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a fortnight, on the same day you’d set aside for Quinn and Ingrid.”
    Cormac looked scandalized. “Without a proper mourning period? Such a rush will make the whole thing look like—well, exactly like what it is, a marriage of political convenience.”
    Rietta laughed. “Don’t fool yourself that it’s ever appeared to be anything else. No one is more aware of propriety than I,” she said. “Yet, in this case, what is proper is less important than that we not give Guerrand time to change his mind or flee.”
    A small sound from near the fireplace punctuated Rietta’s comment. “What was that?” she asked, looking toward the section of wall from which the noise had come.
    Cormac dismissed it with a toss of his head. “Rodents. I hear them all the time in here. Likely they have thousands of hidey-holes in this old castle.”
    “I’ll have the chamberlain put out traps.” A small sigh escaped Rietta’s patrician nostrils. “I fear I’ve been gone too long for propriety and must return to the great hall. Concerning Guerrand, you must do as you think best, my husband.”
    Rietta wore a tight-lipped, triumphant smile as she watched her husband’s port-fogged mind ponder her words. She knew he would do it, had already decided to, but would not admit it to her so readily. She knew all too well how to persuade her husband to do what she wanted. She had but to provide and plant the seed. Cormac himself, with the aid of port as fertilizer and desperation as sunshine, would make the notion grow.
    As she slipped from the room and donned her well-rehearsedexpression of grief, Rietta only hoped Cormac would do it soon, before Berwick had time to pursue other avenues.
    * * * * *
    Hurry, hurry, hurry! Kirah screamed inwardly, as if willing her feet to move faster in the cramped confines of the crawl space outside Cormac’s study. Kirah knew as Rietta did that Cormac would do as his wife suggested. The young girl had gasped aloud when she’d realized it. Thank Habbakuk they’d attributed the sound to rats. She’d started crawling when Cormac headed with purpose toward the door of his study. She knew with certainty that he was not en route to the privy.
    This is a thousand times worse than I’d feared! Kirah’s fevered brain cried. I’d hoped he’d be safe because he was still unsuitable. Grieving, guileless Guerrand wouldn’t even suspect why he was being summoned to Cormac’s study again until it was too late to escape.
    Scrappy Kirah had known from the moment she’d heard of Quinn’s death that it was only a matter of time before Cormac and Rietta cooked up some other plot to regain Stonecliff. That was why, even more than her overwhelming grief, she’d disappeared. She’d spent as much of the last three days as possible in the tunnel outside Cormac’s study, listening, leaving only to filch food from the kitchen.
    Kirah had hoped that Berwick would produce an unheard-of son to marry to Honora. She knew now that she’d only fooled herself, because it was what she wanted to think. Besides, she hadn’t thought about Cormac having to pay a dowry.
    It had been a most informative, if uncomfortable, couple of days. Cormac had allowed the DiThon finances to decline further than he’d led anyone to believe. A lotfurther. The normal costs of running a castle were high enough, but Cormac’s taste for fine wines and brandies, and the wedding preparations, had stretched the household budget even more. Only yesterday, Kirah had heard Cormac in a dreadful argument with the chamberlain over the cost of Quinn’s funeral.
    Scrambling on her hands and knees around a turn, still in the same clothes she’d been wearing when the news of Quinn’s death arrived, Kirah caught her shift on a sharp rock. Cursing, she gave the loose-fitting dress a yank, heard it tear free, and she was off again. Three days in the tunnels had left her feeling grubbier than even she found comfortable. Her nails were torn, the cuticles bloodied