Then he had burst into her room, frantic. He had spotted her by the window and the relief that had washed over his face had surged within her with as much fervor. Her knees had buckled but he was there, scooping her up, wrapping his arms around her, burrowing his face into her hair.
A few minutes later they had learned of who had actually died. That hole tearing through her chest did not let up.
It was poison. Dougal had been found lying haphazardly off his bed, his door ajar. Whoever had done the deed had done so hastily, frantically, and had not taken as much care as they had for the others. Jonet did not know what that meant. She did not know if Dougal had been an intended target, or a spur of the moment decision, which would explain their sloppiness. Perhaps the killer was growing impatient, or angry. Whatever it was, it had only made them more dangerous.
A hand slipped around hers and Jonet let out the breath she had been holding. Matthew’s comforting presence calmed her a bit of her unease, surrounded as they were in such comraderie.
“Christal has asked that I give ye this,” he said to her, holding out a plate. Jonet hoped it was a pastry, a guilty pleasure to ease her perturbation, but it was covered instead with meat, potatoes, and sausages. “Ye havenae eaten all day,” he urged her to take the plate. “Ye’ll collapse if ye daenae put somethin’ in yer stomach soon.”
Jonet stayed silent. She took up a sausage and bit into it, chewing without thought. Like the scotch, which had been taken away from her with Matthew’s deft hands, she did not taste it at all.
She stared at her father, sitting at the head of the large table. His hearty laughter did not fool her, but she knew it was what needed to be done, his last tribute to his fallen brother. Their relationship had been odd, filled with fierce competition and quick verbal jabs. Yet Jonet knew that, had he been given the chance, her father would have taken the poison in his brother’s stead.
The thought brought tears to her eyes.
“How many more, Matthew?” she murmured. She felt his eyes on her, his presence always so close, always so comforting. If it were not for the fact that his nearness gave her strength, she would have fallen apart already.
“How many more will die because of me?”
Matthew said nothing because he knew consoling words were not what she wanted to hear. She had heard them enough. Her question was aimed at herself for the most part, a quiet convinction that she could not sit on her hands and allow someone else to die before this person was caught.
She looked up at Matthew and he gazed back down at her. She wanted to tell him to leave. When she had heard of Dougal’s death, crumpling in his arms as she wa
s seized by her tears, her first thought was to ask him to go. To chase him out if she needed to. Another death was on her hands, simply because she was too selfish to face her life without him.
“Matthew…”
“Daenae even say it, Jonet.” Sequestered as they were in the corner of the dining hall, he leaned over and pressed a tender kiss in between her brow, as if to smooth away the frown that laid there. “I willnae go. I cannae. Nae now when ye are in such danger. I love ye and I will stay by yer side until the end. I willnae let ye try to push me away again.”
“That is very nice to hear, but that isnae what I was goin’ to say. I wanted to ask if we could slip away somewhere.” She smiled softly.
Matthew’s eyes noted surprise, but then he smiled. “If that’s what ye want. But ye really should eat.”
To make him feel better, she finished off her sausages and half the potato before she rested the plate to the side. She took him by the hand and led him out of the dining hall.
She thought of going to her mother’s room. Rinalda, stricken by sadness for her brother-in-law’s death, was weaker than ever. Jonet thought she should check on her, knowing her brave mother would be regretting that she could not attend his wake.
Yet her steps led her in a different direction. Jonet did not know where she was going until they were almost there. Soon, she arrived at Dougal’s bedroom.
She gasped silently when she saw Jonathan inside.
The young man did not see them enter. He was standing by the bed, staring down at the mattress, right in the spot where Dougal had been found. As she drew closer, she saw a silvery tear fall to the floor.
“Jonathan,” she called tenderly.
He started at the sound of her voice. Turning his head, he quickly wiped at his tears before he faced them, sniffling.
“Ye werenae suppose to see me like this,” he said.
“Ye have every reason to be sad,” she spoke softly, coming to his side. She took his hand, staring at the spot as well. Dougal’s bed had been put back together, but it could not erase the memory of how he had been found: slung halfway off the bed, sheets pooling beneath him, no honor in his death.
“I shouldnae be cryin’ though,” he shook his head. “I should be in the hall, celebrating the life he had lived.”
“I came to get away from it all too,” she nodded. She heard Matthew behind her, but he was not close with Jonathan. There was nothing he could say to comfort him.
“He was as good a teacher as he was a war chieftain,” Jonathan went on. “He gave me a chance when I was no one. How could someone like him be… gone?”
His anger came fast, shocking Jonet to step back. He threw a fist into the wall, one that nearly shook the room.