He scowled at her lighthearted response and grabbed her arm. "This is no joke. More and more of the valley are coming to me with concerns about you."
She knew he meant he'd been whispering poison in the ears of a few malcontents, starting with ones who have had judgments passed against them. Or ones who disagreed with her agricultural edicts. Still, it was enough to make Lia's life difficult.
"More and more are losing faith and trust in you." He pulled her closer, and she turned away from his hot breath when he whispered into her ear. "But they trust me. Together, we can reunite this fractured valley."
"Gui, you're insane."
Lia tried to step away, but his thin hand was deceptively strong and held her in place.
"You are losing control of everything, Lia. You need my help to put it back together."
"You really have no idea how this valley works. What the people need." She shook her head at his arrogance.
"No, it's you who do not understand. They will not accept an outsider."
Lia clenched her jaw and tried hard not to look toward Wyn. Instead, she ground out through her teeth, "You are an outsider."
His amused smile took her by surprise. "Perhaps I once was. But I was chosen by the true lady of the valley. I am the father of the next one. I'm not an itinerant stranger with no prospects." Again his voice dropped into that soothing, coaxing tone. "You know me, Lia. You don't know him. Let me help you, love."
Lia growled under her breath. She'd been trying to avoid this scene for weeks but the idiot couldn't take a hint.
"Let go of me, Gui," Lia kept her voice calm and even, despite the urge to scream and throw a tantrum. It may have been a little louder than she intended, however.
"Lia, love, I just think you should consider it. Logically."
She almost growled again. She really hated it when he implied she was irrational and impulsive. Shifting until her leg lined up between his, she took a deep breath. Before she could lift it with swift surprise, however, Gui was wrenched violently away.
Lia blinked, startled to find the bare shoulder of Wyn placed deliberately between her and Gui. He had one hand bunched into the fabric of her brother-in-law's silk shirt. The other was curled into a ready fist at his side.
"What do you think you are doing?" Gui snarled.
"The Lady asked you to let her go. I thought I'd help."
"This has nothing to do with you, outsider."
"Didn't say it did. But I don't like men who manhandle women."
"Oh, for the love—"
The two louts posturing over her had pretty much forgotten she was even present.
"I don't need help. From either of you. I am the Handmaiden of this valley. I am capable of taking care of myself. And my people. From any and all threats. I have no qualms about taking whatever steps are necessary to do it. To put it in small words you can both understand: Stay. Out. Of. My. Way."
Gui jerked free of Wyn's hold but transferred his glare to her.
"I know you think you have this under control, but you're mistaken. Whatever you and your witch are trying to cook up in the herbarium, it's not going to be a panacea to fix everything wrong with this valley."
Lia felt the blood drain from her face. He couldn't know what she and Nel were doing. They'd been too careful. But he suspected something, and that was bad enough.
Gui, watching her closely, smiled cruelly when he saw he'd hit a nerve. He leaned forward, the knowing smirk at odds with his softly spoken words. "You need someone worldly and politically sophisticated to get you out of this mess."
He turned and stomped off with a melodramatic exit.
Wyn glared after him. The tight, clenched expression smoothing out into self-satisfaction as Gui disappeared from sight. Then he turned to her, questions forming in his eyes.
Questions she was unable to give him answers to, even if she longed to have someone to confide in. Someone who wouldn't remind her she had a duty now. Deciding to curtail his curiosity with an offensive, Lia set her hands on her hips and narrowed her gaze. "Don't you have some work to do?"
She knew she wasn't being fair, but she didn't have to glance around to know several people had witnessed that little scene. Danny, a gardener, one of the cook's assistants, and a stable boy were all within hearing range. In an hour, the story, blown well out of proportion, would be all over the valley.
Gui was an idiot, but he was right that some of her people lacked faith in her. If they thought she needed a man to fight her battles, she might lose even more ground. With so much going wrong, she couldn't afford any sign of weakness.
He arched a dark brow and his face shifted into a neutral expression.
"Yes, ma'am. Sorry to interfere."
Without another word, Wyn sauntered back to where Danny stood, openly staring.
Despite everything, she wanted to watch him walk away. Watch the pretty shift and glide of muscle when he moved. Instead, she turned and headed toward the house.
There was no room in her life for an attraction she couldn't act on. Until Tanis was of age, there was no room for an attraction at all.
*****
Caerwyn moved silently through the trees, the nearly full moon lighting his way. Today had been both maddening and enlightening. For the first time in two weeks, he had a direction to look in. A hint of something not quite right.
Yet, he hoped that, whatever he found tonight, it did not point to Lia's guilt. Despite the way her face had paled at Gui’s mention of the herbarium, that part of Caer that had been watching her for a fortnight wanted it to be something innocent.
The more jaded part, however, the wounded heart that would never heal until he found vengeance, was sure there was no such thing as innocence. His run-in with Gui and Lia had reinforced the feeling that this little valley was full of secrets. He'd need to untangle them all to get the answers he was searching for.
The truth may be somewhere in that small outbuilding few ever went near. No one but Lia and her chatelaine and a couple of her equally secretive helpers.
Caer needed to get in there when no one would catch him snooping. He'd gone up to his tiny room at the inn like he did every night when evening fell. Then, once the village had settled into its sleepy stupor, he'd snuck out his window and made his way toward the manor. He moved through the trees, avoiding the road and any possible prying eyes.
He depended on his keen senses and infallible sense of direction to circle through the thick forest to the tree line side of the herbarium.
Caer knew his thoughts should be on Gui's veiled hints and what he might find in the small stone building. But he couldn't get Lia out of his head.
The same problem he'd been having for days. He saw the Handmaiden every day. The few minutes he'd gotten to actually spend with her, before her keepers whisked her away, he'd been more intent on making her smile, hearing her laugh, feeling her soft skin under his fingers than asking leading questions to uncover any darker plots. He'd watched her watch him with warm eyes and enigmatic smiles, as if they shared some private joke every chance they got.
Today had been no different. He'd been working on yet another fence when he'd felt her eyes on him. He'd fought every instinct he had to keep from looking over and smiling back at her. Any time they acknowledged one another, it brought her keepers out of the woodwork.
Instead, he'd kept his focus on his work and simply enjoyed the feeling of her presence, even if he couldn't allow himself the pleasure of the view.
While he'd worked, though, the atmosphere had shifted. He heard the harsh whispers and felt a rising tension when Danny looked toward the garden. He'd turned to see Gui manhandling her. There had been no thought, no plan. No consideration of consequences. Caer had just leapt into action.
Before he knew it, he'd had his hands on Gui and was spoiling for a fight. Then Gui whispered sly words that made Caer doubt Lia and made Lia edgy and suspicious in return.
Instead of being grateful for the rescue, she'd been furio
us with him. He'd stepped all over her independent toes. And heard something she obviously didn't want him to hear.
The sight of the herbarium's fence through the trees forced him to refocus. He slowed down though he really wanted to rush in and begin searching for the truth.
Instead, Caer took a moment to listen and scent for anything out of place or out of the ordinary. Once sure no one was nearby, he finally headed for the fence. It took him a couple of tries but he managed to vault the wooden pickets and land safely on his feet inside the barrier.
Narrow pathways skirted between lush, well-kept beds of various herbs and plants. Several were familiar from the garden his mother had kept before her death. Caerwyn's heart squeezed when he realized he'd not stepped foot in it since his parents’ murder. He had no idea if the gardeners had taken it over or left it be out of habit. His mother had always claimed it as her own endeavor of love.
It seemed an ill-fitting memorial to have ignored something so precious to her simply because it hurt too much. Just because he ached with guilt to remember her happily humming while she weeded and pruned and harvested.
The names of many of the plants came to him unbidden when he passed them. He even knew some of their uses, just from a boyhood of helping her weed and listening to her share her love and knowledge with him. He moved through the dark garden, silently naming those plants he remembered. Tansy and dill. Rosemary and foxglove. Rue and lethym. Thyme and sage.
He paused when he reached the back door leading into the herbarium, and glanced back at the plants. Lethym.
A particularly unusual plant. It was often used as a painkiller. Yet, if prepared and brewed properly, it could become a virulent poison. It was also favored by witches in love charms and potions. It was a plant that required extensive knowledge and care to cultivate and brew so as not suffer its ill-effects. It also supposedly only grew in the Milesan Islands. He remembered his mother telling him every effort to grow it anywhere else had met with failure.
Yet here it was, full and healthy and strong. Caer turned back around and took another look at the garden. The plants were bursting with vitality. Many ready to be harvested.
It was still early summer.
Many of these varieties shouldn’t be ready for at least another month, if not more. What sorcery did they use to do this impossible task? Humans could not call on the earth that way. They came from the east barely ten centuries before. They were not, like the Milesans, descendants of the old race. They had to rely on witchery, and its darker sister, sorcery, in order to call on the elements.
Witchery alone would not have made things grow where they should not. Or when they should not.
Whoever cultivated the lethym would no doubt have knowledge of the various love charms it could be used in.
The question remained, was it Lia? Or Nel? Or one of the other handful of women he'd seen go in and out of the squat building while he'd been working on the manor.
Caerwyn couldn't believe there was a part of him still hoping for an innocent answer. Some hint Lia wasn't involved. That it had been Nel. Or perhaps Lia's older sister, before her death.
He knew that was unlikely, though.
He started to turn back toward the door, intent on finding more answers, when the sound of running feet reached his ears.
Had he been seen? Was someone coming to catch him out? Moving silently, he crouched and, listening hard, he shifted toward the back side of the fence.
The feet slowed then stopped right outside. Hard breathing echoed in the night and Caer fought to keep his own shallow and silent.
A second, quieter set of footsteps approached, followed by a groan from whoever had been running.
"I thought we agreed you weren't going to do this anymore," Keneally's voice floated quietly over the pickets.
Caer had to hold his breath tight in his lungs to keep from voicing his surprise when Lia's voice answered.
"No. Actually, you and Nel told me it was a bad idea, and I agreed it probably was. I never said I'd stop going out at night, though. It's the only time I get to breathe."
A long suffering sigh resonated in the air. "Lia, you have a reputation to consider. A position to uphold. There is a stranger with an unknown agenda in the valley and Gui is ever more invasive in his curiosity."
"I know all about my position and reputation. Trying to keep it together day after day is what's suffocating me. And Wyn doesn't have an agenda. He's just someone who needed a job."
A sliver of sharp conscience poked Caer at her words. He did have an agenda. A glance around the garden reminded him he wasn't the only one with secrets, however.
"Perhaps." Keneally kept his voice neutral, but the doubt remained. "Whether or not he's someone we need to concern ourselves with, you have considered that tomorrow night is the full moon, haven't you?"
"As if I could forget."
"It would be best if he were not around the manor for the next couple of days."
"Keneally—"
"He is not one of us. He will not understand. He may tell tales without thought once he moves on. We cannot risk someone understanding the true nature of our celebrations."
"I know. I'll talk to him tomorrow, give him a few days off. He'll probably enjoy a break from picking up and moving heavy stones every day."
"Perhaps I should—"
"No, Keneally. I will talk to him. You and Nel can stop playing chaperone. There is nothing to worry about. Between Daen and Gui, I have enough complications with the men in my life right now. I’m not looking for any more."
She let out a long, pent-up breath.
"Gui is the reason I came here tonight, instead of my usual path. He knows something is going on. I just need to check, to make sure nothing has been disturbed in the herbarium. If he discovers… Well, he can't find out. Not even Marta was love-blind enough to tell him everything."
"You mean she couldn't. Her oath prevented it and the Circle refused him on every attempt."
The words faded as they moved away from the fence toward the front of the building. And, presumably, its front door.
As curious as he was to continue listening, Caerwyn knew getting caught in the garden would put an end to any chance of finding real answers.
With that kind of motivation, it only took him one try to get back over the fence. He debated waiting on the other side to eavesdrop some more but decided to return to town and try another night. He had no idea how long they'd stay inside and he had to be back at the inn well before sunup. Not to mention another long day of back-breaking labor that Keneally would have in store for him.
Wyn knew, now, that there was something to find in the herbarium. Possibly something even more important to find in their full moon celebration.
He could wait one more night to find out what it was.
-4-
For the second day in a row, Lia found herself standing in the garden, watching Wyn hard at work in the south pasture. A yawn welled up, threatening to escape, but she bit her lip and inhaled deeply to keep it at bay. Last night had been long and exhausting, though, thankfully, the careful experiments in the herbarium were undisturbed.
Tonight she'd be losing sleep, again, for a completely different reason. Before she prepared herself for the evening's exertions, though, Lia had one last task to take care of. She'd been putting it off all morning, but now, with lunch behind them, it was time to take the bull by the horns and get it done.
Soon the majority of the manor's staff and hands would be knocking off for the day in anticipation of the night's celebration.
With a deep breath and a last stifled yawn, Lia crossed the distance until she stood on the opposite side of the wall from Wyn.
He smiled though the expression was tight and forced. Nowhere near as warm and opened as usual. Neither was it reflected in his eyes. With careful precision, Wyn set the rock into position, then wiped his hands on his pants before bowing his head politely.
"Milady."
"Wyn."
<
br /> For a moment, she stared into the dark depths of his eyes and fidgeted with the fabric of her skirt. None of the warmth and delight he usually greeted her with was evident in his cool smile.
Not that it mattered. She straightened her shoulders, reminding herself, again, it was better if they kept an emotional distance.
"Is there something I can help you with, milady?" His tone was stiff, and he didn't reach for her hand. Lia hadn't realized how much she'd come to look forward to the quick brush of his lips across her skin until he didn't offer it.
"Ah, no, actually. I've come to let you know you get a bit of a reprieve from Keneally's torture. Most of the staff will be leaving early today. The next couple of days only absolutely necessary work will be done, so you have some time to relax before you need to come back."
He looked at her oddly for a moment, then nodded in understanding. "Ah, the full moon. So you still celebrate the old ways here in the valley?"
Every muscle in her body went tight, giving away her anxiety and dismay in her clenched jaw. Ordering her muscles to relax, Lia feigned a casual smile. Many farming communities still honored some form of the full moon traditions. There was no way for him to know. No way for him to guess.
"Something like that," she agreed, carefully not sharing anything else.
"I love a good festival. Where will the festivities be? The village square or here? Does it start at sunset or moonrise?"
The answers to his questions were on the tip of her tongue when she realized he asked because he wanted to attend. She shuddered at the thought. It was bad enough Gui saw part of it though there was no way he'd ever understand the deeper meaning.
Wyn was smart, observant and not nearly as self-absorbed as her brother-in-law. He might figure it out. For the first time, Lia began to see that her advisors might be right. Wyn could be dangerous, indeed.
By Vengeance Guided (The Lost Shrines Book 1) Page 5
