“I cannae think of one amongst the men but there is a lass or two I will be watching. I think that is where the danger is. Some fool lass who believes herself in love or enough so that she heeds every lie told her by Sir Adam or one of his men.”
Annys was choked by sadness for a moment. It was not just because David had been murdered by one of his own people, people he had treated well, but it could have been the result of some foolish young woman’s seduction. How anyone at Glencullaich could ever believe that David deserved the painful, lingering death he had suffered, no matter what some handsome man promised, she did not know. Nor could she think of any woman at the keep who could be so easily swayed by some man’s lies.
“It is too sad to think on,” she murmured. “Poor David ne’er did anything that would make anyone here think him so bad that he deserved that death.”
“Some lasses can believe anything if the mon they desire tells them it. But, aye, it is unbearably sad that our laird would die because one lass is too witless to ken what are lies and what is truth. Whene’er I think on it, I want to beat the guilty one until they are naught but a pile of shattered bone.”
“Find her, Joan. Or him, although I believe ye are right in what ye think concerning the killer.”
“I will and I swear I will nay kill her but bring her to face justice.”
“Good. I truly need to hear the why nay matter how witless it may prove to be.
“There are times when I dearly wish Nigel didnae die o’er there in France, and nay just because he was also too young to die. But I would have wed with him as I was supposed to, David would still live, and”—she lowered her voice—“I wouldnae be part of a plan to deny a verra good mon his son.”
“True enough but ye wouldnae have Benet now, either, would ye?”
Annys softly cursed. “Nay, I wouldnae and I would ne’er wish him gone. Weel, with that thought in my head, I will now go and clean up. Mayhap see what is being done with our defenses,” she said as she stood up and brushed off her skirts.
“The men are verra pleased with all the training they are getting for all they like to groan and complain about the work and the bruises. We have been blessed in how peaceful we have had it here but this trouble has let us see that we have let that blessing make us soft. We willnae be any longer.”
“That is a comfort. One has to wonder what sorts of life Sir Harcourt and the others have led, however, that has made them so knowledgeable about good fighting and good defenses.”
“Just one that was lived in a place which isnae so cleverly out of sight as we are. Go on, I will direct the lasses in finishing the work.”
Annys left Joan to order the younger women around, something she knew her maid got a great deal of pleasure out of doing. Although everyone called Annys my lady, she was not so vain as to think that meant that she actually held all the power at Glencullaich. Joan held a lot of it in her work-worn hands as well.
Ordering some heated water on her way up to her bedchamber, Annys began to wonder if Joan would be able to find the one who killed David. She was not even certain how one could winnow the guilty out of the herd. The killer had escaped any justice for months, escaped even being caught as she killed her laird. That amount of cleverness did not match with the image of some silly love-stricken lass doing anything her lover asked.
Then again, she mused as she let in the young girl bringing her the heated water to wash with, just how clever does one have to be to use poison? The moment the girl left, Annys shed her clothes and washed off the sweat and dirt she had collected while working in the garden all the while pondering that question. It was one she should have asked Harcourt, she thought.
Dealing with murder, betrayal, and deceit was not something she felt confident to do. She had never dealt with such things before. The men now training her men and shoring up Glencullaich’s defense showed they had lived a harder life, one touched by such darkness as battle. Sir Callum knowing about poisoning as well as the lack of shock on the faces of the other men as he explained to her about his cousin, told her they probably all knew a lot more about murder than she did. Determined to speak to one of them, she quickly dressed and hurried out of her bedchamber only to meet up with Harcourt right outside her door.