“Not murder, surely,” Caragh suggested insistently, “so much as extermination. Ye ha’ said yon Caledonians are naught but vermin.”
Darlei’s cheeks flushed with anger.That nasty-tongued she-viper—
“Still and all.”
“Wed wi’ her as ye must. Then rid yoursel’ o’ her. Whose child would ye rather raise? Hers or mine?”
“Yours.” The answer came quick. “List, I canna talk wi’ ye here.”
“Later, then? The usual place.”
They parted. Darlei pressed against the wall, sure they must see her now, that Rohr might notice and glance into the firelit room.
But he walked past. Bound for his own chamber to change his wet clothes, no doubt.
Unmoving, Darlei squeezed her eyes shut. What to do now? Caragh was carrying Rohr’s child and wanted her dead.
She must tell someone. Father. He would back off from the marriage.
Or would he? Could he, yet?
Father might perhaps approach King Kenneth, inform him how things stood, that there was another woman—and child—already in the way of a worthy match. The king could reconsider his order.
She could go home.
Her eyes flew open. Still she could not breathe.
To be sure, shewantedto go home, wanted it more than anything.
But what of Deathan?
An image of him invaded her mind. Tall and somber, with that mane of honey-brown hair. Those green-specked sea-blue eyes, and the smile that came so gravely to them.
Something grew between them. Like a frond of bracken just unfolding in the spring, it barely knew as yet what it needed to be.
But the roots, the roots went deep.
She could not imagine what to do. But she unpropped herself from the wall and went back to her seat by the fire.
When Orle returned, saying she felt better and bringing her spindle, Darlei told nothing of what she’d overheard, even though it was all she could think on.
Best she keep Master Rohr’s secret a while, till she decided what best to do with it.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Darlei carried aknife to supper in the hall. Not the small blade, this, that she used to cut her meat, but the good, stout blade she carried when she went out anywhere at home. Because a woman never knew when she would need to defend herself. Or when her betrothed would decide she was just too inconvenient.
But Rohr, once more seated beside her, might have been carved from wood for all the notice he took of her. Even when she sought to engage him by asking after his success at hunting, he did little more than flick a glance at her and grunt, all pretense at civility flown.
Wholly distracted, he was, by what had happened earlier. By whether or not he wanted her dead.
Darlei’s knowledge about him and Caragh was a weapon in itself, if a dangerous one. It offered her a measure of power she’d been sorely lacking.
The rain continued to fall so hard that she could hear it through the stout roof and over the noise that filled the hall. The great fire in the center of the room refused to draw in the heavy air, and smoke hung against the rafters, stinging Darlei’s eyes and flavoring her meat.
Her mood was not improved by the fact that she’d caught naught more than a glimpse of Deathan. At first she’d thought he had absented himself from supper, but he came in late, dripping wet, and took his seat at the far end of the table without so much as glancing her way.
The man looked good wetted down, so he did. She sat beside her silent future husband, picking at her food while she played out a series of shocking fantasies in her mind.
