Page 18 of Highland Treasure (Highland Brides 9)

“A letter,” she answered without hesitation.

“A letter,” he echoed with disbelief. “He killed yer father and all of his men, beat yer mother to death’s door and then verra nearly beat ye there as well fer a letter?”

“Well.” Elysande shrugged helplessly. “’Twas an important letter.”

Rory shook his head mildly, and then sighed. “I think ye’d best be explaining it, lass.”

She nodded solemnly, but then walked to the edge of the loft to peer down and make sure no one was below before moving to perch on a bale of hay.

“De Buci is a powerful lord,” she began slowly. “But he is impatient, and too fond of coin and power. He dislikes anything that he feels gets between he and that.”

When she paused briefly, Rory nodded and settled on a bale of hay across from her. “Many lords are like that.”

“Aye,” she murmured. “Well, he’s long been a critic of the king. He feels he takes too much in taxes and wastes it on . . .” She waved away the explanation and simply said, “He just dislikes him. Mostly because he could not worm his way into being one of his favorites, I think.”

Rory nodded again.

“We all knew this. Father even teased him for it, but none of us imagined that he would decide to do something about it. Except his wife,” Elysande said heavily. “While we thought he was all talk, she knew it was more than that. But then, I suspect he was more circumspect with us and was perhaps just talking to feel Father out to see if he was of a like mind.”

“But he was no’,” Rory guessed.

“My father was loyal to our king,” she said firmly, and when Rory nodded, she continued. “So was Lady de Buci.”

“Was?” Rory queried.

“I suspect she too is dead,” Elysande admitted on a sigh. “As I said, she apparently suspected he might be moved to do something. I gather she noted certain lords visiting more often, other lords of a like mind to her husband. He would send her away to the solar and have meetings with them. In her letter she said she tried to slip out to hear what they spoke of, but de Buci would post a guard outside the solar who would suggest she stay put and he would fetch whatever she needed. She felt like a prisoner in her own keep at those times and it only made her more certain he was up to something. But two weeks ago a messenger arrived while de Buci was away on a hunt. She accepted the message and opened it.”

Pausing, she met his gaze before saying, “It was a most incriminating letter. De Buci and several lords have contrived a plot to kill the king and his young son and replace him on the throne with his brother, who they feel will be grateful for their efforts and reward them accordingly. Because the lords have been careful never to meet all together at once so as to avoid suspicion, Lord Wykeman was writing to confirm the entire plot. It mentioned names, the time and place of the planned murders and who was expected to do what.”

“Damn,” Rory breathed.

“Aye.” Elysande stood and walked over to peer into the empty lower floor again before continuing. “Lady de Buci was horrified. She needed to get the message to the king, to warn him, but her husband was in total control of his men. Every last one was faithful to him. She could not send a message with any of them. But the servants and villagers were faithful to her. However, none of them could have got the message all the way to court and to the king. So she wrote a letter to my mother explaining everything, rolled up Wykeman’s damning scroll inside her own message begging her to get her letter and the one she had opened to the king. She then gave it to the blacksmith along with coin and had him take it to a spice merchant who had visited the castle that day and whom she knew was still in the village. He was to give the coin and the message to the spice merchant and have him deliver it to my mother when he stopped in at Kynardersley.”

It was not an unusual occurrence; messages were often delivered by the slow-moving traveling merchants if they were not urgent. This message had been urgent, but Lady de Buci had felt she had no choice but to send it the slower route.

“What happened to the spice merchant?” Rory asked, drawing her back to their conversation.

Elysande stared blindly toward the stable doors, the tops of which were just visible where she sat and said, “He did not make it to Kynardersley before de Buci did. So none of us knew or understood anything that was happening when de Buci arrived. He must have asked Father about the message from his wife at the table, and demanded he hand it over. Father would have said, quite honestly, that he had no knowledge of a message from his lady wife, and de Buci, thinking he lied, killed him.”

A sudden image of her father rising from the table and stumbling back to fall dead to the floor with the dagger protruding from his chest flashed through her mind, and Elysande firmed her lips and continued.

“The spice merchant arrived shortly after Simon and Tom returned, and like them he was stopped by the servants hiding in the woods and warned against continuing on to the keep. Apparently he was trying to decide what to do about the message Lady de Buci had paid him to deliver when he heard Tom and Simon charge Eldon with the task of getting word to my mother of their presence in the woods. The spice merchant saw this as his opportunity to complete his task and gave Eldon Lady de Buci’s message and a coin and told him to deliver that to her as well.”

“Ah.” Rory almost sighed the word, and when she turned to peer at him, he said, “That is why it took hours fer Tom and Simon to hear anything. Yer mother had to read the letters and decide what to do.”

“Aye. That is part of the reason,” Elysande murmured. “When Eldon said the message was from Lady de Buci, Mother knew at once that it must have something to do with what was happening at Kynardersley. She immediately had Betty open both scrolls and hold them up for her to read, and then she—” Elysande paused abruptly. Her mother had admitted to her that she’d cursed Lady de Buci and her husband to hell in that moment of realization and then had wept for all she’d lost and the troubles they were in through no fault of their own.

Leaving that out, Elysande simply said, “She started to plan then. She had Betty take Eldon down to the kitchens using the secret passages, and while he gathered food for our journey, she prepared the dungeon guard’s evening meal, dosing his ale with a sleeping potion as she did, and then delivered it. She then returned to the kitchens, collected Eldon and snuck him back up to the master chamber with the food for us. Then they had to wait for the sleeping potion to take effect. Once they felt enough time had passed, Eldon waited with Mother while Betty came down to the dungeon to free me. And then she took Eldon out to the woods with her when she went to speak to Tom and Simon.”

“And while they were fetching Tom and Simon, yer mother told ye about Lady de Buci’s message and dictated her own messages to Sinclair and meself,” Rory finished for her solemnly.

Elysande merely nodded. There was nothing else to say. He knew everything now.

“Ye should ha’e told me this, lass, when ye told me the rest,” Rory said.

That made her sigh unhappily. “I would have told you, but Mother cautioned me not to. She said ’twould put your life even more at risk than your escorting me would. She said that would be a poor thank-you for your aid.”

Rory’s eyebrows rose and a smile tugged at his lips at that. “I suspect just aiding ye puts me life and everyone else’s at risk. Kenning the danger involved could only help us, lass.”

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