Chapter 7 #3
Siaspar’s whole body convulsed in protest—or tried to.
Was she going to seduce him and force him to make love to her while he was half conscious?
Was that the solution she had found to remedy her situation?
She would force him to take her maidenhead while he was too weak to stop her and hope he wouldn’t remember a thing in the morning.
Did she want him to fill her womb with a child to secure her position as lady of the castle?
A groan escaped his lips but he knew he was utterly at her mercy.
If she started to stroke him, his cock might well respond, even if his mind was rebelling.
She would sit on him and get what she wanted.
His only hope was that the potion she had given him ensured that he remained limp as a worm.
It soon became clear, however, that seduction was not on her mind.
Her purpose was far more sinister. From her garter she had produced a small knife.
She was not about to ravish him, she was about to kill him.
Somehow, he found the strength to break free from her hold but she caught him easily again.
“Not so fast, husband. I haven’t finished with you yet.”
From her place behind the curtain, Katherine watched the frightful scene unfold. Eyes wide with horror, she saw Lady Malpas run the blade on the inside of her husband’s wrist. At first, when the woman had lifted her gown, she had thought she would try to seduce him and that had been bad enough.
But no. She wasn’t going to make love to Siaspar, she was going to kill him. Blood had already started to pool at the foot of the chair.
As the shock of what she had just done hit her, Lady Malpas gave a gasp and, taking the tray with her, fled the room.
Immediately, Katherine jumped from the bed.
She had been about to intervene anyway. Someone had to stop the murderer, she couldn’t care about the consequences for herself when someone was in danger of dying.
Before running to Siaspar, she ripped a strip of cloth from the sheet under her.
She had to staunch the blood before it was too late.
Muttering to herself she wrapped the piece of linen around the cut on his wrist and pressed as hard as she could on the wound to try and close the vein.
After a while, she saw that the red stain on the cloth was not getting any bigger.
Relief swept through her. He had lost a lot of blood but thanks to her timely intervention he might not die from it.
“My lord,” she murmured urgently. “You need to go and lie down. You cannot stay here on your own or you will fall and injure yourself. My lord, can you hear me?”
His eyes fluttered as if he could indeed hear her but was too feeble to respond.
Katherine looked around in despair. Siaspar was too big for her to move.
She would be unable to drag him to the bed, let alone hoist him up onto it.
But she had to leave the room to get help and she could not leave him on the chair; he would only fall and break his neck.
She had to at least lay him down on the floor.
She placed her shoulder under his armpit and tried to make him stand up.
He was too heavy. She would never manage this unaided.
In the end, she had no other choice but to ease him gently to the floor, breaking his fall as he went.
He had gone completely limp, and with his eyes closed, he put her in mind of a corpse.
Pushing the horrid thought aside, she went to rip another band of linen from the sheet, to wrap on top of the first bandage.
Thankfully, the bleeding seemed to have stopped.
Then she placed him on his side, remembering what her father had told her once.
“’Tis always a good idea to lay someone who is senseless on his side in case they get sick and choke.”
Of course, he had been talking about his friends at the tavern, who sometimes overindulged in drink, not lords who had just escaped an assassination attempt but the principle was the same, she thought.
She had to go. Lady Malpas could come back any moment to check the result of her handiwork. It was not safe to remain here.
The last thing she did before leaving the room was to drag the sheet from the bed and place it next to Siaspar’s hand. That way it would look as if he had used the last of his strength to make the bandage. With any luck no one would suspect he’d had any help in saving himself.
“Here,” she murmured in his ear. “Hold on, my lord, I’m going to get someone to help you.”
After one last glance at Siaspar, Katherine left and ran to the courtyard.
Luck was with her. Gwyn, the squire, was there, checking his master’s hauberk. Amiable, efficient, discreet—and strong—the young man was the perfect person to send to Siaspar. He would know what to do.
“I thought I heard his lordship call for someone to go to his room,” she told him, doing her best to keep her voice even.
She needed to send someone to him straight away, but she could not betray the fact that she had been in his room.
“Thank you.” The young man beamed at her in gratefulness. “I’ll go presently, and hope he doesn’t rip my head off for keeping him waiting. He’s in a foul mood today.”
He won’t rip your head off. He will not even know you’re there.
“Yes.”
Heart in her throat, Katherine watched the man walk up the stairs to his master’s bedchamber.