“That was a dream I have been having lately,” he said deeply, his arms still holding her hard to him, his mouth upon her neck making her wild with tenderness in every hidden crevice. “Rather, part of the dream.”
“What is the other part?”
“We must remove to a more private location for the other part.”
Ravenna lifted heavy eyelids. They still stood in the kitchen yard, entirely visible to a dozen internal windows in the castle.
“I should get down.”
“Are you certain you wish to?”
No. “Yes.”
He lowered her feet to the ground, then took her hand.
The door opened and she tugged away. His grip tightened, but she pulled and he allowed her liberty.
“Ravenna?” Iona poked her fiery head into the sunlight. “Oh! Guid day, my laird.” Bright blue eyes scanned him then Ravenna, traveling from her cheeks to her skirts tangled about her calves. A grin twitched the corner of her rosebud lips, then her face sobered. “Ravenna, I’ve got to speak wi’ ye. Wi’ the both o’ ye.”
They went inside and to the servants’ stairway and up, all the while Ravenna feeling him close behind her. Her limbs trembled peculiarly now, as though she had run up a hill. But when they entered the empty dining room and he closed the door behind them, he seemed at ease, still elegant despite the somewhat disordered state of his hair from her fingers raking through it.
She could not find her tongue.
Iona filled the silence. “I was with Mr. Walsh the nicht he died.”
SHE INCHED AWAY from him, subtly yet steadily putting the dining table between them as Lady Iona spoke. But Vitor knew the signs of her retreat well enough now: averted profile, skittish eyes, balancing upon the balls of her feet in preparation for flight.
When she had gone to her toes and wrapped her arms about him, he’d nearly lost all control of himself. Soft and lush and naturally brazen as only a woman who did not heed society’s restrictions could be, she had shocked herself with her own pleasure. With Herculean effort he had yet again forced himself to retreat. The daylight had not stopped him, only his need to show her that the advantages he offered were not to be discarded lightly. Her first real experience making love would not be a hasty outdoor coupling.
Now her eyes lit with confusion. “Why did you not tell me before?”
“I couldna afore! Ye must understand.” Hands extended, Lady Iona moved toward her with the impetuous grace that marked her as a girl of breeding and privilege.
Vitor stepped between them. “My lady, do explain yourself.”
Her lips parted upon surprise, then chagrin. “Aye.” She nodded and looked past his shoulder to Ravenna. “ ’Twas no’ long after dinner, perhaps ten-thirty or eleven o’clock. I grew weary o’ that young—” Her gaze darted to him. “O’ conversation in the drawin’ room, an’ thought to do a bit o’ explorin’.” Her eyes spoke meaning to Ravenna that she did not know he understood; she had been heading to an assignation with a lover.
“Where did you meet him?” Ravenna asked.
“Oh! I didna meet him by design. I’d niver seen the man till that moment. But he was clearly a gentleman, so . . .” Her manner turned diffident and she glanced at him again. “I bid him guid eve.”
“I told him about Lord Whitebarrow in the tower,” Ravenna said. “You must speak candidly now or we will have to consider you a suspect.”
Lady Iona faced him. “Imagine o’ me whit ye will, my laird. ’Tis nothin’ I’ve no’ borne afore.”
“Where did you encounter Walsh?”
“In the long gallery where there be all the knights on display.” Her nose wrinkled. “Rusty old things. I dinna ken why a man would want them in his house. But yer peculiar beasts, aren’t ye, my laird?”
Ravenna moved to his side. “Was he wearing armor when you spoke with him?”
Her eyes widened again. “No.”
For the first time since the kitchen yard, Ravenna looked directly at him. “Then she encountered him before Ann did.”
“Ann?” Lady Iona exclaimed. “But what could a little thing like Ann want wi’ a fine man like that?”
“Not, presumably, what you did. I believe she came upon him by chance, just as you, but later. Did you and he speak?”
“Aye, but no’ for long. He’d been drinkin’ spirits an’ though he pawed me a bit, he couldna hold my eye. I’ve no need o’ a man that deep in his cups.” She offered Vitor a defiant stare.
Ravenna’s cheeks were aflame, spreading dark along her neck and beneath her gown.
“But it was the oddest thing,” Lady Iona said thoughtfully. “He called me his gracious leddy—three times he did—an’ though he could barely hold up his head, he went to his knee afore me, as though he were playin’ at bein’ a knight, like the suits all aboot him.”
“His gracious lady?”
“Aye.”
“And he seemed out of his senses with drink but amorous?”
“Aye.”
Ravenna’s throat constricted jerkily. “Could he have drunk the drugged wine?” She meant the wine that Vitor had drunk. Still she did not believe he wanted her, despite all.
“He might have,” he said. “Yes.”
“Drugged wine?” Lady Iona said. “I’d thought the poor man was stabbed.”
“Why?” Ravenna said before he could. She was quick and clever and attentive to detail even as she blushed in embarrassment, and he wanted her. “We told no one about how he was killed.” She turned her dark eyes up to him. “Did you?”
He ought to be concerned with Walsh’s death, if only to ensure her safety and the safety of the other innocent people in the castle. But all he could think was that she was his and he would not allow her to run from him again.
“I told no one.” He forced his attention to Lady Iona. “How do you know he was stabbed?”
Her brow wrinkled. “Leddy Grace spoke o’ a knife, I think. Or perhaps a dagger. I dinna recall. She was lookin’ for the thing earlier this week, thinkin’ she could aid in the mayor’s investigation. I told her it would do no guid, that if the murderer were worth his salt, he’d thrown it in the river days ago. But the lass seemed determined to find it.”
“Grace. The dagger. The river . . .” she murmured. “The wax . . .”
“The wax?” he said.
“The wax seal on the note Mr. Walsh received. The impression in it was that of a small finger. A woman’s finger most likely.”
“When did you determine this?”
“The morning before— That is to say . . .” Her gaze shot to the Scotswoman, and roses bloomed in her cheeks again. “I forgot to tell you. In fact I forgot about it entirely. But I should not have. Ladies Penelope and Grace have worn gloves at nearly every moment since the murder. Lady Penelope made such a complaint of the drafts in all the rooms that I didn’t think a thing of it. And Grace does everything her sister does.”
“Leddies wi’ cold bluid wear gloves because they be afeard to touch a man’s skin, lass. Poor things, missin’ out on the best o’ life.”
“I did not think to consider either of them before because of the dark hair. Then after we determined the hair was Ann’s, I never seriously reconsidered. What if one of them is hiding the burn mark that hot wax left on her fingertip? What if through my lack of thought the true murderer has gone free all these days?”