Page 63 of The Trials of Alaric
“That is why I had Bebbington taken into town,” Alaric confessed. “One less job for your father. And for you, for that matter. You wear yourself thin, Bea, being both your mother’s deputy and your father’s. I hope soon to have the right to share your tasks.”
There didn’t seem to be much to say to that, but Bea’s heart lifted that he was willing. Yes, and that he did not mouth any nonsense about taking the burdens that were rightfully hers off her shoulders. Sharing was fine.
They went through the gatehouse, and the men on duty nodded to her in greeting. No, not just to her, but to Alaric, too. “My lady. Master.”
She shot a sideways glance at Alaric, startled.
“They were calling me that in town,” Alaric commented. “‘Master.’ Is there some meaning I don’t know?”
There was, and Bea was dumbstruck once more. “The people in town, and the servants here?”
Alaric nodded. “Come to think of it, the first was Colyn, last night. What are they saying, Bea? They don’t seem to be annoyed, so I don’t think it is bad.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
“It is good,if a little premature,” Bea confirmed. “In our tradition, the heir to the earl is given the titleMaster.Master of Claddach. We do not know about Turstin, but Jamie, the second consort, was always called by the same title. My people have chosen you as their leader and my husband, Alaric.” Her eyes filled with tears again, but she smiled through them.
“Just as well you agree,” Alaric commented, but his own voice was unsteady.
“They knew my mind, I suspect.” Bea had no doubt of it. Her maid Eunys had been certain for days she would choose Alaric when the time came and would certainly have shared that opinion with her sisters and aunts, all of whom worked in the castle. And with her cousins in the town.
“Well then, let us pass on the news about Bebbington and then find the secret gold,” Alaric suggested.
They separated at the main door, Alaric to find her father and Bea to inform Eloise. The viscountess cried. “Tears of relief, mainly,” she claimed when she lifted her face from Tarquin’s shoulder. “I know you would have protected me, Tarquin, but he was determined to separate us.” She turned to face Bea. “He has made trouble for Tarquin. I am convinced he was behind several investors turning away from Tarquin’s canal project, and two months ago, someone tried to kidnap our baby son when the nurse was walking him in Green Park. I think thatwas Bebbington, too. To trade for me, I suppose, for he told me bluntly, when I said that Tarquin would never let me have Wulfric at Bebbington Close, that he had no interest in Tarquin’s brat.”
Figuring that Eloise needed a distraction, Bea asked about the baby, and received a panegyric that ended with the viscountess in tears again, for she missed her little boy. “But we thought it best not to bring him north with us,” Tarquin explained. “I would have left both him and Eloise at home, but Eloise insisted on coming.”
“I did not want to bring my darling Wulfric anywhere near Bebbington,” Eloise said, “but I also didn’t want Tarquin to confront Alaric without me nearby. I was so afraid. I am sorry I did not just tell you all, Tarquin. What a silly I was.”
Tarquin’s efforts to convince his wife that he liked her just as she was did not require Bea as an audience, so she excused herself and went to find Alaric.
She met him coming up the secondary stairs, on his own.Excellent. “Let’s go to the watchtower now.”
“But we need a chaperone?” The lift at the end of the sentence made it a question.
Bea tossed her chin in the air. “Until I had allowed the others to court me and had made my choice, Papa said. I have made my choice, Alaric.”
In answer, he took her hand, and they hurried down the stair, out a side door, and across the courtyard to the path along the inner wall.
Upstairs in the furnished room, Alaric gave Bea the keys. She unlocked the cupboards. They turned a rose each, their eyes on one another. Something in Alaric’s eyes made Bea very conscious that they had slipped away from the company alone, without telling anyone where they were going, to a room with a locking door and a bed.
She was captured by that look—trapped as surely as if he held her in place. It took a long moment before he swallowed hard and turned to look at the inside of the doors, releasing Bea to do the same.
“Does anything stand out to you?” Alaric asked.
Bea shook her head, but even as she did, she noticed a detail that had slipped by her before. “Here,” she said, putting her hand on the breast of the first Lady of Claddach, Brede, wife to Turstin, the first Master of Claddach. “And here.” She moved her hand to the second Lady of Claddach, Lulach, wife of Jamie.
Alaric’s eyes had jumped ahead, and he was now looking from one to the other, leaning close to see more clearly. “A necklace of some sort,” he said. “A large stone or medal on a chain.”
“The Heart of Claddach,” Bea said. “I thought it was a legend. It is gold, they say, with a ruby in the center, both the gold and the ruby worked into a heart shape. Turstin gave it to Brede as a marriage gift, saying she was the heart of Claddach, and all would know when they saw the symbol on her chest. It was passed down by the family, but no one wore it again until Lulach. It is part of the stories, Alaric, but I never thought it was real.”
“The carver thought it was real,” Alaric commented. “Whoever wrote the rhyme thought it was real. But where is it?”
Bea was following Alaric’s example, leaning in close to the nearest door to peer at the figures. “This fold in her cloak,” she said, pointing to Brede’s chest. The cloak had been carved as clipped to her armor at the shoulder, draping down behind, but at the front falling only to her breasts in graceful folds. “Does it hide another keyhole?” Bea asked. “A little one?”
“Try it,” said Alaric, and Bea poked the key into the fold, looking for a hole. Unsuccessfully, but when she tried the same thing on the trim of Lulach’s ornate neckline, the key slipped into place and turned.
The bottom of the carving dropped away, disclosing a shallow cavity inside the door. A cavity which contained a velvet bag.
