Arsenic and Old Armor (32 page)

“
Marion is your niece,” he
said through clenched teeth. “The earl’s daughter.”

“
Ah, yes. Indeed. She is on
the parapet, keeping watch.”

“
I just came from there,”
Jack said thinly. “She is
not
on the parapet.”

“
But she is,” William
insisted. “The wee sprite has an excellent hiding place, I
believe.”

“
Hiding place?” Jack asked
suspiciously.

“
You sound like Judith, the
old witch.” He slapped Jack on the arm. “Come with me, and I’ll
show you her hiding place.”

Shaking his head, Jack followed his demented
father back up the stairs to the roof of the tower house. He was
beginning to think that his aunts had spoken the truth. Marion was
not here, after all.

Hiding in the narrow hallway just outside
the door to the kitchens, Judith heard every word that passed
between her brother and his brute of a son.

“
Old witch, am I?” she
murmured indignantly.

Jack was clearly not giving up in his search
for Marion. That was not a good thing. She looked over her shoulder
at her sister to ask what to do. Margaret was busily measuring and
mixing.

Judith didn’t want to distract her. She
would just take charge of this herself.

She tiptoed to the bottom of the stairwell
and listened. The two men were almost at the top. She heard the
door that led out onto the tower roof squeak open. Making up her
mind, she hurried up the stairs.

She'd never had anything against Jack
Fitzwilliam before. She and Margaret both thought his visits did a
great deal of good for their brother. The two sisters had even done
their fair share of defending their nephew with Iain. Jack was
their family, and good or bad, they needed to care for and stand up
for one another.

Today all that had changed, though. Jack’s
violent talk in referring to Marion had scared the two sisters.
They always knew Jack was jealous of everything that Marion had as
a wee one and of all the other things that were left to her after
the earl’s death. Before tonight, though, the two women never knew
Jack planned to harm her.

Their late brother, the Earl of Fleet, no
doubt had his reasons for arranging things as he did. Margaret and
Judith knew better than to question those decisions. The same thing
could be said about Sir William. He was perfectly happy to be the
Wallace. It had never crossed their minds that Jack Fitzwilliam
would not wish to honor the memory of his uncle and just let things
happen as he’d arranged them.

“
I guess we were wrong,”
Judith whispered as she reached the door to the tower
roof.

The night wasn’t too cold and the fresh
autumn air wafted in around her. There was nothing like fresh air
to clear unpleasant thoughts, Judith decided. She took a deep
breath and then hesitated, suddenly trying to remember why she’d
come all the way up here.

Then she heard the two men’s voices drifting
in from the parapet, and she remembered. She struggled with the
door, but the rusty hinges didn’t want to cooperate. She moved
behind the door and, putting her shoulder to it, pushed hard until
the door creaked and groaned and then closed with a loud bang.
Judith quickly dropped the bar in place and hurried down the stairs
to the kitchens.

“
Where were you?” Margaret
asked, looking up from her bowls.

“
Oh, here and there,”
Judith said, smiling. “Tell me what to do. You know I like to
help.”

Margaret had a list of safe chores that her
sister could do, and Judith went happily to work.

Everything else had been blotted from
Marion’s mind; only a warm, soft-edged feeling of bliss
remained.

Wrapped in Iain’s arms, their bodies still
joined, she felt her limbs throbbing from the moment they had just
shared. She didn’t want to think of anything but him right now. She
didn’t want to be anywhere but in his arms.

He kissed her softly and ever so gently
withdrew from her, pulling her clothing back in place.

“
I’m sorry, Marion. I lost
control. I had to have you,” he told her, his large hands cupping
her face. He gazed into her eyes. “I’m afraid there could have been
a dozen people sitting around this great hall and I still would
have wanted you.”

“
I am glad.” She smiled,
leaning against the side of the window seat. For some reason, her
legs were not strong enough to carry her weight at the moment. “I
needed you, too.”

He touched the tip of her nose, ran his
thumb across her bottom lip. “This is going to be the story of our
lives. When it comes to you, I have absolutely no self control. I
love you, Marion.”

“
And I love you, Iain,” she
said, speaking her heart, not thinking what the consequences of
voicing the truth might be.

He kissed her softly, his mouth making love
to her the way his body had done a few short moments before. She
was helpless when it came to her husband. He knew how to bring to
life all her senses, how to make her burn, how to make her want him
again. She clutched at his shirt, kissing him back with the same
ardor.

“
You keep this up,” he told
her, “and I’ll be tearing your clothes off and making love to you
on that table next."

Marion wrapped her arms around him, pulling
his body against her. “I love these threats of yours.”

“
I don’t call that a
threat, my love. Consider it planning for your future. I intend to
make love to you at all hours of the day and night, at every
opportunity.” He placed kisses on her neck and laid his hand flat
on her belly. “Until you are round here with our bairn.”

“
Our bairn,” Marion
whispered. Iain’s mouth, hands, and words were distracting her from
something that she had to remember. They were back at Fleet Tower.
Something important, she thought.

“
Our child,” he continued,
“will have your bonny face and eyes, but he’ll have my patience and
temperament.”

“
I think we just saw
something of your patience,” she said with a smile.

“
Our child will be a
mixture of the best of our families, the perfect mingling of
Armstrong and McCall blood.”

“
Our child will have McCall
blood,” Marion blurted out, realizing in horror what was being
said. The warm cloud that surrounded her dissipated in an instant
and she pressed her palm against Iain’s chest. She stared into his
face. “Do you realize that any child of ours will have the same
blood running in his veins as Sir William and my aunts?”

He smiled. “This child will have your
charms. That’s all that I care about.”

She shook her head. “You don’t understand.
We cannot have a child, Iain. Not ever. In fact, we shouldn’t be
married.”

She tried to move around him with no
success.

“
Marion,” he said sharply,
putting a hand next to her head and trapping her. “I thought we
were done with all that nonsense.”

“
It was no nonsense. Sir
George Harington is waiting in the dungeon,” Marion blurted
hysterically. The bubble having burst, everything rushed back. “You
told me you would go down there with me.”

“
I will, if that’s the only
way we can put an end to this madness.”

He stepped back, and Marion nodded,
satisfied.

“
You don’t have anything to
fear in being married to me,” Iain said.

“
It’s not I that should be
worrying,” she told him, adding, “You’ll be sorry that you didn’t
trust me.”

Feeling damp from their lovemaking, Marion
remembered where she had seen folded pieces of cloth. Pulling open
the window seat they’d just made love on, she reached inside to get
one.

“
This is not something I’ve
invented. I know I may have, in the past, made up a
few--”

She paused. Her hand brushed against
something. It was cold and felt like skin. Marion leaped back. The
top of the window seat fell in place with a bang.

“
A few things? You have a
lifelong reputation of telling stories and playing tricks and--”
Iain looked at her and stopped.

Marion’s hands flailed in the air. She
couldn’t find her voice. Finally, wiping one hand frantically on
her dress, she pointed with the other at the window seat.

“
Here we go again. What are
you saying now?”

She pointed again. “The…the…”

“
Are you hurt?” he asked
with concern, coming to her.

She pushed him toward the window. “In there.
Look in there.”

Iain grabbed her wrist, forced her to stand
still so he could inspect the hand she kept wiping on her skirt.
With her free hand, Marion kept pointing.

“
There’s someone in there.”
She pushed him in the direction of the window.

He didn’t seem totally convinced, but he
turned to the window seat and pushed aside the pillows. It was too
dark in this corner. As he pulled open the shutters above it,
Marion ran to the table, grabbed a candle, and lit it from the
embers of the fire. By the time she got back, Iain had the lid of
the window seat up. He was staring inside.

Marion peeked around him and gasped. There
was blood on the man’s tunic and on a blanket that he’d been
wrapped in. His throat had been cut, nearly severing the head from
the body. She wiped her hand ferociously on her skirt.

“
Oh, my God,” she cried.
“Who is he?”

Iain took the candle out of her shaking
hands and placed it on the windowsill. “This isn’t the body you saw
before?”

“
No.” Marion shook her
head. “The other man wasn’t wrapped in a blanket, and his throat
hadn’t been cut.”

She forced herself to look into the man’s
face. She shook her head adamantly.

“
That’s definitely not Sir
George Harington. I never saw this man before.”

Iain was not joking now. His face was
grim.

“
What have they done, Iain?
Who is he?”

Marion found herself shaking uncontrollably.
She remained at Iain’s side as he lowered the candle into the
window seat. Pulling the blanket from around the body, he inspected
the man’s bloody clothes.

“
An English nobleman, from
the look of his clothes.” He lifted the man’s hand and looked at
the signet ring.

“
Bloody hell,” he muttered
under his breath.

“
You know him?”

“
Let’s say that the abyss
has just opened up beneath us.”

“
Who is he?” she asked
shakily.

“
The Marquis of Dorset. The
English king’s military leader in the north,” he said grimly. “I’ve
corresponded with him enough times over the course of this past
year to recognize his bloody seal. But it doesn’t make
sense!”

Marion had to take a step to the side and
lean against the wall. The loud pounding in her head was deafening.
“What is he doing here? How could my aunts have done this?”

“
This is not the work of
two old ladies,” Iain told her. “Maybe Sir William. But I doubt
that, too. There is no way that he could have gone to York or
anywhere else. And this man could only have been killed in the last
day or two.”

“
So you see, I was not
telling you any tales before,” Marion said. “There
is
something ghastly
happening here.”

He shook his head. “I still find it hard to
believe what I see.”

“
It doesn’t matter. Please,
Iain, go while you still have time. We cannot let them hold you
responsible for this and for all the others.”

“
I am
not
going anywhere,” he replied
firmly. He straightened from the window seat and looked toward the
other window. “And you’re certain you saw a body in there,
too?”

She nodded. “Sir George was in that one, but
there was nothing in this one. I looked in this window seat when I
was searching for a tablecloth and linens. There was no dead body
here.”

“
That means, then, that
someone placed him in it during the short time that we were
outside.”

“
It must have been Sir
William,” Marion asserted. “He was standing here when we came in.
He must have carried the body up from the dungeon.”

“
But what would Dorset be
doing at Fleet Tower?” Iain asked, carrying the candle to the other
window seat and inspecting the inside of that one again. “Brother
Luke said that Dorset would be coming to the wedding, but that he
wasn’t expected to arrive in the Borders until a day or two before
the event.”

“
He must have come early,”
she suggested.

“
Without an armed
entourage?” He shook his head.

Marion pushed away from the wall. “I’ll go
and get Aunt Margaret and Aunt Judith. There must be something that
they have not told me. They have a great deal more explaining to
do.”

“
No need to go and get
them,” Iain said.

He was right. Marion heard the back and
forth chatter of the two women as they approached the arched
doorway into the great hall. Iain walked over and began to close
the window seat containing Dorset. Marion stopped him.

“
Don’t,” she said. “Let
them see it or we will never know the answer.”

“
This is too gruesome a
sight for two gentle old ladies.”