Healer by Linda Windsor

Author:Linda Windsor
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780781404495
Publisher: David C Cook

Chapter Fifteen

It was well past nun day when Ronan reached the plateau overlooking the river where Glenarden’s keep rose in regal fashion, banners flying over its stockade. He’d passed through acres of freshly plowed farmland sowed with peas, beans, and corn. Seen carefully chosen lumber cut and stacked at the edge of Glenarden’s thick forest—some for sale and some for further construction within the walls of the stockade. It appeared that Caden had slid into Ronan’s role well—a surprise given his younger brother’s usual indifference to such matters.

It was partly pleasing. Ronan wanted Caden to be a capable administrator. But someone had tried to kill Ronan. Was he a chance horse thief or the hireling of an usurper? Regardless, Ronan now wore the simple garb of a farmer, borrowed from a trusted servant who’d been out in one of the fields. If someone at Glenarden wanted him dead, better Ronan slip in unnoticed to observe the changes that had taken place … and to speak to his father.

Slipping through the hall was easier than he’d anticipated. It teemed with servants preparing for the Pascal celebration—tomorrow, if his sense of time was right. Brother Martin had said he was invited to officiate.

“You!” Lady Rhianon pointed an imperious finger at Ronan. Clad in apron and kerchief, she jerked it toward a heaping barrow of fresh hay. “Help spread the new threshing. I should hate to choke on dust still floating in the air during supper.”

Wondering how the old steward Vychan had accepted her takeover, Ronan bowed his head in acknowledgment and walked to the barrow. ’Twould be quite a setback for the imperious Rhianon when Brenna became mistress, especially now that his wife was with child. Brenna had told Ronan the morning after their wedding night that she had conceived. And knowing his new wife as he did, he believed her.

With an armload of threshing, he worked his way toward the back of the hall, where Tarlach’s bedchamber had been made of an anteroom. The door was closed. After spreading the hay along the wall, Ronan stepped into the chamber. It was dark … and musty. The housekeeping outside had clearly been overlooked in here.

Ronan couldn’t see a thing. If not for a small lamp on a table and his knowledge of where Tarlach’s bed lay, he’d have been lost indeed. By the time he reached it, his eyes had adjusted more to the dim light. He could make out his father’s sleeping form, curled on its side.

And it was after midday. Usually by this time, Tarlach would have ridden over the fields with him.

Alarmed, Ronan touched Tarlach’s shoulder and shook it gently. “Father, the day is half wasted.”

“Get away.” Tarlach shook off Ronan’s hand. “Leave me die in peace.”

“Are you ill?” Ronan found his forehead beneath a tangled shock of hair. Save Tarlach’s blinking eyes, his face was all but covered in it.

With a low growl, Tarlach rolled to his back, the gnarled fist of his good arm drawn. “By the Devil’s own breath, I’ll have you—”

“Father, it’s Ronan.

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