Not to hide and lick her wounds.
O-o-oh, no.
She simply needed time alone to decide her next move.
Thinking about seduction wasn’t easy with a good score of flapping male tongues blethering on about disciplining errant clansmen or what to do when a trusted friend and ally suddenly lifted a few prize cattle.
Or the virtues of expanding one’s lands by conquest and inheritance, followed by a heated discourse on the fine art of Highland feuding.
Or whose bard sang the sweetest harp songs.
Gelis straightened her back.
Harp songs, indeed. She had more pressing matters weighing on her.
Meaning to sort them, she tugged on the sleeve of the large-eyed serving lass leading her up the stairs. The girl halted at once, her slight form jerking as if a two-headed water horse had seized her.
Gelis blinked, certain she’d never seen such a fearful creature.
“Anice,” she began, wishing her own agitation wasn’t pressing her to ask what she burned to know. “Are you certain the Raven wished me taken to his chamber?”
“His explicit orders, aye.” The girl bobbed her head. “I readied the room myself and Hector carried up an extra basket of peats for the fire.”
But when Anice led her from the stair tower’s top landing a few moments later, taking her to the Raven’s oak-planked door, more cold and darkness greeted them.
The bedchamber, though vast and quite imposing, proved decidedlyunreadied.
Of extra peat bricks, naught was to be seen. Nor even a stick of wood, or the merest twig, or even a bundle of dried bracken. Indeed, the hearthstone appeared swept bare with only a thin scatter of ash indicating a fire had ever burned there at all.
Gelis peered into the dimness, the insult making her face grow hot. The shutters were thrown wide, letting chill damp air pour inside, while the moon’s luminance shone cold on the room’s terrible disarray.
“Saints o’ mercy!” Anice stood frozen, one hand on the door handle, the other clapped to her throat. “The room was in perfect order. I swear it.”
Shaking her head, she stared at the clothes strewn across the floor, the mussed and tangled bedding. “We’d even brought up a bath,” she said, throwing a panicked look at Gelis. “Victuals and wine. Refreshments —”
“Never you mind,” Gelis halted her babble, sweeping into the room before the girl had a chance to swoon. “Someone” — and she was certain she knew who — “clearly forgot to secure the shutters, and the wind has done the damage.”
“Och, nae, I dinna think so.” The girl looked doubtful. “The wind —”
“Wind is naught but just that.” Gelis glanced at the sideways rain blowing past the windows. “Cold, gusting, and at the moment, quite wet.”
Anice bit her lip, unconvinced.
“I’ll own it was an unusually discerning wind,” Gelis allowed. She stepped deeper into the room, a dark suspicion making her cheeks flame even hotter.
Her chest tightened with annoyance, but she held her tongue, not willing to say more until she was certain.
Though, truth be told, she already was.
Thewindhad been more than discriminating.
It’d been revealing.
Her own coffers and travel bags remained untouched. Her carefully selected bridal accoutrements stared at her from across the room, the lot of her treasures stacked in a quiet and inoffensive pile in a corner.
The chaos was masculine.
An untidy swath of rumpled tunics and plaids, the messy jumble made all the more damning for the bulging money purse and wine skin peeking up from its midst. A handsome black travel cloak flung haphazardly across a bearskin rug on the floor banished any lingering doubts, as did the gleaming mail hauberk, sword belt, and brand tossed into a glittery silver heap near the door.
