Beauty's Curse (17 page)

Rubbing a hand over his face, he gave thanks that he could see—but not too clearly. His peers would understand that marriage for land and money was not for love or looks. He shifted his weight from one foot to the next, admitting ruefully that he'd assumed his wife, when he got one, would at least be comely.

His hands tingled again, and he could easily imagine the heft of her breast against his palm. Mayhap if he kept his eyes closed?

Her shoulders shook, and pity—for her—welled within him. “Don't cry, Gali. We need to find a cure for the men—something to make them feel better. I did not eat as much as the others, since I was waiting for you.”

“Sorry,” she mumbled into the hood of her cloak, which was once again covering her face.

“Don't be—it looks as if you saved me from the worst of the sickness. Who could have done it?”

Her eyes blazed at him from within the folds of fur, and he was struck as if by lightning. He stepped toward her, drawn to that gaze.

“First me, and now you are accusing my knights? They'd not risk being locked up again; I'm sure of it. Is my brother one of the sick?”

“Nay—although your knights are. Jamie said he didn't see young Ned.”

She averted her face, and the primal connection was gone. He shook his head to clear it. Her eyes had challenged him with an eerie power. Ancient. Goddess. He would have lain down before such a woman and offered her his soul.

“Then who?”

Yes, who? If not her men, then one of his? Perhaps he'd jumped to the wrong answer too fast. “Let's tally who's left on the floor.”

“I can go to the sickroom; mayhap Celestia has a recipe that will calm a poison, but I think you must know the cause before the cure.”

“Aye. I'll go with you, since I can't see well enough yet to wander about on my own.”

She dipped her head, and Rourke saw he still had some ruffled feathers to smooth. Like a delicate sparrow hawk, she needed soothing.

“I'm sorry, my lady.”

Galiana lifted a hand, which, thanks to his skewed vision, looked to have seven fingers upon it. “I'm grateful that you can see this little bit. Chances are great that you will recover—eventually. And I'll try to forget you thought so little of me that you'd accuse me of poisoning innocent people just to get even with you.”

He couldn't miss the hurt in her words.

They reached the last stair, and Rourke heard the gasp come from within the confines of her hood. “The smell! Sweet Mary Magdalene, it reeks.”

“This was the cause of my anger.”

“Who would do something like this?” Galiana's controlled voice was tinged with deep anger.

“Your priest—that's who,” Jamie yelled from across the hall. “He's gone. So is your thief of a brother. They took the dispensation, too. Left the ashes of the letter the boy wrote in a pile.”

Galiana shoved the hood back from her face and walked ahead toward Jamie, her bearing as regal as that of any lady he'd ever seen. Her dark brown hair, in long twists and curls and braids, flew out behind her.

“You're certain that you knew nothing of this?” Rourke couldn't help the taunt at her back. She played her parts well, and he suddenly realized Galiana could be his equal—in all ways.

He didn't know what she looked like. He didn't know her.

God's bones, but she intrigued him.

“What gives you the right to place such accusations in this hall?” Galiana's knees shook with her temerity, and she grew amazed that the roof of the family manor didn't fall down upon her head.

Men were sprawled all over the floor, in varying degrees of distress. Her heart went out to them, and she stifled a groan when she almost tripped over Bailiff Morton.

“I wish Celestia were here!”

Forgetting Jamie for the moment, she bent down to shake the bailiff's shoulders. He awoke, his eyes bleary and crossed, and slowly looked around the great hall.

“My lady, are you all right? You're very pale. What's happened here?”

“I was hoping you could tell me,” she answered wryly. “Everyone is ill. I'll check the kitchens.”

“Not alone,” Rourke said, suddenly next to her as she stood.

It was odd how comforting his great height was. Tall herself, she was usually nose to nose with most men. But not Rourke. “Are you afraid, my lord?” It was a poor attempt at a joke, and he didn't laugh.

“Afraid you might decide to run away from this foul deed, too.”

She bristled. “Take care, else you might actually offend me.”

Her bailiff stood on shaky legs. “I'll go, my lady.”

“Sit, please, sir, before you fall. This will take a moment, no more.” Galiana urged the man to a bench. Most of the men were sleeping still. She'd have to wake each one, but then what?

She was no healer, and her talent for making a lotion wouldn't help the men feel better, although—she discreetly tucked her nose in the fur of her robe to take a breath—her scented candles might create miracles.

Rourke stayed by her side as they walked across the room, and Galiana wondered just how much he could see. Rather than running, she walked sedately so he wouldn't stumble. Her common sense urged her to fling open the doors so that fresh air could get inside. Cold was better than the stink of twenty sick people.

The smell grew stronger the closer they came to the kitchen. It was unfortunate that the kitchen wasn't in a separate building, she thought, but at least it was at the back of the manor. Cook had just roused, and the look of horror on her plump face as she noticed the disaster around her mirrored Rourke's. If they looked like that, then Galiana shuddered to think what emotion she was giving away.

“What in the devil happened here?” Tears streamed over Cook's round, red cheeks as she brushed food and dirt from her apron. “I've never fallen asleep at me duties, and they've”—she pointed incomprehensively at the two young kitchen helpers—“never been sick a day.”

Galiana opened the back door to the cooking pit area. Thanks to the heat of the fires, the snow had melted in the center, leaving giant walls of white on the sides.

A gust of clean air rushed through the kitchen. Galiana was able to breathe and think.

“What did everybody eat last night?”

Cook's trembling hand gestured toward an assortment of large, black pots. “Pottage, with almonds and raisins, sticky buns, beef stew … spiced wine, ale. We was celebratin'!” She bobbed a quick curtsy toward Rourke, then sputtered when she really looked at him.

Her cheeks flushed, and she giggled like a girl. “Yer weddin' feast.”

Galiana rolled her eyes. Yes, Rourke was handsome, but really …

“Cook. Everyone who ate is sick. Is it possible there was something in the bread?”

Indignant, the cook shook her head. “Nay, I baked the bread meself.”

Rourke scratched his chin. “Mushrooms?”

Galiana remembered how Celestia had been poisoned with an Amanita mushroom, and snapped her fingers. “I should have thought of that.”

Cook shook her head. “I had to use what was in the pantry for the feast, since we can't get to the village.”

Galiana sighed, then walked over to sniff the pots. She waved her hand beneath her nose, knowing she had to breathe deeply and identify what was in the pots—whether she wanted to or not.

She leaned over, closed her eyes, and inhaled.

“What are you doing?” Rourke's intrusive question broke her concentration.

“Smelling.”

“God's blood, why?”

“I've trained my nose to separate scents. Usually for floral smells, but the premise is the same.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, and her heart raced. That stubborn lock of hair fell forward, covering the stitches on the side of his face. His eyes seemed clear—so clear he could be seeing inside her head. She quickly turned back toward the pot. The man was so good-looking it was simply unfair.

And he'd screamed when he'd seen her! She couldn't allow herself to think about that now.

Gali closed her eyes, taking a slower, deeper breath. Hops? Cabbage, almonds, raisins, cinnamon, beef, vinegar, pepper, sage—wait—was that—some sort of bark? And—“Oh no.”

“What?” Rourke and Cook asked at the same time.

“Valerian—lots of it—in the spiced wine.”

“A sedative.” Rourke arched a brow.

“I don't use no valerian in me wine, me lady. And I know just to add a pinch when a body can't sleep or has a case of the nerves!”

Galiana nodded, her stomach in a tight ball as she pushed aside the memory of drinking spiced wine last eve. “I don't suppose you intentionally used buckthorn bark in your pottage?”

“No, no!”

Cook's eyes couldn't be any wider without falling out of her head, Gali thought with a shudder.

“What's buckthorn bark?” Rourke's expression was inscrutable, and it took all of her willpower to not squirm beneath it.

“People collect the bark from the alder trees in the summer. I helped Celestia a few times. So did my brotherssss—oh … the dungeon!” They wouldn't have!

“Dungeon?” Rourke dropped his arms to his sides.

“Sick room,” Galiana explained, running from the kitchen. She picked up the front hem of her thick robe, kicked off her slippers, and ran in her bare feet, not caring in the least that her mother would be mortified. Across the great hall, to the door that led downstairs—Ed and Ned had gone with her and Celestia on that walk in the forest, and they knew that the bark acted as a purgative.

They liked their pranks, all Montehues liked a practical joke, but this—if they'd done it—was too far. What if they'd run away out of fear?

Why had Father Jonah gone with them?

It was too much to contemplate. She opened the door to a room she had hated in the past. It was dark, and Gali, even though she had no magical skills, just knew it was haunted with past ghosts.

“Why are you hesitating?” He'd stayed at her heels, though in her haste to find her brothers she'd forgotten he couldn't see well.

“I, uh,” she patted her hand against her heart, not wanting to admit her fears. Why would he believe her, when she'd spent the past few days down in the dungeon with him?

“You're fast, for a lady.” Rourke's eyes sparkled at her.

She opened the door all the way, knowing she'd never survive an onslaught of Rourke's charm. The stairs led down into an inky pit, and her toes curled against the floor. “I hate the dark.”

“I've a candle, lass. Let me go down first.” Jamie's voice came from behind her, and she whirled.

He looked at her face and winked. “Still looking pale, lass. I'd like to see if that rascal Ned is hiding down here. And from the way ye ran, so do you.”

Rourke huffed, while Galiana buried her face in her hands. Rourke's foster brother had witnessed her running like a hoyden, then faking an illness, and now he'd called her on the true reason for braving the dungeon. “I don't like you, Jamie.”

He chuckled and led the way down the stairs. Jamie quickly lit a ceramic bird-shaped lamp he'd grabbed from the hall and led the way down, lighting each candle sconce on the wall until the sick room was brightly lit.

“This is where you worked your magic, eh?” Rourke looked around, pausing at the cot.

“I don't do magic,” Galiana sniffed. She eyed Celestia's work table and noted that her sister's book of herbal recipes was out, and open.

A telltale curl of bark lay next to it.

“They did it,” she said. “Why? Stupid, stupid, oh—” Her knees trembled, and she welcomed the steadying hand Rourke placed beneath her elbow.

“Exactly. Why would Ned and the priest want to poison us all?” Rourke led her to the cot, and she sat on the edge to avoid fainting again.

Jamie said, “It's bloody convenient, lass, that ye didn't come down to dinner.”

“You really think I would condone this act? Nay, my reasons for feigning sickness were different. Why didn't they come to me before they left? I was in charge. My parents trusted me.” Her eyes filled with warm tears as she recounted her failures.

“Ach, don't cry, now.” Jamie sighed and looked away.

“I can't help it,” Galiana's voice warbled, but it didn't matter. She fisted her hands in the fur of her thick robe. “Everyone treats me as if I haven't a brain in my head, and finally, finally, they give me a responsibility, and just see what happens … The entire manor is poisoned, I almost blinded Rourke, and I'm being forced into,” she huffed, “m-m-marriage.”

Rourke sat next to her on the cot and handed her a square of linen from a stack that Celestia kept on the table. “Here. Wipe your eyes, Gali, it looks like you have black streaks down your face.”

Lovely, she thought. She was supposed to be this great beauty, and the one man who spoke to her heart thought she was Bruenhilda. “Why didn't they come to me? Oh, Saint Mary, please guide them to safety. You know they must think they killed everybody? Oh—” Fresh tears sprang from her eyes as Rourke put his arm around her shoulders.