A light, minty scent filled the air while she obeyed.
“Hold out your hands.”
She did that, too. “Is that sicklewort ointment?”
He nodded. “Yes. Constance gave it to me. It’s what she put on Merrick’s arm when she sewed his wound from the boar spear.”
Beatrice shuddered at that memory as Ranulf began to spread the slick ointment thinly over her open palms. “Does that hurt?” he asked, raising his eyes.
“No. I was just remembering Merrick’s wound. I was supposed to help Constance then, but Merrick was so angry, I ran away.”
Ranulf laughed softly. “When Merrick’s angry, everybody runs away, except Constance. She’s a very brave woman, and so are you,” he said, smiling in a way that made Beatrice want to kiss him even more. “I doubt I could keep my head during a birthing.”
He finished and wiped his hands on a square of linen. “There now. Better?”
She felt much better, and not just because of the ointment. “Yes.”
“Then I suppose we should go below and join our guests.”
Beatrice knew he was right, and yet she wasn’t willing to let this opportunity to speak with him alone go by. “Not just yet, Ranulf, please,” she said, rising.
Despite her outward bravado, she was suddenly afraid. What if those things she’d heard about him were true and he was not the man she thought he was?
She had to find out, one way or another. “Ranulf, did you kill your brother?”
As his face reddened, she rushed on before he could answer, driven by her dread. “That’s what Celeste told me, and apparently other people here have heard it, too. Of courseIdon’t believe it. Well, or if I do, it’s only because you told me your brothers were cruel. I can believe that one of them attacked you and you had to defend yourself. Drown or be drowned, and so you did. That’s why you’re afraid to be too near the water. And oh, how terrible it must have been!”
He didn’t speak.
“I’m sorry, but I had to ask, although I should have been more diplomatic. But I don’t suppose there’s a tactful way to ask such a thing, is there?”
His eyes were as cold as marble in winter, his expression hard as iron. “I did kill my brother, and I meant to do it.”
She sat heavily on the stool and stared at him with horrified dismay.
Ranulf looked down at her lovely, trusting face. The time had come to tell her everything. These were not the circumstances he would have chosen to make his confession, but he had lost the chance to choose.
“I killed Edmond, my brother, the eldest son and favorite of my father, heir to his estate. We were fighting and fell into the ocean, and I held him under the water until he drowned.”
“But…but surely he attacked you first,” she protested. “You were protecting yourself.”
He shook his head. “I wanted to kill him. I wanted him dead.”
“Because he’d hurt you?”
“He hadn’t laid a hand on me that day. It was because he’d drowned my dog.”
“Oh, Ranulf,” she murmured, sorrow and pity in her beautiful blue eyes.
“I found Felix lying on the shore, whimpering, with a rock tied around his neck. Edmond was furious. ‘Your mangy cur matedwith my best bitch,’ he said, and before I could stop him, he picked up Felix and the rock and threw them as far out into the water as he could. Edmond was very strong.”
Ranulf closed his eyes and grimaced. “I can still hear poor Felix yelping. And then the splash.”
He opened his eyes again and regarded her steadily, although his whole body began to shake. “I tried to go into the water to save him, but Edmond held me back. I struggled and kicked and hit him.”
That same terrible feeling of helplessness washed over Ranulf. He was twelve years old again and unable to save the one creature he loved. “Edmond let go and told me it was too late. Felix must be dead. That’s when I completely lost my head. I didn’t think, didn’t care about anything except that Edmond had killed Felix. I threw myself at him and we both went into the water. Later I realized I must have caught him off guard. That’s the only way I could have managed to hold him down the way I did, although I nearly drowned, too. Our father came and hauled me out. By then, it was too late for Edmond. He was dead.”
Ranulf ran his hands through his hair and drew in a ragged breath. “I didn’t care. I didn’t care about what I’d done. Nor did I care that my father cast me out. I was glad that day, Bea.
