Could she have been so tired that she’d lain down on this bed without thinking? And why hadn’t she stirred when Fiona entered the room?
“Isbeil?” Fi called softly. There was no response. She went closer. The nurse was lying on her back with her hands resting on her midsection, her face turned away. Fiona touched her arm and immediately realized that something was very wrong. “Wake up, Isbeil!”
Her heart was in her throat as she bent closer and saw that one of Isbeil’s eyes was not completely closed. A sickening chill came over her. Her eyes burned with tears as she realized that Isbeil, who had cared for her since she was a bairn and guided her through the loss of her beloved mother, was dead.
How could it be possible?
“Da!” Fiona heard herself cry his name as she sank down on the bed. Instinctively reaching for Isbeil’s familiar hand, she found that it had begun to stiffen. Waves of horrified disbelief washed over her. “Da, come quickly!”
Her father came through the door looking alarmed. “What’s amiss, lass?”
Behind him, Fiona could see Ramsay standing in the shadows. “It’s Isbeil, Da. I—I think she has died!”
His gaze swept the room, as if expecting to find an intruder, before he came to the bed. In that moment, Fiona felt grateful for her father’s strength and goodness. He bent over Isbeil and soberly felt her pulse, touched her face, looked at her partially-open eye before he closed it and drew a blanket over her body.
“Dear old Isbeil is gone to be with your ma,” he said softly. “She served us well.”
“But, I do not understand! What could have taken her from us? She was not ill. And Da, she never would lie down on my bed. Never!”
Magnus brought her up into his bearlike embrace, patting her back as she began to weep. “We never know what may happen when we are not about, I suspect. Isbeil was an old woman. These things happen.”
Fiona shook her head, but before she could reply, Ramsay spoke up from the doorway. “Mayhap the old nurse had a sudden spell and was forced to lie on your bed until it passed.”
“There was nothing wrong with her,” insisted Fi. “She was never ailing, never one day in all my life!”
“Lass, what are ye trying to say?” Magnus asked. “Isbeil has clearly had a spell of some sort and simply passed from this life. There is no sign of struggle. And no one would want to hurt her. I understand that ye do not want to accept this, but you must.”
It was true, Fiona realized. There was nothing to be done but surrender to reality. Did the details of Isbeil’s death really matter in the end? The devastating truth was she was gone now.
After Fiona allowed her father to lead her out of the room, she went into his arms and wept against the front of his plaid.
“Now then, lass,” he murmured at length, “I know ye are stronger than this. Were ye not a rock for your brothers and me when your ma left us?”
It came to her then that Isbeil had been the only person left in her world whose main concern was Fiona’s welfare, the only person who lived to take care of her rather than expecting her to do the caretaking. Suddenly, she felt more adrift than ever.
“Let’s dry your eyes,” her father was saying as he brought out a handkerchief. “I think that Isbeil’s death is another sign that it’s past time for us to go home.”
Please, not yet! “But, Da, what about Erik? He is lost out there, somewhere in the Falkland woods.”
“He is but a bird,” Ramsay said from the doorway, and Fiona realized he hadn’t immediately followed them when they left the bedchamber. “I’ll get ye a new one once we are home and properly settled. A merlin. Twould be so much smaller and more fitting for a lass.”
Magnus heaved a sigh. “Fi, I know ye have a strong attachment to Erik, but Ramsay is right. Ye would do well to heed him.”
Fiona’s first instinct was to rebel, but a moment later she fell back against her father’s broad chest, exhausted from everything that had happened these last hours and with no strength left to fight the two men. As Ramsay went off to see that Isbeil’s body was removed from the bedchamber, Fi rested within the circle of her father’s arms, feeling as if she were being carried away on a wave of sorrow and exhaustion.
A short time later, Ramsay reappeared with William Barclay, the Keeper of the Palace, and another large man who Fiona recognized as a stone carter. As the two men went into the chamber, Ramsay lingered behind near Fi and Magnus.
“Do not be concerned,” he said with authority. “I have told them to treat the old woman’s body with respect.”
“I just…” She paused as fresh tears filled her eyes. “It’s hard to believe this is real. First Mama, now Isbeil…”
Ramsay patted her shoulder, glancing toward Magnus. “Aye. Life is often difficult to understand. Sometimes we must simply trust God.”
“True,” nodded her father. “So true.”
After Barclay and the carter had wrapped Isbeil’s thin, small body in a sheet and carried her away, Fiona stood up. Summoning her strength, she took a deep breath and went back into the bedchamber. She could sense Ramsay and her father standing just beyond the doorway.
Every night except this last one, Fi had slept on that bed with Isbeil lying on her pallet nearby. The bed now was straightened and smoothed as if nothing had happened, as if Isbeil’s corpse had not been there minutes ago. Even the pillow held no imprint of her head. Fiona then noticed the expensive but roughened male glove, half-exposed from its hiding place under her pillow. Hot blood rushed to her cheeks. Why had she not seen it before, when she was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking at Isbeil’s face?
Had anyone else noticed it? Her heart raced as she helplessly turned her head to seek out her father and Ramsay. Magnus was clearly lost in thought, but Ramsay met her gaze and seemed to smile, ever so slightly, as if he knew her secret but had chosen not mention it.
Suddenly Magnus spoke up. “As ye can see, there’s nothing for us here any longer. Pack your things, lass. I will ask the king’s permission to take our leave. We depart for our Skye home on the morrow.”
* * *
Fiona went through the motions of eating some food, washing, and putting on clean clothes, but all the while she was devising a plan to get word to Christophe. There was so much she needed to tell him. He alone would understand; somehow, she believed this was so.
When Magnus and Ramsay departed for the Great Hall to eat a midday meal, Fiona immediately sat down at a small table in her bedchamber. Taking up quill and paper, she began to write. The inkpot was nearly empty and time was short, so she wrote about Isbeil’s shocking death and the plans her father was making for them, with Ramsay, to return to Skye. She wanted to beg Christophe to intervene, but could not bring herself to write the words. There were still so many unspoken questions and feelings between them. If she told Christophe she loved him and wanted only to be with him, what if he did not feel the same?
No, it would be better to explain what was transpiring and leave it to him to declare his love first. Al her instincts as a woman cautioned this must be so. He was a man, after all.
Oh, aye. Indeed he was.
These thoughts sent a flush of desire and longing through her body. In that moment, the horror of Isbeil’s death was relieved somewhat by the warm power of Fiona’s feelings for Christophe.
She prayed that he truly felt the same and was prepared to act.
Chapter 18
“I have heard that another master mason arrives tomorrow from France. Nicholas Roy,” said Bayard as he stepped into the little cottage. “You would do well to return your attention to your work before he usurps your place here.”
Christophe paused in the act of gathering his new sketches of the roundels that would adorn the east range of the palace, facing the courtyard. He had determinedly focused on the carved portraits to tamp down the rush of feelings he’d experienced when Ramsay even touched Fiona’s arm. Work on the roundels was coming along nicely, especially the one Bayard was ma
king of Fiona, but Christophe had decided that there should be some sort of additional decoration. Perhaps a circular laurel wreath, making a sort of frame?
“I take your meaning about Nicholas Roy,” he replied, “but there are other important matters on my mind.”
“Indeed? Might one of those matters be a lass from the Isle of Skye?”
“Do not make light of this. And stop using words like lass. It sounds ridiculous, spoken in your French accent.”
Bayard sighed. “Of course I realize this is none of my affair—”
“Just so.”
“Yet, who else will dare to talk sense to you, monsieur? The goals you have laid out so carefully have been the structure of your life. You have the ability to transform the architecture of France in a way that will survive long after we have left this earth. No one else can bring your vision to the Louvre Palace.”
“Are you suggesting that this work of mine demands a vow of celibacy?” Christophe said in sardonic tones.
Bayard met his eyes, and for once, neither of them was in a mood to jest. “This coil you are in is about much more than celibacy, and well you know it.”
Rubbing his tired eyes with both hands, Christophe sighed. “If I did not know it, I would not be suffering so. But you must allow me to find my own way through this labyrinth.”
“If you say so.” Bayard threw up his hands. “I would warn you, however, it’s a dangerous business.”
“Dangerous? What exactly are you referring to?”
“Love, that’s what! It’s an illusion. A chimera, if you will. And I can promise you, it doesn’t last.”
With that, Bayard gave a dramatic, battle-weary sigh and took his leave.
* * *
St. Briac’s head hurt, and the pain was spreading to his heart. What the devil was he to do? Gathering up his rolled-up sketches, he looked around for Raoul. The dog was sprawled on the cool stone floor, snoring.
“Come on, you giant hound,” he said and prodded him with his boot. “You’d sleep all day if it were up to you.”
With a loud sigh, Raoul unfolded his long legs and pushed to his feet, slowly following his master out the door. The pair had nearly reached the garden gate to the palace when Christophe had the strange sense that Fiona was near. The hair on the back of his neck prickled in a way that felt sensual, and in the next instant, to his amazement, she came through the arched entrance to the courtyard.
Raoul stared, alert, and then broke into a loping run to reach her side.
“Hello, Raoul!” Fiona exclaimed, dropping to her knees to embrace the hound. “At last, we meet properly.”
“He is a rogue,” said Christophe when he was standing next to them. “Beware.”
She turned her lovely face up to him, and he searched her poignant expression, feeling as smitten as a boy.
“I have brought you a message,” Fiona said softly. “I saw Bayard and asked him to give it to you, but he assured me I would meet you coming this way.”
“A message?” What did she mean? And why did she look so skittish?
She rose to her feet and took a step toward him. Her long black curls shone in the rays of sunlight that pierced the canopy of trees overhead. Christophe ached to pull her into his arms and kiss her. To show her all the feelings he couldn’t say aloud. The dreams he was beginning to realize, yet didn’t fully comprehend.
But before Fiona could speak, there was a noise on the path that led to the stables, and she went pale.
“It was nothing. Probably a bird,” he assured her, thinking of her gyrfalcon who must be missing still. “Tell me now, what is wrong?”
“A great deal has happened,” she said in a rush. “Too much to tell while we are here, in a place where anyone could come upon us. I’ve written to you, explaining.”
She pressed a note into his hand, folded and sealed with a glob of blood-red wax, and for one sweet moment, their bare fingers brushed. Christophe took her arm with his free hand. “What’s amiss?”
To his surprise, tears sprang from her eyes and she leaned against him so that they soaked into his doublet. “Life is…so very complicated,” she whispered brokenly.
Was that some sort of farewell? He thought about the way he had forced himself on her last night, had come so close to ravishing her just because he wanted her and was swamped by his own emotions. Perhaps he had ruined things beyond repair.
“Fiona, chérie, I am sorry for the way I am, for my limitations…” He swallowed and swept a hand before them. “This is not easy for me.”
He longed to carry her off to his cottage, close the door, and spend a day—or maybe a week—making love and talking and sorting out all their problems. But that was impossible, and Christophe remembered Bayard’s cynical pronouncement that love was an illusion, impossible to sustain.
Staring at the note and then at Fiona, he sighed and put it in his doublet.
Just as she was about to reply, a young page came running through the entrance to the courtyard, and Fiona stepped away from Christophe. The boy was panting as he exclaimed, “I’ve looked everywhere for ye, Mistress MacLeod. Come with me! Your father’s been taken ill!”
* * *
Standing near the bedside of Magnus MacLeod, Ramsay had to concentrate to keep his expression of sincere concern in place. It really was not in his nature to pretend, especially when it meant acting as if he had tender feelings. He was more comfortable with blunt speech that forced those in his path to back down, but the MacLeods had no way of knowing that about him. He had been acting since the first day he appeared at Duntulm Castle, announcing that he sought to mend the old bonds between the MacAskill family and the Clan MacLeod.
It had been easy enough to make them believe he was their friend, for Magnus MacLeod and his family had all been distracted by the illness of Eleanor MacLeod. They never would have guessed that he was secretly bent on revenge for the wrongs done to his mother and brothers by the MacLeods. Ramsay’s father, Murdo MacAskill, had labored faithfully in service to the clan, but after his death in battle, it seemed Murdo MacAskill’s loyalty and sacrifice had been tossed aside by the MacLeod elders.
Even the Viking treasure, originally discovered by Murdo and blindly turned over to Alasdair Crotach, the MacLeod chief, should have belonged to Ramsay’s impoverished family! He burned whenever he thought of it but now that his plan was well in motion, Ramsay looked forward to devising ways for the MacLeod chief and his closest family to suffer as the MacAskills had suffered.
There had been winters when Ramsay’s family had nearly starved, forgotten by Alasdair Crotach. His brothers had turned the other cheek, returning to toil in the boatyards in Rubh’ an Dùnain, the small Skye peninsula where generations of MacAskill men had labored in the MacLeod fleet of galleys and birlinns. But Ramsay could not forgive or forget. He’d spent years planning ways to maneuver his way into the family of Magnus MacLeod, the natural son of the clan chief.
Once Ramsay had witnessed the MacLeod family at the commodious Duntulm Castle, he’d burned to see them suffer as his ma and little brothers had done. He wanted to hear them weep for mercy. He wanted to have the same power of life and death over them as they had wielded over his innocent family.
And just as passionately, Ramsay wanted to retrieve the Viking treasure that his father had discovered, but then foolishly surrendered. He’d already found one jeweled armband among Magnus MacLeod’s possessions, but there was more, he knew it. When he’d witnessed Eleanor MacLeod giving Fiona the round, carved brooch she’d kept hidden away for years, it spurred him on even more. One day it would all belong to Ramsay and he would be able to provide his own family with the wealth they deserved.
Ramsay stared down at Fiona’s father who was now muttering, half awake, half asleep. How well the potion he’d carried with him from Skye was doing its work!
“Aye, Ellie, I hear ye,” Magnus called agitatedly. His eyelids fluttered and Fiona leaned over him, smoothing back his hair. “I’m coming!”
<
br /> “Da, it’s all right. I’m here. It’s Fi.”
“He’s delusional, it seems,” Ramsay said, pleased to hear how concerned he sounded. “Poor fellow.”
“Faith, what could have happened to him?” Fiona whispered urgently. When she looked up, Ramsay schooled his features into a mask of compassion. “He was fine barely an hour ago, when the two of you went to the Hall. Did he eat something tainted?”
Ach, if she only knew. Suppressing an urge to smirk, he patted her shoulder and murmured, “Nothing different from what I ate myself. But perhaps I should go down to the kitchen and speak to them.”
He could see that Fiona was relieved to be rid of him. “Aye,” she said distractedly. “Thank you.”
The next part would be almost too easy. Striding out into the passageway, he paused to look down over the courtyard. There was that Frenchman who dared to look at Ramsay with contempt while coveting Fiona. Nearby mingled St. Briac’s staff of masons, wrights, carvers, and other workmen who labored from dawn to dusk diligently at their inane tasks.
Now, as the light began to fade, workmen began to wander away, bound for their lodgings in the village of Freuchie. St. Briac, too, had gathered his things and was walking through the arched gate that would take him back to his cottage. Turning, Ramsay hurried down the circular staircase to the Gallery. There, around the corner under the steps, stood the young page who had fetched Fiona earlier that afternoon.
“Ah, good. There ye are. What’s your name again?”
“Hallont, sir.”
What a stupid name. He gave the lad a smile and took out a shilling. “Do ye know the Frenchman called St. Briac, the Master Mason?”
Abducted at the Altar: A St. Briac Family Novel (Brides of Skye, Book 1) Page 18