asked.

She looked toward the arched doorway again,
and Iain followed her eyes. No one was there.

“
Marion, my patience is
growing thin. Answer me.”

“
I’m giving you a chance to
walk away from this unscathed,” she said quietly. “Do
it.”

“
Unscathed by
what?”

She opened her mouth, but immediately closed
it. She threw her hands up in frustration and looked at him
pleadingly. “You have to take my word for it. That’s it.”

The only scenario running through his mind
had to do with Jack Fitzwilliam. He wondered if Marion’s aunts had
said something, or passed on a threatening message from the outlaw.
Why else would she be so flustered?

“
He can’t hurt us,” he told
her.

“
Who can’t hurt
us?”

“
Jack, your
cousin.”

“
This has nothing to do
with him,” she blurted, looking up at him like he’d lost his mind.
“I just don’t want to be married to you right now. What is so
difficult to understand about that?”

“
We are not going through
that again.” Iain heard the voices of Judith and Margaret coming
from the stairwell. He straightened up. “Very well. Don’t tell me
anything. I’ll ask your aunts. I wager they’ll be much more
agreeable in answering my questions than you have been.”

His threat got her attention. She
immediately stood up. “You cannot ask them anything,” she said
frantically.

“
You just watch me,” he
said, turning to the door.

“
Very well. I surrender.”
She tugged on his arm, forcing him to turn around. “I’ll explain,
but not here. Outside.”

“
Outside?” he repeated,
looking at her suspiciously.