Chapter 13 #2
He nodded. His arms still stung. His hand burned. But the pain seemed negligible when compared to the throbbing in his braies.
“I need to change your poultice,” she said.
He nodded. That was what he needed. Pain to distract him from lust.
Her fingers were surprisingly gentle as she unwrapped the linen bandage. She winced more than he did when exposing the greasy, blistered palm of his hand. But it appeared to be no worse than before.
“Perhaps ’twill hurt less if ye do this yourself,” she said, offering him a clean rag to wipe away the old balm. “Take care not to burst the blisters.”
After he was done, she dabbed a honey-butter mixture over his clean skin with a feather-light touch. Then she tenderly swaddled his hand in fresh linen.
Someone came to the door to deliver a bottle of wine. He watched as Carenza poured out a cup and carefully added three drops of the tincture.
Then he frowned.
What if Peris’s measurements hadn’t been an error? What if he meant to do Hew harm? Hew had made the man nervous with the questions about his monastery visits. At the time, he’d assumed it was because the physician was unused to being interrogated by a warrior. But perhaps it was something more.
“Do you think Peris is hiding something?”
“Hidin’ somethin’?” she said, swirling the cup of wine. “Hidin’ what?”
He shook his head. “He’s been acting uneasy ever since I questioned him that first day.”
She considered this for a moment and then asked, “Why did ye question him?”
He couldn’t tell her the truth. At least not all of it. “I…wanted to know what he does at the monastery. How often he goes. What kind of access he has.”
“Why?”
“Why?” he echoed.
He couldn’t divulge details about his investigation. So he had to invent something. Fast. Not an easy feat when one was indulging in regular doses of opium wine.
“Because if Kildunan wishes to hire their own physician, they’ll need to know such things.”
“Perhaps Peris is afraid ye mean to replace him.”
“Perhaps. But is that cause to poison me?”
“I do think it may have been an accident.”
He sighed. He wasn’t so sure. “I don’t trust him.”
She popped the stopper back into the bottle of wine and turned away to set it on the table. “Is that why ye were skulkin’ about the hills o’ Dunlop in the middle o’ the night?”
That he didn’t expect.
And he didn’t have an answer for her.
So he did what any clever adversary would do.
He created a distraction.
“Ahh!” he cried out suddenly, doubling up with a grimace of pain. He lifted his injured hand and gasped as if someone had just lopped it off.
It worked. With a look of horror, Carenza rushed toward him with the cup of wine.
“Here,” she said. “Drink this. Ye should feel better soon.”
He drank it down all at once while she paced, fretfully wringing her hands, distressed by his distress.
But the silence he’d purchased with his suffering couldn’t last forever.
Eventually the opium began to work. Soon he couldn’t recall why he was so concerned. In fact, he felt very calm. Pleasant. Delighted.
“Is the pain gone now?” she asked.
He smiled. Her voice sounded like bells.
“Aye.”
“’Tis my fault,” she said. “I should have given ye the wine sooner.”
“Nay, y’re not t’ blame.” The relief in her face made him happy, so he added, “Y’re…perfec’.”
She blushed at that. But he could tell the compliment pleased her. And suddenly he wanted to please her more.
“Y’r gown matches y’r eyes. Did y’ know that?” He could tell his words weren’t as smooth and polished as usual. But he wasn’t sure it mattered.
“So I’ve been told.”
“And y’r hair,” he murmured, gesturing with his uninjured hand. “How’d y’ get it in such wee braids…an’ coils…an’ loops?”
“’Tis my maid’s handiwork.”
“Ah.” He took a deep breath. “I like the way y’ smell. Like…roses?”
Her eyes twinkled. “Lavender from my bath.”
He nodded. “Y’r eyes look like stars.” Then he hesitated. “Did I already mention y’r eyes?”
“Ye did. But now I have a question o’ my own.” As it turned out, the wily lass hadn’t been distracted at all. “Why were ye skulkin’ about Dunlop that night?”
“I wasn’t skulking.” It came out like the voice of a petulant child.
“What were ye doin’?”
“I was… I was…” He scowled, trying to remember. What had he been doing? Oh aye, he’d been following someone from the monastery. But he wasn’t supposed to tell her that, was he?
Why? Why wasn’t he supposed to tell her?
He let out a long sigh. It seemed pointless to keep secrets from Carenza. After all, they already shared secrets. They were already accomplices in crime, weren’t they?
“I’ll tell y’,” he decided. “But y’ mustn’t tell anyone. C’n I trust y’?”
“Aye.”
“D’ y’ swear it on y’r honor as a knight? Y’ won’t tell a soul?”
“I’m not a knight.”
He rattled his head. “Argh.” Of course she wasn’t. “D’ y’ swear on y’r honor as a lady?”
“Aye.”
Checking the corners of the chamber just to be sure there were no witnesses lurking about, he beckoned her near.
She came close, and for a moment he was distracted by the sublime perfume of her skin.
Then he whispered, “At the request o’ the abbot o’ Kildunan, I’m investigatin’ a series o’ thefts from the monastery.”
Up until now, Carenza had mostly been amusing herself with Hew’s intoxication. The opium wine had worked quickly to ease his pain. But it had also made him a bit daft. He was indulging in wild conspiracies. Garbling his words. Spewing awkward compliments.
This, however, was intriguing. Furthermore, it sounded true. It made little sense for an esteemed warrior of Rivenloch to be sent to a sleepy monastery just to sample the life of a monk.
“What kind o’ thefts?” she asked.
“Big ones. Mon’st’ry treasure. A silv’r cross. A gold chal’ce. A jewel’d Bible.”
Then she straightened, realizing what he was saying. “Ye think someone from Dunlop took them?”
“Nay,” he said. Then he screwed up his forehead. “At leas’ I don’t think so.”
“Then why were ye here in the middle o’ the night?”
He yawned. The opium was making him drowsy. “I w’s followin’ someone.”
“Who?”
“I’m not sure. He left the mon’st’ry, so I followed him.”
“Ye thought it might be the thief?”
“Mm-hm.”
“And he came to Dunlop?”
He nodded. “But turned out ’twas a monk.”
“A monk? What was he doing, comin’ to Dunlop in the middle o’ the night?”
“That’s wh’t I wanted to know. Which ’s why I was followin’ him.”
“And?”
“When I saw ’twas a monk,” he mumbled, letting his eyes drift closed, “I figured someone needed…last rites or somethin’.”
That couldn’t be. No one had died at Dunlop in months.
“What happened then?” she asked.
His words were slurring badly now. “Y’ came out o’ the keep then. Took off ’cross the hills. So I thought…”
She could guess. “Ye thought the scruffy beggar was a more likely suspect.”
He nodded, sinking deeper into the pallet as his breathing slowed.
She watched him as he slipped away to the land of dreams, considering everything he had told her. Then an awful thought occurred to her.
“Ye don’t still suspect I’m the thief, do ye?”
But he was already asleep.