Gray noted the tense determination in the set of Trulie’s jaw. Ah, but such battles make life worth living.
“I shall wait with Colum in the gardens,” Tamhas announced. “I still fail to see the need for a small army to confront a single female.”
“I shall come too, Master Tamhas.” Coira gave Trulie an excited hug as she squeezed past her in the hallway. “I canna wait to help ye care for the new bairn.”
“Now that we have reduced our ranks, shall we finish this?” Trulie looped her arm through Granny’s, lifted her chin, and marched them both into the kitchen.
Gray hurried to catch up with the women. The distinct clicking of toenails against stone told him that Karma followed close on their heels. The great dog huffed a low-throated growl with each step as though keeping time with their pace.
A heavyset woman with graying hair pulled back in a disheveled bun ambled forward and met them. She wiped her muscular hands across the flour-covered apron lashed around her waist. “So many in my kitchen and lore, the MacKenna himself. Can I be a helping ye, my chief? Is anything wrong?”
Ignoring Trulie’s grumbling, Gray pushed around Trulie and Granny, effectively placing himself between the two women and the worried-looking Cook. Trulie could growl all she wanted. He would not have his woman placed in front of him as though she were a shield. He cast a stern glance back over one shoulder before turning back to Cook. “We have a wedding feast to plan. Lady Trulie and I have set a date. We wed at the end of summer. What better time to celebrate a joining than during the time of plenty?”
A sharp intake of breath sounded behind him. Gray forced himself not to laugh. There would be hell to pay with Trulie later, and he looked forward to the battle.
Cook’s eyes bulged and her mouth fell open. “That’s less than three months’ time.” She threw both hands in the air and looked toward the ceiling as though searching for divine guidance. “Lore a’mighty, just three short cycles of the moon to prepare for a great feasting. For the entire clan? Three months’ time?” Cook’s tone bordered on hysteria as she pressed both hands to her pudgy jowls. Her gaze darted about the kitchen in rapid glances that lit here and there on every shelf in the kitchen.
Poor woman. Gray supposed three months was barely enough time for Cook to plan a proper fortnight of feasting for the entire clan and even more visitors. But what better excuse for them all to be in the kitchen? “Aye. Barely three months. Of course, ye have my complete approval to take on more servants if need be.” Gray paused and glanced around the kitchen as though counting heads. “How many do ye have right now? Are there any new servants that might not be properly trained for such preparations?”
Cook looked at Gray as though he had lost his mind. Perspiration dotted her brow as it furrowed with a frown. “New servants?” she repeated as she tapped a pudgy finger to her double chin. Her eyes went wide with recollection as she turned and wagged a finger toward an open doorway leading to the separate room where all the herbs and spices were prepared and dried. “There is Dullas.” Her voice took on a strained, uncomfortable ring. She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “She is an odd one, that one is.”
Aye. No doubt.Gray looked across the room with interest. After all, the strange woman intended to commit murder and then return to her home unscathed. Gray nodded toward the door Cook had indicated. “I would see this, Dullas.”
“Aye, my chief.” Cook bobbed her head, then turned and waddled a few steps across the massive kitchen. “Dullas!” she bellowed, loud enough to shake the massive smoke-stained beams that stretched across the ceiling.
The door slowly creaked open and a good-sized woman shuffled forward. Her worn overdress strained across her rounded shoulders and an apron stained with patches of green hung loosely around her neck. She kept her head bent and the brim of the white cap tied on her head flopped well over her face. Her hands fluttered in front of her waist as though she carried on an animated conversation with someone only she could see. “Aye, Cook?” she mumbled, loud enough to be heard above the clatter of pots and pans.
“Dullas, come forward. The MacKenna would have a look at ye.” Cook hurried the reluctant woman forward with a quick wave of her hand. “Come now. Make haste. There is much to be done and no time to be wasted.”
The wide, limp brim of Dullas’s cap bobbed up and down with the woman’s odd jerking movements as she trundled forward.
Gray studied her closer. The woman moved as though already condemned to the gallows. His gaze lit upon the braided chain of hair barely visible just inside her collar. It looked to be the braided chain Trulie had described from Granny’s vision.
Dullas didn’t lift her head as she halted a few feet in front of Gray. She twisted one of her apron ties so tight around her short, stubby fingers they puffed red and looked ready to burst.
Gray didn’t say a word. Sometimes the best way to get a person to admit guilt was by giving them enough rope to tie their own noose. He folded his arms across his chest and walked a slow circle around the still-murmuring woman.
“Stand up straight, Dullas,” Cook said with a clap of her hands. “I beg yer forgiveness, my chief. I had no doings in the choice of this one for the kitchen, and she has been with us a verra short time.”
“In truth?” Gray circled even closer around the eerily animated maid. It didn’t escape him that each time he leaned in to see her face, Dullas shied the other way. The bits of her whispered conversation he did catch reminded him of Tamhas’s ramblings as he read aloud from one of his journals. Snatches of phrases referring to exact amounts of measure, weight, and color. What the devil was the woman reciting? “Ye have run these kitchens for many a year, Cook. Who would dare usurp yer authority and force a servant upon ye?”
Cook’s already-flushed cheeks reddened to an even deeper shade. “Yer stepmother,” she said with disgust, while hurriedly crossing herself and glancing upward. “During her last ... visit ... she bade us take this one in.”
So Aileas herself had brought Dullas to his kitchens? That revelation confirmed what Gray already suspected. Disturbed Beala had not acted alone out of some twisted attempt to win Fearghal and Aileas’s favor. Aileas had used Beala as a pawn in her game to win complete power. And it appeared one of her other game pieces continued playing well after her mistress had gone.
An impatient huff and a cleared throat prodded Gray forward. Trulie’s patience was wearing thin. Time to end the game.
“What sort of charm do ye wear around yer neck, Dullas?” Gray ignored Cook’s sharp intake of breath as he yanked back Dullas’s cap and revealed her face. Lore ha’ mercy.Gray forced himself not to recoil. Dullas was the mirror image of Aileas, except the poor woman had an angry scar puckering down the side of her face, then crossing her throat.
The maid kept her gaze trained on the floor, her lips moving rapidly with barely whispered conversation. She bowed over her gesturing hands, ducking her chin to her chest like a turtle retreating into its shell. “No charm, great one. Bit of a keepsake from sister. Would never mean to displease ye. Will burn it if I must.” When Dullas spoke louder, her voice rasped and broke like the croaking of a bullfrog.
A keepsake indeed. Gray turned to Cook. “Did it not occur to ye to question why the sister to the old chieftain’s widow would be told to work in the kitchens?”
Cook avoided looking Gray in the eye as she spoke. “The Lady Aileas said it was better for her sister to work in the kitchens than be sent back to be raped by their father and his men.”
Gray’s sense of honor wanted to believe that reason, but his good sense knew better. Aileas had never given a damn about anyone but herself. He had no doubt she would use her sister to clear the path to ultimate power.
“I would see the keepsake yer sister left ye.” Gray held out his hand and waited. It was Dullas’s move. If the maid could see through the evil Aileas had planted in her mind and choose the right path, she could remain a servant in MacKenna keep for as long as she wished. But if she could not break free of Aileas’s grip, her tenure in the kitchen was over.
