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Bessie laughed grimly and said, "Me hair was always so fair it looked white. As fer the wrinkles on me face, some are strategically smudged dirt, but some are mine. Peasants do no' have the same luxury a lady does in avoiding the sun," she explained sourly.
"What happened to ye?" Edith asked with bewilderment. She couldn't imagine any circumstance that would lead to Ealasaid, the daughter of one of Scotland's most powerful and wealthiest lairds, becoming the servant, Bessie.
"What happened?" Bessie muttered harshly, and then shrugged and said, "As I learned too late, while a peasant can no' become a lady, a lady can c
ertainly become a peasant does she dare to go against her father . . . I dared to go against me father."
"How?" Edith asked at once.
"He'd arranged a marriage fer me to a smelly old bastard I could no' even bear to look at. I decided I was no' marrying him, but I was no' stupid enough just to refuse. He simply would have put guards on me and forced me to go through with it. But me father could no' force me to marry if my maidenhead was gone I thought, so I got clever. I seduced a visiting English lord. Adeney." Her mouth tightened, "At least, that's what I like to say. The truth is I had no idea what I was doing. All I really did was slip into Lord Adeney's bedchamber through the secret passage in naught but me shift. The next thing I kenned I found meself lying on the bed with me shift thrown up over me face as this fine laird plowed into me, tearing me asunder. And he did it repeatedly through the night.
"Come the morning I could barely even walk the pain was so bad. But I dragged meself from that bed and made me way back to me own to lay there whimpering all day. All the while completely ignorant o' the fact that me sister and mother had fallen ill with the sweating sickness in the night.
"The morning next I felt a little better and sent fer me father to tell him triumphantly that I was ruined and he could no' force the marriage. He heard me out and then told me that Glynis and me mother were dead, and I was now dead to him too. I'd chosen Adeney and would be leaving with him. He could do with me as he wished."
"He did no' make him marry ye?" Edith asked with dismay. Despite everything this woman had done, Edith still managed to feel pity for the child Ealasaid had been and her foolish choices. A more honorable lord would have sent the girl back to her room. This Lord Adeney obviously hadn't been a very honorable man. He also obviously hadn't married the child he'd ruined. But Edith found it hard to believe that her grandfather, bastard though he might have been at times, hadn't made Adeney marry Ealasaid.
"Lord Adeney already had a wife. I knew that when I chose him," Bessie admitted, and then suddenly moved swiftly toward her.
"Well?" Niels asked as he led his brothers out of the passages and into the laird's bedchamber where Tormod stood waiting.
The old man shook his head solemnly. "The men have searched everywhere. She's no' in the gardens, the bailey or down in the village, and no one has seen her since Moibeal saw her slip into the garderobe."
"Well, she was no' in the passages or the bedchambers," Rory said with a frown. "Where else could she be?"
"We did no' check the tunnel," Geordie pointed out quietly. "We looked down it a ways, but did no' follow it to the end. Ye do no' think she went that way and is trying to escape?"
"Escape from what?" Alick asked dryly. "No one has seen her since shortly after Niels and Edith left fer the loch with Ronson. We did no' ken until Niels returned that she was really Edith's aunt and behind the killings, so there was nothing to escape from."
"The tunnels come out halfway between the keep and the loch," Niels muttered, worry beginning to gnaw at him.
"Aye, m'laird," Tormod said with a frown. "Ye're no' thinking Bessie used the tunnels to follow ye to the loch, are ye? If so, then Lady Edith is there alone and--"
The old man's words died abruptly as Niels turned on his heel and hurried from the room. He had a bad feeling that that was exactly what the old woman was doing. She'd probably hoped to kill two birds with one stone, or both him and Edith in one go . . . And he'd left his wife alone and defenseless in the woods with naught but a boy and a dog to protect her.
Chapter 17
Edith was so startled by Bessie's sudden lunge toward her that she was slow bringing up the sword she held. Not too slow, thank goodness, and Bessie paused abruptly as the sharp tip pressed against her stomach.
They eyed each other briefly and then Bessie backed up a step, just enough to get the point away from her skin. She then shrugged as if to say she'd had to try.
Edith just stared at her. She'd thought sure once the woman knew that others would now be aware of her perfidy and all was lost, she'd stop trying to kill her. It seemed not, though . . . and that made Edith wonder if the woman was mad or just stupid.
Or perhaps Bessie had decided she could poison every last person at Drummond, blame it on someone else and yet claim the title fer herself, Edith thought suddenly. She had no idea. But whatever the woman was thinking, it was obvious Edith couldn't let her guard down again. Bessie was much closer than she'd been before that lunge. Another trick like that and Edith could wind up dead.
"Did ye have any more questions?" Bessie asked accommodatingly.
Edith narrowed her eyes, took a cautious step back, and then another. Once she was a safer distance away, she asked, "How did Lord Adeney and his wife feel about yer care now being his problem?"
"I have no idea how Lady Adeney felt, but he was fine with it," she assured her tersely. "As far as he was concerned, this was all grand. He had a wife, and now he had me, whom he could do whatever he wished with. It turned out what he wished was to dump me in a cottage in the village where his wife would no' have to look at me, and send fer me whenever he felt the need to do some plowing."
"O' course, I got with child," Bessie said conversationally. "But that actually turned out to be a good thing. Once I grew big, he was no' interested in me and I got some respite from his rough attentions."
"The babe was Glynis?" Edith asked.
"Nay. That first babe did no' take and was born too soon. It came early and dead. That happened several times ere Glynis was born. Adeney's seed was weak. Fer twelve years he plowed me, giving me nothing but weak seed and babes who were either born dead or died in me arms in their first moments."
"Until Glynis," Edith murmured.
Bessie smiled grimly. "Aye, but wee Glynis was no' Adeney's child. Her father, William, had strong seed."
Edith raised her eyebrows. "And who was William?"
"He was one o' Adeney's soldiers, and a good, kind man. He often had to escort me to the keep and back. He kenned how miserable I was, and how Adeney made me suffer." Pausing, she explained coldly, "The lord was as weak as his seed. As the years passed it became more and more difficult for him to get hard, until he could no' perform unless I was in pain. He took pleasure in giving me pain."
Edith didn't know what to say to that. Offering sympathy to a woman who had killed so many people just seemed wrong, so she didn't say anything, and Bessie continued, "Fer years William carried me back to me cottage when Adeney was done with me and tried to tend me wounds. He was so kind and gentle . . . I fell in love with him, but when he told me he loved me, I spurned him. I kenned Adeney did no' like to share and our feelings would be trouble. But the day came when Adeney was called away to court for longer than his usual few weeks. The king wanted his consult and company and kept him for more than half a year."
Bessie smiled faintly. "'Twas like the heavens had opened up and sprinkled happiness from the clouds. The days were warm and sunny, the flowers were in bloom and William . . ." Sighing, she looked down. "After the first couple o' weeks when we tried to fight it, we spent every minute o' every day o' those months together. He taught me that the bedding needn't be terrible painful and horrid, and he taught me that all men were no' selfish, evil bastards like me father and Adeney. He wanted me to run away with him, but I was too afraid. I loved him so, but . . ." Bessie scowled. "But at least there I had the cottage and food. Had we fled . . ." Staring down at her hands, she shook her head. "Our love cost him his life."
"Adeney found out?" Edith asked.
"Oh, aye. I do no' ken who told him, and he did no' confront me at the time so we had no warning he kenned. But shortly after he got back, Adeney sent William to deliver a message with two o' his more loyal men and William did no' return. They claimed he fell from his horse and broke his neck and they'd buried him in the woods along the way."
Bessie gave a short hard laugh. "Fool that I was I believed it when Adeney told me. I thought mayhap God was punishing me." Shaking her head, she c
ontinued. "Glynis was born a mere six and a half months after Adeney returned. She was full-term, but wee, and I felt sure Adeney believed me when I said she was just early . . . because he pretended to. Right up until she was twelve."
Expression hardening, she said grimly, "I had gone out to collect some healing weeds fer one o' the women in the village who had the flux. I'd been using the skills me mother had taught me and added to them over the years. That day I returned to the cottage to find poor, wee, beautiful Glynis bloody and weeping on the bed in the cottage while Adeney enjoyed an ale at me table," she said bitterly. "The child had barely started her courses, but he'd raped her and tore her asunder just as he had me all those years earlier."
Her mouth tightened. "I flew into a rage. How could he do this to his own child? How could he? And he sneered and said, 'Ye mean William's child, do ye no'? She's no kin to me.' And then he smiled real cruel like and said, 'Terrible his dying ere he could see his bastard. But he should no' have played with what was mine.'"
Bessie let her breath out on a slow sigh and added, "He walked to the door then saying, 'In the end, William did me a favor though. She's a pretty little thing, even prettier than ye were in yer day. She'll be the one the soldiers come to collect from now on, Ealasaid. I tire o' yer ugly old body.' And then he just walked out, leaving me there kenning me love had killed William and put our daughter in the same hell I'd endured."
Closing her eyes, she heaved out a long breath and then said, "True to his word, Glynis was now transported up to the keep each night. It broke me heart. She'd cry and beg me no' to let the soldiers take her, but there was naught I could do."
Ye could have packed her up and left, Edith thought, but held her tongue.
"After a handful o' months, Adeney's seed finally took in the girl and Ronson was born a year and a month after the first raping."
