Free Conquering the Dark Axe by Amber Dane Page B

sister and father’s
demise were no accidents. This person’s ruse to concoct such a foolhardy
act with that poison proves they are testing us.”
 “Aye and so confident they fear they can do anything to her now and get
away with it. Despite your presence here.”
    Rourke nodded. He had thought of that. His wife
was so sure he’d brought the killer with him. She had no idea that the killer
was already in residence and had been among her precious people all
along. The death of father and sister were proof enough of that. 
He grumbled under his breath as the ire over her words earlier rose once again
in him. His wife was not as naïve as she would have others
think.     
“You thinking ‘tis a man?” Goran asked as they prepared to leave the room.
“Nay.”  Rourke said stepping out into the hall just as a smiling Lina
walked past with a flirtatious expression and sway of her voluptuous
hips. “‘Tis definitely a woman.” Rourke finished and called out for
his squire down the hall.
His young squire came in and Rourke lifted his arms out to the sides for the
boy to strap on his scabbard and sword. Then buckle up his mail and get him his
gauntlets.   Where they were headed, he had no use for his axe today.
The squire bent and slid the small, clean sharp knives into the hidden slots on
his lord’s leather boots. 
    Rourke was lost in his musings while the squire saw
to his needs.  He blamed part of his anger on weariness. He’d slept next
to not at all in the past two days. The other part, he was angry over the
feelings that had surfaced watching his wife lie there in that bed.
    The ungrateful woman had no idea what he’d gone
through. Rourke shook his head to shake the odd feelings away.  What would
his men think of him? Coldness blanketed his heart.
    He barked at Goran and
quit the room.  With a handful of soldiers at their backs, they rode out
of the busy courtyard headed south of the wood. The hour had grown late and he
needed to see his errand through before he fell flat on his face from
exhaustion. An urgent one where Normans were not so reviled.

EIGHT
     
    Alexa straightened the furs and bedding she’d
pummeled in frustration and anger after Rourke and Goran had left, going over
in her head what had happened.  
    So someone was trying to kill her husband? 
Hmm, she knew she wanted to.  But, did she really?   A thought
hit her.  How had this person known that he’d be the only one to drink the
wine? They couldn’t. 
    Alexa felt something she didn’t want to name crawl
up her spine.  They had to have known that she would have taken a drink
too.  She swung her long legs over the bed.  They had not just tried
to kill him. Nay, the whole ewer had been tainted and both of them would have
drunk from the same goblet.  There could not have been a mistake. Rourke
had deduced the same. The reason he believed the culprit was in her home long
before he came. She did not want to believe it.  Refused to believe
it.  But something nagged at her that it was true. As much as she loathed
admitting it, he was no dummy. Aye, that Norman brute was very smart. 
    He possessed an uncanny trait, she’d noted early on.
Like knowing her thoughts. And his eyes, those green eyes shone of intelligence
that she found she admired and it frightened her. 
    Dizziness assailed her as she made her way to the
window.  Alexa waited a moment for it to pass.  She was not tied to
the bed and she would be damned, no matter how ill she felt, if she would stay
on it.  She had missed two days because someone had a bone to pick with
one them.  Despite his conclusions, she wanted desperately to believe the
culprit had to be someone in his own camp. 
    Her people, as she’d told him would never do such a
thing.  Even if they were upset with the new lord, all had been aware of
his pending arrival and that things would have changed when he married
Lisbeth.  And Alexa would have been far gone by now. 
    Where? She