Ransom My Heart (28 page)

But Skinner, instead of breaking into a brisk trot, as was his custom, whinnied loudly and, to Hugo's great surprise, reared with enough force that, had Hugo been a less experienced rider, he would have been sent sprawling to the grass.

“Whoa, boy!” he cried, to the fractious steed. “Easy!”

Skinner had not reared out of fright, however. Hugo had never known the horse to shy, not even from scorpions or raging Saracens bearing down upon them with scimitars drawn. The stallion, still whinnying as loudly as ever Hugo had heard him, bucked his hind legs, trying to pitch Hugo forward. Hugo clung to the horse with his knees, glancing frantically about him to see the source of his normally calm steed's distress, while Gros Louis barked
frantically with alarm. It was Finnula, watching in horror from the placid Violet, who cried, “Hugo, jump! Jump!”

Hugo sent his wife a withering glance. All of her sisters, as well as Rosamund, the mayor's daughter, had hurried outdoors at Skinner's first shriek. He would be damned if he was going to make a fool of himself jumping from his own mount in front of half the village.

But Robert, scurrying out from under Skinner's flying hooves, seconded his sister's cry. “Jump, my lord! He wants you off, that's clear!”

Skinner, whom Hugo had long imagined to understand human language, seemed to second this statement by rearing even more violently than before, and Hugo, with resignation, slid from the saddle. He landed on his feet in the grass, but was forced to roll out from beneath the horse's flailing legs, and so when he rose, he was covered, for a second time that day, with bits of grass and dirt.

No sooner had Hugo slid from his back than Skinner calmed, and, looking a bit sheepish, trotted about the yard, snorting indignantly and tossing his noble head. Gros Louis, too, immediately quieted, and turned his attention on a tree, which he lifted a leg to water.

Hugo, his eyes on his horse, didn't see the slim projectile that hurled itself at him the moment he was on his feet once more.

“Oh!” Finnula cried, colliding into him with nearly as much force as the sheriff had earlier that day, only Finnula was a much lighter, much more welcome armful. “Oh, Hugo, are you all right?”

Surprised at the emotion trembling in the girl's voice, Hugo chuckled, smoothing back some flyaway strands of her bright hair. “Right enough.” He winked. “'Twould take more than one of Skinner's temper to kill me, love.”

Finnula's face had gone pale, despite the sunshine above. “Whatever was the matter with him? It was like he went mad!”

Robert had hurried over to the shaking destrier, and despite Rosamund's fearful plea for him to stay away from the awful beast, was running knowledgeable hands up and down Skinner's twitching legs.

“I can't find aught wrong with him, my lord,” the miller said, straightening and shaking his head. “Nothing. It truly is as if the animal went mad.”

“Not mad,” Hugo said grimly. “Not Skinner. A saner mount I've never had.”

“Then what?” Finnula's gray eyes, as they searched his face, were troubled. “Then what could have ailed him?”

Hugo tore his glance from his wife's concerned face, though he tightened his grip on her slim waist. “Look beneath the saddle blanket, if you would, Robert, and tell me what you find there.”

Robert did as he was bid, and his sharp intake of breath was audible to all. “God's teeth!” he cried, plucking something from the stallion's back. “Look at that!”

Hugo's expression went even grimmer. Finnula, gazing up at her husband's face, felt a chill pass through her. She was very glad that look wasn't directed at her.

“A burr, is it, then?” he demanded.

“Indeed,” Robert cried, in wonder, holding up a small, bloodied thistle. “'Twas slipped beneath the saddle blanket and your poor mount's back. Bit into him something fierce, my lord, when you sat on him—”

Finnula withdrew her arms from her husband's neck and placed her fists on her hips. She was beginning to understand why her husband looked so grim. “But how did a burr work its way 'neath that saddle whilst we were dining? The horses never
stirred from the fence post where we tied them, and there aren't any thistles growing there—”

“Someone put it there apurpose!”

The hoarse voice sounded from the tight cluster of onlookers in the millhouse door, and Christina shifted her pregnant belly to allow Peter to pass out into the yard. Seeing the young man's expression, Finnula felt her heart sink. Surely the squire would end up with Hugo's boot upon his backside before the end of the day.

“Someone put it there apurpose, I say,” Peter bellowed, when everyone only blinked at him. “'Tis like this morning, my lord, with the merlon. Someone is trying to kill you!”

Finnula stared up incredulously at Hugo. “What merlon? What is he talking about?”

Hugo said nothing, but if ever his eyes had burned the color of the sun, they did so then. Finnula had never seen so murderous a gaze, and was glad it was directed at the squire and not at her.

“A merlon from one of the watchtowers was toppled down upon Lord Hugo just this morning,” Peter declared. “Would have killed him, too, had not the shire reeve shoved him out of the—”

“Silence, you bloody mongrel,” Hugo roared, and in the millhouse doorway, Rosamund gasped, being unused to rough language. In just two strides, Hugo had the boy's head locked in a powerful arm, rendering further speech impossible. “You will shut your mouth and keep it shut until I get you back to Stephensgate Manor, where I intend to wear a hole in your insolent hide!”

“Hugo!” Finnula was furious. She darted forward, unconscious of her long hem dragging in the dirt, and faced her enraged husband squarely. “You release that boy at once! I want to hear what he has to say.”

“He has naught to say,” Hugo declared, not loosening his hold on the choking lad. “He is an impudent cuss who needs to be taught a lesson as to how comport himself around ladies—”

“Release him at once!” Finnula flew at her husband like a discontented sparrow. “What can you be thinking? How could you keep such a thing from me? Is someone trying to kill you? Is that what he said?”

Hugo, attempting to alleviate some of his wife's distress, loosened his headlock on the youth. Peter, in consequence, went stumbling away, clutching his aching throat and croaking piteously until he fell in a heap at the feet of a very surprised Rosamund.

“No one,” Hugo panted, brushing his hands on his braies, “is trying to kill me, Finnula. Rest easy. I assure you that I intend to live long indeed, to torment you with reminders of the happiness you might have had with your Sir Hugh.”

Finnula did not think this joke in very good taste, and she tossed her head and strode stiffly back to Violet, where she waited, impatiently, to be helped into the saddle once more, unable to mount unaided thanks to the tightness of her skirt. Hugo, chuckling at her indignation, followed her, and received, for his efforts at chivalry, a rather sharp kick to the solar plexus once his wife was seated. This only caused him to chuckle harder and wonder at the surprise that awaited him at home. He somehow thought it would be rather anticlimactic, considering the day he'd had.

Lord Hugo and his new lady were well out of earshot when Peter finally sat up, and, rubbing resentfully at his wounded throat, stared after them with an expression that would certainly have alarmed Finnula, had she seen it. Her brother, Robert, in a fit of foul temper, had hauled Jack Mallory down to the mill, saying that his new brother-in-law could sing just as easily car
rying flour sacks as he could lounging upon the hearth. Mellana took bitter umbrage at this, and her sisters had hurried inside to comfort her. Only Rosamund, staring down at the suffering squire, remained, and her tenderhearted distress at seeing the poor boy so ill-used was touching.

“Oh, sir,” she whispered, bending down to lay a slim white hand upon the youth's shoulder. “Is there aught I can do for you?”

“'Tis not I you need worry for, mistress,” Peter said, bravely.

Rosamund looked perplexed. “I beg your pardon?”

“'Tis my lord who is in danger, not I. And he stubbornly refuses to see it!”

Rosamund bit her lush lower lip. “Sir? What say you?”

“You saw the attempt that was just made upon His Lordship's life, did you not?”

“You mean…” Rosamund's slender brows constricted. “You mean the burr beneath his saddle?”

“Someone laid that thistle there, just as someone, earlier today, tried to push a heavy stone upon His Lordship's head. Someone is trying to kill Lord Hugo.”

“But who would want to kill His Lordship?” wondered Rosamund breathlessly. “Such an honorable and handsome man surely hasn't enemies—”

“Aye, but this enemy is the last, I fear, His Lordship would ever suspect.”

Rosamund, looking down into the squire's face, read something in his expression that caused her to remove her hand from his shoulder and straighten.

“Oh, no,” she gasped. “Surely not!”

“I fear 'tis so,” Peter fretted. “Verily, I wish it were otherwise, but she has both motive and opportunity—”

“I cannot believe of it her! That is what they said when Lord
Geoffrey—” At Peter's knowing look, Rosamund gasped again. “No! You think…You think she really did kill Lord Geoffrey, and that now she is trying to murder his son, as well?”

Peter looked mournful. “Would that it were not the case, Mistress Rosamund, but I very greatly fear—”

“But why?” Rosamund was clearly horrified. “Why would she want to kill Lord Hugo?”

“She is not like other women, mistress,” Peter said, slowly. “Why, I saw her brandish a knife at His Lordship. I saw her truss him up as easily as if he were a pig—”

“But to kill her own husband!”

“Finnula Crais is not natural, and cannot be expected to have the emotions of a natural woman.” Peter shook his head. “Nay, Mistress Rosamund. I would say that Finnula Crais is a very dangerous woman. Very dangerous indeed.”

Rosamund, looking down at him, swallowed hard. “'Tis true she is the best shot in Shropshire—”

“—and 'tis also true that she resents being married, as it keeps her from her hunting—”

“—and I saw her go out of the room after supper, alone. She could have slipped that burr beneath His Lordship's saddle!”

“And she was nowhere to be found when the merlon slipped this morning—”

“Oh!” Rosamund put both hands to her cheeks. “Oh, 'tis too awful!”

“But what can be done?” Peter looked down at his hands. “The shire reeve will never arrest her. Any fool can tell he is half besotted with her himself. I…I fear for my master's life, mistress.”

“Yes,” Rosamund said, softly. “I have seen Sheriff de Brissac's partiality for Finnula. He quite admires her, I fear.”

Peter heaved a massive sigh. “Then all is lost.”

But Rosamund, who had spent an entire year convincing her
father to allow her to marry Robert Crais, who was below her own station in life and saddled with six sisters besides, was not a girl to give up so easily.

“Nay,” she said. “All is
not
lost. You leave it to me, sir.”

“To you?” Peter's astonishment was great. “But you are only a simple maiden. How can
you
stop her, mistress?”

“Wait,” Rosamund said, earnestly. “Wait and see.”

And Peter, massaging his sore neck, was prepared to do exactly that.

F
innula's surprise was not the kind Hugo had expected…at least, not exactly.

When they returned to the manor house, they were met in the stable yard by Mistress Laver, who slyly informed Her Ladyship that all was in order. Hugo was not in the mood for secrets, though he'd refused to answer any of Finnula's questions concerning Peter's statements back at the millhouse, and grumbled that she might do as she liked, but he intended to have a bath, feeling dirty from his fall and sweaty from their ride.

Finnula only turned up her nose at him, so Hugo strode into the house alone, and, after barking orders that hot water be brought to his solar, hastened there.

But when he entered his childhood chamber, he found that it, like his father's solar, had been stripped bare of furnishings. Ev
erything was gone, from his clothing to the bearskin rug that had lain across the floor. Even the trunks that he had sent ahead from Cairo, the trunks to which only he had the keys and which contained a fortune in jewels and cloth, were missing. If they were sitting outside, waiting to be part of Finnula's bloody bonfire…

Hugo's bellow might have brought down the roof had Stephensgate Manor been less well-constructed. As it was, every servant in the household came running, but not his wife, whose name it was Hugo had shouted.

“Where,” Hugo roared at Mistress Laver, who regarded him with more composure than any of the other staff, being well-used to his father's tantrums, “are my things?”

“Well, with your wife, I would imagine,” was Mistress Laver's coy reply.

“And where is my wife?” Hugo demanded.

“In the lord's solar, I should think, where a proper lady would be.”

Hugo thought he might suffer an apoplexy if someone did not give him a straight answer. Seeing this, Mistress Laver smiled and said gently, “The Lady Finnula had all your things moved to your father's solar, my lord. 'Twas quite gen'rous of 'er, I thought, considerin' what happened last time she was there. But she thought you'd be pleased—”

Hugo had turned away before the last words were fully out of the cook's mouth. His father's solar was quite a ways down the corridor, but he was at the heavy wooden portal in a few strides, and, lifting a fist to thump on it, realized that it was his own room now, after all, and laid his hand upon the latch.

His bed stood in a different place than his father's had, facing the row of windows on the south side of the solar, the fireplace on the opposite side. The trunks that had arrived before him from Cairo were stacked neatly in a corner. The bearskin rug was
stretched across the floor before the hearth, and Gros Louis had already made himself at home there. The dog's tail thumped once or twice at Hugo's entrance. In the center of the room, Finnula was changing out of her lavender samite, into something less ornate, but not, he saw with relief, her leather braies.

“Was that you I heard caterwauling before?” Finnula asked, pulling the lavender gown over her head and awarding Hugo a tantalizing glimpse of her slim ankles and calves as the kirtle she wore beneath the samite hiked up a little. “Must you go about the house bellowing my name like that? 'Tis embarrassing, you know.”

“I thought—” Hugo broke off, watching as she bent to scoop a plain yellow gown from her own trunk. The emerald he'd given her winked between her breasts on its silken cord. “I thought you had lain my own things upon the pile for the bonfire.”

“Did you?” Finnula was concentrating mightily hard at working the lacings to the gown. “I said you were a fool to marry me. I didn't say
I
was a fool. Why would I throw out your things? 'Twas Lord Geoffrey I could not abide.”

Hugo crossed the room to stand beside her. “And you had them remove his things to make way for mine?”

“You said your solar was drafty in the winter. And 'twas too small for your belongings, let alone the addition of mine. I thought it better to move in here.” Finnula raised the gown to drop it over her head, but Hugo reached out, arresting the flimsy garment in one hand before it covered her.

Finnula looked up questioningly. “My lord? Is there aught the matter with the gown?”

With a rakish smile, Hugo tossed the garment over his shoulder. “Naught that can be remedied by your not wearing it.”

Snaking out an arm, Hugo caught his wife about the waist and pulled her against him. Finnula, feeling the heat of his body
through the muslin of her kirtle, looked up at him with amusement in her gray eyes.

“You called for a bath,” she reminded him.

“There isn't any reason why I must bathe alone.” He grinned down at her. “Have you any objections, my lady?”

Finnula actually burst out laughing. “None at all, my lord.”