She wrapped her leg around his and tightened her arm resting across his waist, holding on to him as if keeping anyone from taking him from her. “So even if we discover the culprit responsible for the attempt on your da’s life, the attempts will not stop?”
“Aye, unless we discover who is behind it and end his life before he succeeds with his plan.”
“What if you’re wrong?” Elysia asked, a thought taking hold, one her husband hadn’t considered. “What if the person’s reason for wanting you, Brogan, and Rannick dead has nothing to do with gaining power and everything to do with revenge?”
“Revenge for the curse?”
“Revenge for the murdered bairn. What if the bairn never died? What if she has returned to see the curse fulfilled. Your mum said the curse says that until the wrong is made right you will suffer. Maybe to make it right, the three of you must suffer the same fate she was to suffer—death.”
Odran laid there thinking on his wife’s words. He had had no response for her and they had laid in silence after that, too exhausted to think on it anymore. She fell asleep shortly after, but he could not. What if his wife was right? What if the MacWilliam bairn lived? What if she sought to fulfill the curse and have her revenge? If so, she had to be working with someone, someone powerful enough to help her, or greedy enough to help her. But who?
Elysia woke suddenly, her eyes popping wide open as if someone poked her awake. Her husband lay on his back sound asleep, his breathing steady. She cast a glance around the room almost expecting to see someone step forward out of the shadows, but she saw nothing. Something was wrong or was it that she had been woken out of a sound sleep and fright had grabbed hold of her, shivering her senseless?
She lay, waiting for what? She shook her head. She was being foolish. There was nothing wrong. She was safe in the keep. Talk with Odran before sleep had put a worry into her, that was all.
With sleep now impossible, she eased out of bed not to disturb her husband and quickly got dressed. She would go see how Fergus fared and relieve Lendra and Finch to get some sleep.
Elysia walked down the stairs, the unease she had felt when she woke once again creeping over her. She stopped at the bottom, not taking another step and thought to return to her husband and wake him. But why? What would she say? It didn’t matter, he would be glad she woke him. She was only steps away from the Great Hall. Still, she felt a strong pull to go get her husband.
Lifting the hem of her garment, she turned to hurry back upstairs when she heard a groan of pain. She didn’t hesitate, she hurried into the Great Hall, fearful her worry had been misplaced and that it was Fergus who needed help.
She halted so abruptly that she almost toppled over. Lendra lay on the floor, blood covering her hand pressed to her side and her eyes urging Elysia to run. A figure stood over Fergus, holding a bloody knife, and it wasn’t Finch.
Chapter 31
“Crissa,” Elysia said and the woman turned, a dazed look in her eyes.
“Lady Elysia, you should be sleeping.” Crissa glanced around the room. “You are alone.”
“What happened, Crissa?” Elysia asked, eager to go to Lendra, but also worried what Crissa might do to Lord Fergus. “Where is Finch?”
“I sent him upstairs to fetch my shawl. It will take him a while to find it since I hid it. All will be done here by the time he returns,” she said, then shook her head. “But you present a problem. You see Lendra went mad and finished the task of stabbing Lord Fergus for sending Bram away. We fought and I got the knife away from her and killed her, though not before suffering wounds of my own.” She held her hand up, covered with blood from slashes across her palm.
“Lendra couldn’t have stabbed Lord Fergus, Crissa,” Elysia said, hoping the truth would make her see that her plan would never work and for time for Finch to return. “She was a prisoner in her cottage at the time of the attack.”
Crissa appeared puzzled by that. “Deara herself said Lendra stabbed her as she laid dying.”
Elysia kept her voice gentle, realizing from Crissa’s dazed look that she was not of sound mind. “Nay, Deara warned that Lendra was next. Isn’t that what you told Deara, that you planned to kill Lendra next after you stabbed her repeatedly and left her to die?”
“She was trying to take Finch away from me just like Glenis tried to do,” Crissa said, her eyes widening with anger as she raised the knife and pointed it at Elysia. “I watched from the woods after Finch failed to meet me several times. I saw the way they smiled at him and stopped and talked with him. I wasn’t going to let them take him from me. My father thought me weak, but I showed him. I purposely told him about me being with child and that Finch, his foe, was the father.” She placed her hand to her stomach. “I only wish it had been true. Deara’s blood on the bedding helped hide my lie.” Her eyes filled with sadness. “I knew my father would beat me when I told him about the bairn that never was and he’d come here looking for me when I ran away.” She grinned suddenly, though it was more a sneer. “I counted on Lord Odran killing him, since I knew my father would challenge him. He would never let me wed Finch. He had to die. Those women had to die too. And now I fear you must die as well.”