Page 61 of The Splendor of Fire
He snorted into his cup of milk and brought the napkin to his mouth and Malvina gave him a look. “Sorry. Went down the wrong way.”
Malvina took her arm and jerked her toward the door. “You’re needed upstairs. Niall is in the most terrible state and needs soothing. Don’t bother changing.”
Eggs turned to ash in his mouth. He didn’t want to know.
“And you. Where were you last night?”
It’d been fifteen years since he left home, but Malvina still treated him as though he had asked to be born illegitimate and disrupt everyone in the household every time he was around. “What do you mean? I was asleep in my bed.”
Malvina scoffed. “Do you think me stupid?”
Better not answer that question with honesty. “No.”
“The very first night you are out of Cràdh Prison and the Wolf’s camp on the Point of Sleat is obliterated? The siege engine destroyed.”
He struggled to understand. “Sorry?”
“Quite the liar. Just as you always were. Come, we’re going to Niall’s solar.”
Shoveling the last of the eggs in his mouth, he followed Malvina, hand on his estoc. As they climbed the stairs to the solar, Moira’s hand slid into his, tightening.
The unexpected gesture nearly made him stumble. Astonished, he looked over his shoulder at her. Eyes lifeless, fear seeping from her face, he wondered if he was wrong about her motives and was filled with a sudden urge to pick her up and run—he still remembered the way out.
Malvina pushed open the door to Niall’s solar and Moira let go of his hand, hurrying over to her lover. His heart ached as the same hand he’d just held caressed Niall’s forearm and she looked at him with beseeching blue eyes. Niall kissed her, and she returned it. Again. He hadn’t imagined it yesterday.
Malvina slammed the door shut, interrupting their kiss. “I’ve brought Léonid. Must you do that in the open? It’s wholly nauseating.”
Léo frowned. It was the first time he and Malvina had ever been on the same side.
Niall stomped across the room. “Where were you last night?”
Léo drew up to his full height and looked down at his brother, a gesture he knew aggravated him. “Asleep in my bed. Is there something wrong?”
“Three hundred of the Wolf’s men were engaged in an incendiary attack last night. Fifty men are dead. Their encampment destroyed. The forest destroyed. Irreplaceable equipment destroyed. All on the night you return from prison. You’re going back.”
Terror spread over Moira’s face and she pulled on Niall’s arm, shaking her head. Niall shoved her away and she tumbled across the wooden floor. “Enough, wench.”
Léo’s hand tightened around his estoc and he began to pull it when a voice sounded behind him.
“I was with Léo. All night.” Ardis stepped forward and met his eyes, giving him a wink. Léo’s mouth went dry. She was covering for him—in the most humiliating way possible. Moira got to her feet looking appalled.
Malvina gave Ardis a withering look. “All night?”
“I brought up his bath at compline and was with him until lauds this morning.” The woman was a bold liar, but he was in no place to judge, needing her story to keep him from going back to Cràdh.
Moira’s chest heaved, and he felt a twinge of remorse knowing that she thought him a scoundrel. His heart hardened. But he wasn’t. Unlike she, who went to Niall every afternoon and night.
Niall’s shoulders drooped a bit. “Then I suppose that clears you from suspicion, Léo. You can understand my temper, brother. A devastating loss for my clan.”
Léo nodded. “Aye. Any idea who’s responsible?”
“I suspect it may be the Beithir. Though usually MacLean does not take life from men who are not engaging with him. Of course, you would know better than I, wouldn’t you?”
Swaying caught their attention just as Moira fell backward to the floor, her head bouncing off the wooden boards. Niall stared at her flabbergasted for a few moments, then called for Isobel to be sent up, rushing in the corridor hollering. Ardis cleared away cups onto her tray, looked at Moira, and laughed. Malvina looked bored.
Surrounded by idiots, and unable to stop himself, Léo crouched beside Moira. His arms wrapped around her shoulders and he eased her up, pushing her head between her knees. He gathered her soft, bed-frazzled curls in his hands so that cool air could touch her neck and hispinky snagged on something. He paused. There beneath his fingertip, tucked under her shawl, was the heavy chain from Charles V. His heart slammed into his ribs. She still wore his necklace.
Isobel hurried into the room and crouched beside her. “What’s happened, love? Go a bit peely-wally? You should have eaten more this morning. Perhaps you’re in the family way.”
