Claire Delacroix (18 page)

And my garb. I had never appeared in the hall in such informal attire, never descended without my hair neatly arranged and my features composed to banality.

Worse, I had not even thought of it when I heard that Gawain awaited here. Adaira had spoken rightly - something had been loosed that would not be readily recaptured. I made an effort to behave with my usual poise.

“Who is this foreigner?” I demanded.

Gawain’s lips quirked with amusement that I should feign ignorance of his identity. I hoped for a moment that he would choke upon his cursed ale.

Our elderly castellan came forward and bowed deeply. “He is but a messenger, my lady, who brought a missive to you…”

“She knows who I am,” Gawain murmured, his voice so low and certain that all fell silent at his words.

Every soul in the hall looked betwixt he and I with undisguised curiosity. I cursed the heat that suffused my face, for it launched a bevy of new whispers.

“I know who he is in truth,” I said firmly, my gaze unswerving from Gawain’s. “I asked only which lie he had told you to gain admission to Inverfyre.”

“My lady!” Fiona huffed. “It is not seemly to call a guest, even a messenger, a liar.”

“It is seemly to call matters as they are,” I said with vigor. The castellan looked to me with surprise. “I received his missive and it tells his identity more clearly than anything else could.” I opened my palm, showing the castellan what I held.

Hamish caught his breath, his fingers easing toward the crucifix before he halted and pulled them back. “But it cannot be…”

“But it is, Hamish. It most certainly is.”

He touched it with a tentative fingertip. “But how can this be? Your mother lost it in the forest.” He fumbled with his words for a moment, his brow furrowed as he tried to make sense of this gem’s presence.

Gawain unfolded himself from his seat and sauntered closer. He propped his hands upon his hips when he halted before me, the scent of him nigh weakening my knees, the twinkle in his eyes telling me that he knew the fullness of my lust. “How pleasant to discover that this trinket is welcome here.”

“It was stolen from here,” I snapped.

“My lady!” Hamish’s eyes were wide with shock and dismay.

“My mother did not lose this gem in the forest,” I informed Hamish. “It was stolen from her, stolen by a man and his son who came to Inverfyre some fifteen years ago. My father asked her to hide the truth to ensure that strangers still found hospitality as guests in his hall.”

Hamish’s expression turned thoughtful. “Avery Lammergeier was here at that time,” he mused. “Indeed, his visit was one unlikely for any to forget. Such tales he told! Such coin he had!”

“Indeed,” I agreed sourly, holding Gawain’s unrepentant gaze. I had a sudden urge to shock them all by kissing the smile from the lips of this cursedly confident man.

He winked at me, as if guessing my thoughts. Curse the man, he made me blush with renewed vigor! Two impulses were at war within me, neither one consistent with the cool demeanor I should show.

Curse him and curse him again!

Hamish appeared oblivious to the crackle of heat between the guest and I. “I remember thinking how odd it was that Avery and his son departed so early and that they wished for no aid with their steeds. But they were foreigners and one cannot know what to expect from foreigners.” He turned his gaze upon Gawain, studying him now as he had not before. “Avery’s son was fair, and surely must have grown to manhood by now.”

“I assure you that he has.” Gawain smiled, knowing every gaze was upon him and surely reveling in it. He claimed my hand, then bent low over my fingers. “Gawain Lammergeier, at the service of my most beauteous lady Evangeline. I look forward to sampling the hospitality of Inverfyre yet again.”

Gawain kissed me with the leisure of a man with no need for haste, boldly letting his lips linger on my knuckles. The assembly gasped that he would be so audacious. I felt Fiona bristle behind me, but took longer than I should have to pull my hand away from his teasing lips.

Clearly, Gawain intended to make trouble for me and just as clearly, he enjoyed that he succeeded.

“This man is a thief!” I said, then Gawain began to chuckle. “What makes you smile before such a serious accusation?”

Gawain leaned closer, dropping his voice to a merry whisper. “What have I stolen, my lady fair?” he asked, his eyes dancing with merriment. “Even if the locale of this crucifix has been in doubt, it cannot be argued that I am the one who returns it to your own hand.”

I opened my mouth and shut it again when I realized the truth. I could not reveal that Gawain had stolen the
Titulus
, not without revealing that my father had shown his people a forgery for years afterward. I could not even claim that he had tried to steal the
Titulus
the last time he was here, as I had anticipated him and the relic was precisely where it belonged.

Gawain and I knew his crimes, but I had not a scrap of evidence to prove my accusation. Worse, any claim on my part would prompt questions as to how I knew so much of this handsome stranger and his deeds.

He had me cornered and the ruffian knew it.

So he smiled, his gaze knowing, challenging me to condemn him.

“Fifteen years of holding a stolen gem is no prompt return,” I said, disliking the sense that he commanded this situation not I.

Gawain shrugged with an ease I envied. “Perhaps I found it in the forest on my way here. Did your mother not say that she had lost it there?” He stepped closer, eyes gleaming. “Perhaps I should be greeted with that reward, instead of rude accusations. A kiss from you, my lady, would suffice to ease the affront of your words.”

His gaze dropping boldly to my lips.

The assembly whispered, but Fiona had no need to intervene. I slapped that smile from Gawain’s face with one crisp strike, the crack of my blow loud enough to echo in the shocked silence that followed.

* * *

IX

“He lies,” I said in a low voice. When Gawain smiled coolly, I could have cheerfully shredded the meat from his bones. “This man is not only a thief, but insolent as well.”

“Indeed, I have never seen you so agitated, my lady, so your accusation must have some grounds.” Hamish spoke soothingly, then inclined his head slightly. “Of course, you would find this matter troubling, as women are wont to do.”

“My accusations have every ground,” I informed him, my tone so fierce that Hamish flinched. “By all that is holy, Hamish, I swear to you that this man stole this jewel fifteen years past and must be punished for it!”

“The laird will decide his fate,” Hamish said, again speaking to me as if I were a difficult child. “Perhaps you should retire to your chamber, my lady, and see to your attire.”

I was being dismissed by the castellan! I should not have been so shocked. For five years, Fergus had undermined the authority that my father had allowed my mother and I to exercise, and I, trapped in the shell of passivity I had been taught to don, had never protested.

My days of docility were now behind me, though only Fergus himself could command that my word have weight. It was ironic, for he was only laird because he had wed the heiress, while I, who carried the blood of Inverfyre in my veins, was powerless in my hereditary hall. By wedding, I had ceded all authority to my spouse. I fumed at my own impotence. I was not so angry that I did not realize that any word I uttered would only make matters worse.

My father would have been appalled by this change.

Perhaps he would take to haunting Fergus instead of me.

A flick of Hamish’s finger and two guards stepped out of the shadows to seize Gawain’s elbows. To my astonishment, he did not struggle. His gaze was fixed upon me, his expression somber. I felt that he alone realized what a blow I had taken this day.

I averted my gaze. I did not want the sympathy of a renegade.

When the guards tugged at Gawain, he seemed insulted. He pulled one arm from a guard’s grip and had time only to fastidiously brush his sleeve before the guard seized his arm again, this time with greater force.

“And what of Inverfyre’s famed hospitality?” Gawain asked.

Hamish waved the two men out of the hall. “We would be remiss to not let your savor the delights of the Hole, at least until the laird’s return.”

“The Hole,” Gawain repeated. “Why does such a chamber not sound alluring?” When no one replied, he accompanied his captors with apparent willingness, only breaking one arm free to blow me a jaunty kiss as they left the hall. “Until later, my lady fair,” he called gallantly and I flushed as I turned my back upon him.

I was shaken that Hamish would cast Gawain into the vile dungeon that had been my grandfather’s pride, even though I wanted him to pay for his crime. I ran a hand across my brow, shocked that my feelings could be so mingled as this.

What if Fergus demanded that the father of the child in my womb be executed? The very prospect made me fear that Adaira’s rabbit stew would soon be scattered at my feet. I felt hot, then chilled, then unsteady upon my feet.

“He is bold beyond belief,” I said firmly, but was dismayed to note assessment in more than one pair of eyes.

I turned, intending to retreat to my chamber to change my garb - and smooth my roiled emotions - but there was no opportunity to do so. I was not halfway across the hall before a shout carried from the courtyard.

“The laird is wounded! Clear the way!”

My heart stopped cold.

Fergus? Fergus could not be wounded!

* * *

Indeed, Fergus was not wounded.

He was dead.

I raced to meet the party bearing his body and fell to my knees beside him when they lowered the litter to the ground. The men stood around me in awkward silence, for they knew it was too late to aid their laird.

Fergus was so still and grey that there was no doubt.

I whispered my husband’s name in shock. Three arrows were driven deep into his neck, and the blood had run profusely from the wounds, staining his tabard and flesh. The flow had slowed now and the blood was drying. His skin had taken an odd pallor but still I searched for his pulse. The hue of his flesh, the lack of blood within him and his stillness made him look ancient and frail, as he had not looked in life.

Or had he?

I sat back on my heels, for there was nothing to be done. The rest of the household had come on fleet feet and edged closer for a glimpse of their fallen laird. Already the whispers had begun.

“Did anyone see this transpire?” I asked, alarmed by the flutter of my heart. Although I had never wished Fergus dead, although I would never have wished for this death for him, I could not deny the relief that flowed through me.

He would never heave himself atop me again. I would never avert my face from the smell of ale and meat upon his breath, never have to listen to the rasp of his quest for release, never dread that he would strike me the next time with more force than ever he had.

And I was ashamed to find myself glad of that.

My childhood friend Niall, tall and stalwart, answered me. “He spurred his steed in pursuit, and left us in his dust. I am sorry, Evangeline. We heard him shout, but thought he cried at the capture of the boar, or the retrieval of his falcon.”

“Then there was only silence,” grim Malachy said with a shake of his head. “If he had only shouted again, we might have found him in time.”

“Were you all together?”

Niall shook his head again. “We parted ways, for we were near the lowlands and feared he would ride directly into the marsh.”

Fergus had done as much once before, so ardently did he follow his falcon’s course. He gave not a glance to the land below his own feet and his steed, in a most uncommon fashion, was scarcely better. The beast was loyal to the point of stupidity - it would run wherever it was bidden to run, despite nigh fatal mis-steps in the past.

I looked down at Fergus, and my heart clenched that his life should end so ignobly as this. To be mistaken for a boar or a buck charging through the woods was no dignified way for a man to pass from this world. Fergus’ pale blue eyes were open, bulging slightly now, as if he too was incredulous of his own fate.

A bird cried in the distance and I was certain that it was his falcon, mourning the loss of its master. Though he had not been as fond of this peregrine as of Aphrodite, still the bird was much indulged.

“He must have seen the bowsman,” Niall said gently, his hand falling upon my shoulder in a familiar fashion that made Fiona inhale sharply.

I was startled by this assertion. My shock must have shown when I looked up, for Niall shook his head.

He spoke softly but with resolve. “The arrows could not have gone so deep, not unless fired from close range. Half a dozen paces, at most. He must have seen the bowman.”

I stared in horror at the arrows lodged in the front of Fergus’ throat, then stumbled to my feet. No man could err in identifying the soul before him at such close range, and certainly could not do so thrice.