She huffed and crossed her arms beneath her ample bosom. ‘Not so much that lass you dragged here last night. Were you not concerned with her welfare?’
‘I’ve been busy,’ he snapped.
‘Doing what, I’ll not ask, for I do not want to know. I cleaned her up as best I could and managed to glean that she was not molested by that fiend. In fact, she seems ignorant of all matters of the flesh. Her mother is dead, and I don’t think anyone has had a talk to her about women’s business. She must be all of a score of years and yet still innocent. How can that be with her looks, for she’s as bonnie as any I’ve seen?'
‘I do not know, Bertha,’ said Peyton, overtaken by weariness.
‘Perhaps she is a little simple.’
‘Aye, perhaps.’
‘Well, she said you murdered her lover. Couldn’t shut her up about it. So what are you going to do with her? She’ll blab about it all over if you set her free.’
‘I will think of something.’
‘Well, you’d better, or we are all in a great deal of trouble,’ said Bertha, hurrying away. ‘And you can’t keep the poor wee lass locked up forever. Oh, and news came. Lowri has absconded from the abbey again.’
‘Christ’s teeth. I told them to keep her under lock and key.’
‘Well, she’s run off, God knows where. She’ll turn up here when she feels like it, no doubt.
‘Bloody women!’ hissed Peyton through his teeth. ‘Send men out to look for her. I will go and silence that harpy upstairs.’
Bertha gave him a hard look and a frown.
‘Not like that,’ he snapped. “I’ve done enough killing this past day.’
‘Why not use your charm instead?’ she sneered.
Boiling with frustration, Peyton stomped upstairs to deal with Cecily MacCreadie.
Chapter Eight
Peyton paused outside his chamber, pulsing with frustration and worry. Did Eaden know Lowri had run away? Is that why he mentioned her? And what the hell was he to do with his prisoner? A new Warden coming meant that his current predicament was ten times worse. He would want to make his mark, stamp his authority. Where before, any misdeeds could be wiped away with a well-placed bribe to Sir Walder Moffat, a new man might not be so amenable. The English would hunt him down like a dog if word got out he had slaughtered a son of nobility, no matter the fiendish intentions of that whoreson, Edward Harclaw.
And all this was on account of Cecily MacCreadie. She would have to be faced eventually, so Peyton unlocked the door and entered. It was not as if his day could get any worse.
It could.
Cecily MacCreadie sat upon the bed in a clean dress. All the filth had been wiped off her face. He had thought her bonnie covered in mud and blood, but clean, with a dark blue dress bringing out her stunning eyes, she stole his breath from his lungs. The lass was radiant and almost perfect were it not for some mud still clinging to her blonde hair, which hung loose and framed her sweet, heart-shaped face like an angel’s halo.
She gave him a broad smile, and even with her split lip and a bruise on her cheekbone, it was enough to make his knees buckle a little. Gods, but she was beautiful. It was not a lusty, buxom beauty or a whore’s painted-on beauty. Cecily MacCreadie was naturally radiant as if a light shone from within her face - so delicately drawn, her lips a perfect full pout of soft pink, her wide eyes the deep blue-green of sunlit water.
Damn the lass. Why could she not be plain and invisible? Why must she stir him when his blood was already up?
Her beaming smile was so sweet and childlike, and her demeanour so changed from the day before that, for a moment, Peyton wondered if she was a little simple. There was a vulnerability to her that pricked his conscience. He marched up to her, and the smile on her face never wavered as he struggled to think of what to say.
‘Are you well?’ he barked.
‘Aye, quite well, I thank you. And forgive my rudeness yesterday and lack of gratitude. It was a result of my ordeal, you see.’
He shrugged. ‘I suppose it was, and there’s nothing to forgive, lass.’ Looking like that, he could forgive her anything.
‘You were courageous, saving my honour the way you did. I am so grateful. You are my saviour.’
Something lustful stirred deep in his belly, and he brushed it off. ‘I need some answers, lass. Are you or are you not, Cecily MacCreadie?’
‘I am.’ She blinked up at him. ‘May I go home now?’
