I survived.
Effie was sleeping in the bed next to her, so reminiscent of her tending to the girl when she had been sick that Beatrice couldn’t help but smile. Shona was slumped in a chair across the room, an open book on her lap.
Beatrice realized she hadn’t been left alone for a moment while she was recovering, and she wanted to find Leo to express her gratitude.
Slipping noiselessly out of bed, she crept into the corridor lit by the early morning sun, half-shrouded in haze. The fetid smell of sick sweat clung to her.
She didn’t want to waste time. The memory of his fingers stroking her and his mouth sucking on her nipples, each stolen second on the terrace where she had almost climaxed on his hand, clung to her.
I go through all of this, and the one thing I think of is Leo?
In the corridor, two guards stood just outside the door to her chambers. They both started when they saw her, one of them reaching for her as if he expected her to crumble like a weather-battered statue.
“Mistress, ye are up and on yer feet again,” he said. “I’ll go find the Laird and tell him the good news.”
“I can find him meself,” she insisted.
“Aye, but do ye feel strong enough yet?” The guard rolled his shoulders back. “We can come with ye, in case there’s danger.”
Beatrice almost asked what danger there might be, but then she remembered all the air getting sucked out of her lungs and her throat constricting. Her memory of the cèilidh was hazy, and she wasn’t sure what had happened.
Someone wanted me dead.
“I daenae ken who to trust,” she mumbled, her voice breaking. “Do ye two ken what happened? Did they find out who tried to hurt me?”
The guards exchanged looks and shook their heads.
Beatrice didn’t bother asking any more questions. After all, who was to say that they also could not be trusted?
“Let us come with ye, mistress,” the first guard said. “Or at least one of us, so ye’re nae on yer own.”
“She’s nae on her own. I’m here.”
Violet materialized at the end of the corridor.
As she is wont to do.
Beatrice laughed inwardly.
Violet was next to her in moments, ordering the guards to leave them alone.
“Ye stay here in case Effie wakes up,” she instructed. “I daenae want her thinkin' somethin' went wrong while she slept and that poor Beatrice expired in the night. Ye understand me?”
The guards nodded but said nothing.
Beatrice had never been so relieved to see anyone, especially not a woman she had only recently met. Neither of the guards looked guilty to her, but she meant it when she said she didn’t know whom to trust. Someone in Leo’s employ might not wish her harm, but a worm could turn at the promise of money, power, or rank.
“We’ll take ye to see Leo right away,” Violet said. “After that, we must go to the healer. Make sure there’s nothin' wrong with ye. Ye’re up and about, and that’s good, but we want to ken for sure that the poison is out of yer system.”
“Who did this to me, Violet? Do ye have an idea?”
Violet shook her head, her countenance so grim that Beatrice almost didn’t recognize her at that moment.
“Leo’s got his fair share of enemies, nay doubt about that, but I cannae imagine many of them are in this castle.” She turned Beatrice towards her and studied her face. “I will say ye still look a little frail, but ye only just woke up. The sooner we get ye to the healer, the better.”
She led her into the tower, past the study where Beatrice had expected them to go, and to Leo’s private chambers, the one with the window Beatrice could see from her room.
The walk was too long for her heavy legs.
