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“What do ye feel?” Lena demanded, studying Serene.
Serene thought about it for a moment. Beyond the tightness, her belly felt hollow, and a sense of dread and worry prickled her skin. “I dunnae feel happiness,” she admitted.
“That might be because yer brother killed the king’s mistress,” Lena bit out.
Serene recoiled at the suggestion. “Nay!” she blurted, but the worry within her blossomed into fear.
She struggled not to show it on her face, but Lena leaned in close and said, “Ye look guilty.”
“Let her be,” Marion snapped. To Serene, Lena’s gaze seemed less friendly than it had moments before, which meant Lena now looked like she could cheerfully shoot an arrow through Serene’s heart.
Bridgette quirked her mouth, then spoke. “Perchance her brother is like Colin and Findlay were. That would explain why she looks terrified.”
Serene quickly pressed her hands to her cheeks. She looked terrified?
“Aye, that would explain it,” Marsaili added. “She looks the way I felt about my brothers.”
All four women stared at her as if trying to determine whether she was friend or foe.
But even she didn’t know! Not truly, and the realization made her throat ache terribly with the need to cry. “Might I rest before supper?” she asked. She was weary and her head ached horribly, but mostly, if she was going to weep like a babe, she’d rather not have an audience.
“Certainly,” Marion replied, giving the other three women a stern look. They filed out with barely a backward glance, except for Marion, who paused at the door.
She smiled hesitantly. “I’m certain you had nothing to do with killing Katherine. You have kind eyes, and people with kind eyes are not murderers.”
Serene laughed, despite how dreadful she felt. “I’m nae positive that’s correct, but I thank ye for trying to make me feel better.”
“Food will make you feel better, as well.”
The young boy on Marion’s hip said, “Me eat!”
Marion chuckled as she ruffled the child’s curls. “Yes, Royce. Mummy is going to feed you.” Marion glanced to Serene once more. “I’ll come fetch you for supper in a little while, and I’ll bring a fresh gown with me, but ye can don this one until then. She handed Serene the wrinkled gown she had been holding.”
Serene was certain neither food nor a fresh gown would make her feel better. Only her memory had the potential to do that. Or it’s possible that remembering would make her feel worse… Either way, she kept the thoughts to herself, took the gown that Marion extended, and then shut the door behind Marion once she had exited the room. Serene leaned against the door, pressing her pounding head into the hard wood. On the other side, she could hear the women speaking.
“Ye’re too trusting,” someone cautioned, surely to Marion as no one else appeared to trust her.
“Would you have me judge her our enemy without any proof?”
“Aye. Sheisour enemy until she proves otherwise.”
“Aye,” came a chorus of agreements that made Serene’s heart squeeze. Not only was she in a foreign place but she was a stranger to herself, unsure of the sort of person she really was. And now it seemed the one potential friend she had would likely not be a friend anymore.
She shoved away from the door, took off the gown the women had been pinning, made her way to the bed, and fell backward to stare up at the ceiling, wondering if she was good or evil. In her heart, she felt she was good, but perchance everyone felt that way about themselves. She had to recall her past, and it seemed to her she needed to remember sooner rather than later. But how? She had one memory, if one could call the recollection of Cameron MacLeod’s hands on a dagger a memory. But it was all she had, so lying there, in the chilly room in the growing darkness, she pictured his long, strong fingers, which had wrapped easily around the dagger. And then she pictured his face and focused hard on it. Something niggled in her mind. It was a muddled image of a younger man smiling a teasing smile.
His features were not defined, but somehow she knew it to be Cameron. She closed her eyes and searched through the mist in her head until another memory appeared. Cameron stood beside a woman with long, dark hair and eyes that seemed to pierce the distance between Serene and the two of them. Serene laughed and was startled by the noise. She had been laughing! In her memory she had been laughing and breathless, and then she had been filled with trepidation.
Determination filled Serene. She needed to find Cameron and question him about what she had remembered. She stood abruptly and started toward the door, but paused as her hand touched the latch. She had no notion where Cameron might be, and she doubted any of the women would be willing to tell her. But perchance she would come across an unsuspecting man and she could persuade him.
She glanced around the room, saw a bucket, and walked over to it. She twisted her hair into a knot, then set about washing her neck, arms, and face. When her fingers brushed the bandage on her head, she winced. She doubted it made her appear very fetching, but she’d have to leave it. Releasing her hair, she picked up the comb that was lying on the vanity and tried as best she could to get out the tangles. Then she tugged on the gown that Marion had handed her. It was too tight and too long, but so was the one the women had been working on, and since her old gown was in tatters, this one would have to do. She took a breath for courage, and her breasts very nearly spilled out of the top of her gown. She heaved it up once more and made her way to the door. She slowly opened it and poked her head out just enough to see who, if anyone, was in the passageway.
A tall, wiry man with red hair and a hawklike nose, made all the more prominent by his square jaw and ruddy complexion, stood opposite her door. Beside him was a rotund man in the black robes of a priest. The two men immediately stopped talking, and the priest offered a smile that reached his brown eyes. He dipped his head to her in greeting, showing a shiny, bald spot at the crown, which surprised her given the relative thickness of his mop of faded-brown hair. “Ye’re the wee lass found in the woods,” he said, his words slow as if she were of simple mind.
The man beside him elbowed him. “I told ye she lost her memory, not that she was a clot-heid.”
Splotches of red appeared on the priest’s cheeks. “Begging yer pardon.”
She waved a hand at him. “Dunnae fash yerself.”
