Chapter 15
All the day and half the night were gone when Carenza awoke. She’d never slept so long. She’d missed supper. Skipped feeding her animals. Neglected to tell her father goodnight.
As far as she could tell, the opium had had no other lasting effect. But it had certainly made her feel strange. Deliciously relaxed and deliriously happy. As if she hadn’t a care in the world. As if she were perfect just the way she was.
And Hew… Her heart softened. The loyal warrior had stayed with her. Watched over her.
Like her noble champion. Her perfect hero. Making sure she didn’t make a fool of…
Then she remembered.
A silent scream slowly built inside her throat as the words she’d blurted out in her opium-induced state crashed down on her with vivid clarity.
She had made a fool of herself. In front of Hew.
She’d utterly lost control. She’d dished out ridiculous flattery. Uttered unmentionable things to him. Revealed her heart’s secret longings. Let ribald remarks glide across her tongue. Lord, she’d behaved like a doxy.
She’d never be able to look him in the eye again. Not after that. What kind of wanton must he think her?
She pushed up off the pallet and stared into the darkness. She could hear his rough breathing from the bed.
Dawn was several hours away yet. But she didn’t want to be here when he woke.
She quietly left the chamber and made her way down the stairs.
She was hungry. There would be bread and cheese in the pantry.
Dozing clan folk nested in the rushes on the floor of the great hall.
She picked her way through them by the dim light of the banked fire.
Then she climbed down the steps in the corner of the hall to the lower level, darker and chillier than the floor above.
A narrow passageway cut into the stone opened onto four storage rooms.
One was the buttery where casks of ale, bottles of wine, perry, cider, and mead were kept.
The second held tallow and beeswax candles, bottles of scented oils, and spices—pepper, saffron, ginger, cinnamon, clove, cubeb, nutmeg.
The third contained her mother’s things. Things her father couldn’t bear to part with. He’d locked the room long ago and probably never revisited it. Carenza imagined it was full of rotted leines and moth-eaten arisaids.
She entered the fourth room, the pantry. On the shelves were a few day-old loaves of bread, several crocks of butter, and dozens of blocks of cheeses in neat rows. In one corner hung several hams.
She helped herself to a large chunk of bread, using her eating dagger to slather it with butter.
While she was choosing which cheese she wanted, she heard voices. The furious whispering of two men. Coming from just beyond the pantry doorway.
She hung back, pressing herself against the wall to listen.
“What the devil were ye thinkin’?”
“He’s trouble.”
“I know he’s trouble. But it can be managed.”
“That’s what I was doin’. Tryin’ to manage it.”
“By killin’ him?”
Carenza listened closer. They were talking about murder. This was something her father needed to hear.
“’Twould look like an accident.”
“Not to the laird. And not to his daughter.”
Carenza bit her lip. They were talking about her.
“I could explain it. Say ’twas an infection. Or ’twas worse than it looked at first. They’d trust me.”
A chill shivered down Carenza’s spine. That voice. It was Peris the physician.
“Ye know the laird has plans to make the man his heir, aye?”
“He can find another,” Peris said.
“Not like this one. Have ye ne’er heard o’ the Rivenloch clan? They’re the king’s favorites, for God’s sake. They keep the border from bein’ overrun by the English. A marriage into such a clan…”
“But if he finds out—”
“He won’t. Because ye’ll be careful.”
“I don’t like this.”
“Ye don’t have to. Just stay quiet. And don’t do mad things like tryin’ to kill a Rivenloch warrior.”
The opium. It had been intentional. And if Carenza hadn’t walked in when she did…
“The laird doesn’t want him to go back to Kildunan.”
“O’ course he doesn’t. Not when he’s got his daughter waitin’ on the prospective bridegoom, hand and foot.”
“But he can’t stay here,” the physician complained. “He’s too meddlesome. I can’t work this way.”
“He can’t go back to the monastery.”
“What! Why?”
“Father James is suspicious.”
“Father James? Why?”
“Why do ye think? He’s wonderin’ why there’s a Rivenloch warrior stayin’ at his monastery.”
“Laymen stay at monasteries all the time.”
“Maybe in the infirmary. Not in the monks’ cells.”
“Maybe he’s joinin’ the order.”
There was a dubious sigh. The same sigh Carenza had made at the absurd thought of Sir Hew donning a monk’s robes.
“No one would believe that.”
“I can’t go on like this,” Peris complained. “’Tis too dangerous.”
“And ye think killin’ a man in cold blood isn’t? God’s eyes, have ye no thought for your soul?”
“My soul is already damned from this nasty business.”
The other man grumbled something under his breath that sounded like a curse. “Listen to me. I swear to ye, ’twill be done by Lent. If ye can just compose yourself for a few more months and keep from killin’ anyone…”
“Compose myself? How am I supposed to do that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe drink one o’ those concoctions ye tried to give the warrior. Just lay low, and ’twill be right in the end.”
There was a long silence before Peris replied with a despondent sigh. “Fine.”
“Because we dare not do anythin’ to rouse Father James’s suspicions.”
“I said ‘fine’,” Peris snapped.
“Good. Ye’ll see. Everythin’ will be fine. And in the end, if ye don’t want a share o’ the spoils, ye can stay here at Dunlop if ye like, with none the wiser.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t want a share o’ the spoils.”
What they said after that, she didn’t hear. They made their way along the passageway and up the stairs.
How long she’d been holding her breath, she couldn’t say. But once she could hear them no longer, she let it out on a shaky exhale.
Despite the chill of the pantry, she remained there for several moments, trying to make sense of what she’d heard.
Peris wanted to get rid of Hew because he was “meddlesome.” What did that mean?
Whatever they were up to, Peris believed his soul was damned. Enough so that killing a defenseless man would hardly tarnish it further. What “business” could the physician be up to? What “spoils” did he intend to share?
She took a thoughtful bite of buttered bread.
Hew had spoken about a secret investigation. The monastery thefts. Could that be the matter they were discussing? But what could the physician have to do with that?
She had to share what she’d heard. But she couldn’t go to her father. She didn’t want him to worry. Not before she got more details.
She needed to tell Hew.
With any luck, he’d forget all about her indiscretions of last night, especially after she gave him this startling news.
She stuffed the bread into her mouth with a haste that would have horrified her father.
Then she snatched up a block of cheese, a crock of butter, and tucked the rest of the loaf under her arm.
Praying the two conspirators had had time to return to their beds, she stole from the pantry, across the great hall, and up the stairs.
“Sir Hew!”
Carenza’s whisper was sharp and urgent enough to rouse him from a deep sleep.
“What is it?”
He pushed himself up, wincing as he forgot about his injured palm.
“I need to talk to ye.”
Dropping some sort of parcels on the bed, she moved to the hearth and stirred the coals to life so they could see each other.
He raked his hair back and blinked the sleep from his eyes.
Carenza looked charmingly disheveled. He realized he actually preferred her that way. She might need to appear perfect for her clan. But he rather liked her imperfections.
She wheeled away from the fire and said, “’Twasn’t an accident.”
He was still half-asleep. “What are you talking about?”
“The opium.”
Was she upset about what she’d said to him while she was drugged?
“There’s no need to fret. I’ll forget what you said last night. And you can forget what I said the day before.”
“But that’s just it,” she said. She neared the bed and began unwrapping the parcels. “Are ye hungry?”
“In the middle of the night?” he asked. Then he realized he was. “I could eat. What have you got? And where did you get it?”
“Cheese. I’ve just been to the pantry,” she said, drawing her eating dagger and slicing off a piece for him.
He shoved it into his mouth, talking around it. “The pantry? How did you…” How had she managed to escape? Some guard he was. He wondered if she’d been up for hours in an opium stupor, gushing to every man in the keep how much she wanted to kiss him.
“That’s not important,” she said. “’Tis what I heard that’s important.”
“What you heard?”
“Men whisperin’,” she said, popping a piece of cheese between her teeth, chewing as she spoke. “One of them was Peris.”
“The physician?”
“Aye. The opium that morn? ’Twas no accident. He was tryin’ to kill ye.”
“How do you know that?”
“He admitted as much.”
“Why would he—”
“Ye know what I think?” she said, gesturing with a second piece of cheese. “I think he’s part o’ your monastery thefts.”
Hew stopped chewing. His head was spinning. He already suspected the physician, simply because of his access to the monastery.
She took another nibble. “He was tryin’ to get rid o’ ye, because he knows ye’re investigatin’ the thefts.”
He swallowed the cheese. “You said two men?”
“Aye. I didn’t recognize the voice o’ the second.”
But it appeared she’d been right. There were two thieves.
She continued. “He was upset that Peris had tried to kill ye. He said ’twould draw too much attention.”
“Attention?”
“Aye. He said ye were too important and…” She trailed off.
“And?”
She answered in a rushed mumble. “And that my father had designs on ye for his heir.” But before Hew could begin to enjoy that heartwarming fantasy, she added, “He was also afraid ’twould draw the attention o’ Father James.”
“Father James?”