She coughed as though about to choke, then opened her eyes. As she leaned in close, she weakly squeezed his hands. “I saw...” She stared off into space, her lips barely parted.
“Ye saw what?” He gently pulled her closer. “Tell me, love. What did ye see?”
“We can prevent it,” she assured him with a firm nod, slowly blinking as though she had just awakened.
“What?” He did his best not to raise his voice. It was obvious the woman was deeply troubled. What the devil had she seen? The last incident she had foretold—the stable fire—had nearly ended him. If there was ill afoot, he needed to know what it was and he needed to know it now.
She wet her lips, took a deep breath, and smoothed her hands back across the sleek darkness of her upswept hair. After a quick glance around the room, she directed Coira to the wide stone archway leading to the kitchens. “Could you please wait for me in the kitchens? We need to look...” Her voice faltered and she stopped speaking.
“We need to look for what, mistress?” Coira glanced back and forth between Trulie and Gray.
“Aye, I would hear yer thoughts as well.” He moved closer and set a hand on Trulie’s waist.
“I will explain everything once I am done here.” She gave him and Coira a trembling smile and nodded once again toward the archway.
Tension burned through him as he watched Coira duck her head and scurry from the room. Pulling Trulie closer, he whispered into her hair, “What the hell was that about? What did ye see?”
“Nothing I want to tell you about right now.” She took a step back and clasped her hands in front of her. Coldness emanated from the grim look on her face, but at least her color had returned.
Gray scowled at the archway Coira had just passed through, then turned back to Trulie. “I need to know if aught is amiss—if trouble is about to befall.”
“It is not going to fall,” Trulie said in a firm voice. “I am not going to let it.”
* * *
Seething hatred.Jealousy. Loathing. Fear and ... secrecy?Trulie peered closer. What kind of secret did Aileas MacKenna hide? Did she really have something to do with the most recent fire, and maybe even the murder of Gray’s parents?
Trulie concentrated. She wet her lips, amped up her sensors, and braced herself against the wave of negativity battering her like a relentless demon. Lady MacKenna was an unhappy woman. Misery oozed from the woman’s pores like the stench of an unhealthy sweat. It was going to take a lot of work to sort through that emotional mess. No way was Trulie going anywhere near Aileas’s mind. As loudly as Aileas transmitted her foul, septic soul, her mind surely had to be a tormented level of hell.
Trulie eased down into the chair Gray had ordered placed beside his own and studied the foul woman. She hadn’t missed the flush of anger staining Aileas’s cheeks when she had joined Gray at the head of the great hall. And a smile at the fuming woman enraged Aileas even more. As deep a red as her face was, the woman needed to calm down before the top of her head blew off.
“I feel it unfair that the number of my serving girls has been decreased.” Aileas’s high-pitched voice echoed through the hall with a nerve-grating whine. She twisted her hands in front of her thick waist and swayed back and forth like an oversized pendulum. “My rooms grow shabby with neglect. ’Tis not befitting for the chieftain’s widow.”
“I have not decreased yer household.” Gray leaned heavily to one side and nodded to the next individual waiting to speak. “If that be all, Lady Aileas—”
“That be far from all.” Aileas sniffed and lifted the end of her wrinkled nose an inch higher. She stomped her oversized foot so hard that her heavy, dark skirts bounced. “If my servants have not been decreased by yer order, I demand to know who has abused such power.” Aileas’s scowl deepened as she swiveled her entire girth to glare at Trulie.
Trulie glared right back and smiled. Aileas reminded her a great deal of the unpleasant Mrs. Hagerty back in Kentucky, making Trulie wonder if the vile woman happened to be Hagerty’s ancestor.The only difference between the two was that Mrs. Hagerty lifted the art of bitchiness to an almost admirable level. Poor Aileas floundered at the task, landing somewhere between pathetic and easily forgettable.
Sensing Gray’s growing impatience, Trulie rested her hand atop his and spoke before he could respond. “Lady Aileas, my grandmother and I assumed you sent those two helpful serving maids to our rooms permanently. Please forgive us if we assumed incorrectly. After all, everyone here is well aware of the caring and generosity of the great chief’s widow.”
Aileas’s jaw dropped and her mouth gaped open. Several rotted and missing teeth did nothing to improve her appearance. Her knuckles whitened as she strangled the bit of white linen clutched between her hands.
Trulie forced herself not to cringe. With teeth like that, Aileas’s breath had to be fierce. An errant draft wafted through the hall, making Trulie blink hard against the wall of foul air it brought to her. She parted her lips and blew out short strained breaths. The rancid odor of Aileas’s unwashed body poisoned the air like a noxious cloud. Heaven help them all, Aileas was ripe.
“Perhaps I spoke rashly,” Aileas stammered. She slightly turned and darted a glance upward to the gallery and her cluster of friends. “Aye. Now that I think longer upon it, I do remember telling two of the girls to make certain yer rooms were suitable.” The unbearable matron stood taller, seeming to grow more pleased with herself as she looked up at the head-bobbing group of women again. “But I assumed the chieftain would see them returned to me once he set ye up in yer own tower—much as his father did for his mother.”
A collective gasp rippled through the crowd gathered on either side of the hall.
“Ye have overstepped yer bounds, Aileas.” Gray lunged up from his seat.
Fearghal clumsily made his way out from behind the bench and table. He teetered to a stop, twisted back, and loudly cursed it. After properly denouncing the ancestry of the carpenter who had crafted the bench, Fearghal whirled back around and stumbled forward. He came to an unsteady stop beside his mother. After swiping his face with his stained sleeve, he threw out his chest and took a staggering step toward Gray. “I shall not allow ye to speak to the Lady Aileas in such a manner when ye have the likes of that one standing at yer side.” He fixed Trulie with a bleary-eyed glare, then punctuated the challenge with a gurgling belch.
“Ye are drunk again, Fearghal. How else would ye find the courage to speak?” Gray slowly pulled Trulie closer. “Forgive me,mo luaidh,”he said softly. “Pray ignore the drunken fool and his mother.”
Fearghal tucked his chin and belched louder. Stumbling a bit to one side, he drew his dirk and waved it in the air. “What kind of chieftain has his leman sit beside him in great hall? What kind of chief takes council from a whore?”
Gray drew his blade and surged forward. Trulie snagged his sleeve and yanked back. “Gray—no!” He didn’t need to kill a drunken fool on her account.
