Highland Hearts 03 - Crimson Heart (12 page)

Hannah grabbed her hand and they were off again, trotting on tiptoe down the center aisle. At the end, Marie de Guise knelt before the priest who had brought news of the dead girls the night before. Marie was dressed in modest cloth, her head bowed. Hannah gestured toward the embroidered pillow next to the queen regent. Elena saw the tabernacle that held the host’s bread to the side of the priest. She genuflected, her knee bending to touch the ground and passed the sign of the cross once more over her chest before kneeling next to Marie. Hopefully the rituals in the English court were the same here in Scotland.

The priest spoke in Latin. His deep, melodic voice droned on in a timbre that seemed to lull, but also quickened Elena’s pulse. Nerves. The smell of incense burning in copper bowls to cleanse the air made her nose wrinkle.
Dear Lord, please hold my sneeze
.

She knew Latin as well as she did French, and she concentrated on the readings and creeds. Her head bent, she kept her gaze trained on the side of Marie. She’d mimic the regent’s movements. After a series of long monotone readings, Elena recognized the part where she should move once again, but she waited for Marie’s arm to start its upward lift. “A reading of the holy gospel.” The priest held a thick bible in the crux of his hand, embroidered ribbons hanging down from the spot he’d saved.

Almost in perfect unison, Elena raised her arm and made the cross over her own forehead, then her lips, and then her heart. Elena’s breath lodged in her throat as she met the hard stare of the priest. He seemed to study her. Did he wonder why she was there with the queen regent?

Father Renard began the story from the gospel, the entire reading in Latin. “
No one who practices deceit shall dwell in my house; no one who utters lies shall continue before my eyes.
” It was a psalm she had been made to recite once over and over again to Lady Suffolk when she’d been caught lying to cover for her friend Patty who was off meeting the love of her heart. Did the priest think she was lying?

Father Renard turned to the tabernacle and removed the bread that had been blessed. He spoke over it before placing the thin bread in Marie’s open mouth with a flat spoon. He ignored Elena. Same with the cup of wine. Perhaps he only gave communion to the regent. More Latin and finally a prayer before Father Renard turned and walked away, passing through an arched door on the side of the large church, his shoes echoing in the stillness.

Elena kept her head bowed and moved the beads in her fingers. When Marie lifted her head, Elena passed the sign of the cross before her and stood. She followed Marie down the aisle, once again on her toes, though the queen regent didn’t mind clip clopping in her heeled shoes, the staccato rising throughout the vaulted space to the carved angels in the ceiling. Several attendants, ladies of her court, stood in the small alcove before the doors. They bowed as she entered.

Marie ignored them, turning instead to face Elena. “As you’ve just heard from God’s own mouth,” she intoned. Her almond-shaped eyes flashed with open irritation. “It is a sin to lie,
Madame
.”

Most holiest of Fathers,

The runes have almost completely been translated in the ancient tome. It is evil in nature, explaining ways to draw a person’s power from them by cutting their flesh to release it. The author seems to be pagan, perhaps from the early Druids practicing their evil incantations in this area of Britain. Please send your orders as to what I should do with the tome upon completion of the translation.

In Christ our Lord’s most holy name,

Father Renard, Holyrood Abbey, Edinburgh

Searc’s fingers curled into the sides of the wooden barrel of fresh water as he dunked his head in, the cool liquid momentarily blocking the sounds of the stable. He pushed upward and threw his head back. Water trickled down his bare chest and he scooped more out to wash himself. A thin sliver of lye soap worked well to remove the stink of sweat and horse.

He’d taken Dearg out before dawn, partly to see if anyone would stop him and partly because his charger needed to stretch his legs. The air was hot and stagnant in the lowlands compared to his home.

He’d left Elena sleeping soundly and locked her in. He hadn’t been long. Quickly he wiped the horse down, fed, and watered him, then washed himself. Searc toweled off with a cloth he’d grabbed from the kitchens and threw his dirty shirt over one shoulder. He’d find a fresh one in the room.

“
Chi mi a-rithist thu
.” He ran his hand down the horse’s nose. “We will leave soon.” He looked into the horse’s large brown eyes. Dearg wasn’t happy away from the Highlands.
Neither am I
.

Searc walked along the empty stables. The queen regent’s white mare nickered and came up to the stall door, her nostrils flaring slightly. He palmed her some oats from a nearby bag.

“Are ye her keeper now?” Roger Lyngfield leaned against the edge of the stable door.

“Nay, just checking on her.” Searc met the man’s gaze with a steady chill. “Shouldn’t there be guards about the regent’s horse?”

Lyngfield pushed off and walked to the mare. She came quickly to his hand and he fed her a turnip from his pocket. “Aye, there should, but now I’m not even here to watch her.” He turned to Searc. “I wouldn’t harm a horse, no matter what my politics be.” The straightforward meeting of the man’s gaze showed Searc that he spoke the truth as much as his senses did.

“Where were ye when the horse was saddled?” Searc asked.

“I was sleeping one off.”

“It was past noon.”

Lyngfield shrugged. “Had a bit of a party with the ladies. Didn’t close me eyes until dawn.” Lyngfield absently ran his hand down the mare’s nose. “When I got in she was already saddled. Thought Eddie had saddled her.” He shrugged off the blame. “It must have been someone who knew the regent was riding that afternoon.” He paused. “So…where are ye keeping my dear cousin?” The man’s smirk made it obvious that he knew she wasn’t his cousin.

“We are guests of the queen regent.”

Lyngfield crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the stall. “Now from what my ma told me before she died, her sister-in-law, the lady Katherine Parr, had only one daughter and she’d be about five years old now. She’s the only cousin I would have. Yer wife looks a wee older than that.” He rubbed the bushy end of his chin. “And Katherine Parr was such a pious, legs-closed type of woman, that I don’t see her having a bastard a score of years ago.”

“Did ye receive a letter from Lady Suffolk about Elena?”

Lyngfield gave him a half grin. “Aye, but it didn’t say much, just that she was my cousin on me mother’s side. I certainly wasn’t expecting a lush woman like Elena.” He grinned roguishly and yanked on his trews, “I’d certainly have made room for her, especially since she ain’t really my cousin.”

Searc could kill him. Easily. But he held tight to the heat of fury churning in his stomach. Years of controlling his emotions helped him contain the magic that could suck that sneer right off Lyngfield’s face along with the rest of his life. Nothing of Searc’s anger showed on his face, no emotion at all. He just stared at Lyngfield until the man’s smile slipped away, and he shuffled his foot in the straw. Did he know how close to death he stood?

“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 deem 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.