The young man nodded and Gerrard walked swiftly toward the house that had been built by Audrey D’Orleau’s father, a prosperous wool merchant. The air was chill with the approach of winter, the sky gray as slate. Rain would come soon and wind from over the dales, bringing more cold and perhaps turning the rain to snow.
Gerrard’s steps slowed as he neared the front entrance. No ordinary thief or outlaw should have been able to pick that lock, yet only a foolish one would have left the door visibly open while he pillaged inside.
Gerrard eased the door open farther with the tip of his sword and listened. Nothing. Not a whisper, not a sound, not even the soft scurrying of a mouse. It was as if the house, too, had died.
He stepped over the threshold. Still all was silent.
He continued to the main room. The last time he’d been in that chamber, many of the furnishings had been broken and strewn about, obvious signs of the struggle between poor Audrey and her attacker. Since then, the unbroken furniture had been righted, if not returned to its proper place, and the ruined pieces taken away. The horrible bloodstain, however—
He wasn’t alone.
Someone else was there, swaddled in a long black cloak and standing still as a statue, looking down at the large, dark stain upon the floor, as if Death itself was brooding over the spot where Audrey’s murdered body had lain.
Gripping his sword tighter, Gerrard moved closer, making a floorboard creak.
The intruder looked up.
It wasn’t Death, or even a man. It was a woman in a nun’s habit, her skin as pale as moonlight, the wimple surrounding her heart-shaped face white as his horse, her eyes large and green, her lips full and open in surprise. Her nose was straight and slender, her chin pointed...
“Celeste!” he cried, his hand moving instinctively to the collarbone she’d broken years ago.
Audrey’s younger sister regarded him warily. “Who are...” Recognition dawned. “It’s Gerrard, isn’t it? Or is it Roland?”
“Gerrard,” he answered, hiding his dismay that she hadn’t been able to distinguish him from his twin. She had always been able to tell them apart when they were younger.
He reminded himself that ten years had passed since they had last been together and in that time more than their height had changed.
He was about to ask her what she was doing there when the obvious answer presented itself. She was there because Audrey was dead, and she was Audrey’s only family. “We thought to see you days ago.”
He saw the flicker of anguish cross her features, yet when she spoke, her voice was calm and even. “I was on a pilgrimage.”
“An odd time of year for traveling.”
“I came as soon as I was informed.” She turned away and added, “Of course I would have come sooner had I known.”
Silently cursing himself for speaking without thinking, Gerrard said, “If you’d sent word you were coming, I would have met you and escorted you to the castle. You need not have come here.”
“I wanted to see,” she replied, sounding exactly as she had when they were children and one of the hounds had caught and worried a badger to death. Gerrard had tried to keep her away, but she’d gotten past him and then stood staring at the torn and bleeding body, silent and white as a sheet, the same way she’d been staring at the floor moments ago.
“And now you have seen,” he said with quiet compassion, nevertheless determined to get her away from this place with its blood-soaked floor and unhappy memories.
“How did Audrey die? The mother superior would only say that she’d been murdered.”
God help him! He didn’t want to have to describe what had happened to her sister. He didn’t want to remember, either. “You don’t need to know more than that, do you?”
“I would rather hear the truth, however terrible, than have my mind run wild with speculation. Some of the furniture is missing, other pieces are not in their proper place, and there is that,” she said, pointing to the stain.
She regarded him with pleading eyes. “Please, Gerrard, tell me what happened here, or I will imagine a thousand awful things, each worse than the last.”
He well recalled Celeste’s vivid imagination. There had been times she’d frightened them all, even Roland, with tales of ghosts and demons, ogres and monsters.
Besides, she was Audrey’s only relative, so he supposed she had a right to know. And she would likely hear the horrific details from someone else, anyway. Better, perhaps, that he should tell her and as gently as he could. “She had a bodyguard, a Scot named Duncan MacHeath. Apparently the man was in love with her and fiercely jealous. One day when her servants were out of the house something happened between them and he attacked and killed her. She fought for her life, but in the end she lost it.”
“Not easily, then,” Celeste replied, with a catch in her voice. She bowed her head. “Not quick.”
“No,” Gerrard said softly.
After a moment of heavy silence, Celeste raised her head and looked at him with unexpected composure. Perhaps the knowledge of what had happened to Audrey—the main details of it, at least—had indeed brought her some peace.
“What of the bodyguard?” she asked. “Is he imprisoned, or has he already been hanged?”
That, fortunately, was an easy question to answer. “He’s dead, drowned in the river after he was wounded attacking Roland.”
Her green eyes widened. “He attacked your brother, too?”
“Aye. He thought Roland was Audrey’s lover.”
“Roland? That’s ridiculous!” Celeste exclaimed. “Audrey didn’t even like...”
She fell silent and her cheeks colored with a blush.
Gerrard had often wondered how Audrey really felt about Roland. Now he knew.
Nor was he particularly surprised. Roland was hardly the sort of man to appeal to Celeste’s older sister, at least until he’d been named heir and lord of Dunborough. “Aye, Duncan was wrong about that, but he nearly killed Roland just the same. Roland wounded him and Duncan fell into the river afterward, trying to flee, and drowned. Too easy a death for a man who’d...”
Gerrard hesitated and looked away, but not fast enough.
“There is more,” Celeste said with certainty. She walked toward him, her steady, determined gaze holding his. “This MacHeath molested Audrey, didn’t he? A man angry enough to kill would be angry enough to forcefully take what a woman would not willingly give.”
Gerrard was sorry she was so perceptive, or his features so revealing. “If there is justice in the next life, he will burn in hell forever.”
“Did no one see any signs that she should fear him?”
“He was a fierce-looking fellow, but nobody ever thought Duncan MacHeath would hurt her. Surely she didn’t, either, or she would have sent him away.”
“Then there was no sign of his feelings for her? No hint that he might be jealous?”
“The man gave no sign of any feelings at all. He was a silent, sullen fellow.”
“Where did my sister meet him? How did she come to hire him?”
“York, I believe. I don’t think she ever told anyone here in Dunborough how he came to be in her employ.”
Gerrard braced himself for more questions that would be difficult or uncomfortable to answer, but fortunately, Celeste seemed satisfied. She began to move around the room, putting the remaining