Chapter 14
How many ways could a couple make love? Isabella could have sworn that each time was a novelty, a different mood or tempo, and yet at the same time, with each interval of lovemaking, she felt that she knew Amaury a little better than before.
Each coupling was a seductive blend of the unexpected and the familiar, and she was impatient to know how much more there was to learn.
On this night, they had been quick and furtive, passionate but quiet.
Isabella had drawn the drapes around the bed to muffle any sounds they might make and the darkness had been surprisingly exciting.
There had been something thrilling about swallowing the sounds of each other’s pleasure, of fearing discovery from the chamber on one side or the other of the solar.
Twice, a sentry paced his way along the corridor and at the sound of his footfalls, they fell silent, Isabella even holding her breath until the sentry had moved on.
The keep seemed quieter than ever, as if someone sensed that there was revelry afoot and listened keenly.
In the aftermath, they lay entangled, Isabella’s hair free of its braid and Amaury on his back beside her.
He was warm and solid, the beat of his heart beneath her fingertips as reassuring as the calling of the hour from the gatehouse.
Isabella heaved a sigh of contentment and ran her fingers across his chest.
She was no longer alone.
Amaury pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder. “Perhaps I should leave you in peril more often,” he mused in a low rumble, then kissed the hollow of her throat.
Isabella shivered in delight, catching her breath at his caress. “I was not in peril,” she said, keeping her voice very low.
Amaury did not reply, as if he disagreed, then reached to brush his lips across her own.
Isabella luxuriated in his kiss, then asked. “When was I in peril?”
“Every moment since your father passed. Perhaps even before.”
Isabella frowned and sat up. “Me? But why?” She eased open one drape so she could see Amaury’s shadowed features.
His expression was grim. “Your brother was murdered and then your father. You are the sole obstacle remaining in the path of whoever desires Marnis enough to kill for it.”
Isabella blinked. “My father was not murdered.”
“Was he not?”
“He died, as old men are wont to do.” She was keenly aware of the familiarity of the words, and also how she found the explanation somehow unsatisfactory.
“He died violently, after eating of a dish prepared especially for him,” Amaury corrected. “He was poisoned, my lady. I would wager my soul upon it.”
She shivered then, feeling suddenly cold. “You cannot know such a thing, just as you cannot know that your own father was poisoned.”
Amaury, though, had risen from the bed. She thought he might intend to leave, but he bent over his discarded clothing and opened his purse, retrieving some item.
He tossed it in the air, caught it, then returned to the bed.
He stretched out beside her, then presented the item to her, held between his finger and thumb.
It looked like an egg, but one carved of a mottled green stone. She took it, as she was clearly intended to do, and cradled its cool weight in her palm.
“What is it?” she asked when he said naught at all.
“A poison stone.”
Isabella knew her confusion showed.
Amaury turned to strike a tinder and light the lantern. It flickered to life, casting a golden glow over the chamber that was somehow more intimate than the darkness had been. He took the stone from her hand and turned it in the light. “It is said to have the ability to discern poison.”
“Any poison?”
He nodded. “In any substance.”
Isabella bit back a smile. “And then it cracks open and speaks, giving a lecture upon that poison?”
His eyes glimmered. “You are skeptical.”
“I cannot imagine who would not be.” She granted him a look. “How much of the wine did you enjoy this day?”
Amaury grinned. “The stone was a gift to me in the east, said to have been harvested from a winged lion’s gullet.”
“There is an obvious truth,” she murmured.
“I was skeptical as well when it was given to me, but it has proven its merit.”
“How?”
His merriment faded. “I placed it against the lips of my father’s corpse, and it turned black, just as it was forecast to do in the presence of poison.”
Isabella frowned. That was more compelling than his claim of Lothair’s great skills. The Lord de Montvieux poisoned! But by whom? And why?
“I have since learned that someone sent my father a gift of candied elecampane from Beaune, with the declaration that it was from me.”
Isabella raised her gaze to his.
“Within that box was a second kind of confection, one my father would have tried after the elecampane was gone.”
“You think it was poison.”
“I think it might have been wolfbane.”
She knew that herb’s deadly repute and eyed the stone. “This was why you said your father was poisoned, not because of Lothair’s healing skills.”
“I did not wish to reveal all that I knew.”
“But you confide in me now.”
He placed the stone in her hand and closed her fingers over it, leaning close to place his lips against her ear. “Because you have need of it, my lady. Promise me that you will not consume any item without touching the stone to it first.”
“You truly imagine someone will try to poison me.”
“I truly do.” Amaury spoke with such conviction that Isabella believed him.
He rolled from the bed again and went to the tray of food he had brought.
He took the stopper from the flagon of wine and poured a measure of it into a chalice, then returned to the bed.
He offered the cup but shook his head when she would have taken it to sip from it.
“First, the stone. Each and every time.”
Isabella put the stone in the wine. It did not change in appearance. “This tells me naught at all,” she complained and Amaury sipped then of the wine, holding her gaze as he did as much. He swallowed and stood before her, seemingly counting before offering her the chalice.
Aye, poison acted quickly but not immediately.
She fished the stone out of it, then took a sip of wine herself.
“A poison stone.” She frowned. “I confess that I cannot believe it.”
“There is one way to convince you.” Amaury folded her fingers around the stone again. “Keep it. Contrive a moment alone with your father’s corpse, perhaps in prayer, and find out.”
“Are such marvels common in the east?”
“Not as I know. It was given to me by an innkeeper in Outremer. A Saracen, who foretold that I would face treachery upon my return home and would have need of it.”
She supposed there could be no harm in using the stone, though some in the household might wonder at her antics. “If I test every foodstuff with it, they will ask what I do.”
“Then eat only in the privacy of this chamber. But take the stone, my lady, take it and touch it to the lips of your father. Then you will know for certain what I already suspect.”
She regarded him. “Why do you suspect poison? Because it is consistent with your father’s demise?”
“Because of how he died. It was violent and sudden, the way of poison. Did you not note how suddenly he was afflicted? And how his back arched before he fell?”
“You were here,” Isabella said, realizing that detail only in the moment. She thought she had seen Amaury in the company and she had been right. “You were here!”
“Aye, I was.” He smiled at her with pride. “And, my lady, you were magnificent. The way you claimed the ring and demanded obeisance from those in attendance? A marvel to behold…”
She flushed and shook her head, fighting against his effect upon her. “But you were within the walls of Marnis when my father was poisoned,” she repeated and Amaury withdrew slightly, his eyes narrowing.
“Aye. I came in search of you.” His very wariness encouraged her to believe in his innocence, but she had to be certain.
“A vengeance could not be more perfect,” she felt obliged to note.
Amaury moved away from her. “You cannot think I poisoned your father?”
“I think you blame my father for the death of your father.” Isabella saw that he was affronted by her idea, but she wished he would dispel that last of her suspicion.
“I heard you vow to avenge your father’s death.
” She flung out a hand, aware of the disgust in his eyes but fighting against its silent appeal. “What could be a more fitting revenge?”
“A hearing before the king,” Amaury said tightly. “That would be justice. I would never take the law into my own hands…”
“But you are the law at Montvieux,” she argued, interrupting him. “As its lord, you will administer justice there in the king’s name. And in Outremer, you meted justice in the name of the Pope and God above. Do not tell me, sir, that you do not administer justice when it is due!”
Amaury nodded once, paced the width of the chamber, then returned to her. “You are right. I have done as much. But there must be a hearing and a court and a law explicitly written.”
“Do not kill would suffice.”
He glared at her. “I did not do this deed, Isabella. I swear it to you. I am no brigand who enforces the law by his own will and determines the guilt of another by whim. I have no proof that your father was responsible for my father’s demise or even that he orchestrated it, and thus, I have no cause to find him guilty of that crime.
” His gaze blazed into hers. “Yet.” He spun away, seizing his garments and dressing with haste.
Given his resolve and his pledge, Isabella could only believe him. It would always be evidence and courts for Amaury, the king’s justice duly meted. In truth, she was relieved.
But he was not the only son of Montvieux to have been at Marnis this night.
“Was Roland with you in the hall?” She had to ask. “I thought I saw him.”
Amaury turned to her, beginning to defend his brother. “Aye, but he could not have…” He fell silent then and pivoted to pace the chamber, his brow furrowed with concern.