The snake in my ear vanished, and the scent of the Dark Fool died on the breeze.
It did my heart glad to see Thomas, even in his fussy new clothes. That old familiar air of merriment and mischief glinted in his grey eyes.
“Lass,” he breathed, as if the sight of me was some miracle of nature he had never seen before. “How you are transformed!”
The grass moved beneath me, stretching upwards as if to brush my fingertips. Bluebells, normally a spring flower, burst into bloom. Intoxication flooded through my veins.
The grass grew long, twined to snares about the shepherd’s feet.
I wanted; oh, how I did want!
I was not here to frolic or dally with my shepherd king. I was here to gather herbs, with which to heal the baroness. With my mind, I bade the tangling grass to retreat.
And I fell into Thomas’s arms.
It did not matter then if he’d been pulling away from me. If I wanted to chastise him for leaving me alone last night at dinner, if he slept among the baron’s family and I up in the attic with the hired help.Fae and humans need one another, however much we wound each other, too.
I refused to believe Thomas was hurting me. It was the baron who kept us apart. It was Margaret of Roxburgh who stared at me as if I were some distasteful, wild beast. It was the servants of Christ who insisted on those noxious crosses all around us, as if it were a mortal sin to forget their pious lord for one moment. To think neither of sin nor salvation. Simply to be.
Thomas held me in his arms and pushed the hair out of my eyes.
“My bed is so cold,” I told him, and fell against his shoulder.
“Ah, my lass,” he crooned, rubbing his hands along my back. “So is mine. Too cold and empty and large.”
I reached down and brushed my fingers against the plants in the garden. “I seek a cure for the baroness,” I told him. “Poppy, with which to make a tincture, that she may sleep.” Even with the tiresome priests praying around her all day and night. “Wild celery, to ward off the pestilential air.” And I broke off a sprig and tucked it in between the buttons of Thomas’s garment. Ever did I wish him to remain safe.
His expression sobered, though hope shone in the raising of his brows. “You can help them, then? Cure the lady and my brother?”
“I think so. Mayhap then the baron will move me from the servants’ quarters.”
Thomas scowled. “You are no servant, Bess. You should not be hidden away in the attic but have chambers worthy of your status. I shall speak to the baron about that.”
Chambers worthy of my status.A bower so lush ’twould outshine an emperor’s garden, sung to sleep by the song of birds who never graced the mortals’ sky, said the fae inside me. Yet I wanted only to sleep beside my shepherd king; it mattered little how humble the accommodations. I ran my fingers down Thomas’s front, peering up through my lashes. “I do not take up much space. I am used to cozy quarters, as well you know.”
Thomas laughed and gathered me into his arms. “Aye, I know well how cozy they may be.”
And for a moment then, it truly was as if we were at home, in that little shepherd’s cottage, with the dog Cullen running loose at our feet. I had never been happier than I was then. Now I stood, in this tiny pocket of natural wonder, with earth’s bounty flourishing all around me, held safe by the man I loved.
It could not last. I had responsibilities, and I embraced them. I must get the wild celery to the baroness and her maidservant. I must perform my duties and earn my keep. Then only might we hope to be together. With deep regret I broke away from Thomas and removed myself from his arms, gathering my posies and bringing them inside.
The manor was all a bustle of panic and chaos, and try as we might, no answers could we find save for this:
Sir Evander Douglas, a great oak of a man, and cousin to the Douglases we knew back home, had toppled over and fallen insensate in the middle of mass.
My work at the manor house had only begun.
Twenty-Two
“Oh mistress, it were horrificindeed,” said the servant, Gib by name, who accompanied me into the infirmary, where Sir Evander Douglas lay prostrate on a bare cot. “’Twas right after the friar delivered his sermon on the evils of excessive drink. At first, some of the assembled even laughed, thinking it was a commentary in jest.” To my lifted eyebrow, he explained, “These knights carry on so in the great hall of a Saturday. Friar Gilbeart is wont to chastise them for it and all.”
I nodded, not interested in Friar Gilbeart or Evander’s proclivities beyond how they pertained to his current state of health. “Did you notice aught unusual about him before then? High color or grievous pallor? Sweating or shaking on his feet?”
Gib frowned. “He cried out as though struck and reached down towards his shin before he toppled. Seemed perfectly fine until then.”
I frowned.His shin? Not his head, or his chest? Perhaps his muscles spasmed—but no, that was not like to lay him out so completely.
I stepped towards the foot of the bed and pulled off Evander’s boots, noting with some amusement the preposterous length of their toes. What the gentry would not wear for the sake of fashion! The fellow was lucky he had not tripped over these.
