He lay still and took a deep breath, inhaling the light scent of lavender from the clean sheets. Last night when he’d retired, he’d found the bed made with fresh sheets, the mattress repaired and stuffed with new straw, and the floor swept. Tapestries depicting colorful scenes of a hunt and ladies playing instruments, cleaned and free of soot, covered the walls. Closed wooden shutters kept out the wind and the rain. A large beeswax candle burned on the table that had been moved beside the bed, and there’d been a goblet of spiced wine beside it, too. This chamber that had once been little better than a cold, barren storeroom was now a place of warmth, comfort and ease.
He’d drunk the wine as he stood staring at the newly made bed, knowing Bea must be responsible for the changes in spite of what had passed between them. He couldn’t deny he’d been pleased when he’d crawled naked between the sheets, and he’d had the most restful sleep he’d had in weeks.
He smacked his lips, where the taste of wine and exotic spices lingered. It had been very good, that wine, but surely not enough to render him…
He pushed himself up and reached for the goblet. Leaning close, he sniffed the dregs in the bottom and cursed softly.
He’d been drugged. Someone had put something in that wine to make him sleep.
Wide-awake now, he threw off the covers and jumped out of the bed, hissing as his bare feet touched the cold stone floor. Someone had wanted him insensible— to do what? His soldiers could hold off an attack without him, at least for a little while, and there was nothing worthwhile to steal from his chamber, except his armor and sword, and they were still there.
Or perhaps that dose was intended to do more than make him sleep. Perhaps his death had been the goal, and only by chance and God’s mercy had the dose not been lethal.
He grabbed his clothes from the top of the chest and started to dress. God save him, what o’clock was it? He went to the window, threw open the shutters and cursed again. Rain was pelting down from the sky like the biblical deluge.
The door to the chamber banged open. Maloren marched in carrying a bucket of water and with clean linen over her arm.
“So, you’re awake at last,” she grumbled as she ran a scornful gaze over him. “Somepeople think they can sleep the day away once they’re in command. And close those shutters or there’ll be water all over the floor.”
“Do you know who put that goblet of wine by my bed last night?” Ranulf demanded, paying no heed to anything else she said.
As soon as he asked the question, it occurred to him that it might have been Maloren’s doing, some scheme to keep her “lamb” safe from his supposedly nefarious designs.
“Who else but my good and gentle lady?” she replied, glaring at him as if he’d gone mad. “She even helps them as don’t deserve it.”
Beahad put the wine there?
Someone must have gotten to it before she had brought it to his chamber. “Where did she get it?”
Maloren made a sour face. “We brought it from Tregellas, of course. She prepared it for you with her own hands, too, and after that long journey.”
Surely Bea hadn’t…?
Maloren sniffed derisively as she continued to glare at him. “Although why she bothered, I don’t know. You don’t even have the grace to be grateful.”
Between his heavy head and the realization that his wine had been drugged, he had no patience for Maloren’s impertinence this morning.
“Since it’s raining, you and your mistress will have to remain under my roof for the next day at least,” he said through clenched teeth. “Might I suggest, Maloren, that in that time, you curb your tongue. Otherwise, you may be forced to contemplate your insolence in the dungeon.”
The maidservant’s mouth fell open and a look of fear came to her eyes. “You wouldn’t dare!”
“You think not?” he asked. In truth, he would never put a woman, especially an elderly one, in a cold, dank cell merely for being impertinent, but he wasn’t above letting her think he would.
“M-my lady wouldn’t let you!” Maloren stammered, backing away.
“Your lady has no power here, Maloren, so take care how you speak to me,” he said as he followed her. “I neither know nor care why you hate me as you do, but hear this and believe it—I grow weary of your baseless accusations and rude remarks. I have no seductive designs on Lady Beatrice. She is my friend’s relation, and therefore sacrosanct.”
The old woman’s hands fluttered to her chest. “You…you won’t touch her?”
Would that he could promise that! “I give you my word as a knight of the realm and Lord Merrick’s brother-in-arms that I have no wish to seduce her,” he answered instead.
Maloren’s whole body seemed to slump with relief. “Thank God.”
“So now that you have my word, I expect you to address me with the respect my position deserves, if not my person.”
Maloren meekly bowed. “Yes, my lord.”
“And now you can go.”
