by Meg Cabot
John de Brissac’s mare reared in fright as the stone impacted, spraying dirt and grass, and both men shielded their heads as bits of loosened gravel rained upon them from above. When the brief shower ended, Hugo lifted his head, and, staring wide-eyed at the projectile, which, had the sheriff not acted so quickly, would undoubtedly have killed him, ground out, “What in the hell…?”
John de Brissac was already struggling to his feet, reaching for his fractious horse’s reins. “It’s one of the merlons, my lord. Someone pushed it—”
“Pushed it, my ass,” Hugo growled, rolling painfully to his feet. His body, where de Brissac had tackled it, throbbed. “Those towers always were a menace. As long as Finnula’s redecorating, I should have them pulled down—”
“No, my lord,” the sheriff puffed. He’d captured his mare, and was whispering soothing words into her flattened ears. “I think not. I heard footsteps from above, directly before it fell. Someone pushed that stone, I’d stake my life on it.” His eyes bright, de Brissac shook his head. “My lord, someone is trying to kill you.”
Chapter Seventeen
Don’t be ridiculous.”
Hugo, straightening, held on to the side of the turret for support. He wondered if, like Finnula that day that now seemed so long ago, he’d bruised a rib. The sheriff’s girth was considerable, and he’d thrown all of it at Hugo in his anxiety to save him from being crushed another way.
“Who would want to kill me?” Hugo laughed, and then regretted it, when his side throbbed. “’Tis Laroche everyone despises.”
“Apparently not everyone.” The sheriff had managed to calm his mount at last, and now he stood with one hand shaded over his eyes, squinting up at the tower. “That merlon didn’t fall. Someone loosened it, and someone pushed it. Come. The culprit is surely flown by now, but he might have left some sign. With these heavy rains, perhaps we shall find a footprint or two.”
Now that the initial shock was over, Hugo found himself shaking his head in skeptical amusement. “No wonder you were appointed shire reeve, John de Brissac. You see crime even where one has not been committed!”
The sheriff said nothing. With a half-dozen strides, he was inside the gates, looking for the door that led up into the left-hand tower. Hugo, rolling his eyes, followed the portly investigator. His skepticism was shaken, however, when de Brissac found the door that led to the turret stairs yawning on its hinges. It had not been so when Hugo had passed it moments before. He would have surely noticed.
“These towers are not in daily use, are they?” questioned the sheriff sharply, as he knelt to examine the dirt at the foot of the twisting staircase.
“Nay,” Hugo breathed. “They are not safe. The stairs sag and have not been repaired since my grandfather’s day. My brother and I used to play in them as children, but—” He blanched, remembering the day of his return to Stephensgate Manor. Had not Jamie called down to him from this very tower?
As if he had read Hugo’s mind, the sheriff lifted his head from his scrutiny of the dust and said, “’Twasn’t the boy. Wee lad like that wouldn’t have the strength to push an entire merlon over. Slab o’ rock that size weighs as much as me.” Rising, de Brissac brushed dirt from the knees of his braies. “No, I see the boy’s prints readily enough, but there are others here, all a-jumble. I’d say there were some visitors to these towers last night, durin’ the festivities. Come. Let us climb up and see what there is to see.”
The narrow wooden staircase was even more treacherous than Hugo remembered. Entire slats were missing, others rotting and warped, and the circular walls were covered with cobwebs and bird excrement. Creaking their protest as Hugo and the sheriff climbed them, the stairs threatened to give way beneath their combined weight. It was with relief that Hugo raised the wooden trapdoor that led to the dilapidated platform above. Inspecting the boards, Hugo thought them sound enough to hold his weight, and climbed through the trap to stand atop the watchtower.
Sheriff de Brissac, however, was not so trusting. He kept his enormous feet upon the staircase, his head and shoulders only through the trap as he squinted at the rotting planks.
“Aye,” he growled, pointing at the jagged edge of rock where a rectangular merlon had once rested, the seventh in a series of eight. “See that pile of rubble there? Someone’s been working on loosening that stone for some time.”
Hugo knelt to examine the pulverized rock. It was clear that someone had spent long hours picking out the mortar between the merlon and the turret wall. It was a task that could only have been accomplished with a sharp metal tool and an indefatigable resolution to see it to completion. John de Brissac was correct. The merlon had not fallen from decay or natural ruin. Someone had intentionally loosened…and pushed it.
“Lord Hugo!”
Hugo straightened, and saw his squire standing in the stable yard below, looking about him idiotically. At Hugo’s grunt, the boy looked up, then balked.
“Lord Hugo, what are you doing up there? ’Tisn’t safe, you know. Monsieur Laroche told me that the very moment I arrived…”
“Laroche,” Hugo murmured, and the look he darted at the sheriff was shrewd. “I’d quite forgotten about Monsieur Laroche.”
The sheriff nodded briskly. “I’d best ride over to Leesbury and see that the gentleman made it to his sister’s safely. Perhaps something occurred to detain him—”
Hugo laughed. “Like an opportunity to murder his most despised enemy?”
“Lord Hugo,” Peter cried, from below. “Is Lady Finnula up there with you? I cannot find her, and I need to know what she wants me to do with Lord Geoffrey’s toilet articles—”
Sheriff de Brissac had already started down the rickety staircase, and Hugo ducked his head to follow. “Did you try the back courtyard?” he tossed over his shoulder. “That’s where I last spied her—”
“She isn’t there…”
Hugo shrugged and hurried after the departing sheriff, ducking his head to avoid spiderwebs and bat dung. When he reached the bottom of the twisted staircase, his talkative squire was there waiting for him, his jaw slack at the sight of the broken merlon.
“My lord,” the youth stammered, hopping about wildly with excitement. “Somebody tried to kill you! Somebody is trying to kill you, my lord!”
“Close your mouth, you insolent pup.” Sheriff de Brissac was annoyed. Besides, he still had a bit of a headache from the previous evening’s revelry. “No one is trying to kill His Lordship. Anyone can tell these towers are falling to bits.”
Hugo flashed the older man an appreciative glance. “Quite right, Sheriff. Peter, you are overexcited. Why don’t you run and fetch old Webster, and have him direct someone to board up this door? It isn’t safe in these towers, and I won’t have Jamie break his neck playing up there…”
“Seems to me ’tis your own neck you ought to be lookin’ out for, my lord,” Peter said, with some indignation. “If you don’t mind my saying so, only a fool’d think that there merlon fell on its own—”
“Are you calling me a fool, boy?” Hugo swung around, looming threateningly over his charge. The youth took an involuntary step backward, gulping.
“No, my lord!”
“Then get gone with you!” Hugo waved a dismissive arm. “Go and fetch Webster. Better yet, fetch a hammer and some nails and board up those doors yourself. No sense bothering the old man, when you’re plenty able to oblige.”
The squire balked. “But I’m helpin’ Lady Finnula with the disposal of His Lordship’s things—”
Hugo was in no mood to cater to his squire’s sensitive nature. He turned and bellowed, with not a little ill feeling, “Off with you, boy! I care not to see your milk-white face again until the task is done!”
Peter’s milk-white face went a shade paler, and without another word, the youth turned and ran for the stables, where Webster kept the tools. Sheriff de Brissac was still chuckling over Hugo’s outburst when Finnula emerged from the house, wiping her hands on a piece of cl
oth.
“What’s all the shouting about?” she demanded, strolling toward them. “I can hardly hear myself think.”
Hugo was still fuming over his ward’s thickheadedness. “That damned fool of a squire of mine. I have yet to hear an intelligent word out of his mouth, in all the weeks I’ve known him.”
Finnula grimaced. There was no love lost between her and the boy who’d nearly broken one of her ribs. “Oh.” She shuddered delicately. “Peter.” Then, with a sly glance at the sheriff, she nodded. “Good morning, Monsieur de Brissac. You are looking well this morning. I’m surprised, I must say. I could have sworn ’twas you I heard laughing beneath our window half the night.”
The sheriff, for the first time since Hugo’s acquaintance with him, went red. Shuffling his massive feet, de Brissac hunched his shoulders and said, looking steadily at his own feet, “I admit I might have overimbibed last eve. The wine was flowing rather steadily. ’Twas quite generous of Your Lord and Ladyship—”
“Hmph,” was all Finnula said, as she finished cleaning her hands, but it was clear she was stifling a smile at the sheriff’s discomfort.
Anxious to change the subject, the sheriff lifted his head and said, eagerly, “Perhaps Her Ladyship saw someone come down from the tower earlier, and might be able to—”
Hugo quickly cut the older man off. “I assume you have breakfasted, my love,” he said, wrapping an arm about his wife’s waist. He ignored her raised eyebrows, pretending not to remember their tiff barely an hour before. “But what say you to sharing the midday meal with your husband? I thought we might ride to the millhouse and pay a call on your sister. She, too, after all, is newly wed.”
Finnula, to his relief, smiled prettily at this suggestion, all rancor forgotten. “Oh! And I can welcome my new brother to the family. I had no opportunity yesterday—”
“And I shall make sure you come bearing gifts for him, and not arms,” Hugo warned. Finnula frowned with disappointment at this, which sent the sheriff into guffaws.
“But you shan’t be paying any social calls dressed like that,” Hugo said, with mock severity. “Go and put on your finery. You are the wife of an earl now, and must be attired accordingly.”
Finnula rolled her eyes but traipsed off obediently, slinging the cloth with which she’d wiped her hands around her slender neck like a scarf. Hugo glanced at the sheriff, to thank him for refraining from mentioning the broken merlon in front of the girl, but saw that de Brissac’s attention was fully focused elsewhere. Following the older man’s gaze, Hugo ground his teeth. It was his own wife’s fetching backside that the sheriff found so absorbing. All the more reason, Hugo decided, for the leather braies to join his father’s belongings on the bonfire that eve.
Hooking an arm around de Brissac’s neck, Hugo spun the larger man away from the sight of Finnula’s retreating figure. “Come, John,” he growled. “I have a need to see whether you lot consumed every last drop of ale in my brew house last night.”
The sheriff seemed to recall himself, and coughed uncomfortably. “Ah,” he said. “’Twould explain the pounding in my head were you to find every barrel empty.”
“Unfortunately, the only explanation for my throbbing side is that I was hit by a sheriff the size of a cart horse.”
Sheriff de Brissac’s expression grew grave. “My lord, you had best face the fact that someone seems quite anxious to see you dead. I would advise the use of caution until I have had a chance to pay a call upon our friend Laroche.”
“Caution,” Hugo echoed, shaking his head. “I thought when I returned from Egypt I would have no more need for that kind of caution.” Holding up both his hands, Hugo made a gesture that encompassed the entire stable yard and cloudless sky. “This is my home. Yet ’twould seem I needs fear for my life in my very bed!”
Sheriff de Brissac was thoughtfully stroking his beard, and Hugo did not miss the fact that the older man’s eyes had strayed once more in Finnula’s direction.
“Not your bed, I hope, my lord,” the sheriff said. “You cannot mean that literally.”
Hugo instantly saw de Brissac’s meaning and glowered. “Certainly not,” he said stiffly. “’Twas only an expression.”
But he, too, found himself staring in the direction Finnula had departed, wondering if perhaps that was precisely what someone intended for him to think.
Chapter Eighteen
Finnula would never approve of her sister’s relationship with Jack Mallory. It had been established without anyone’s knowledge save that of the two main participants, and conducted in secret. Mellana was not a girl to whom lies came easily, and so Jack must have been the one who’d insisted on subterfuge, which led one to believe his intentions from the start had not been honorable.
This, coupled with the fact that there was something distinctly distrustful about the man’s face, caused Finnula to despise him. Perhaps it was only that his head was entirely too large for his small, wiry body. Now that she had such a fine specimen of a husband to compare him to, Finnula found Mellana’s lover sadly lacking in both muscle tone and body hair. It pained Finnula to think that her sister was forever wedded to such a physical inferior.
But it wasn’t just the musician’s build that troubled Finnula. There was also his obvious affection for gewgaws, a love that rivaled even Mellana’s. The minstrel was clad all over in velvet and ribbon. There were shiny bells upon his boots, and the buttons upon his jerkin were brass. Finnula even spied a ring upon his smallest finger! What sort of man dressed in such frivolous attire? Why, Hugo was a lord, but he dressed quite plainly…remarkably plainly, considering the jewels and precious materials he’d acquired in the Holy Land. Had he wanted to, Hugo could have outshone the king himself. So how was it that a common minstrel wore more finery than an earl?
Finnula did her best to hide her dislike for her sister’s lover, however, for her husband’s sake. On the ride over to the millhouse, Hugo had bade her to behave, and Finnula, anxious to assuage the guilt she felt over his upset about the bonfire, had assented. She felt quite badly about the fact that she’d forgotten to consult her own husband’s feelings in a matter of such household importance. She was so used to doing exactly as she wished, whenever she wished, that it had come as a blow to her when she’d realized there was now another party she was obligated to consult in her decision making.
Still, it hadn’t been easy not to knock Jack Mallory about the head. The bedroom that, up until yesterday, Finnula had shared only with her sisters was now Mellana’s bridal bower, and Jack Mallory boasted of throwing out all the dried roses Finnula had hung from the roof beams, claiming that they made him sneeze. In addition, the minstrel did not seem the least enchanted with the idea of being a miller, and sneered at Robert at every opportunity. The fact that the coward was careful to sneer only when there wasn’t the slightest chance of Robert seeing him do so made it all the worse.
Still, Finnula smiled graciously all through supper, responding calmly to Patricia’s ribbings about her wedding night and the fact that, in her lavender samite gown, she seemed to glow. Finnula had no idea whether this was true, but she saw that Hugo’s gaze strayed toward her often, and though at first she was certain it was because she had a piece of food caught in her teeth, she finally came to the conclusion that there was actual admiration in his glance. Could he, she wondered, actually find her attractive? It seemed incredible that any man would notice her when there was a beauty like Mellana in the room.
And yet even Jack Mallory, after several pitchers of ale, seemed to be grinning sloppily at her with alarming regularity. Finnula, discomfited by a sudden urge to ram her fist into the minstrel’s midriff, excused herself and went outside. She was trying very, very hard to follow Robert’s advice and act maidenly, in the dim hope that Hugo might actually come to feel something for her other than sexual desire, but she was finding it difficult indeed. How she longed to prick that troubadour’s hindquarters with just one arrow from her quiver! And how she missed her bra
ies. Even now, she was having difficulty with the hem of her gown, which seemed to drag woefully in the dirt. And there, there was another temptation! The elusive hawk that had been decimating Mellana’s hen population was perched just a few yards away, again on the henhouse roof. And she had not brought her bow and quiver with her!
Rather than let the opportunity go to waste, however, Finnula spent a quiet half hour studying the bird of prey’s habits, resolving to return to the millhouse surreptitiously upon the morrow expressly to kill the pest. The hawk, that was. Not Jack Mallory.
It was as she was planning the hawk’s demise that Hugo’s squire, Peter, strolled into the millhouse yard, looking for all the world as if he’d been invited to do so. Finnula, who still occasionally experienced a little tenderness in her side where the boy had struck her, eyed him mistrustfully but said nothing, hoping that he would go away without noticing her.
No such luck. Peter not only noticed her, her greeted her, and, though her salute was cold at best, he sauntered up to her with a smile.
“My lady,” he nodded. “Right fair day, wouldn’t you say?”
Finnula shrugged. She was in no mood for idle chatter. Peter, apparently recognizing this, asked her a question concerning the domestic arrangements she’d laid out for the staff that morning, and Finnula responded monosyllabically, enunciating clearly so that there would be no misunderstanding. It seemed odd to her that Peter would walk all this way merely to clear up a housekeeping dispute, and she couldn’t help staring at him suspiciously.
The domestic puzzle cleared up, Peter nodded, then, to Finnula’s dismay, leaned his backside against the very fence upon which she was sitting. Finnula glared at him, but the youth wouldn’t go. Instead, he asked, in a deceptively toneless voice, whether she had heard any word concerning the Laroches.
“The Laroches?” Finnula’s astonishment was difficult to disguise. “Do you…You don’t mean Reginald Laroche and his daughter, Isabella?”