Tricky felt a roil of nervousness pump her stomach. Mayhap this was moving too quickly and she would find herself in a position in which she could not handle…best pull on a shy face for a time. “Of course, my lord,” she told him. Rising from his lap—ostensibly to pour his drink—she shifted away and managed to remain standing and looking directly into his face.
When Tavis would have reached for her, she stepped lightly back. “My lord, I must find my brother… ”
“Nay, not so quickly. He is likely chasing some other wench,” Tavis told her with a sly smile, “and will not even notice that you do not attend him. You may attend me for some time…it has been long since I’ve seen such a comely wench here at Tricourten.”
“Of course, my lord.” She curtseyed again and watched as he drained his goblet. Mayhap if she plied him with enough wine… She refilled his goblet as Tavis tugged her back onto his lap. Nervously, she glanced at de Belgrume. He had collapsed forward onto the table, his face planted in the center of the parchment that curled up around his ears.
Tavis slipped his hand, quick as a wink, down the front of her chemise and Tricky nearly leaped off his lap. His fingers sought her flesh and gave a firm squeeze before he extracted his hand and tweaked her chin with the same pinch. “Very nice. ’Tis glad I am that you travel with your brother and not a husband…else it would be rather uncomfortable for him.” He smiled, and she was reminded of a wolf when she saw the way his eye-teeth gleamed.
“’Tis said that he,” she tilted her head toward de Belgrume, “studies the great physicks…do you assist him in his experiments?”
Tavis drank more wine, slopping it over the side of the goblet when he set it down. With a quick glance at his sleeping master, he used a rag to wipe up the mess as he replied, “Aye, that I do. He is the master, chosen by God, to find the secrets of the ancients.” He chuckled a soft, eager laugh and slogged his hand across his mouth. “He has worked for many years to find the answers, and now he has put the last peg into place. We shall soon be more powerful than even the king…even the pope. And I shall be at my master’s side.”
She filled his goblet, noticing that the bottle was nearly empty…and knowing that she would need more. “You are?” she prompted, fluttering her eyelashes even as he spewed wine-laden breath in her face. “You must be so very smart to do such things!”
“Aye, that I am…but my master…he is the gifted one. He is the one to whom God speaks.” He stood so quickly that he nearly knocked her backward. “Come…I will show you our laboratory. He sleeps and will not mind.” Tavis staggered over a dog lying beneath their feet, and cast another glance at de Belgrume. Gently, he raised the snoring man’s head and settled him back in his chair, slipping a rolled-up cloak beneath his neck. “He must have his rest if we are to work this night,” he explained, rolling up the parchment and slipping it under his arm. “I shall awaken him later, after you and I have had our…tour of the laboratory.”
Tricky’s chest tightened as fear and apprehension rose within her as Tavis closed his strong, thin fingers around her wrist and pulled her after him.
Twenty-Eight
Clem finished his exploration of the bailey and outbuildings in short order, and decided to enter the hall to reconnoiter with Tricky if she’d completed her own search. He’d found something that might work for an unobtrusive entrance—a gate that was guarded, but with only one guard…and one guard could easily be disposed of from the inside once they determined the routine and schedule.
The great hall was nearly empty when Clem entered. At the high dais, a man slumped back in his chair, snoring comfortably…and ’twas the shock of white-blond hair that identified him to Clem. Fantin. He’d half a mind to put an end to this right then, and send the man to a burning grave with the help of the dagger that weighted his thigh…but that would be Gavin’s honor and Clem knew that the time was not yet right.
He looked around and saw nothing of Tricky. Unease prickled his spine…where else could the woman be, unless she’d slipped from the hall before he came in? He’d make his way back to the stable where they were to meet.
With a frown and gusty sigh, Clem turned and came face to face with Rohan.
Tricky, whose hand was imprisoned within Tavis’s grasp, hurried down a narrow, winding stair in his wake. She thought she saw a small shadow scuttle from a corner and dart beneath her feet, and she stifled a shriek.
Where was Tavis taking her…and what would he do with her once they arrived?
She prayed that at least her risk would come to fruition, and that she would see Madelyne wherever it was they were bound.
At last, they reached a small oaken door, heavily barred. Tavis released her hand, and, giving her an eager, sweet smile, said, “One moment, my dear, and you shall see what it is we have worked for.”
It took him several moments to force the bar out of its metal slot, and with a grunt, he pushed the door open. Immediately, a putrid smell burst from the room and Tricky nearly gagged at the fumes.
“Come, my dear,” he told her, drawing her into a cave-like chamber lit with an overwhelming number of sconces burning on the walls.
Tricky’s eyes darted about and fastened on a long table near one end of the room. A figure lay on it, but was so shadowed she couldn’t tell even if it was a man or a woman. When Tavis tugged her arm—the man was like a small child faced with a room of sweets—she was forced to follow him to the opposite side of the chamber.
The smell seemed to have lessened, so Tricky could breathe more freely…but when she was faced with the snake heads and skeletons of small rodents, and jars and bottles of foul-looking liquid and slimy solids, she felt her head grow light and she swayed against Tavis.
“What is it, my little chick?” he asked, leering down at her, one hand on either side of her hips, trapping her against the table. Suddenly, she felt very frightened and it was all Tricky could do to keep her face blank of fear.
“Naught’n, my lord,” she told him. “I betripped m’self and nearly fell on your work here… ” Swallowing hard, she reached up to trail a single finger down the side of his face. “I cannot believe you know all of this! Tell me about what you do with these…things.”
It was the right response. Tavis nearly clapped his hands with glee and, towing her about the laboratory, pointed out everything from instruments of extraction—she did not ask what they extracted—and devices designed to boil and purge and grind and beat the ingredients to whatever potion they might be creating.
When they made their way over to the side where the figure lay, unmoving, upon the table, Tavis paused to look into Tricky’s eyes. “This,” he told her, a slim hand with one long fingernail pointing at the body, whose face was turned away, “will be our salvation. She will hear the Word of God, she will praise Him and serve Him and will be our salvation!”
He stared down at her, his breath rising and falling, and as if in a trance, reached out a hand to touch the figure that lay supine. Tricky stepped forward to get a look at her face.
It was Madelyne… and she appeared to be alive!
“What—who—is that?” she asked boldly, slipping her hand into the crook of Tavis’s arm.
He appeared to shake from his trance and turned to look at her, the dreaminess gone from his eyes. “’Tis the daughter of my master. She is recently returned to us from days serving God in an abbey. My master has decreed that she shall serve God here, for the good of my master.”
Tavis chuckled again, twirling against her in his glee. “She has been wed, and my master fears that she has been tainted by the touch of an impure man.” Tavis continued, his face shriveling into a dark mask, “Despite her imperfections, now, my master will not allow me to touch her…though I burn to do so.” He turned to look at Tricky again, lust glazing his face. “I shall have to settle for the likes of you…but I vow, ’twill be to your enjoyment as well.”