“Something is wrong?” she asked.
Angus had been heedful in requesting his lord accompany him to the kitchen, but the event was too unusual to escape notice, especially since the knight had not returned to the hall. Also absent from the table was Sebille, though that was not unusual. Likely, she was with their mother and would yet be there when Lothaire ascended to the third floor. Hopefully, she had not revealed the plot against the stores of fleece nor her suspicion Raisa had arranged it. Lothaire had told her to hold it close so he could himself gauge their mother’s reaction that would be more difficult to mask the longer she was denied word of what she wrought.
“What was wrong is being made right,” he said and caught up his wife’s hand and kissed her knuckles. “Naught to worry over.”
Her smile was uncertain.
“Later I will tell you,” he said and was relieved when Clarice drew her mother’s attention.
It could not be too soon for the servants to deliver the viands and the meal to be done. There were questions without answers and answers without questions. This eve, the unknown and known would meet and this foul business concluded so never again would his family suffer for it. And he and the woman he loved would make good on all the years lost to them.
“You have decided to allow me to spend my final days in my home, have you?”
They were the first words his mother spoke when Lothaire closed the door.
He glanced from Sebille perched on a chair beside the bed, fingers moving over her prayer beads, to Martin who stood on the opposite side, medicinal bag open and vials sitting atop the coverlet.
“Mother,” he said.
At his approach, Sebille stood and offered him the chair.
He declined and halted alongside the bed.
Lady Raisa, whose head was so far sunk in the pillow it appeared she had lost the rest of her hair, frowned. “That is as you have decided, is it not, Lothaire?”
She looked worse than he had seen her, and he had to remind himself of what she had done. “Nay, Mother. It is but another delay in moving you to your dower property.”
Her lids narrowed. “You do not love me, do you?”
He did not want to yield to her the questions needing answers, but to this he would respond. “I love you, Mother, though you make it difficult.” He had not thought he could be angrier with her than when she hired assassins Cook would have him believe were not truly that, but he was. For attacking Laura in her chamber…for hiring men to stir up trouble that had nearly seen his wife ravished a second time…
But he could not loose cruel words on her as he might have done had he come to her last eve or this morn.
Lady Raisa sighed, and in a voice softened by weariness, said, “Of what would you accuse me now?”
Lothaire looked to Sebille who gave a slight shake of her head to indicate she had remained silent on the matter. “During the shearing supper last eve, the men hired to work ill on the stores at Shepsdale were thwarted and instead turned their attention to the fleeces at Thistle Cross. That attempt was also foiled but not before one of the men sought to ravish my wife.”
Raisa’s eyes widened, his sister gasped.
“They failed and are now in High Castle’s dungeon. A short while ago, Cook was imprisoned as well for hiring them to do your bidding and attempting to release them as he did when two of these same men were sent to murder Lady Beata and Baron Marshal.”
His mother blinked. “So once again I am blamed.”
He stepped nearer the bed. “Cook tells it was under your orders he made the arrangements both times.”
“He lies. Just as I did not hire assassins to kill Lady Beata and Baron Marshal, I did not—”
“Now you would deny it, though you did not a year past?”
She came up off the pillow but immediately fell back. “How could I? I had to protect—” Her lids fluttered.
Of course he was expected to pry out of her what she would not speak. “Tell me, Mother.”
She drew a breath that seemed laborious, and Lothaire could not ignore the need to aid her. He lowered to the mattress, slid an arm around her, and raised her. As he dragged pillows behind her, he felt her hand flatten against his chest as if she searched for the beat of his heart.
Wishing she were worthy of affection, he eased her back against the pillows.
He was about to repeat his question when she said, “I would not tell it if not that my days are few and it hurts knowing when you put me in the ground you will not be sorry because of how evil you think me to be. Aye, I was angered by the annulment of your marriage to Lady Beata—of the funds lost that could have returned High Castle to prosperity—so I cried out, Will no one avenge this offense for me?” She looked past him. “You remember, Sebille?”
The prayer beads ceased clicking. “You were very angry, but your words I do not recall.”
Lady Raisa scowled, returned her attention to Lothaire. “The day you revealed the assassination attempt and without proof of my involvement accused me of hiring those men, I was hurt.”
What Sebille had overheard had been proof aplenty, but then as now he would not reveal his sister had alerted him, giving him time to overtake the assassins.
Lady Raisa looked to the physician. “I guessed it was you who answered my call for aid, that you hired the men.”
The physician straightened abruptly.
Lothaire’s mother looked back at her son. “As I could not bear to lose the only friend I have, I determined it better you thought it me. And ’tis not as if I did not approve.”
“I did not hire those men!” Martin voiced the outrage reddening his face. “You must believe me, my lady…my lord. Much I dislike that Daughter of Eve, but I would not seek her death. I am a healer, not a killer!”
Lothaire did not know whom to believe, but he found himself leaning toward the physician. Certainly he was greatly offensive, but he did not seem one to seek another’s death.
“I vow I did not do it, Lothaire,” his mother said. “And how could it be me? I can barely move from this bed.”
It would have been better had she not resorted to that argument, then Lothaire might not have walked through the door she flung wide. “A year past you could, Mother. Indeed, months past you did. It is only since my wife’s arrival that saw you moved to the third floor you have not ventured belowstairs—at least not to the hall.” He leaned nearer. “Pray, do not further your lies by denying you went to Lady Laura’s chamber and did injury to her.”
“She slapped me!”
“After you insulted her daughter and her. I do not condone her retaliation, but she is sorry for it, and methinks it the response you sought.”
In her eyes he could see she wished to argue, but she did not.
“Regardless,” he said, “Cook has revealed it was by way of Sebille he received your instructions.”
“Me?” His sister jumped to her feet. “I am not a party to her…” She snapped her teeth, glared at their mother.