My Brave Highlander(128)

"I promise," she whispered softly.

He wanted to lie beside her and hold her all night, whispering reassurances in her ear. Convincing her every moment that she had to recover, but Jessie entered the room along with Nannag and a female servant.

"We'll help Beitris get her undressed and bathed," Jessie said. "So she can rest comfortably. 'Haps you could come back in a quarter hour."

Dirk wanted to make them promise to take good care of her and notify him immediately if anything changed, but he had to remain calm. He nodded, forcing himself to leave the room to check on Aiden.

The lad was sleeping in his room while several clansmen and servants looked on. Dirk sat on a chair by the bed and touched his brother's forehead. 'Twas feverish hot, but his breathing was strong.

"Bathe his face in cold water," he told one of the maids.

"Aye, m'laird."

"We think we found who put the deadly nightshade in the tart that Isobel and Aiden shared," Cyrus said from the doorway.

Tart? Dirk rose. "Notify me immediately if anything changes with Aiden."

Several of those in attendance nodded.

Dirk joined Cyrus in the corridor. "Who?" he spoke quietly.

"A young maid named Deidre Murtagh. She won't confess."

"Where is she? I want to question her."

"I'll take you to her."

Dirk followed Cyrus down two flights of stairs. So the poison had been in a tart? This was the first he'd heard of it. Maighread had to be behind it.

In the ground floor vaulted kitchen, Keegan and others guarded the doors so none of the twenty or so men and women who made up the kitchen staff and servants could leave.

"Is everyone here?" Dirk asked, immediately feeling too hot in the sweltering room with its ovens and massive fireplace.

The pale servants all stared at him wide-eyed, none answering. What was wrong with them? What were they hiding?

"This is the lass who is acting suspicious." Rebbie motioned to a girl of about twenty summers or less with red-rimmed swollen eyes.

"Did you poison the tart?" Dirk demanded.

She shook her head, renewed tears streaming from her eyes. "Nay, m'laird. I didn't poison it and I didn't know it was poisoned. Levina told me to take it to you and set it before you personally. No one else was to get that one because it was a special large one just for the new chief."

"Damnation," Dirk growled. Maighread was behind this, trying to poison him. "Who is Levina and where is she?"

"Levina Gordon," the male cook said.

Why did that name sound familiar? A face popped into his mind. "I remember her." She was the baker who'd come to Dunnakeil with Maighread when she and his father married. Of course, she would be loyal to Maighread. They were from the same clan.

"Where is she?" He glanced around but didn't see her.

"I didn't see her again after she sent me to deliver the tart," the young maid said.

"Has anyone seen her?"

The rest of the staff shook their heads.

"Keegan, would you take a half dozen men and search the village and elsewhere, if need be? Do you ken what she looks like?"

"Aye. We'll find her."

"Everyone else, stay here until we get to the bottom of this," Dirk told the servants.

"I'm going to question Maighread now," Dirk told Rebbie and Cyrus. "Proof or not, I ken she did this."

They, along with several other men, climbed the two sections of turnpike stairs to the bedchamber where Maighread was imprisoned.

"Has she had contact with anyone since yesterday?" Dirk asked the two guards posted outside the door.

"Nay. Not while I was here," one answered. The other shook his head. How in blazes had she arranged this, unless she'd set it up before her imprisonment?

"Unlock the door," Dirk said, more than ready to confront the hag. He hoped he could control himself and that his rage didn't overpower his common sense.

Once the guard opened the door, Dirk and the other men entered. Maighread stood before the fireplace. Her eyes widened as she surveyed him. Was she surprised to see him alive?

"What do you want, you blackguard?" she spat.

"You poisoned your own son," Dirk said, hoping to knock her off kilter. He wanted a confession from her.

"What?" Blanching, she stumbled forward as if she might collapse and clutched at the back of the chair before the hearth. "Aiden or Haldane?"

He studied her wide eyes and gaping mouth. How curious that she didn't deny being behind the poisoning.

"Which?" she demanded.

"Aiden."

"Is he dead?" she gasped.

"What do you think?" Dirk demanded. "Did you order Levina Gordon to put enough poison in my tart to kill a grown man?"