“Perhaps he has paid someone in your employ.”
Hagan returned with a tray of food, filling the room with the warm scent of pottage and honey.
“Fetch me Sir Philip,” Alan said, and after setting the tray near the bed, the Irishman left again.
“Most importantly,” William continued, “we need to discover if he has an accomplice. I think your other daughters could help with that. Dame Isobel could go through the castle and touch the inhabitants’ things—laundry and dirty dishes and such-like. Perhaps her visions will reveal something. The countess said shedoesn’t know if there are more ghosts in Lochlaire. Perhaps there are, and they have observed something.”
Alan nodded thoughtfully. He raised a gray brow at William. “You’re a clever lad. How old are you?”
“Nine and twenty, sir,” William said, though he couldn’t imagine what his age had to do with anything. He smoothed his hair absently. “Most think me older because of the gray.”
“Are you married?”
“My wife died in childbirth.”
“Ah. It’s sorry I am to hear that.” Alan’s eyelids drooped sadly. “My second wife passed that way, too. My brother has lost two wives in such a manner and is frightened for his Tira. We all are.”
“When is she expecting?”
“Any day now,” Rose answered. “She is great with child. It will be a big one. I fear for both her and the wean’s life.”
William could see the worry in the faint lines that creased her brow. So much she took on her lovely shoulders. He said, without a thought to the consequences, “I’ll be present for the birth, if you wish. If aught goes wrong, I will help. But I must know first who is most important to your brother—the wean or the wife?”
Alan just stared at him, his brows furrowed. William felt the weight of Rose’s gaze on him and glanced up at her. She regarded him with a sort of horrified surprise but quickly averted her eyes to contemplate the ground with unusual intensity.
William felt exposed suddenly, his shoulders tightening. Ridiculous. He’d said nothing revealing, had he?He’d just asked a question—a very important one, to his way of thinking. He cleared his throat. “Perhaps one of you can ask Roderick, aye? I think he likes me not.”
“He’s just being protective,” Rose murmured, gazing down at her father.
Alan snorted. “Smothering, you mean!”
Hagan returned with Sir Philip, and William retreated to the fireplace while Rose and Alan explained to the knight what they wanted him to do and why. He stole curious looks at William but agreed to do everything he was asked.
The sisters were summoned next and given their instructions. Isobel accepted her assignment with determination but little enthusiasm. Gillian, however, seemed excited.
William sat before the fire, apart from them, increasingly uncomfortable with his own actions. What was he thinking, becoming so friendly with this family? He wasn’t thinking, that was the problem. Since he’d met Rose, he’d grown daft, operating at times purely from some base emotion. It was unlike him and highly disturbing. He’d been so careful for so long; why did he keep throwing caution away now?
He could not leave, of course, not when he’d set such a plan in motion. Not when he’d promised Rose. He’d even offered to assist a birthing. Again he wondered, in bemused astonishment, what ailed him, and as he wondered, his gaze lit on a gleam of copper and cinnamon hair. It was coiled in some sort of plaited roll on either side of her head, and the two sides came together into a thick, glistening plait that hung down her back, the end wrapped several times with her own hair.
Unlike Alan’s, William’s ailment had a name.Rose.He couldn’t remember the last time he’s sat mooning over a lass’s hair. He closed his eyes, pressing his forefinger and thumb into the lids. He would make no more promises. He would spend no more time with these people than necessary. In the spirit of his new resolutions, he slipped surreptitiously from the room.
Chapter 11
Rose was so tired. She stood on the battlements, her head leaned against a merlon, too exhausted to even think. She’d spent the day watching over her father, poring through the books she’d accumulated over the years, searching again for something resembling her father’s ailment but finding nothing. She’d reexamined him, bled him, fed him more physiks, and had finally been called away to tend a dislocated shoulder. She was of no use to either her father or William. She hoped he was right about what ailed her father and that when Sir Philip fetched Sir Donnan to Lochlaire, he would lift the curse. She hoped William and her sisters would discover an accomplice somewhere in Lochlaire. She hoped. But not as she once had. Hope was fading to resignation.
The air was thick with the threat of rain. Rose watched the moon rise between the scudding clouds. She ignored the sullen rumble of her stomach. A cool wind blew over her face, and she closed her eyes, her mind blissfully blank. She’d thought too much of late about things she could never change, things that should make no difference anymore but somehow did anyway. It made thenightmares come, made the anger rise. The only antidote she’d found was to work until she was too tired to think.
She heard the sound of others climbing the battlements several times, silent, to check on her, perhaps; she didn’t know, as she didn’t look at them or acknowledge them. The men-at-arms passed her on their circuits without a word.
The bailey below grew quiet as the castle settled in for the night. She slowly became aware that she was not alone in her empty vigil. Someone stood behind her. She didn’t hear anything—shefeltit. She turned quickly.
Strathwick leaned against a merlon, gazing through the embrasure, a tall, dark shadow. The wind stirred the gleaming silver in his hair. “You have been avoiding me,” he said without preamble.
Rose was still a bit unnerved to find him behind her when she’d not heard him approach. How long had he been standing there? She turned back to the night, leaning her suddenly hot cheek against the cold stone. “I hadn’t realized you noticed.”
He was silent for a long moment, then said softly, “I notice everything about you.”
Rose squeezed her eyes shut, pressed her hand into the stone wall.
