My Lady Captor. Hannah Howell
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slightly as he awoke, Ruari instinctively tried to move and as his battered body protested, he warily opened his eyes. It did not really surprise him to find someone by his bed. He had sensed that he was being watched. And he had not been left alone once in the three days he had been at Dunweare. What did puzzle him was why the Hays would make such a young, delicate girl his nurse and guard. The slim elfin-faced girl staring at him so intensely could not have reached womanhood yet. He began to squirm inwardly beneath the steady gaze of her huge blue eyes and he scowled at her.
“I dinnae think ye should be in here, lassie,” he said, frowning even more when she idly brushed a thick lock of blond hair from her angelic face and nodded.
“Ye are uneasy,” she said, her voice soft and melodic. “’Tis to be expected. Most of the mortal folk I meet are uneasy around fairies.”
“Fairies?” Feeling thirsty, Ruari carefully inched himself into a sitting position only to find the tankard and ewer of water no longer on his bedside table.
“Aye, I am Euphemia, a fairy and a changeling. The fairies took the true Euphemia the day she was born and set me in her cradle. Of course, these poor deluded folk have raised me as one of their own. They simply willnae heed me when I try to tell them the truth.”
“Trying to make folk listen to ye can be a tiresome chore,” he agreed, wondering if there was insanity in the Hay blood.
As he thought over the events of the past three days, he began to think that a deep strain of madness did indeed taint the Hays. He had heard strange noises in the night—crying, moaning, even a chilling laughter—yet no one could explain the sounds when he inquired about them. Now this young girl talked of fairies. With her fair hair loose and tangled, her gown light and flowing, and a coronet of wilted ivy in her hair, she did resemble one. It had the taste of madness as far as he could see. Ruari eyed her with an increasing wariness, wondering if she was the one making all the noises in the night and if she was dangerous. The idea of being murdered in his sickbed by a tiny, pale girl-child who was not in her right mind was acutely distressing.
“Have ye seen my water?” he asked, hoping he could turn her mind to more mundane and sane matters.
“I suspect the spirits took it. They have been most troublesome of late. Sorcha claims ’tis because I am soon to be a woman, but that is foolish. I am of the fairy folk. Ye would think the spirits would ken that and cease to haunt me.” As she spoke she climbed onto his bed.
Ruari edged back as she leaned closer, one tiny hand on either side of him, her long hair tickling his chest. “What is this talk of spirits?”
“Mayhap they havenae troubled you, but surely ye have heard the noises in the night?”
“Aye, I have heard them.” When she straddled his body with hers, Ruari felt a distinct thrill of alarm. “I thought perhaps one of your kinsmen was troubled in his mind.”
“Nay, ’tis but the curse of the Hay women. ’Tis said an old Pictish witch put this curse upon us.” She leaned toward him, placing her hands on the headboard of the bed on either side of his head. “Whenever a girl of this clan approaches womanhood, the spirits come to torment us. ’Tis a bother, but to tell the truth, I am not sure I believe in curses. If ’twas only that, someone would have discovered a way to put an end to it all.” She edged her face closer to his. “There are so few men about Dunweare.”
“I did notice that.” Sweet heaven, the child is trying to seduce me, Ruari thought, and struggled to move away only to discover that he had no room left to move. He was already backed up hard against the headboard. “I am verra thirsty, child. Could ye go and see what happened to my drink?”
Euphemia ignored his request, her wide gaze fixed upon his mouth. “Mayhap Sorcha is right when she says I am now a Hay and will soon be a woman, that when the fairies left me I ceased to be one of them. If she is right and I am soon to become a woman, that makes the lack of men at Dunweare verra troublesome indeed.”
“Weel, ye cannae use me to ease that problem,” Ruari snapped and tried to reach out, grab her, and push her away only to discover that such a movement caused him more pain than he wished to endure.
“Why not? Ye are a mon, and I am now more woman than child.”
“Mayhap, but I am eight-and-twenty, lass. Old enough to have fathered you. ’Twould be best if ye cast your eyes elsewhere.” Ruari gently raised his right arm, fought to ignore the way the movement pulled achingly at his wounds, and tried to push her away. He was unable to give her a push hard enough to dislodge her, however, for it caused him too much pain.
“Ye are certainly older than I would like, but as I have said, there isnae much choice at Dunweare.”
Before Ruari could respond, she clasped his head between her hands and pressed her mouth against his. He did not have time to fully experience his shock over the young girl’s brazen attack, however. The sound of something crashing to the floor quickly grabbed his full attention. Certain that someone had entered the room and misinterpreted the scene, Ruari shoved the girl aside, cursing at the pain that ripped through his body. He frowned when he saw no outraged kinswoman.
“I thought someone was here,” he muttered then cursed as the water bowl and ewer were hurled across the room. Even as he tried to turn and shelter Euphemia, the girl leapt to her feet on the bed.
“Enough! I grow weary of these tantrums!” she yelled, shaking her small fists toward a chest as it was shoved away from the wall.
Unable to pull her down and out of the way, Ruari wriggled down to avoid the objects tossed around the room. Euphemia neatly ducked each object as she continued to curse the air. He turned his attention to the door when he heard someone banging against it. The door was not locked, yet whoever was on the other side was having great difficulty opening it.
“Curse it, let me in,” cried a voice Ruari recognized as Sorcha’s.
“No one is keeping ye out,” he called back.
“Is Euphemia in there? I think I hear her.”
“Aye, she is here.”
Sorcha cursed and fought to open the door. She could tell by the way an unseen hand held the door closed and the noises coming from within the room that the spirits were making themselves known to Ruari. What she wanted to know was what Euphemia was doing in Ruari’s room. The girl had been specifically ordered to stay away from the prisoners. Sorcha swore that, when she got into the room, she was going to make Euphemia sorely regret her disobedience. Even as that angry thought crossed her mind, the door flew open, and Sorcha stumbled into the room. As she caught her balance and her breath, she looked around the room, noticed that the disturbance had ended, and turned her full attention on Euphemia.
“What are you doing in here?” she demanded, walking to the bed and yanking the girl off it.
“I came to visit our prisoner,” the girl replied, fruitlessly trying to wriggle free of Sorcha’s grip as she was dragged to the door.
“Ye were told to stay out of this room. Aye, told firmly to stay as far away as possible.”
“Ye have no right to tell me what to do.”
“I will show ye how much right I have later and I am sure your mother will be glad to repeat the lesson.” Sorcha pushed her young cousin out of the room. “And dinnae try to hide. I will find you.”
“Ye are just trying to keep him all to yourself,” Euphemia complained as she stumbled into the hall.
“Dinnae be such an idiot.”
Sorcha slammed the door behind her still-complaining cousin. She had a deep well of sympathy for little Euphemia, but the girl sorely needed some discipline. As she moved to tidy the room, she thought over Euphemia’s parting words and she began to get very suspicious. Neil had recently complained that Effie thought of nothing but men, often bemoaning the lack of them at Dunweare. Sorcha suddenly knew exactly why her cousin had disobeyed everyone and crept into Ruari’s chamber.