“Do ye happen to ken a child named Reid Burns and another named Elen Burns?”
“I am... I did...”
“A simple aye or nay will be enough of an answer.”
“Aye. Weel, nay. I mean I ken them but have naught to do with them.”
“That was quite plain to see when I found them. The boy was naught but skin and bone. If he found any food after ye cast him and his sister into the street, he gave most of it to wee Elen. Both of them had not but rags to wear and nay even a thin blanket to sleep upon. And ye do ken who Elen is, dinnae ye? Your own wee daughter?”
“Who says she is my daughter? I ne’er claimed the brat and her mother was no sainted virgin, now was she.” The courage Donald had gained from his sense of outrage faded rapidly beneath Simon’s cold stare. “For sweet Mary’s sake, they are but two wee bastards. How is their fate any of the king’s business?”
“ ‘Tis nay the king’s business. ‘Tis mine. I have taken the two children into my home.”
“Ah, weel, good. Aye, verra good of ye. They will work hard for ye and nay be much trouble at all.”
The man deserved to be beaten into a stain upon the floor, Simon thought, but he slowly unclenched his fists. “Ye, sir, are a swine. Ye toss out two bairns ere their mother is cold in the ground, caring naught for their grief or innocence. Ye ken weel all the horror a child alone can face. And why do ye do so? To have room for the woman who will replace their mother in your adulterous bed.” Simon idly wondered if that sounded a little too pious and then decided he did not care. “Did ye e’en take the time to have the bed linen freshened ere ye put a new woman in the bed? Reid may nay be of your blood, and I can only think that a blessing for him, but ye became responsible for him when ye took his mother into your bed. And Elen is of your own blood thus ye are most certainly responsible for her and ye ken it.”
“Do ye want me to take them back? Is that what this is about?”
“Nay, I wouldnae put them in your care again. I ken that the moment I wasnae looking ye would just toss them back out again. Nay, what I want from ye is money, a nice sum that can be set aside as Elen’s dowry and more for Reid so that he has some choice as to what he will become when he is grown.”
“That lad is no blood of mine! I shouldnae have to pay anything for his comfort. He is naught but his mother’s get and, e’en though she said she was a widow, he was probably just a bastard.”
“When ye took his mother as your mistress ye accepted responsibility for her child. She also bore ye a child who is Reid’s sister, and that, too, makes ye responsible.” When Donald began to stutter out another protest, Simon grasped the man by the shoulder hard enough to make the man gasp and go pale. “AndI havedecided that ye are responsible. Do ye wish to object to my decision in this?”
Donald was as great a coward as Simon had thought he would be and quickly agreed to all Simon demanded of him. It disappointed Simon a little that he would have no opportunity to beat the money out of the man. Any man who could toss two small children out into the dangerous streets, one of them his own child, deserved to be soundly beaten, but Simon knew it was best if he restrained the urge. It would not do for him to get a reputation as a brute. People might be afraid of him but they did not yet fear him because he would cause them physical pain in any way and he preferred to keep that so. As Simon waited for the man to gather up what money he could, he decided he could not allow the man to get away with such callous treatment of children without suffering some retribution, however.
The moment Donald handed him the money he had found, nervously swearing to get the rest as soon as he could, Simon punched him in the face. Donald stumbled back against the wall and slid down it until he was sitting on the floor. Holding his bleeding nose, Donald stared up at Simon in stunned fear.
Simon crouched down to stare at the man, making no attempt to hide his anger and contempt. “Ye deserve to be beaten within an inch of your miserable life for what ye did to those children and the way ye dishonor your wife, but I have lost the taste for it. There is no satisfaction to be found in beating on a coward. And, heed me weel, dinnae try to cheat those bairns of the last of the money ye just promised to give them. If ye do, I will swallow my distaste for beating such a whining, wee bastard, and leave ye unable to breed any more bairns. I suspicion your wife would thank me for it, too.”
Pleased with the terror he could see in Donald’s eyes, Simon left. Elen would have a dowry and Reid would have choices in life, he thought as he walked toward his home, and he was satisfied. He knew the Armstrongs and the Murrays would care for the children, as would he if the need arose, but the money would help no matter where the children lived or with whom.
“Ah, weel met, Sir Simon. Might I speak with ye for a moment?”
The sight of a smiling Sir Walter Hepbourn stepping up to him soured Simon’s mood, but he stopped and bowed faintly in greeting. “How can I be of service to ye, sir?”
“I but wondered if ye have had any word on the whereabouts of Ilsabeth?” Walter asked.
“If I had it would be the king’s business, Sir Walter.”
“ ‘Tis mine as weel, is it not? I was the mon who was to wed her and the one made a fool of by her treachery. Her actions could have blackened the good name of Hepbourn. And, from all I have heard, the king’s soldiers havenae gathered up a single one of those traitorous Armstrongs. I humbly beg your pardon if ye feel I am intruding on such matters, but I begin to grow, weel, uncertain.”
The tone behind that apology held no humility at all, but Simon’s attention was caught by Hepbourn’s last words. You begin to grow afraid, thought Simon. Things were not going as planned for the man and fear was beginning to trickle through Hepbourn’s veins. Simon wondered if the one at the head of this plot was making his displeasure known. He hoped that leader did not punish failure with a knife across the throat as Hepbourn could yet be of use. It would also be too quick a death for the man who had used Ilsabeth and put her life in danger, he decided.
“There is no need to worry, Sir Walter,” Simon said. “We will soon find the traitors. I work diligently to do so as do my men. Now, if ye will be so kind as to pardon me, I must be on my way. Good eve to ye, sir.”
Simon caught a brief glimpse of fury on Sir Walter’s face before the man bobbed a swift and shallow bow and walked away. Did Hepbourn truly think it would be so easy to get information from him? The man’s arrogance was astonishing. Simon did not understand how a woman like Ilsabeth could have even considered marrying the fool.
As soon as Simon began to make his way home again, he wondered if Hepbourn had yet noticed that he was being closely watched. That would certainly be enough to make the man nervous and Hepbourn had definitely been uneasy. A moment later he shook his head, denying that possibility. He and the men he used were good at what they did. If Hepbourn had seen anything, it could have been no more than a fleeting shadow, something to frown over for a moment and then forget. Hepbourn was simply worried that the plot against the king was faltering and, if it failed, so did Hepbourn’s chances at any fortune he had planned to gain from it all. With the Armstrongs still free and Ilsabeth not yet caught and condemned, the shields Hepbourn had put between himself and any hint of wrongdoing were weakening.
The man behind this plot was the one he needed to find but he knew that was not going to be easy. It was clear that the leader of the ones plotting against the king stayed deep in the shadows. Simon had told his men to keep a close watch for Hepbourn or his cousin meeting with another man and there had been no word of that happening yet. He could only hope that they got their hands on David soon. Every instinct Simon had told him that that man would break easily and give them most, if not all, the information they needed to put an end to the game.
Once inside his home, Simon slipped into his ledger room. It was a cowardly thing to do, but he could not face Ilsabeth just yet. He needed to carefully plan what he would say to her so that he could say it quick and then put some distance between them. It was what he had been doing since the moment he had risen from her arms two days ago and fled to this room. Although it did little to cure him of his aching need for her, it did stop him from acting on it.
A soft rap came at the door and he tensed. Realizing he was actually afraid that it was Ilsabeth, Simon forced himself to relax. When Reid stepped inside in answer to his invite to enter, the disappointment that stung his heart irritated Simon. It was almost humiliating to know how little success he was having in keeping Ilsabeth at a distance.
Forcing himself to smile at the boy as Reid approached his desk, Simon asked, “What can I do for ye, laddie?”
