Arsenic and Old Armor (31 page)

“
Much to do,” Judith
repeated.

“
We’ll have a houseful of
guests tomorrow.”

“
A houseful of guests.”
Judith clapped. “Any ‘special’ guests?”

“
You heard Jack’s
instructions to Cardinal Bane. We might just have an army of
Englishmen at our door,” Margaret said with a giggle as the two
women disappeared inside the kitchens.

William moved the cushions aside and lifted
the top of the window seat. As promised, the recruit was waiting
patiently for him.

“
Good of you to join us, my
man. I’m elated to see you.”

He leaned forward to help the man out of the
window seat, but his visor slipped down, blocking his vision. He
straightened up to adjust it. As he did, his gaze fell on the
barred door.

“
Didn’t that bloody woman
say the door was to remain unbarred?”

The recruit said nothing.

“
What’s worse,” William
added, “how are my men going to reach me with the door
barred?”

He walked to the main entrance and lifted
the oak beam from its iron hooks. He walked back to the
recruit.

“
Well, my man. Are you
ready?”

He reached into the window seat and, after
some pulling and shifting of the deadweight, took the man by the
arms and hauled him up onto his shoulder. William staggered
momentarily, taking a few steps in different directions before
finding his balance.

“
The men are elated to have
you joining us,” he huffed at the new soldier. “I must warn you,
though, that you will be losing some of this weight. We maintain
strict schedules down there. You will be training eight to ten
hours a day. Then there will be other duties that you need to
attend to, as well.”

William had to shift the weight on his
shoulder again. At the arched doorway, the body bumped against the
side of the opening, staggering William slightly. He backed up and
moved through the doorway more carefully.

“
Another thing I should
tell you is that food is sometimes scarce. I try to bring you down
whatever I can.” William lowered his voice as he glanced down the
narrow hallway that led to the kitchens. “Watch what you eat and
drink. Those witches in there have been known to poison our
drinks.”

The stairwell going down to the dungeon was
dark, and William took the candle from the sconce on the wall. Even
in the dark, he knew these passages better than the palm of his
hand, but his new recruit wouldn’t know his way without some
light.

“
Any questions?”

There was no response.

“
I am elated. You’ll fit in
just fine.”

William’s foot hooked on a soft item
blocking the stair. He tripped and he and his recruit tumbled
forward a couple of steps before they crashed against the wall.
Somehow, he kept his hold on both the candle and the new man.

“
Bloody hell!” he
growled.

William regained his balance and turned to
look at the obstacle.

“
Not trying to desert, I
hope,” he snapped, lowering the candle. He smiled. “Why, not a
deserter at all.”

William stood looking at the man. Why, the
good fellow even brought his own blanket along.

“
Another recruit, I
believe.” He paused as a suspicion suddenly entered his head.
“Hold, there. Why was I not told about you?”

There was no response.

He shifted the recruit on his shoulder and
studied the red-soaked blanket and tunic. “You are here in
disguise. You were sent by the English to spy on us. Admit it,
man.”

The man appeared speechless. He wasn’t even
trying to fight him after being discovered.

“
Answer me,” William
shouted. “We don’t go easy on spies here in Scotland.”

The spy’s head remained bowed. His chin
never lifted from his chest. The man was no recruit for the
Wallace’s army. He was an imposter and a coward.

“
You will remain where you
are, dog. I will return in a moment to take care of you.” He turned
and continued to assist his new recruit down the steps to the
dungeon.

“
Bloody imposter,” William
shouted back up the stairwell. “We don’t take kindly to your type
around here.”

Marion didn’t give Iain a chance to check on
his two men at the gate. She didn’t even allow him to exchange a
few words with them. As far as she was concerned, the most urgent
business right now was showing him the dead body of Sir George
Harington.

“
You might not believe
this,” Iain said in a low voice, “but I’m very much looking forward
to getting
inside
.”

Even with all she had on her mind, she
couldn’t help feeling the double meaning in his words. There was a
smoldering fire deep inside of her that only Iain knew how to
stoke.

No
, she told herself.
Don’t let him
distract you
.

“
You will be sorry that you
didn’t believe me,” she whispered under her breath as they climbed
the stairs to the door of the great hall.

“
We don’t have to go
through with this, Marion. No matter what you saw, no matter what
you show me, I still intend to take you upstairs immediately
afterward and ravish you. And that’s the truth.”

She swallowed hard. She wished he wouldn’t
say things like that.

“
The truth?” she asked.
“You wouldn’t know the truth if you fell over it.”

“
Perhaps I won’t even wait
to take you upstairs.”

Entering the great hall, she stopped dead at
the sight of her uncle standing in the middle of the darkened room,
staring at the shields and weapons on the wall. All the candles had
been extinguished and the food had been cleared away.

“
It appears your aunts have
retired for the night…leaving us to our own devices.”

She didn’t say anything. She knew what he
was thinking. It was definitely warmer in the hall than it had
been.

“
So where is our friend?”
Iain whispered into her ear.

Marion didn’t think it would be wise to show
him the body with Sir William around. She gestured with her eyes
toward her uncle.

He nodded. “Then perhaps you’d care to show
me your bedchamber first,” he whispered, “since the great hall is
occupied.”

She glowered at him. He was taking all of
this far too lightly.

“
Uncle William?” she
called.

He continued to look up at the shields.
Marion walked over and stood beside him. She couldn’t understand
what was so interesting about the ancient shields and lances.

“
Sir William,” she said
softly, touching him on the shoulder.

He could as well have been a statue. There
was no answer. Marion looked pleadingly at Iain.

“
Sir William,” he called.
“Sir William Wallace.”

The old man awoke out of his reveries.

“
Ah, here you are, lad.
Back already. Elated to see you.” He stepped around Marion like she
was a piece of furniture and directed his words to Iain. “Tell me,
what news do you have for me?”

“
Your presence is requested
on the tower, m’lord. There are troops approaching from the south.
We don’t know if they are friends or foe, but the rumor is that
Edward Longshanks himself may be leading them.”

“
Just like the cowardly dog
to try a sneak attack. I shall go and see to that
immediately.”

Sir William moved to the
arched doorway, drew his sword, and ran up the stairs, shouting,
“
Freedom
!”

“
Thank you,” Marion said
grudgingly. She waited until her uncle’s shout died away up the
stairs before she took Iain by the hand and pulled him toward the
window seat.

“
He’s in there.” She
pointed. “Sir George Harington.”

The shutters of the window were open, and
the moon was shining on the window seat.

He looked at the pillows and back at Marion.
“Very well. Let’s have a look.”

She shook her head. “I have seen enough of
him. You open it.” She took a few steps back.

He shook his head in disbelief, walked to
the window seat, moved aside the pillows, and opened it.

Marion waited, holding her breath, expecting
some kind of reaction. But there was none.

“
Well?” she
asked.

He looked at her and then put his head into
the opening.

“
Ah, Sir George,” he said.
“Nice of you to come to the wedding. Hope your journey was
uneventful.”

“
What are you doing?” she
cried.

Iain straightened up and turned to her. “I
never realized how deep the storage space beneath this window seat
was. You could certainly hide a body, or maybe even two, in there.
But is there a false bottom to it or do the corpses climb out on
their own?”

Marion charged past him and looked into the
window seat.

“
Empty,” she blurted. “It’s
empty.”

“
So it is,” he said
softly.

Marion stared wildly around the great hall.
“They’ve moved him. I told them they should wait for me. But they
moved him anyway.”

“
I love the way you look
with the moon in your hair.”

He’d slipped his hands around her waist. She
turned in his arms.

“
I’m telling you, Iain. He
was in there.”

“
I believe you, but he
isn’t there now. And a bargain is a bargain.”

“
You can’t be
serious.”

He certainly was, for in the next instant,
his mouth descended upon hers.

“
Iain, there is a time and
place for everything. Right now, I cannot settle my mind until I
know what my aunts have done with Sir George.”

“
Sir George be damned,”
Iain said, kissing her again. His hands were all over her, touching
her, setting her on fire.

“
Iain,” she said softly.
She was frustrated and confused, but hopeful at the same time.
Perhaps, she thought with increasing vagueness, what she thought
she'd seen , what she thought she'd heard, was all just a dream.
Just a touch of the family madness.

But that was too much to ask for. It
couldn’t be possible.

“
I don’t know what kind of
a game it is you’re playing with me,” he told her between kisses.
“But you are driving me mad with desire. I want you, Marion. I need
to have you.”

She found herself suddenly swept off her
feet. Iain carried her toward the deeper shadows at the far end of
the hall. He set her down on the other window seat. The shutters
were closed over it, and it was dark here.

“
We should go look in the
dungeon,” she whispered. “He was probably taken down
there.”

He kissed her again, deeply.

“
We will,” he told her,
pulling up her skirts. “Right after we’re done here.”

She glanced around her in panic. “We cannot
make love here. Anyone might come in.”

“
Your uncle will be on the
parapet for some time, I believe. And I can’t hear your
aunts.”

“
But they could show up
anytime.”

“
It is dark, my love,” Iain
told her, pushing her back gently. She was protected by the
darkness, by the corner of the paneling, by Iain’s body.

“
I cannot believe I am
letting you do this to me,” Marion said in disbelief. A moment
later, though, she gasped with pleasure as his fingers found the
source of her womanhood.

“
You have been doing it to
me, Marion. I am only returning the favor.”

She slipped her arms around his neck as he
lifted the front of his kilt. He lifted her off the ground, and she
wrapped her legs around his hips. Marion’s breath caught in her
throat as he entered her. Her moan of pleasure was swallowed by his
mouth as he sealed her lips with a kiss.

Considering everything else that Marion had
been through tonight, the strangeness, shock, and confusion of
making love to her husband in Fleet Tower’s great hall suddenly
seemed perfectly normal.

“
What do we tell them we’re
doing,” she asked breathlessly, “if someone were to come in
now?”

“
We tell them, my love,
that in uniting our families, we’ve found it a perfect fit.” He
moved inside of her, withdrawing slightly before burying himself to
the hilt. “Absolutely…perfect.”

Standing in a hallway on an upper floor,
Jack heard his father’s shout as he charged up the steps. He moved
to block his path. It took Sir William only a instant to recognize
him and lower his sword. He sheathed the weapon.

“
If it isn’t my son,”
William said cheerfully. “Jack Fitzwilliam.”

“
I have searched the
parapet and every room on this floor, but I cannot find Marion.
Where is she?” Jack asked shortly.

The old man slapped him on the shoulder.
“You look well, lad. How is your mother?”

“
Dead,” Jack answered
impatiently.

“
I am elated to hear it.”
William nodded. “What brings you here?”

“
I am looking for Marion.
You told me she was up on the parapet. But she’s not
there.”

“
And who is this
Marion?”

Jack took a couple of deep breaths. He
stopped his hand from inching toward the dirk at his belt. He could
already feel his fingers around the old man’s throat.