Chapter 23
The lantern flame wavered as Rhona dropped it onto the floor. It hissed and went out, but she failed to notice, for she was already flinging open her trunk.
“So you saw,” said MacGowan.
She didn’t answer, but dug furiously to the bottom of the chest, tossing garments aside as she did so. She found them in a moment—her leather hose and dark tunic.
“Lass.” His voice was less certain now. “What is your plan?”
She was already tearing off her night rail.
“Rhona!” he said and grabbed her arm. “What are you doing?”
“I’ll tell you this much!” she hissed. “I am not being diplomatic.”
“Don’t be foolish.”
“Foolish!” she snarled and snatched her arm from his grasp. “’Twas foolishness to wait so long.”
“What are your plans?”
She didn’t answer. Her hose were already in place. In a second she had slipped her tunic over her head and belted on her sword. She was once again Hunter the warrior. Hunter the man.
“Rhona,” he said, and caught her arm again. “I’ll not let you do this.”
“Won’t let me?” Her dirk was in her hand. It felt lovely and right and proper. “I go to find answers, MacGowan. Stop me now if you can, but know this, if they see you here you will ruin everything and the girl will suffer all the more.”
He stared at her for the briefest moment, then backed away. She thrust her knife into her belt, crammed her helmet onto her head, and flew down the hall. In a moment she was at the marquis’s door.
It sprang open beneath her hand. She charged inside, sword drawn, but the room was empty.
She turned a circle, searching. He wasn’t there. Rage boiled anew as she leapt into the hall. Throwing open Lady Irvette’s door, she rushed inside.
“Who struck the child?” she hissed.
A low fire crackled in the hearth. A candelabra gleamed on the crossed swords above the bed. The baroness sat up. “Who’s there?” she asked, but her voice was neither mousy nor restrained, and her breasts gleamed bare in the firelight.
“I’ll have answers,” Rhona growled.
“Get out of this house!” ordered Irvette.
“Who is it?” rasped the marquis.
And in that instant, Rhona realized they were both there, together in bed. She stepped back a startled pace, but found her balance in an instant.
“I am vengeance,” she growled, and sweeping her sword sideways, sliced the candles in two. They fell hissing to the floor, burning for an instant against the carpet. “Come for retribution for your sins.”
“She seduced me,” whispered the marquis. “When we were yet children. I—”
“Shut up, Robert!” ordered Irvette. She was crouched on the mattress now, wholly naked and making no attempt to cover her nudity. “You’re naught but a sniveling cur. Surrounded by tools of war, yet too weak to produce a single heir.”
“’Tis because we sin against nature,” he hissed. “The devil has come.”
Irvette laughed aloud. “There is no devil, you whimpering—”
“Who struck the child?” Rhona snarled.
“No one. She abuses herself,” whined the marquis, but Rhona swept her sword forward, slicing through the coverlet between them. Feathers littered the air like wind-tossed snowflakes. “’Twas my sister! She did it!”
“Damn your cowardice!” Irvette swore and leaping to her feet, tore a sword from the wall above the bed. Silver flashed in the moonlight. Pain ripped across Rhona’s arm. She jumped back, blade in hand.
“Who are you?” snarled the baroness, and lunged again. Rhona leapt away, but Irvette came on, blade held high. She slashed out, but at the same moment, Rhona slammed her arm across the other’s hand. The sword clattered to the floor, and Rhona pressed her blade to the woman’s ribs.
“Did you strike the girl?”
“She is nothing! The bitch’s foul seed and better off dead. ’Twill be myself that gives him an heir.”
“Hear me!” Rhona warned. “And hear me good, for I’ll not say it twice. If ever again you lay a hand to the wee ones, it was cost you dear.”
Irvette strangled a laugh and drew herself straighter. “I am Lady Norval, Baroness of Hanstone, and there is no devil, just as there is no God.”
“Aye, there is a devil and you are his handmaiden, but you’ve tortured the girl for the last time.”
“Now!” Irvette shrieked, and in that instant Rhona sensed a movement behind her.
She spun about, but Lord Robert was already striking.
His sword gleamed in the firelight, and then, like a falling demon, he crumbled to the floor.
MacGowan loomed dark and hooded behind him.
Rhona spun back toward Irvette, grabbing her by the throat and shoving her up against the wall.
“Leave on the morrow and I will spare you.”
The baroness clawed desperately at the warrior’s hands, but through the gauntlets, Rhona felt not the slightest twinge. Indeed, she smiled as she squeezed harder.
“But if you stay, I swear by all that is holy, you will die bloody, and naught but hell awaits you.”
Irvette’s eyes widened as she gasped for breath. Against the wall her face shown a pale blue. Perhaps it was naught but a trick of the moon.
“What say you? Do you go or do you die?”
“I go!” The words were rasped and painful.
“And you’ll not touch the lassies again. Not so long as your soul walks this earth.”
“Damn you—” she swore, but it was so simple now to tighten the pressure. She rasped for breath and struggled weakly. “Nay! Never.”
It almost hurt to loosen her grip. In fact, Rhona held it a while longer. The baroness’s legs jerked, then went still.
Rhona backed away, letting the body fall limply to the floor.
“Irvette,” the marquis groaned from the floor.
Rhona spun about. “’Tis your fault as well!” she hissed.
“Nay!”
“Aye,” she said and, drawing her dirk, sent it quivering across his ear and into the floor beneath. “Next time ’twill be through your worthless skull!” she warned.
A flash of white shifted her attention. Catherine stood in the doorway, her face was pale and her one good eye was wide with terror.
The marquis twitched but did not rise. From a distant hallway, shouts were heard.
“Go,” Lachlan ordered, but Rhona was caught in the girl’s stare. Footfalls rushed nearer.
“Go!” Lachlan gritted again and grabbing her by the arm, pushed her toward the door. With one more glance at the girl, Rhona dashed down the hallway away from the footsteps. MacGowan followed, her cape billowing like a dark cloud around his giant shoulders.
A shout sounded from ahead. She turned wildly, searching for an escape route, but Lachlan grabbed her by the arm and dragged her into her own chamber.
“Take off your clothes,” he ordered.
Blood pumped like alcohol through Rhona’s veins. Wrapping her hand about the back of his neck, she kissed him with hot passion.
He dragged her closer still, crushing her lips with his before drawing abruptly back. “I’d gladly be your bloody spoils of war,” he growled, “but either you hide your warrior garb or your damned mission will fail.”
She came back to reality with a jolt and realized the marquis was yelling. Footsteps were running in all directions. Doors slammed open and closed.
She froze, listening intently, but his hands were already busy, snatching off her helmet, tearing off her tunic. She unlaced her hose and shoved them downwards.
Lachlan grabbed her discarded night rail and whipped it over her head, pinning her arms to her sides before pivoting away. Her cape billowed about him.
“What—”
“Shut up!” he ordered and bundling up her garments, tossed them out the window.
Voices clambered in the hall. Lachlan leapt for the window, jumped to the sill and nodded.
The plan burst in Rhona’s head and she screamed as she pushed her arms into her sleeves. Her door slammed open, and in that moment MacGowan soared from sight.
Servants armed with candles and cutlery were pushed, quaking, into the room.
“Where is he?” someone sputtered.
“There! There!” she said and pointed shakily toward the window.
One intrepid servant hurried forward. The rest hung back, barely guarding the marquis.
“There he goes!” rasped the brave one, and then others streamed forward with the marquis behind.
“Seize him!” he shrieked.
The servants milled and gasped and finally bustled from the room. The place fell silent.
“What happened here?” rasped Lord Robert.
“I was asleep, then I was awakened,” Rhona babbled and glanced shakily toward the window and away. “Big as a mountain he was, with black teeth and—”
Irvette stumbled into the doorway. Her face was gray and a lovely red bruise stretched like a rope burn across her neck.
“My dear Lord!” Rhona rasped and made the sign of the cross against her breast. “What happened?”
“’Twas Satan!” The words were little more than a croak from the lady’s alabaster throat.
“The devil!” Rhona stumbled back, clutching her neck. “Whatever did he want with you?” she shrieked, but the baroness was already stumbling away and the marquis went with her, shouting for every door to be barred and every window secured.
Rhona stood in silence, breathing hard and willing away the tension. All in all it had gone quite well.
She flexed her wounded arm, turned toward her bed and stopped in her tracks.
Catherine stood in the doorway.
The silence was broken only by the marquis’s distant shouts.
The child’s gaze never faltered, then, “Do you want it back?” she murmured.
Rhona scrunched her gown to her bosom as if terrified beyond all reason. “What are you talking about, child?”
“The knife,” she said and bringing her hand from behind her, hefted the blade she’d found stabbed into the floor. The blade that had skimmed past her father’s ear just moments before. “’Tis yours.”
Silence descended, accented by distant shouts and the sounds of a hurried exodus.
“No,” Rhona said, and held the child’s gaze as she did so. “’Tis my gift to you.”
Dawn had not yet arrived when Lady Irvette’s carriage rattled away from Claronfell. There were few explanations, perhaps because it was impossible for her to speak.
As for the marquis, he did not appear for the morning meal, but remained closeted away.