Page 48 of The Splendor of Fire
Her fingers found the weight of the gold chain, and she pulled it free from the light blue silk of her gown. Eyes shut, she relived the last moments of their time together—Léo’s soft French spoken beside her ear, his promise that she was his chosen, that he wanted her whole heart. Dreaming, her mind transported her from her own gloomy prison and to the moment he’d taken her in his arms. So frail and vulnerable, and yet for a moment, it was as if he was the man she’d first met. It had been the most transformative moment of her life—the moment she’d felt like his Aileen.
A tear formed in her eye, and just this once, she let it fall down her cheek. Would he ever be freed? It had been six long months, and still there had been no opening in the Wolf’s tactics for a rescue.
The door burst open and she had only enough time to shove the book beneath the bed.
Malvina stood sour-faced in the doorway. “What are you doing up here?”
Tossing the necklace back inside the high neck of her gown, she got to her feet and met Malvina’s once-pretty, but now pinched face.Iain’s voice rang through her head—tha’ wooman’s meaner’n a wee yappy dug. Looks like wan too.
“What are you smirking for, you fool?”
Moira straightened her face into an empty expression.
“Is there a reason you’ve found your way up to an old servant’s chamber?”
This wasn’t a servant’s chamber. She knew whose it was, and why Malvina hated it. Head swimming with thoughts of Léo, Moira tried her best to look ignorant and shrugged her shoulders, then gestured fingers walking across her palm.
“See that you keep your wandering to the lower floors. Niall is looking for you. Gordon MacMorran is here.”
The weight of the chain grew heavier around her neck and her heart leapt. Gordon MacMorran was the former chief steward of the MacKinnons’ fields and granaries, but more importantto Moira, he was a guard at Cràdh. Niall banished him there as punishment for under-harvesting the year the MacLeans had reaped a double harvest.
Malvina took her by the elbow and yanked her out of the room. “Then why aren’t you putting a move on? Get downstairs! Niall needs your support. Selfish girl. Nobody would know where you are if weren’t for Ardis.”
Moira cringed. It was because of Ardis that Niall had been waiting for her the night she returned from Dunvegan and nearly attacked her. She had only managed to survive by throwing herself into his arms and kissing him.
Niall had been so pleased by her sudden thaw that he’d forgotten his anger completely, relieved her of her duties as chambermaid, moved her into Elspeth’s auld room, and given her a new wardrobe. But the thing she valued most, freedom—the ability to leave Dun Ringill as she wished without having to sneak about—he still withheld. As long as she refused him entry to her room and bed he dangled it over her head. Last night, he’d knocked and whispered at her door for hours, and then began shouting. After five long months as his leman, she wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep him at bay.
Trudging down the musty stairs toward Niall’s room, she steeled herself for his comments, his leers, and the lie she was living by allowing the man who murdered her parents to make advances toward her.
Malvina’s bony fingers closed around her arm. “Need I remind you not to embarrass Niall like you did with the Wolf?”
She need not. Though it was not her fault that the Wolf didn’t believe that she was mute and made her demonstrate she could not speak by reciting a rasping version of the Lord’s prayer when he visited last month. The worst part was that she had so embarrassed Niall that she had been hurried from the room by Malvina and hadn’t been able to glean one piece of information about their plans to reorganize their forces.
Malvina made a punctuated knock on the door to the solar and pulled Moira after her. Niall sat beside the fire, his belly lopping over his leather belt and sweat beading on his thinning hairline. Across from him, Gordon, with his pointed face and unbound, messy hair sat sipping afinger of whisky.
“Ah here she is. Gordon, let me introduce you to my leman, Mistress Moira Allen.”
Stepping between Moira and Gordon, Malvina held up her hands in a cautionary gesture. “Before you engage her, please understand that she is merely a pretty face. Unable to speak, but we think quite able to understandsomewords.”
Foolish woman. In her haste to keep Moira from speaking, she’d made the inadvertent mistake of making her seem stupid. An asset, as far as she was concerned, a belief that would—God willing—lead one of these fools to loosen their tongues about something useful concerning the prison.
Dropping her eyes and affecting her most demure pose, Moira glided across the room and sat down beside Niall on the bench. Repulsion slithered up her arm as he took her hand in his sweaty one.
“A beauty. I recall her occasional visits to Cràdh with—” Gordon remembered with whom he was talking and cleared his throat in the crystal as he brought the whisky to his lips.
Niall’s voice ground out. “Yes.”
Father.Her insides clenched. If he could see her now, he would be horribly ashamed.
“Let’s get down to it, shall we?” Gordon said, swirling his whisky in the light and turning the conversation away from Niall’s last victim. “Is there a reason you’ve summoned me here, my Laird?”
Niall shifted on the wooden bench, his too-tight leather trews squeaking under his wide bottom. “You’ll doubtless have heard about the failed assault on the Duart MacLeans a few months ago and the terrible losses our guard has suffered as a result.”
Gordon made a confirmational sound in his throat, but did not speak.
“We’ve been struggling to keep patrol numbers up around Pabay, and the Kyle, and to the south near Eigg. There is a distinct need for qualified administrative guards to relieve battle-seasoned guards from their domestic responsibilities.”
Gordon edged forward in his chair, a flicker of excitement lighting over his face.
