Page 38 of Highland Guard

Harcourt looked over at Geordie. They had gotten that name out of him after he had woken up and Joan had seen to his injury. The man still refused to give them a clan name and he was beginning to think it was because Geordie was banished from his clan, a broken man. They were still not quite sure what to do with him.

“Nay, Geordie, as I believe she will be hanged before ye are.” He ignored Biddy’s wailing protest.

“What did she do?”

“Poisoned the laird.”

“Nay, nay, nay! It was only supposed to make him sick and too weak to fight.”

Harcourt looked at Biddy who looked as startled by her words as he felt. That was a confession. He glanced at Geordie who was looking disgusted and shaking his head. There might be hope for Geordie. He was now witness to the woman’s confession. Harcourt suspected that Geordie would point the finger of guilt at anyone just to save his own neck, but at least this time it would be the truth.

“So ye are the bitch that killed him,” Geordie said. “I told Jaikie it was a lass but he wouldn’t hear it. He didnae listen much and look where that got him. Shame he isnae here any longer to find out I was right.”

“Hush, Geordie,” Harcourt commanded in his coldest voice.

“Hushing,” he mumbled and sat in the far corner of his bed.

“So, Biddy, ye would have us believe ye kept feeding your laird a poison but just thought he would get ill, nay die,” Harcourt said.

“That was it. That was all. ’Tis nay my fault he was a weakling.”

It made him furious to hear her call David weak and Harcourt made no secret of his anger, allowing it to coat his words. “Ye put the poison in his food. It doesnae matter whether ye were mistaken about what would happen. Ye gave it to him. He died. So, ye are the murderer.”

“I was just doing as I was told.”

“Certainly nay by your laird.” He noticed that Geordie was listening closely. “Ah, then it was your lover.”

“Nay, he was just doing what he was told as a loyal second should.”

“So ye were both obeying Sir Adam MacQueen then.”

“I didnae say that!”

“Your lover used you, made ye the knife he was too cowardly to use himself.”

“Clyde is no coward,” Biddy snapped.

“Clyde?” Geordie said. “Ye were Clyde’s wee whore? Wheesht, ye are a witless lass, arenae ye?”

“He was going to marry me!”

“Och, aye? Ye believed that?”

Even Harcourt felt like wincing at the sharp scorn in Geordie’s voice. “Ye ken Clyde weel, do ye?” he asked the man.

“Nay, just another of his hirelings. Although I suspicion he didnae pay ye much,” Geordie said to Biddy. “He ne’er pays the lassies he uses. Weel, nay in coin. ’Tis rumored he has paid a few with cold steel though when they thought he had made promises he wasnae keeping and made too much noise about it.” He looked around the cells. “Ye best be careful. He might consider this making too much noise.”

“Clyde is going to marry me and when Sir Adam gains this place, Clyde will be his second. Then I will be a lady.”

Geordie hooted with laughter and Harcourt watched Biddy blush. Not from shame or embarrassment, however, but with a growing fury. Geordie was, in his strange way, doing better at getting information out of Biddy than he had been. He had also stopped her crying, replacing fear with anger.

“I shall tell Clyde about you,” she hissed.

“Oh, I be so scared. What is he going to do? Toss me in a cell? Hang me? Missed his chance there.”

Biddy looked at Harcourt and he realized Geordie had become the new target for her anger. Anger was good. Anger made people say things they would not under other circumstances. It made them lose their guard over their tongue. It was almost as good as pouring ale down a prisoner’s throat until he was too sotted to care what he told the one asking questions.

“What is there for me here? Cooking for people who dinnae e’en notice me. Clyde was going to get me out of the kitchen.”