The Snow White Bride (11 page)

* * * * *

A
lexander was livid.

Eleanor lied. Despite his warning, despite his. insistence that she provide him with the truth, despite his appeal for honesty between them, Eleanor lied. The blood upon his linens was from her thumb, he would have wagered his soul upon it.

Her husbands had not failed to consummate their matches. He had not assaulted the lady himself, much less bedded her. He had not forgotten what had occurred between them, for nothing had occurred. Eleanor had tricked him, undoubtedly with the aid of his conniving sisters, and they most assuredly all found it a merry jest.

He had not lied in declaring that nothing infuriated him more than a falsehood, unless perhaps it was a falsehood that could prove expensive for all beneath his hand.

His sisters and new wife knew nothing of the realities confronting him. His father had always allied with the Black Douglas family and now Alexander had alienated Alan. It would only be a matter of time before an army came to his gates and Kinfairlie would not be able to withstand a major assault. Alexander had no coin in his treasury to prepare for that inevitability. The prospect that those dependent upon him would suffer because his sisters sought to see themselves amused infuriated him beyond all belief.

Alexander entered the hall in a foul mood, escorted Eleanor to the high table, and left her there without a word. He spied Matthew and strode to that young man’s side.

“Matthew, you must still have my signet ring,” he said, his manner yet terse. “I
would have it returned this morn
.” Alexander put out his hand, and Matthew colored.

“I do not have it, my lord,” the younger man said.

“What is this?” Matthew’s father demanded. “You
cannot have lost the laird’s signet ring!” Those seated at other tables turned at the miller’s raised voice.

“Where is the ring, Matthew?” Alexander asked, his patience nigh expired.

“I returned it to you, my lord,” Matthew said, his gaze darting along the floor. He seemed uncommonly shy this day.

Alexander feared that Matthew lied to him as well, but he strove to be fair. “When?”

“When—when you retired, my lord. I returned it to you then.”

Alexander exchanged a glance with the miller. “Are you certain of this? The ring does not
grace my finger this morn.”

“Perhaps you did not don it this day, my lord.”

“Perhaps you did not return it, Matthew.”

“Do you call my son a liar, my lord?” the miller asked softly, and Alexander knew that his frustration with Eleanor had affected his man
ner.

“No, of course not,” he said, forcing a smile. “I am merely vexed because I cannot find the ring. As you know, it is the mark of my authority and not an item one would wish to misplace.”

Matthew stared stubbornly at the floor, his ears a vivid hue of red, and said no more.

The miller cleared his throat. “Perhaps you put it in a different place than is your custom, my lord,” he suggested. “You were not, after all, your usual self last night.”

“So I understand,” Alexander said. He nodded to miller and son, then strode back to the high table. It was strange how the evening
ended so abruptly in his recol
lection, for he knew he had not drunk that much of the wine. Of course, he had not eaten much either, so the wine might have had a more potent effect upon him.

“Where is the ring?” Eleanor asked when he took his place beside her, for she clearly guessed his mission.

Alexander shrugged. “Matthew says he returned it to me when I made to retire.”

“Liar!” she muttered.

Alexander spared her a glance, intrigued by her charge.

“I remember every step betwixt high table and solar,” she said with such resolve that he believed her. “And Matthew did not return your ring.”

“I can scarce call him a liar when I do not recall events myself,” Alexander said.

“Then perhaps you should not have drunk so much wine,” Elizabeth teased.

“I did not drink much wine. That is what is so curious.” Alexander caught the guilty expression upon Isabella’s face, then noted the glance she exchanged with Madeline and Vivienne.

The odd manner spread down the high table. Rhys was suddenly grim. Eleanor had developed a fascination with her soup, though she only filled the spoon and let the soup dribble back into her bowl. Elizabeth seemed to savor a private joke while Annelise was crimson from hair to throat.

Alexander surveyed his siblings and pushed back slightly from the board. “In fact, the last thing I recall was you, Isabella, bringing Eleanor and me each a cup of wine.”

Isabella flushed scarlet in her turn. “I wished only to
ensure that you had some of it,” she said so brightly that he knew she concocted a tale. “People drank it with such gusto that I feared you would be left without a taste at all.”

“And you insisted which cup I should take.” Alexander felt taut with the certainty that he had been the butt of a jest that was not amusing in the least. “What was in the wine, Isabella?”

She fidgeted. “Nothing. Nothing at all, save the wine itself.”

“You are a less adept liar than my wife,” Alexander said with heat. He cast down his napkin and raised his voice. “What was in the wine?”

Isabella granted him a mutinous glance. “You have need of a wife. We cannot trust you to not marry us against our wills, as you did with Vivienne and Madeline.”

“Perhaps a woman will take our sides more readily,” Annelise suggested.

“Perhaps you are fortunate that there was not more added to your wine,” Elizabeth said. “For the weight of your authority is onerous indeed, Alexander.”

“Aha!” Alexander roared. “So it
was
tainted.”

“I told you that naught good would come of this,” Rhys informed Madeline.

“He is hale enough,” that woman said. “Alexander, you make much of little. We wished only to give you a measure of your own treatment in return, and see Eleanor’s safety assured as well.”

“So you see me sedated, you see that my allies are turned against me”—he turned to Eleanor, who had the grace to look discomfited—“you lie to me, and you expect me to greet this revelation with good cheer.”

He cast a glance over the hall and found the old midwife grinning at him. She was half-mad, was Jeannie, but her expression told him that she knew something of the matter. He gestured to her. “Jeannie, did you mix a potion last evening?”

“Aye, I did, my lord, the better to ensure that you slumbered deeply. I trust the taste was favorable enough.”

“I never guessed the wine was tainted, if that is your meaning.”

Jeannie nodded with pride and whispered to herself.

“Jeannie, since you know what you mixed, tell me this,” Alexander demanded. The entire company was rapt. “Could a man have lain with a woman, could he have planted his seed within her, after drinking of that potion?”

Jeannie laughed. She slapped her thighs and laughed so hard that none could doubt the answer. “He would have neither the will nor the means, my lord, after that cup’s contents. All of him would slumber, if you understand my import. All of him would be so limp as to be without life.”

Alexander lowered his voice, addressing only his kin at the high table. He spoke through gritted teeth and there was heat in his words. “But there was blood in my bed. The blood seemingly of a lady’s maidenhead, yet apparently shed by a woman twice widowed.”

Alexander lifted Eleanor’s hand, displaying the cut upon her thumb to the entire table. It confirmed his suspicions when not one of his siblings was surprised by the sight. “But it was blood from her thumb and I would wager that you all knew it well.”

“Alexander,” Madeline began to protest, but Alexander had no interest in her side of matters.

Intriguingly, Eleanor said nothing in her own defense. She was pale and sat with her hands clenched tightly together, her head bowed.

“You tricked me,” Alexander said to his sisters, his words hot. “So fair enough, you have had your jest The amusement ends immediately, however.”

“But,
Alexander
…
”
Vivienne protested.

“You
cannot…
”
Madeline began.

But Alexander had risen to his feet, anger burning hot in his chest. They had lied, they had deceived him, they had seen one of his allies alienated, and they had put every soul in Kinfairlie at risk. Alexander Lammergeier did not find humor in the situation.

“Be merry, all of you,” he shouted to the company. “Partake of the hospitality of Kinfairlie, but know that you celebrate no nuptials this day.”

The assembly stared at him in astonishment “My wedding was bu
t a jest, contrived by the lady
and my sisters, in honor of our evening of misrule. Surely you are all entertained.” Alexander halted, but no one smiled. “So, feast, all of you, eat your fill and savor the tale of my own folly. Father Malachy, I would ask you to strike the entry in your ledger this day, as if no wedding had been performed.”

The priest stood and visibly took a deep breath. He shook his head. “I cannot undo what has been done, my lord. The banns were waived, at your insistence and over my protest, and thus I would counsel you to stand by what you have done. Many a match begins inauspiciously and proceeds well.”

Alexander granted the priest a stony glare, displeased at yet more defiance. “No match of merit is based upon a
lie,” he said with resolve, “for affection cannot take root in deceit.”

“I beg your pardon,” Madeline began to protest.

“I have a thought upon that matter,” Vivienne said, both sisters rising to their feet in indignation.

Alexander ignored them both, for the priest did not waver in his conviction. “I leave you all to the meat, then, for I have a letter to write to the bishop. When all is said and done, the lady and I will annul our match as if it never had been pledged, upon that you can all rely.”

With that, Alexander left the board, fuming.

He glanced back but once from the foot of the stairs, and saw Eleanor staring fixedly across the hall, her chin high and her shoulders squared. He knew a moment’s doubt then, for he should not have embarrassed her so. It was not seemly.

She had lied to him, though, despite his granting her the chance to surrender the truth. Alexander told himself not to let her beauty or her spirit weaken his resolve. She had participated in the deceit against him, and even given a chance to explain herself, she had persisted in the lie.

He had no need of such an untrustworthy wife, no matter that every soul in his hall thought otherwise.

The sooner he wrote to the bishop, the better.

5

“
W
hat
was in the potion, Jeannie?” Eleanor demanded once Alexander was gone and the hall had descended into pandemonium.

“I have no need to confess my secrets to you,” the old crone said with a cackle.

Eleanor fixed her with a stem eye. “You could be tried for attempting to murder the laird to whom your fealty is sworn,” she said, seeing the ripple of shock that roiled through the company. She stood and walked toward the old midwife, whose bravery faded with every step Eleanor took.

“I did no such deed. Every soul knows that I hold no malice against the laird.”

Eleanor began to count effects on her fingers as every soul in the hall listened attentively. “His pulse was wild last ev
ening, and his skin was flushed.
”

“That is not uncommon for a man in his nuptial bed,” jested one stalwart soul, but Eleanor did not spare him so much as a glance.

She continued to count, her gaze fixed on old Jeannie.

“He was uncertain of his whereabouts; his thoughts wandered; his pupils were as tiny as the head of a pin.” Eleanor halted beside the midwife, who fidgeted. “His belly heaved this mo
rn
with some gusto, after he slept deeply indeed. You and I both know these to be the marks of a poison in a man’s blood.” She leaned closer. “What would we have seen if we had put a drop of his urine in the eye of a cat?”

The harridan started, then stared at Eleanor with fear. “You cannot know what I used. You cannot guess!”

“It was nightshade,” Eleanor said, and saw acknowledgment in the old woman’s expression before she turned away.

“You should not reveal my secrets,” Jeannie complained.

“You should not try to kill your laird,” Eleanor snapped, and pivoted to face the high table. She cursed herself, for she should have guessed the herb sooner. Only nightshade could affect a man with such haste.

But nightshade could easily kill a man, howsoever hale he might be. Alexander had eaten precious little the night before, far less than any soul might have anticipated. That he had done so because he had escorted her outside, the better to persuade her to stay, was terrifying, indeed. His pursuit of her could have led to his demise—and the way his very presence addled her wits had kept her from thinking so clearly as to be of aid to him.

She was a fool, indeed!

But she was not the only fool in this matter. Eleanor glared at Isabella. “What folly was in your head that you granted Alexander nightshade?” Every person at the high table started at her tone, save Madeline’s spouse, Rhys. He regarded her with wary respect.

“Jeannie said she knew the right potion to mix,” Isabella said, clearly not realizing the potency of this plant.

“And you trust her word, so readily as that?” The entire company watched Eleanor, but she was too angry to care. “Nightshade can kill a man. Merely three berries will kill a child. Three!”

“It makes a man sleep,” Jeannie declared with a shake of her head. “You respect it overmuch.”

“While you do not respect it enough. A man will awaken from a sleep induced by nightshade, but only if the measure is correct. And the difference between a measure to make a man sleep for a night and the measure that will make him slumber for all eternity is slight indeed.” Eleanor shook a finger at Isabella. “You may have meant well, but there was dangerous folly in this. Your brother cou
ld have been found dead this morn
.”

“I know the measure,” Jeannie insisted.

That the woman could believe herself so certain of what could not be known with certitude only made Eleanor more furious. She turned on the woman with such anger that the harridan cringed.

“You of all souls should know the folly of that declaration! Each plant has its own strength, and the differences must be respected. Every handful of soil will vary in the potency it grants such a plant. And even from year to year, even plants gro
wing in the same place, will var
y in their strength due to sun and rain and heat. It is not for nothing that the goddess Atropos was said by the Greeks to use nightshade to cut the thread of life.” Eleanor took a shaking breath. “I was taught that only fools and murderers use nightshade. Which, Jeannie, are you?”

The assembly was silent for a long moment, then
erupted in excited chatter. Eleanor did not doubt that they speculated upon the sisters’ ploy, but she held the old healer’s gaze determinedly. The madness seemed to ebb in old Jeannie’s eyes, and was replaced by a kind of cunning.

“You know much of poisons for a lady,” Jeannie said coyly, and the hall fell silent. “Perhaps your intent is of greater import than mine.”

Eleanor would not endure any such insinuation, not when it was without cause, not in this place that was already so precious to her. “Hardly that!” she replied. “You mixed the potion that was surrendered to your laird, not I, and it was not mixed at my dictate. I knew nothing of it until now. Solely the intent of those who knew of it is in question, and truly, Jeannie, I suspect that you alone knew the potency of what you concocted.”

The harridan’s eyes narrowed, but Eleanor did not allow her to speak further. She looked again at Alexander’s sisters. Isabella, to her credit, could not hold Eleanor’s gaze. “Though I appreciate that you did not mean harm, harm could easily have come of this. You owe my husband an apology.”

“He is not your husband any longer, not by his own accounting,” Elizabeth noted.

“No letter has been dispatched to the bishop as yet,” Eleanor retorted. “Alexander is my husband until word comes from the bishop, and perhaps even after that.”

The company gasped, but Eleanor had given them sufficient to consider. She turned to leave the hall, her crimson skirts rustling, chin held high.

“Now I suppose that she will ensure our matches are loathsome ones, simply for spite,” Elizabeth muttered, her words carrying from the high table to Eleanor’s ears.

Eleanor pivoted, letting the silk swirl around her ankles, letting the girl see that her comment was unwelcome. “I am appalled to hear that the laird of this holding, a man who has treated me with uncommon kindness for little reason beyond his own goodness, should be shown such a lack of respect in his own hall.”

“Hear, hear,” declared a villager at a table beside her. Elizabeth colored, but she did not look away from Eleanor. Indeed, she rose to her feet, defiance making her eyes glitter. “Alexander would see us wed against our will, as he did with our two eldest sisters.”

“And where would be the harm in that example?” Eleanor demanded. “Your sisters are wed to men of honor, men with holdings to their names, men who are young and virile and treat their wives with courtesy.”

“But…
”

“Tell me the flaw in either of these men,” Eleanor invited, and Elizabeth’s defiance slipped.

“Alexander ha
s been fortunate, to be sure…
”

“Or perhaps he has an astute eye for character.” Vivienne lifted a finger to argue. “You cannot protest that Elizabeth does not have a viable concern.”

“I can and I do,” Eleanor replied hotly. “Does your husband beat you? Does he share your favors with his men? Does he leave you undefended? Does he insult you at your own board? Does he ensure that none in his household show you a measure of respect?”

The company murmured at this litany of foul prospects and the sisters exchanged glances of horror. “Of course not!” Vivienne and Madeline declared in unison.

“Then you know little of how poor a marriage can be,”
Eleanor said. “Indeed, you will find little sympathy from me in this matter, Elizabeth. How many summers have you seen?”

“Twelve.”

“And yet still you sit at your brother’s board, a maiden well-fed, well-adorned, and well-protected.” Eleanor lifted a hand and indicated the next eldest sister, intent upon letting Alexander’s siblings know how indulged they had been. That they did not appreciate his concern, that they disparaged him when he fought to keep the truth of Kinfairlie’s finances from them, infuriated her beyond belief. “As does your elder sister, Isabella. How many summers have you seen, Isabella?”

The tallest sister—she with the glorious red tresses, the fine garb, and the affection for Jeannie’s potions— shrugged. “Fourteen.”

“And Annelise?”

This sister was more soft-spoken, a shy maiden with auburn hair unbound over her shoulders. She alone seemed chastised by Eleanor’s anger. “Sixteen, my lady.”

“And yet here you all sit, certain that your fate is yours to command; indeed, certain that you have the right to make demands of your brother. Here you all sit, content in the surety that there will be meat to fill your bellies, fripperies to trim your hems, and armed men to guarantee your chastity. I am certain that you think little of how these marvels come to be.”

The sisters exchanged glances, the two eldest nodding in quiet agreement. Eleanor found understanding in the gazes of those two husbands.

But not from Elizabeth. That girl opened her mouth to argue, but Eleanor had lost her patience. “You think your
self poorly served, Elizabeth, that much is clear. I invite you to speculate upon what fate you would have found, had you truly managed to see Alexander dead this mo
rn
.” The girl might have spoken, but Eleanor was not done. “Indeed, let me tell you what it is to be poorly served. I was wed at twelve summers of age, against my will, to a friend of my father’s w
ho had seen more than sixty sum
mers himself.”

The sisters looked up as one, their eyes wide, but Eleanor continued with heat. “To have called him cruel would have been to overstate his compassion for any creature other than himself. And when I complained of what I endured in his household, my father told me that I was as good as my husband’s chattel.” She straightened and held Elizabeth’s gaze. “He told me, mine own father, that if my husband showed disfavor with me, then I must surely have deserved his rebuke.”

Elizabeth averted her gaze. It was not half of the story, though Eleanor would share no more. She knew the more clever among them would link her earlier questions with her tale of her first spouse, and rightly so. Her first husband, Millard, had been a cur beyond compare; a charming cur possessed of a cunning cruelty.

The company was silent, staring at Eleanor. She found herself shaking in rage at what she had endured, at the audacity of Alexander’s sisters in expecting more to be their due.

“From where I stand,” she said, “you have no complaint with your brother’s intent, for he has shown greater care than many a man would do in ridding his hall of mouths to feed. Women can be wedded as soon as their courses begin, so give thanks for every month since that
day that you have not been compelled to wed a man against your choice, no less an unfitting one.”

Madeline stood then and laid a hand upon Elizabeth’s shoulder. “You go too far in this. Our matches are good ones because we made them so, not because of any care taken on Alexander’s part.”

Eleanor would not even cede this. “Every marriage is wrought of chance, but in choosing men of merit to take your hand, Alexander ensured that For
tune rode in your company. Did I
not hear that you had the opportunity yourselves to choose your spouses, an opportunity you both declined to take?” Madeline and Vivienne colored slightly when they nodded. “Grant credit where it is due, all of you. My lord husband has served you well, far better than most men would have done. You should have the wits to recognize as much, no less to appreciate the blessings you have gained.”

With that, Eleanor spun and left the hall, even as she heard them begin to chatter behind her. No sooner had she gained the corridor than she heard a man begin to applaud.

“Hear, hear,” he cried, and Eleanor halted in the shadows to listen. She smiled in relief as another joined him, then another and another, then the hall was filled with applause.

She had confessed far more of her own history than she had intended to do, but she was fiercely glad that she had defended Alexander. She had behaved as a good wife should, and for once in all her days, she was glad of it. The duty had not been forced upon her and she was pleased to have done it so well.

All she had to do was persuade Alexander to keep her as his wife.

Yet, there was one deed she had to complete before she sought out Alexander. It would not hurt that her errand would allow his temper time to cool, and grant her time to concoct a plan.

The sorry truth was that she had no idea what she might offer this man to convince him to keep her by his side.