thing, a terrible thing!”
“She was murdered.”
The moment the harsh and horrid truth escaped her lips, Celeste regretted saying it. She need not have used the same words with which the mother superior had informed her of Audrey’s death and the manner of it. “Forgive me for being so blunt. I have only my weariness for an excuse.”
“It’s quite all right,” Lady Viola hastened to assure her. “We’re so very sorry about your sister.”
“We’ll speak no more of it,” Sir Melvin said, his usually booming voice hushed with respect as he shut the door on any more talk of murder.
Or anything else to do with Dunborough and its inhabitants.
* * *
Shortly after noon the next day, Gerrard of Dunborough pulled his snow-white horse to a halt outside the stone fence surrounding the yard of the house that had belonged to the D’Orleaus. The soldiers of the patrol returning with him likewise reined in, exchanging puzzled glances at this sudden and unexpected halt.
“Seen something amiss, sir?” young Hedley asked the tall, broad-shouldered commander of the garrison.
“It may be nothing,” Gerrard replied as he slipped from the saddle, “but the door to the house is open.”
A few of the men gasped and more than one made the sign against ghosts and evil spirits. They all knew what had happened in that house and that it should be empty.
Gerrard did not believe in ghosts or evil spirits. He did, however, believe in outlaws and thieves drawn by rumors that money and jewelry were hidden inside the D’Orleau house.
“Take some of the men and search the stables and outbuildings,” he said to Hedley as he drew his sword. “Quick and quiet, though, so no warning given.”
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
