Free The Reckless One by Connie Brockway Page B

standing in the gardens below the courtyard.”
    “You’re very sure of what Carr knows and what he doesn’t know,” Favor said.
    “I should be. I’ve been listening to his raves and curses for two years and I’ve been watching him for a dozen before that. Aye. I know Carr’s black soul as well as my own,” Muira said. She tossed the stained cotton into the fire and began rolling the clothes she’d shed into a small bundle that she would later store in the locked chest at the foot of her bed.
    Favor looked around the room, wondering what secrets it held. Happily, her own room was unconnected. She disliked the idea of Muira having unimpeded access to her.
    “If only I could remember some detail about Janet that only Carr would have noticed,” Muira muttered, her eyes narrowed in concentration on her image in the mirror.
    “Well, you’d best come up with something soon,” Favor said. “We’ve been guests at the castle two weeks and so far he hasn’t taken any more note of me than a scullery cat. Aside from dancing naked in the firelight, I don’t know what else I can do to attract his attention.”
    Muira flashed her an annoyed glance. She finished plumping out her cheeks with a bit of cotton wadding and quickly dusted her face with fine white powder, taking special care with her brows and lashes. That done she twisted her white hair into a bun atop her head.
    No one who saw her now, looking so pudding-faced and pale, would recognize her as “Pala,” the dark, wiry Gypsy whom Carr had found in his stables nearly two years earlier.
    “I’ve spent two years filling Carr’s head with hints and omens about Janet’s return,” Muira said. “If you fail to make Carr believe you are she, it’s because you
want
to fail.”
    She regarded Favor thoughtfully as she stuffed her bodice with woolen bolsters. “Is that it? Are you wondering what would come of you if you could call your future your own?” Her brogue thickened with her growing contempt. “Yer still thinkin’ on that English prison scarecrow, aren’t ye?”
    “No.” Favor denied the charge.
    “Aye.” Muira nodded. “Jamie says as soon as he returned from France, just before we come here, ye asked him if he’d ever heard what become of the man.”
    “I know you’ll not believe this but I asked because I feel—”
    “Guilty.” Muira spat out the word. “So you say. So you’ve said this past half year. Well, it seems to me your fine conscience has developed a large appetite. Now me, I’d think that any lass responsible for the deaths of most all her clansmen wouldna have room for any more guilt.”
    “You’d be surprised at the things of which I’m capable,” Favor stonily returned. The old woman’s methods of persuasion were never subtle but certainly one could not gainsay their effectiveness. Since she’d brought Favor from France she had lost no opportunity to remind Favor of what she owed her clan. They’d each learned a great deal about the other.
    Favor had learned to hide her vulnerabilities. Muira had learned that the biddable puppet she’d hoped to manipulate was an independent young woman not easily managed. It had been a lesson the old woman disliked and one that had pitted the two women in constant conflict.
    “Or,” Muira said now, “are you wondering whether or not your blooming sweet youth really does need to be sacrificed after all?”
    Favor faced her silently.
    “Well, darlin’ lassie, all those men that died because of you were blooming with youth, too. And they all deserved bonny brides and plump bairns and warm hearths. My husband, my brother, and my three sons among them.”
    “I know.” Favor did, too. She’d sneaked out to the stables the night they’d arrived at the castle and found Jamie, who was masquerading as Thomas Donne’s driver. She asked him to intervene in the battle of wills between her and Muira. Instead Jamie had told Favor about how on the night of the massacre Muira had lost every