He kept his voice low. “Where’s the Lady Isabeau this morn?”
Maisie glanced at him, her lips thinning. “She’s unwell, Sir. Fever caught her sometime in the night. She’s restin’ now.”
Michael nodded slowly, keeping his expression indifferent, but he couldn’t help but feel like Maisie was telling him a lie.
A fever? Seriously?
He glanced up the long table, where Angus Campbell sat slouched like a carcass dressed in velvet, nursing his second goblet of mead. The man looked half asleep, face alreadyflushed with drink, but not even a flicker of concern crossed his expression.
“Yer daughter’s ill?” Michael asked casually, lifting his goblet to his lips but not drinking. He could pass it off as casual concern, the kind that an envoy might have for the wedding that was about to be arranged between said daughter and his laird.
Across from him, Laird Campbell grunted, waving a hand. “Aye, so Maisie tells me.”
“An’ ye’ve nae seen tae her?”
Laird Campbell snorted. “She’s always weak tae one thing or another. A scratch o’ the wind, an’ she’s coughin’ fer days. She’ll recover quickly enough, she always daes.”
Michael’s hand froze around the stem of the cup. There was no edge of worry in that voice, no father’s dread, no flicker of affection. Just dismissal, like she was a lame hound with a habit of getting underfoot.
Michael set the goblet down with care, masking the way his pulse had begun to beat heavier under his ribs. She hadn’t been ill last night, not even close. She’d been fierce and flushed with indignation, sharp-tongued, not pale and feverish.
But Michael couldn’t point any of that out without revealing to Laird Campbell that the two of them had found each other the previous night when they should have both been in theirchambers, and he wasn’t very fond of the idea of the man knowing.
A memory flashed of her massaging her wrists the previous night where he’d barely touched her. He remembered the flicker of pain in her eyes, the too-practiced way she had tried to hide it.
Was she actually ill or was that the excuse they were feeding to keep her behind closed doors? From the first moment, Michael had suspected that her father was violent towards her, hurting her in ways she was trying to hide. And now this suspicion was only growing, fueled by her absence at the breakfast table.
What happened tae her? Her faither says she’s ill, but he daesnae seem concerned at all.
Not to mention the tension that hung heavy around the table. If there was one thing Michael could rely on, it was his instincts, and all of them were telling him that something was wrong. There was something about the way the servants were moving that morning—guarded and quick, startled by the slightest noise—that told him the laird was not in a good mood; perhaps something had happened and now everyone was walking on eggshells around him.
He glanced again toward Laird Campbell, who was now wiping grease from his fingers with a scrap of cloth, already laughing at something one of his guards had said, unbothered and unconcerned about his daughter. A man with no heart.
Michael pushed back from the table slowly, feigning a stretch. As he moved, he caught Maisie’s eye again and gave her a small, questioning frown, his gaze darting to the door and back at her. No words were exchanged between them, but none had to be. She knew what he was asking, and she was quick to give him a small, almost imperceptible shake of her head, her gaze lowering to the floor, before it was dragged to the laird, her eyes hardening, her expression shifting into one of hatred.
It told him everything he needed to know. Isabeau was not resting. She was being contained.
CHAPTER TEN
Michael should have been in the great hall still, nursing the watered wine and playing his part smiling and listening, lying through his teeth to anyone who could hear. And yet instead, he moved silently through the corridors of Inveraray Castle, his boots scuffing the cold flagstones. His breath misted in the chill morning air, the taste of tension bitter on his tongue.
I’ll see if she truly has a fever an’ then I’ll be on me way.
He simply couldn’t help the curiosity that had bubbled up inside him when he heard the maid speak of the fever while Laird Campbell was so unconcerned, so unbothered by Isabel’s absence.
Perhaps I am a fool tae worry meself. But somethin’ isnae right here.
He could feel it in his gut, that strange, creeping tension that seemed to seep into everything and everyone in that castle. It twisted his stomach in knots and guided him to Isabeau’s chambers, bypassing as many people as he could—guards and maids alike, people who were going about their day, either unaware or uncaring of what was happening around them. The few people he met paid him little mind, keeping their eyes downcast and their lips tight.
The laird’s trained them well.
Now, Michael stood before the heavy oak door of Isabeau’s chambers, his heart knocking louder than his fist. He waited—one moment, then two, the seconds trickling by with no answer coming from the other side of the door. He knocked again, waited, fretted over the lack of response. But no matter how long he waited there, he received nothing but silence.
Slowly, he turned on his heel to leave, but something stopped him—a catching of his breath, a gripping gut feeling that something was wrong. He couldn’t shed the concern. He couldn’t shed the curiosity either, the need to find out what was happening in that castle.
And so, ever so quietly, he pushed on the door handle, opening the door.
Immediately, it creaked open slowly, revealing the dim interior. The curtains were drawn, the hearth cold, nothing but coals remaining, burning with a low orange glow. The air smelledfaintly of herbs—lavender and arnica over a faint scent of camphor.
