“Ye will give me the letter,” Searc said, his voice low.
“Who is she then?”
“She is my wife and under my protection.” Searc’s near growl stopped the questions he could tell lay on Lyngfield’s tongue. “Ye will bring me the letter today.”
Lyngfield shrugged. “I don’t have it.”
“Where is it?”
Lyngfield hooked his thumb toward the stone walls of the palace across from the stables. “The queen regent sent one of her ladies with two guards to ask me about your wife yesterday. When I mentioned the letter, she took it for the regent.”
Mo Chreach! They were already being tangled into the webs of the Scottish royal court. Searc pierced the man with a dark look. “Keep away from my mount, Lyngfield, and don’t even think about Elena again.” Elena. She’d be awake certainly by now. He had to get back to the room.
Lyngfield bobbed his head. “When ye talk to the regent, if ye could put in a good word for me to get me back in the stables, I’d appreciate it.” He reached up and rubbed the mare’s nose again. Searc turned out of the stables just as a pair of guards walked in.
“Yer old Master of the Horse is inside,” Searc told them and kept walking. Before he could make it across the bailey, a scream pierced the calm morning air. Frantic French rattled away on a sob as one of the queen regent’s women ran from around the back of the stables.
“Mon Dieu! Elle est morte!” The woman’s panic knifed through Searc, followed quickly by the taint of death. Elena! He ran past the hysterical Frenchwoman and rounded the stables with Lyngfield and the two guards on his heels. Searc gripped the low stone wall and looked over to the grassy garden alcove on the other side. His stomach clenched and released with his breath. Blonde hair, not auburn, spread out around a pale face. The woman was laid out as if peacefully slumbering.
“Jacqueline Montegue,” one of the guards identified the lass and climbed over the wall. Searc followed. She had been the maid who’d helped Elena yesterday.
Lyngfield leaned over. “That’s the woman who came to my home yesterday.” The man’s eyes narrowed in obvious suspicion. He spoke without taking his gaze from Searc. “Does she perchance have a letter on her?”
The guard searched the lass’s pockets and stood. “Nay.”
“Now how did I know that would be yer answer.” Lyngfield snorted.
“But bloody hell look at her.” The guard pushed up the lass’s sleeves. Cut lines of raised, dried, black blood crisscrossed her white skin.
“’Tis like the lass they found yesterday under the stones,” Lyngfield said, his eyes narrowing.
“And the one they brought from Culross had cuts all along her arms.” The guard passed the sign of the cross before him. “Poor lass. What happened to ye?” The wind blew across them as if to answer, shifting the smell of initial decay.
The woman who’d found Jacqueline’s body sobbed loudly where she stood with several guards and ladies. “Find Father Renard,” someone yelled. “She should be blessed.”
“Stand aside,” an authoritative voice ordered, and Searc watched Henri, Marie’s nearly constant companion, jump over the wall. He bent down, flipping up the woman’s petticoats to expose more cuts. “I will tell Marie. Jacqueline was one of her favorites. This could be a threat against the queen regent.”
“But the other women were not related to the regent?” Searc asked.
“Non.” Henri turned to Lyngfield. “Why are you here? You were discharged yesterday.”
“I was checking on the mare.” He pointed at Searc. “And I found him in the stables alone.”
Henri frowned between them and Searc met his gaze. “I was but caring for my own horse.”
“That was the woman who came to my home yesterday,” Lyngfield continued. “I gave her a letter that discussed that man’s wife. The letter seems to be missing now.” Lyngfield raised an eyebrow. “Did the queen regent receive the letter?”
Searc felt suspicion roll off the man.
“Non.” Henri pinched the bridge of his thin nose. “I would have seen it if it had made it to Marie.”
Lyngfield crossed his arms. “Perhaps Munro here doesn’t want anyone to read the letter.”
Henri waved to several of the guards. “Have Father Renard bless and then take Jacqueline to the abbey to be examined and laid to rest. You—” he pointed to Lyngfield, “—will come with me.” He glanced at Searc. “I wish to know what was in the letter, every word you can recall.”
Lyngfield bobbed his round head.
“And you,” Henri said to Searc, “do not leave the grounds. I have questions for you.”
“Of course.” Searc stepped back up over the low wall. “I must find my wife now. There seems to be a murderer on the grounds.”
“A curfew will be set,” Henri continued to talk to the guards.
Searc strode purposely toward the room where he’d left Elena asleep, her hair flung in haphazard waves across her white pillow, looking even more like crimson against the starkness. Her dark lashes against milky skin and her pink lips softly parted as she breathed.
Searc’s pace quickened. Could someone have entered the room with a servant’s key? Och! By the time he’d reached the cool shadows of the corridor, he broke into a jog, quickly devouring the distance. He turned the corner. One, two, third door on the right. His heart pounded now and his stomach clenched as he saw the door ajar.
He slid his sword free. “Elena!” He rushed into the room, his muscles tight, ready to block an attack. His charge brought him up short in the middle and he pivoted. “Elena?” he called loudly, but the empty room answered only with silence. His power surged within him, almost breaking free. He breathed deeply, harnessing and holding his panic.
He moved to the barely made bed. She’d risen in a hurry, but someone had thrown the coverlet up over the pillows. If a maid had come in after Elena had gone, she would have made the bed properly. If Elena had been carried away roughly, the bed would show the struggle. Searc breathed in the minor relief. He saw her shift from the night before over a chair and the press open. So she’d dressed, in a hurry. Had she gone looking for him? “I should have woken her.” His sword tip dipped to the floor as he looked about the room for more clues.
Two strides brought him to the cold hearth and he knelt down to pick up a parchment that sat on the edge, part of it singed. The hairs on his neck prickled as he unfolded the thick missive with a broken wax seal.
Dear Roger Lyngfield…
The letter taken from the dead girl. Placed in their room, in the hearth as if to burn. Someone was trying to make him look like the murderer, someone who’d come into Elena’s room to throw the damning missive into a nearly cold hearth. He paused, letter in hand. If he took it to the queen regent to tell her how he’d found it in their room, would she believe him? Would news of his escape from the village outside Edinburgh reach her ears, clouding her reason? If he was arrested he wouldn’t be able to protect Elena.
Och! Elena! He had to find her first. If anything dastardly happened to the lass, it would be his fault for leaving her in the room alone. Searc threw on a clean shirt and tucked the letter inside his plaid at the waist. He turned to the open door, instinct making him draw his sword.
“I have some questions for you.” Henri stood frowning, a small platoon of guards at his back.
…
Elena stood still as a stone. Not a breath nor a blink as she met Marie de Guise’s assessing gaze. “Your grace?” Elena asked. She needed to know which lie the queen regent was referring to before she admitted anything. Innocent, act innocent. Of course she was innocent except for the fact that she had lied. Elena stood tall and opened her eyes wide.
“You have lied to me, Elena Munro.” Marie paced in the small space before the soaring double doors. “To lie to one’s monarch is to commit treason, non? Do you have so little regard for your own life?”
Elena bowed her head and lowered into a half curtsey. “I would never de
em to hurt you in such a manner, your grace.”
“Stand up. Look at me, enfant,” Marie chided and Elena straightened. The ladies behind her were silent witnesses. “I sent my lady, Jacqueline, to question your cousin last evening. Have you seen her today?”
“No, your grace.”
Marie’s lips pursed tightly. “The guards who accompanied her said that Roger Lyngfield said you were not his cousin. If you were, you would be the five-year-old daughter of Katherine Parr, Henry VIII’s last wife.” She frowned fiercely at Elena. “He said that Lady Suffolk wrote a letter introducing you. Do you know where that letter is?”
Elena shook her head. “No, your grace. I have not seen a letter.”
“Well there is one,” Marie snapped. “Mon Dieu.” She turned in a tight circle. “The captain of my guard saw Lyngfield give it to Jacqueline, but now she and the letter are missing.”
“Missing? I hope nothing…” Elena trailed off, though her words brought Marie’s hot gaze around.
“I will pray for her safety,” Elena murmured, thinking of the nice woman who’d found her a gown for supper last evening.
“I do not have time to question you further right now.” Marie looked impatiently toward the door. “I must meet with the ambassador from England, Lord Randolph, but Madam, you should take the time to confess your sins.”
Elena followed the woman’s sharp gaze to the small wooden boxed rooms along the side of the sanctuary. “Father Renard waits,” Marie continued. “Go cleanse your soul. I will speak with you and your husband after midday.”
Elena swallowed past the constrictor in her throat. Confess? What should she tell him? If she didn’t go or didn’t come up with some secret that Marie already knew, the woman would know she was truly hiding more.
For a long moment, Elena stood there in the small vaulted entryway, nearly choking on the smell of incense that infused the church. Her face burned red and a cold sweat broke out on her palms. Two ladies had remained behind with a guard. Even though they talked together in low whispers, they had obviously remained to witness her entry into the confessional.
Elena clasped the hard rosary beads in her fingers and walked down the short open hall, once again on her toes so that her footfalls were muted in the echoing chamber. She’d been to confession once before when she was young. The old priest had scared her with his talk of hell and penance, making her spend hours afterward praying for her transgressions. Dread sat cold in her stomach.
With a deep breath through her nose, Elena stepped through the little wooden door into the box, swished around to sit on the hard bench and shut herself in. Her slipper pushed at something light on the floor of the vestibule and she picked it up. A soft, woven square—a handkerchief. She tucked it into the pocket inside her forepart.
A thin partition of fabric sat to her right. Though silent, she could smell the slight tang of unwashed wool and sweat mixed with a peculiar scent of incense. Father Renard.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I wish to confess my wrongdoings in the name of the Father and His holy son, Christ Jesus.” She took a fortifying breath and prepared her first lie. “It has been one month since I have confessed.”
“Why so long, my child?” Father Renard’s voice made her jump even though she knew he was there. It was deep and hushed, causing prickles to climb immediately up her back. She forced herself to stay perched on the edge of the hard, wooden bench. She was so close to the door, her knees pressed her full skirts into it.
“I…I have been traveling and unable to find a priest along the way.”
Silence sat as if he were weighing her words. The air in the small box was stagnant, and the smell of the less-than-fresh priest began to overwhelm her. Elena’s heart pounded like the thundering gallop of a horse. When stars glittered in the dim light before her eyes, she concentrated on breathing. Even if the air smelled acrid, it was still air, and should keep her from swooning.
“How have you sinned?” Father Renard’s timbre resonated in the dark. He was so close, just on the other side of the thin fabric and wood between them. She could see the outline of his hard mouth through the cloth.
“I have lied.” That wasn’t a lie. If she told more truth than lies, and lies only to keep herself alive, surely God would forgive her.
“How so?”
“Roger Lyngfield is not my cousin.” The priest must already know that. “I have no family, but he is the nephew of the woman who took me into her home as a child. When she died, I went to live with her friend, Lady Suffolk of Lincolnshire when I was still young. When Lady Suffolk packed up her household to go abroad, she suggested that I find Lyngfield, that he might take me in as his aunt had once done.” All of this was true. She left out the need to vacate England as fast as possible to keep away from Queen Mary’s guards.
The priest considered her words. “Why did you lie about this? What are you hiding? God knows all, but you must not hide the truth from your superiors.” His voice had taken on the glinty edge of a blade.
“Lady Suffolk did not think he would help me if we weren’t related. She told me to keep up the ruse.” Elena was on thin ice here if the letter Lady Suffolk had written said something else. The horrid woman may have sealed Elena’s doom by not showing her the blasted letter. “I am greatly saddened if I have offended the queen regent, but my guardian at Grimsthorpe in England, Lady Suffolk, told me to keep the secret.”
A long silence stretched, and Elena wondered what else she was to say.
“And,” Father Renard prodded, “you met Searc Munro on the way north, fell in love and married him, all within your travels?”
Elena felt her face grow hot. “It seemed the best course of action once I met him. He saved me from bandits, helped me. I had no dowry yet he was willing to give me his name.”
“’Twas a clandestine wedding without witnesses?”
“Yes.”
“Despite the allowance of such unions by Rome, it is still very much encouraged for vows to be said in the face of the church. Marie de Guise agrees with me on this point.”
“Then,” Elena asked, “we are not wed?”
“Did you fornicate with him?”
“No,” popped out of her mouth before she had time to think. But she’d lied to Marie about knowing Searc intimately. True, she’d said he was often impotent to turn Marie’s interest, but she’d made it seem as if they’d been together as husband and wife. “I mean yes.”
Through the screen, Elena saw the shadow of the priest touching an overly long fingernail to his lips. “A private commitment between people is no longer sufficient. Though according to Rome you are wed with acknowledged vows, especially since it has been consummated. And you are sharing a room, which makes you living together.”
Elena twisted her hands in the dark as the man considered all the angles of their made-up marriage. “The union was not before the church, and since the queen regent agrees that marriages are too easily slipped from without witnesses and church record, you will have to share your vows with one another again,” he intoned. “Before me or another man of God.”
He nodded at his decision on the topic, took a breath, and continued on. “You will admit your lies to the queen regent, begging her for forgiveness. You will pray solidly for two hours on your knees for the saving of your soul. You will meditate on your rosary in the prayer of the holy Mother Mary. And you will no longer fornicate with Searc Munro until I can properly bless you in marriage.”
God’s teeth. “Thank you, Father.”
“Go now, in the name of Holy Christ Jesus and our Father in heaven,” he murmured as if his mind had already switched to another thought.
Please, dear Lord, forgive me for lying to your servant. Elena passed the sign of the cross over her chest and felt for the small iron lever in the door. For a moment it seemed stuck. She rattled it, giving it a good shove with her foot. The door gave way and she tumbled more than stepped out.
The monk, who had earlier dou
sed her with holy water, stood there and lifted her easily under the arm as she struggled to right herself. He was stronger than he looked. “The door sometimes sticks.” He gave her a small smile. Perhaps the look was meant to be sympathetic but his hard eyes made him seem to be laughing at her.
“Thank you.” She pulled out of his grasp and saw the guards. “Are there usually guards in the sanctuary?”
One of them with a shaggy beard bowed his head. “We need Father Renard. There has been another murder.”
Elena’s hand covered her mouth. “Another woman?”
“Aye.”
“Was she—” her voice dropped, “—defiled in some way?”
“Crisscrosses cut all over her,” the guard supplied, and Elena couldn’t draw in a breath. Air, she needed fresh air, not this incense-sickening stench that seemed to crush her more with each inhale. She heard the monk speaking low to the priest as he exited the confessional. Elena flew briskly up the side aisle toward the open door.
The bearded guard kept up with her. “It is not safe to go out on your own,” he said. “I should escort ye.”
Elena stopped just inside the doorway. Outside the morning had turned overcast. Dark clouds signaled more rain ahead. It reflected her heart. Another girl dead, defiled in a ghastly way. It was as if the heavens cried against the evil in the world.
The monk had followed and touched her upper arm as the priest brushed past her. “I am Brother Peter,” he introduced himself with that same laughing, insincere smile. His face was soft, almost like a woman’s. “If you are in need of help, Mistress Elena, just call for me.”
Although he met her gaze, Elena felt as if he were examining her. Had he listened to her confession? Elena felt the blush infuse her cheeks but nodded before stepping out into the wind that skipped along the pebbled drive.
A group of guards and stablehands stood near the far wall bordering a garden. Several strong lads hoisted a body over the stone, golden hair hanging down. Jacqueline. Elena stumbled, stopping, her hand to her heart. Father Renard spoke a prayer, his robes slapping his legs in the strong breeze.
Highland Hearts 03 - Crimson Heart Page 12