Page 48

"What's that?" Isobel glanced up sharply.

"I, too, think it is time for you to take your rightful place. Clarinda can be the first to know."

Clarinda was just lifting a round bottomed pot from the glowing embers and turned her reddened face toward them. "What is it I should know?"

Meara turned her gaze slowly from Isobel to the maid. "The truth is this, lass—"

"I shall take him the ale," Isobel said.

Meara smiled. "There's a good lass," she crooned. "You'll find him in the infirmary. And take wee Mary from him so he can sleep."

Isobel made her way slowly down the darkened hall toward the sick room. Her bread needed attention, and though Clarinda was good enough with soups and the like she was far from adept at baking. Bel should be back in the kitchen where she belonged.

Candlelight spilled from the open door of the infirmary, but the glow did not quite meet the far wall.

Isobel's feet slowed even more as she approached her destination.

Damn Meara. The old woman was hardly the lady of the keep.

In fact, Isobel thought, her stomach churning, if she wished, she could leave this very night.

Could flee Evermyst and never return. Not because she was afraid, as others suggested. Nay, 'twas because...

Voices murmured from the infirmary, stopping her thoughts.

"You are well?" Claude spoke just above a whisper. So she had left her bed to find the man who had given her a name.

"Aye, lassie," Mour said. "I only be here to gain sympathy from the maids. And to spend time with wee Mary, of course. Do I not look pitiable?"

Aye, he was pitiable—not a champion at all, but a vain rogue, Bel told herself and stepped level with the doorway, intending to finish her task and be gone. But one glance into the room and she halted, frozen in the dimness of the empty hallway.

Inside the narrow chamber, candlelight shone in a golden circle around the bed, and in the center of that circle sat MacGowan.

His hair glimmered like dark honey upon his bare shoulders and below that, where his arm was trussed to his chest by white bandage, his muscles rippled in rows across his abdomen.

But even that sight was not the one which stopped Isobel's breath in her throat.

Nay, it was the tenderness of his expression that seized her.

Propped upon his arm, Mary lay motionless, gazing with sleepy adoration into his eyes. Her tiny, bowed lips were slightly parted and one perfect hand was curled into the bandage that crossed his chest.

As for wee Plums, she stood cautiously back from him, her fingers wrapped tight in the folds of her rumpled gown.

"You should be abed, Claude, me love," MacGowan said, but the girl shook her head.

"I..." Her words faltered. "Feared..."

"There now, lass. There is no need to fear," Mour soothed, but Claude spoke again, her voice broken, her right hand crunching her much-abused skirt.

"I thought I had k-killed you."

"Killed me? Nay!"

"I thought..." There was a long painful pause. "When I care... die..." She labored for breath through her terror and in the hallway Isobel squeezed her eyes shut, feeling the girl's ravaged thoughts burning to her own soul. "...I arrived and... couldn't see you... waves..."

Her words were no longer discernible, but were lost in her breathy panic.

"Hush, now," Mour soothed. " 'Tis silly, you're being. I am not dead, wee lass, nor will I be anytime soon, God willing."

A few stuttered breaths could be heard, but nothing else.

"Be calm now. All is well."

"You fell... so far."

"Nay," he denied, and reaching past Mary, took her hand in his own. "Nay, lass, 'twas hardly a drop atall." Gently, he tugged her forward until she nearly touched his bed. "Little more than a wee step into a bath, really. Maid Isobel does as much for sport."

"She... won't speak to me."

"Isobel?"

The girl nodded. "She knows it is me fault that—"

"Nay, she thinks no such thing. She is worried, is all."

Claude shook her head, but he squeezed her hand and drew her closer still.

"Here now, I've a few things to tell you, Claude, and these things you will believe, for I will not be lying to you.

You had nothing to do with me dive into the firth, heroic though it was.

'Twas Mary here who decided to take a swim.

I but tried to fetch her out. And here we are, both safe and hale.

'Tis not your fault and Isobel knows this as well as I. "

Silence settled over the chamber for several moments. Claude punished her faded gown with her free hand.

"You left," she murmured.

It took him a moment to respond, to catch up to her thoughts. "I know, lass," he said. "But I would have returned to Henshaw when I could. You should not have come so far alone. There are many evils between here and the Red Lion's front door."

"Francois came back."

"Of course he did, lass, for he remembered your kindness. But you should have remained where it is safe."

"He is fleet."

" 'Tis true," Mour agreed, "and he would have kept you safe if he could, but what if brigands came upon you whilst you slept? Then you would have been caught afoot, and I dare not think what might have befallen you."

The world seemed utterly silent before the girl spoke again, just barely above a whisper. "You asked me to care for him. And I knew..."

Isobel squeezed her eyes closed against the words, for she already knew the truth. The girl had not slept. Nay, she had left all she knew, had risked her life and remained astride for days on end just to be near—

"I knew Francois could not live without you," Claude whispered and in that moment the horn spilled from Isobel's hand and crashed to the floor at her feet.

Mary jerked. Claude started, and Gilmour raised his smoldering gaze to Bel's.

"Isobel," he breathed. "Is something amiss?"

She tried to speak, but her throat burned and her eyes stung, and in the end there was nothing she could do but wrap her fist about her silver shell and flee back to the safety of the kitchens.