“I won’t try to escape,” she answered him,glad that her voice didn’t quake or crack.“As I told Roark, I planon being an accommodating prisoner while waiting for my father tocome for me.”She pressed her lips into a thin smile.“And hewill.”
“I am sure he will,” he said.He tapped hischin with his forefinger and then looked to Roark, whose expressionwas one of unconcern, though his posture was as rigid as a stag ina hunter’s sights.“How did you trap the bitch?”Roger asked intheir language.
“Roark was great,” Leif jumped in when Roarkhesitated.“He flirted with her and wooed her until she led him,”he said, laughing, “to a secluded lake.”Leif glanced at Roark, whoshrugged nonchalantly while Alina sat staring straight ahead as ifshe didn’t understand every word of Leif’s humiliating recitation.“You should’ve seen them, Father, cooing and kissing while me andthe others snuck up on them.”
“Well, well, Roark.”Roger chuckled.“Iwouldn’t have guessed you had it in you.”
“He would’ve had it in her,” Leif said,smirking at his own crude jest, “if we hadn’t showed up when wedid.”
“Ha, ha,” Roark said affably.
Alina sat as stiff and silent as the stonelodged in her throat.At least Leif hadn’t mentioned Roark’sproposal of marriage or Alina’s almost answer.
“You’re sure Jerrik will think her dead?”Roger asked.
“Gall dragged Kerry so it would look like awild animal dragged her off into the woods,” Leif told him.“Weleft bits and pieces of her gown and mask and cloak and gobs ofpig’s blood along the trail.”
“Good, good.”Roger tapped his chin andsmiled as pleased as a cat that had finished toying with the poormouse and killed it.“I want Jerrik and Alyssa to grieve for theirdaughter, to know how it feels to lose a child and have your familytorn apart.”
He stood and walked around the table to standin front of Alina and stare down at her for a long moment.“You areyour mother’s daughter,” he murmured, and then he went to the doorand opened it.“Peg, Jenny,” he called out.“Come take our guest toher chambers.”
Two women dressed in plain brown long tunicsand scrubbed white work aprons scurried into the room.The olderone, who looked to be the same servant who had greeted the familyon their return from the docks, was middle-aged, buxom, andround-faced with curly brown hair poking out from under her whitelinen cap.The other woman was a younger version of the first.Alina started to stand and felt Roark tugging down on the back hemof her tunic, a tacit reminder that she shouldn’t have understoodwhat Roger told them.
“This is Peg,” Roger said to Alina in herNorthern tongue as the older servant stepped up and curtsied.“Andthis is her daughter, Jenny, they will take you to your rooms.”Heeyed Alina from capped head to boots as she stood.“They willprovide you with clean and proper clothes and will fetch you forsupper when it’s served.”He sniffed as Alina stood and pinched hisnarrow nose.“Tomorrow you may bathe.”
Alina ignored his dig and followed the womenout of the room and up the stairs to a hallway with doors to whatshe assumed were bedchambers lining the back and sides of thehouse, connecting to a walkway along the front side with tall,narrow windows along the wall opened enough for air flow andarrows, much like her family’s long house.
“Here we are, Lady,” Peg said, pushing open adoor to a room on the far side from the staircase.
“You speak the Northern tongue well, Peg,”Alina said.
“Thank you, Lady.Lady Lynette taught me andJenny.”
“Alina, please.”She was hoping to makefriends with these women.She could use as many as she could getwhile here.“Even in my home, nobody calls me lady.”
“Alina,” Peg said, her round cheeks rising.She turned to the gawking Jenny.“Hussht, girl,” she said.“ShowAlina here around the room whilst I get her some clothes.”
“Yes ma’am.”Jenny bobbed her head as hermother bustled out of the room.She gave Alina a shy smile.“Thishere’s the bed,” she said in a heavily accented Northern tongue asshe pulled back the red drapes to a canopied, four-poster bed.“These here are the chests to put your belongings in.”
Alina nodded, not bothering to explain theonly belongings she had were the clothes she was wearing, hertattered gown, and lynx throw.
Jenny opened the wooden shutters to the onewindow in the room and Alina went to look out of it.They weretwenty feet high at least, with a thorny bramble bush growingdirectly below the window and not a tree within fifty paces.Sheturned away from the window with a heavy sigh.
“I’ll bring you some soap and water and awashing cloth,” Jenny said, pointing to the wash basin.“My mothershould be back with some clothes soon.”
“Thank you.”Alina sat on the bed as Jennyshut the door behind her and slid the outside bolt with a thud.Shelaid back, her legs dangling off the edge and giving her back agood stretch.At least this prison had a soft bed, unlike the pileof pelts on the ship.But unlike the ship, this room wouldn’t haveRoark’s steadying presence lying next to her through the night.
She stared up at the red canopy, recallingwhat had been said in the laird’s private chambers.If Roger andLeif knew she spoke their Green Isles tongue, they’d hidden itwell.Roark had tugged on her tunic to keep her from giving herunderstanding of their language away.Why would he have done thatif not to help her keep her secret?She grinned, remembering howhe’d teased her about “why” being her favorite word.
He’d also warned her they wouldn’t be able tospeak together often or freely here, not without raising Roger’ssuspicions.Something neither of them wanted to do.Roark, to keeppeace in the household, and Alina to keep from being locked up forthe next fortnight, or longer.The way she figured it, ifTheRoverwasn’t setting sail for a fortnight and it took three tosix days to reach Sea Ridge, depending on the winds, and anotherseveral days for her father to amass her ransom and then anotherfour to six days to sail back here, that was closer to a moon ofimprisonment for her.She sighed and folded her legs onto the bed,curling into a ball and stretching her back in the oppositedirection.Either way, a fortnight or a moon, she was determined tonot give Roger a reason to keep her locked up in this room day andnight.
The bolt to the door scraped open and Pegcame in carrying a bundle she handed Alina.“Here’s a clean longtunic, an apron, and a pair of woolen stockings,” she said.“It canbe plenty cold here though it be spring.”
“Thank you,” Alina said, not mentioningcompared to Sea Ridge, where there was still snow on the mountains,or the icy winds whipping across the deck ofThe Rover, itfelt almost balmy here.
“Supper will be in a bit,” Peg said as Jennycarried in a pitcher of water, a washing cloth, and a bar of soap.“Clean up and one of us’ll come for you then.”
***
