Highland Thirst (41 page)

“Aye.”
Brona grinned. “We will pass a night or twae ere returning, if ye’ll have us?”

“We
certainly will,” Lucy assured her firmly.

“She
didnae e’en ask how he died,” Heming commented as they watched the two women
disappear into the keep with Thor on their heels.

“Nay,
she didnae,” Tearlach murmured and then turned back to his cousin. “How did he
die?”

“Verra
quickly, from what I hear,” Heming said with a grin, and then explained, “it
seems French food didnae settle well with ‘im. He landed on the coast last
week. He was apparently trying to make his way back to Carbonnel, hoping his
brother would help him appeal to the king for mercy. Howbeit, he had the
misfortune to land in a village where one of our scout parties was nosing
around, and he was daft enough to give his real name to the serving wench in
the inn where they all stopped to eat.”

“Wymon
always did let his arrogance outrun his common sense,” William muttered with
disgust, reminding them of his presence.

“Aye,
well, his arrogance got him killed this time,” Heming said, sounding amused. “One
o’ the men took him on in a fair fight when he left the inn.”

“Fair?”
William asked with disbelief.

“As
fair as a fight can be between an Outsider and one o’ our own,” Heming said
with a shrug and then pointed out, “at least they gave him a chance and didnae
jest kill him outright.”

“Aye.
I suppose it was more than he deserved,” William said with a shrug and then
turned his attention to the horses. Taking the reins of Brona and Heming’s
mount in hand, he left Peter and Fergus to lead their own horses and led them
to the stables, the three men laughing and chattering as they went.

“This
only happened last week?” Tearlach asked, turning now to lead the way up the
keep steps. “I’m surprised the news reached ye so quickly.”

“Oh,
weel, they sent a mon back to MacAdie with the news, but he stopped to rest a
night at Rosscurrach on the way. Ere he left to continue his journey, I told
him to tell yer father I’d bring the news to ye meself so he needn’t send a
messenger.”

“And
I thank ye,” Tearlach assured him as he pulled the keep door open for the other
two to precede him inside.

“Doonae
thank me, I was happy to do it. Brona has been pestering me about coming to
visit yer wee wife almost since the day ye left Rosscurrach,” Heming informed
him as he stepped past him into the keep. “She took a shine to Lucy.”

“‘Tis
a shine that’s returned,” Tearlach assured him as he followed.

A
burst of laughter made both men pause just inside the door and peer toward the
chairs by the fireplace where Lucy and Brona sat, heads close together, hands
on chests as they laughed over something.

“We
are lucky men, Tearlach,” Heming murmured solemnly as his eyes slid over his
wife.

“Aye,”
Tearlach agreed and then gave a half laugh and a shake of the head. “Ye’d ha’e
been hard pressed to convince me when I woke in Carbonnel’s dungeons, and e’en
harder pressed to do so when Wymon was torturin’ me, but I see now that the day
we were taken at the inn was the luckiest day o’ me life.”

“And
o’ mine,” Heming assured him and then commented, “it makes ye wonder if there’s
no’ a grand plan to things, does it no’?”

“That
it does, Cousin. That it does,” Tearlach said as the two men moved to join the
women who had saved their lives, and become their futures.

Please
turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of

Hannah
Howell’s newest historical romance,

HIGHLAND SINNER,

coming
in December 2008!

Scotland, early
summer 1478

What
was that smell?

Tormand
Murray struggled to wake up at least enough to move away from the odor
assaulting his nose. He groaned as he started to turn on his side and the ache
in his head became a piercing agony. Flopping onto his side, he cautiously ran
his hand over his head and found the source of that pain. There was a very
tender swelling at the back of his head. The damp matted hair around the
swelling told him that it had bled but he could feel no continued blood flow.
That indicated that he had been unconscious for more than a few minutes,
possibly for even more than a few hours.

As
he lay there trying to will away the pain in his head, Tormand tried to open
his eyes. A sharp pinch halted his attempt and he cursed. He had definitely
been unconscious for quite a while and something beside a knock on the head had
been done to him for his eyes were crusted shut. He had a fleeting, hazy memory
of something being thrown into his eyes before all went black, but it was not
enough to give him any firm idea of what had happened to him. Although he
ruefully admitted to himself that it was as much vanity as a reluctance to
cause himself pain that caused him to fear he would tear out his eyelashes if
he just forced his eyes open, Tormand proceeded very carefully. He gently
brushed aside the crust on his eyes until he could open them, even if only
enough to see if there was any water close at hand to wash his eyes with.

And,
he hoped, enough water to wash himself if he proved to be the source of the
stench. To his shame there had been a few times he had woken to find himself
stinking, drunk, and a few stumbles into some foul muck upon the street being
the cause. He had never been this foul before, he mused, as the smell began to
turn his stomach.

Then
his whole body tensed as he suddenly recognized the odor. It was death. Beneath
the rank odor of an unclean garderobe was the scent of blood—a lot of blood.
Far too much to have come from his own head wound.

The
very next thing Tormand became aware of was that he was naked. For one brief
moment panic seized him. Had he been thrown into some open grave with other
bodies? He quickly shook aside that fear. It was not dirt or cold flesh he felt
beneath him but the cool linen of a soft bed. Rousing from unconsciousness to
that odor had obviously disordered his mind, he thought, disgusted with
himself.

Easing
his eyes open at last, he grunted in pain as the light stung his eyes and made
his head throb even more. Everything was a little blurry, but he could make out
enough to see that he was in a rather opulent bedchamber, one that looked
vaguely familiar. His blood ran cold and he was suddenly even more reluctant to
seek out the source of that smell. It certainly could not be from some battle
if only because the part of the bedchamber he was looking at showed no signs of
one.

If
there is a dead body in this room, laddie, best ye learn about it quick. Ye
might be needing to run,
said a voice in his head that sounded remarkably
like his squire, Walter, and Tormand had to agree with it. He forced down all
the reluctance he felt and, since he could see no sign of the dead in the part
of the room he studied, turned over to look in the other direction. The sight
that greeted his watering eyes had him making a sound that all too closely
resembled the one his niece Anna made whenever she saw a spider. Death shared
his bed.

He
scrambled away from the corpse so quickly he nearly fell out of the bed.
Struggling for calm, he eased his way off the bed and then sought out some
water to cleanse his eyes so that he could see more clearly. It took several
awkward bathings of his eyes before the sting in them eased and the blurring
faded. One of the first things he saw after he dried his face was his clothing
folded neatly on a chair, as if he had come to this bedchamber as a guest,
willingly. Tormand wasted no time in putting on his clothes and searching the
room for any other signs of his presence, collecting up his weapons and his
cloak.

Knowing
he could not avoid looking at the body in the bed any longer, he stiffened his
spine and walked back to the bed. Tormand felt the sting of bile in the back of
his throat as he looked upon what had once been a beautiful woman. So mutilated
was the body that it took him several moments to realize that he was looking at
what was left of Lady Clara Sinclair. The ragged clumps of golden blond hair
left upon her head and the wide, staring blue eyes told him that, as did the
heart-shaped birthmark above the open wound where her left breast had been. The
rest of the woman’s face was so badly cut up it would have been difficult for
her own mother to recognize her without those few clues.

The
cold calm he had sought now filling his body and mind, Tormand was able to look
more closely. Despite the mutilation there was an expression visible upon poor
Clara’s face, one that hinted she had been alive during at least some of the
horrors inflicted upon her. A quick glance at her wrists and ankles revealed that
she had once been bound and had fought those bindings, adding weight to Tormand’s
dark suspicion. Either poor Clara had had some information someone had tried to
torture out of her or she had met up with someone who hated her with a cold,
murderous fury.

And
someone who hated him as well, he suddenly thought, and tensed. Tormand knew he
would not have come to Clara’s bedchamber for a night of sweaty bed play. Clara
had once been his lover, but their affair had ended and he never returned to a
woman once he had parted from her. He especially did not return to a woman who
was now married and to a man as powerful and jealous as Sir Ranald Sinclair.
That meant that someone had brought him here, someone who wanted him to see
what had been done to a woman he had once bedded, and, mayhap, take the blame
for this butchery.

That
thought shook him free of the shock and sorrow he felt. “Poor, foolish Clara,”
he murmured. “I pray ye didnae suffer this because of me. Ye may have been
vain, a wee bit mean of spirit, witless, and lacking morals, but ye still
didnae deserve this.”

He
crossed himself and said a prayer over her. A glance at the windows told him
that dawn was fast approaching and he knew he had to leave quickly. “I wish I
could tend to ye now, lass, but I believe I am meant to take the blame for your
death and I cannae; I willnae. But, I vow, I
will
find out who did this
to ye and they will pay dearly for it.”

After
one last careful check to be certain no sign of his presence remained in the
bedchamber, Tormand slipped away. He had to be grateful that whoever had
committed this heinous crime had done so in this house for he knew all the
secretive ways in and out of it. His affair with Clara might have been short
but it had been lively and he had slipped in and out of this house many, many
times. Tormand doubted even Sir Ranald, who had claimed the fine house when he
had married Clara, knew all of the stealthy approaches to his bride’s
bedchamber.

Once
outside, Tormand swiftly moved into the lingering shadows of early dawn. He
leaned against the outside of the rough stonewall surrounding Clara’s house and
wondered where he should go. A small part of him wanted to just go home and
forget about it all, but he knew he would never heed it. Even if he had no real
affection for Clara, one reason their lively affair had so quickly died, he
could not simply forget that the woman had been brutally murdered. If he was
right in suspecting that someone had wanted him to be found next to the body
and be accused of Clara’s body, then he definitely could not simply forget the
whole thing.

Despite
that, Tormand decided the first place he would go was his house. He could still
smell the stench of death on his clothing. It might be just his imagination,
but he knew he needed a bath and clean clothes to help him forget that smell.
As he began his stealthy way home Tormand thought it was a real shame that a
bath could not also wash away the images of poor Clara’s butchered body.

“Are
ye certain ye ought to say anything to anybody?”

Tormand
nibbled on a thick piece of cheese as he studied his aging companion. Walter
Burns had been his squire for twelve years and had no inclination to be
anything more than a squire. His utter lack of ambition was why he had been
handed over to Tormand by the man who had knighted him at the tender age of
eighteen. It had been a glorious battle and Walter had proven his worth. The
man had simply refused to be knighted. Fed up with his squire’s lack of
interest in the glory, the honors, and the responsibility that went with
knighthood Sir MacBain had sent the man to Tormand. Walter had continued to
prove his worth, his courage, and his contentment in remaining a lowly squire.
At the moment, however, the man was openly upset and his courage was a little
weak-kneed.

“I
need to find out who did this,” Tormand said and then sipped at his ale, hungry
and thirsty but partaking of both food and drink cautiously for his stomach was
still unsteady.

“Why?”
Walter sat down at Tormand’s right and poured himself some ale. “Ye got away
from it. ‘Tis near the middle of the day and no one has come here crying for
vengeance so I be thinking ye got away clean, aye? Why let anyone e’en ken ye
were near the woman? Are ye trying to put a rope about your neck? And, if I
recall rightly, ye didnae find much to like about the woman once your lust
dimmed so why fret o’er justice for her?”

“‘Tis
sadly true that I didnae like her, but she didnae deserve to be butchered like
that.”