Arsenic and Old Armor (27 page)

Marion nodded. She immediately pasted on a
smile as her aunts entered the Hall, their arms full of linens and
candles and knives. Iain tried to go to them to help. Marion,
though, held him back.

“
Iain and I are going
outside for a walk around the Tower,” she announced.

Both women looked up cheerfully. If there
was anything amiss, Iain couldn’t tell from the expressions on
their faces.

“
Don’t stay out too late,
dear,” Margaret said.

“
Not too late,” Judith
repeated.

“
The table will be set, and
we can all sit down to eat in no time.”

“
No time at all,” Judith
told them.

Iain felt himself being physically pulled
toward the door to the courtyard.

“
This shouldn’t take too
long,” he called to the ladies.

Marion pushed him ahead of her out the door
and onto the landing at the top of the courtyard steps. She turned
to her aunts. “Don’t do anything while I am gone.”

“
What do you mean by that,
dear?” Margaret asked.

“
What do you mean?” Judith
repeated the question.

Marion turned around and saw Iain watching
her. “Please wait for me outside.”

“
No.” He shook his head
slowly from side to side. “Two can play this game.”

“
I hate you,” she
whispered, punching him in the arm. She turned again toward her
aunts. “Please don’t
move
anything while I am gone.”

“
But why, dear?” Margaret
asked. “Sir William said he’s ready.”

“
He told us that he’s
ready,” Judith repeated.

Iain wondered what they were moving. What
was William ready for?

“
Wait!” Marion said
sharply. “Please promise me you won’t. Don’t ask Uncle William to
come yet. Not until I get back.”

“
Oh!” Margaret said,
delighted. “You want to help.”

“
Marion wants to help,”
Judith announced like she was the one passing on the
news.

“
Yes, I want to help. Just
wait for me,” she told the two women.

Iain stood his ground. “What is it that
you’re going to help them with?”

She shook her head, going around him and out
the door. The storm had passed by and the night sky was clearing.
There was a half moon rising in the east.

“
Marion,” he said sharply.
“What is it that you want them not to do?”

Looking frustrated, she took him by the hand
and pulled him down the stairs. “That would be telling the end of
the story. I think it would be best if I first told you the
beginning.”

The two sisters stared after the newlyweds
as they disappeared through the doorway. Judith put everything she
was carrying on one of the benches. Margaret did the same. The two
worked together to move the platters of food off the table.

“
She is far more
contentious than I remember,” Margaret commented.

“
She is taller now. The
size must make a difference,” Judith reasoned.

Margaret stared at the doorway for a couple
of moments. “Do you get the feeling that Marion has changed in more
ways than just her looks over the years, too?”

Judith shook loose a heavy damask cloth. She
motioned to her sister to help her spread it over the table. “I
think she definitely has.”

“
I liked the little Marion
so much better.”

“
It’s not her fault that
she’s changed,” Judith said in their niece’s defense. “What do you
expect from a child that was left in the keeping of nuns for twelve
years?”

The two women let out a heavy sigh
simultaneously, although neither of them had spent any length of
time anywhere but at Fleet Tower.

“
I don’t think I like
nuns,” Judith murmured.

“
Nor I. Nuns wouldn’t
understand us. Or William, either.” Margaret frowned in the
direction of the window seat. “And I have a strong sense that they
wouldn’t approve of what we’ve been doing here.”

“
Not even Scottish nuns?”
Judith asked, somewhat surprised.

“
Judging from Marion’s
reaction, I should think not.” Margaret smoothed out the cloth on
the table. “Don’t you think Marion seemed a wee bit…well,
uncertain?”

Judith aligned the two candlesticks on
either end of the table. “I think she was somewhat distracted by
our secret. But she wants us to wait for her, so she could help.
Don’t you think that’s a good sign?”

“
I believe you’re right,
Judith. Perhaps she does approve.”

“
She does.” Judith
nodded.

“
She lost a father to the
English,” Margaret continued. “It only stands to reason that she
would want to raise an army, too.”

Judith circled the table, arranging the
platters of food in the middle.

“
I think there are other
things that have her shaken up, too,” Margaret added.

“
I know. Things like the
laird,” Judith said with a giggle.

Margaret bit her lip to stop from giggling,
as well. “Do you think they’ve already…?”

Judith covered her mouth with her hand, and
then nodded wholeheartedly. “I’d say they have.”

“
Which means she’s not
getting much rest,” Margaret said with some concern.

“
I think that’s
good.”

“
It’s not good if she is
going to be irritable with us.”

Judith leaned over the table toward her
sister, lowering her voice. “But just think of half a dozen wee
Williams running up and down those stairs.”

“
I don’t think they’ll look
like William. Perhaps a half dozen Iains running about.”

“
That would be
lovely.”

Margaret clapped her hands excitedly. “In
any event, we can have Sir William teach them everything they need
to know about raising and caring for an army.”

“
And perhaps they’ll have a
couple of wee lassies for us to look after.”

Margaret motioned with her head to the
cupboard. “Then I’ll have someone to pass on my recipes to.”

“
It’s only fair if you gave
them to Marion first.”

Margaret put plates at each place. “First, I
want to make sure that the nuns haven’t ruined her. She’ll need to
prove herself to us first before I pass on anything so
valuable.”

Judith followed her sister
around the table, putting goblets by the plates. “When are you
going to teach
me
the recipes?”

Margaret gave a long disapproving look at
her younger sister. “You don’t remember, do you?”

“
Remember what?”

“
I’ve tried to teach you
more than a dozen times, but you always forget the
proportions.”

“
I do?”

The older sister nodded. “You do. And that’s
not the end of it, either. You cannot even be trusted with pouring
it in the right bottles after I’ve mixed it.”

“
I cannot be
trusted?”

“
No, you cannot,” Margaret
said with authority. “How do you think we lost the little livestock
we had left last winter?”

“
I poisoned them?” Judith
asked.

“
You poisoned them,”
Margaret asserted.

Judith sighed and inspected the table, not
remembering any of it. “I didn’t particularly like taking care of
them anyway. It’s much nicer to have the villagers bring in the
milk and cheeses. The goats were too much work.”

Margaret agreed. She stepped back to stand
next to her sister and studied the table, too. “It looks like the
old days, when the earl was here.”

“
I should light the
candles.”

“
You should fetch Marion
and the laird. Tell them everything is ready. I’ll light the
candles,” Margaret told her.

“
I believe they’re already
in the house,” Judith said, looking toward the arched
doorway.

“
No, they went outside for
a walk. I haven’t seen them come in yet.”

“
But I hear them coming up
the stairs.”

Margaret cocked her head, perplexed.
“William was in his chambers upstairs, and Marion and the laird
went outside. They cannot have gone down there without us seeing
them.”

Judith put a hand to her lips, hushing her
sister. “But I hear voices.”

“
Do you think, as William
sometimes says, the men are getting restless?” Margaret asked,
paling slightly.

Judith shook her head, taking a couple of
tentative steps toward the doorway. “It’s only a couple of voices.
But who do you suppose it is?”

Margaret crept closer to the doorway,
pushing her sister ahead of her. “Are you sure someone is down
there? I cannot hear anything.”

“
You never hear anything.
You’re practically deaf.”

“
I am?” Margaret asked, as
if this was shocking news.

“
Hush.” Judith
stopped.

Margaret held on to her sister’s sleeve.
“What do you hear?”

“
There was a thud, like
something dropping. Or perhaps it was a door closing.” Judith
inched closer to the doorway. “I think they’re coming up
here.”

“
That’s not good,” Margaret
said nervously. Moving together, they backed toward the table
they’d just set.

“
That’s not good at all,”
Judith agreed, blowing out the candles nearest to them. She looked
nervously about the room.

“
They can’t be friends of
ours.”

“
No, friends announce
themselves and come through the door,” Judith whispered. Turning,
she scampered about the great hall, blowing out the other
candles.

“
They cannot be English,
either,” Margaret said.

“
No. Englishmen act like
our friends, too.”

The voices coming up the stairs now clearly
belonged to two men. The two sisters looked at each other in the
darkened room. Only the embers of the fire lit the great hall.

“
What do we do?”

“
What
do
we do?”

They both pointed to the table.

“
We hide.”

Lifting the heavy damask cloth that draped
nearly to the floor, they both crawled under.

She could lie.

That was the first of Marion’s two choices.
She could drum up an astonishing story to explain her behavior and
demands upstairs. Her second choice was to tell the truth, which
happened to be more shocking than any story she could possibly
invent. The first choice didn’t offer any solution. The second
choice actually presented the possibility of scaring Iain enough to
have him see her reasoning and run.

She decided on the second choice.

“
How far do we have to
walk?” Iain asked, tugging on her arm.

Marion slowed down and looked around her.
They had walked halfway around the tower house. The only people
they had seen were the two Armstrong men, Tom and John, who were
standing on the wall over the gate. The portcullis beneath them had
been lowered.

“
No one can hear us,” Iain
told her.

Marion looked up the sides of the tower.
There had been many days when, as a child, she’d sat at the top,
watching, and overhearing everything that was going on below.

“
Yes, they can if they
want.” She took her husband by the hand and pulled him away from
the tower house. Around the next corner was, she recalled, a walled
garden.

“
I don’t think I have ever
seen you so nervous, not even the day that I forced you to wed
me.”

“
So you admit it. You
forced me,” she told him. “That’s good. It’s reason enough to annul
the marriage.”

He looped an arm around her waist and
whispered in her ear. “No gaggle of bishops would ever consider
annulling our marriage, not after I tell them the things I’ve done
to you.” He planted a kiss beneath her ear before straightening up.
“Never mind what you’ve done to me.”

Despite the cold air, Marion felt herself
blush. “You’re trying to distract me, make me lose the little
courage I have gathered to tell you the truth.”

“
No more talk of annulment,
then,” he said seriously.

Marion didn’t respond. She guessed that once
she was done explaining everything, Iain would welcome an
annulment.

She found her way to the walled garden, but
all that was left of it was a weathered bench and an untended mass
of weeds. In the darkness, you couldn’t even make out the paths
that once bordered flower beds and herb gardens.

“
This is private enough,”
she said, turning around. There was a tangle of vines growing right
up over the wall.

“
And for more things than
just talking,” he commented.

“
You are doing it to me
again,” she complained, turning to him and planting her hands on
his chest.

“
I’m glad.” Iain pulled her
to him and kissed her lips.

Marion leaned into her husband, kissing him
back with passion, cherishing this moment. She knew it would be
short-lived.

“
Now you are doing it to
me,” he said hoarsely, running his hands over her dress.

Marion wished she could forget about
everything she had seen and heard inside. She wanted to stay here,
in Iain’s arms. She wanted to make love to him on the old battered
bench and in the overgrown grass and at the very top of the tower
house. She wanted to spend her night in his arms and spend her days
daydreaming about it.