“Yes.” Mistress MacMurtray had a small chamber she no longer used, due to her infirmity. She had instructed her woman to keep a fire there, and offered the refuge to Darlei that very morning.
“I used to spend my days there, and do my weaving. It will be your haven now.”
The lingering sadness in the woman’s eyes had struck Darlei to the heart. Did she suppose she would never again rise from her bed?
The chamber was indeed small, a mere nook a few steps from Mistress MacMurtray’s bedchamber, with but a single window. But the fire warmed it, and Darlei took a seat on a low bench, grateful for that.
Orle had been suffering all day from headache, no doubt brought on by the rain. Once in the tiny room, Darlei sent her off to lie down. “So that you will feel better by suppertime.”
Orle looked torn. “I do not like to leave you alone.”
“I will be content here.”
But with Orle gone, Darlei did begin to feel restless. The room, so quiet and with the rain dashing against the stones, seemed to hem her in.
How many future days would she spend here like this? Orle could not be always at her side. Indeed, sweet-natured and pretty as she was, Darlei did not doubt that Orle would soon marry some brawny member of the guard.
Deathan MacMurtray’s guard.
And begin having babes of her own.
Darlei would not deny her that. Certainly not for the sake of her own loneliness. She might bond with Mistress MacMurtray, but—
She paused as her ears caught a string of sounds above the rain. Orle, returning? Nay.
Someone—two someones were having a conversation. A quite fervent one.
The door to the little chamber stood open a crack as Orle had left it. Darlei moved away from the window with its drumming rain and over behind the panel to listen.
She knew one of those voices, surely?
Master Rohr. Master Rohr, it was, with a woman.
She would not ordinarily try to overhear. Nay, she would not. In this case, she needed all the knowledge she could obtain.
The woman—the young woman—was very upset. So much so that she did not keep her voice as low as she might. A woman pushed past endurance, she sounded, and Darlei felt a flash of sympathy.
Indeed, the first words Darlei heard from her were, “But Rohr, wha’ am I to do?”
“I canna be seen talking wi’ ye here,” he told her harshly, dismissively, which just ramped up Darlei’s curiosity.
Whatwasthis?
“Nay,” the woman cried, her voice trembling, “ye will no’ deal wi’ me. Ye will no’ give me answers, even though—”
“Caragh,” he growled, “I ha’ given ye an answer.”
“No’ one I can accept.”
“There is naught to be done. My hands are tied. Och, dunna weep.”
His voice softened a bit on the last two words.
Darlei justhadto see. Body flattened against the door panel, she peered around.
They stood as close together as any two could be in the otherwise deserted hallway, obviously believing themselves alone. He dripped with wet, but she had hold of him, gripping both his forearms.
A pretty girl. A very pretty girl with hair of red gold falling in ringlets and a heart-shaped face, now twisted in misery. Darlei had seen her round the place before. With Rohr?
