The Brat Page 0,43

up something from the floor.

Murie glanced curiously at the item. Her eyes widened as she saw it was the cross she'd found in her room the morning after she'd dreamed of Balan. She'd had Cecily set it on the table, but apparently it had gotten knocked off onto the rushes at some point last night. She didn't have to think hard to guess how.

"Hmm, it must have been caught up in my clothes," he commented, and fastened it around his neck; then he stopped to press another kiss to her now cold lips on his way out of the room.

Murie stared after him, pale and shaken.

"Is that not the cross you found the morning after you dreamt he came to you?" Cecily asked quietly.

"Aye," she breathed.

Cecily was silent for a moment then said, "I did tell you I saw him lurking outside in the hall that night."

"Aye," Murie repeated.

"You do not think he - ?"

"Aye!" Murie cried, and hurried for the door, her only thought that she needed to speak to Emilie. Her friend would know what she should do. She always knew what to do. She would help fix this.

"Slow down," Emilie said with concern moments later when Murie burst into her room and babbled a stream of nonsense.

"Tell me slowly. I do not understand. Balan found a cross in your room?"

"Aye. Nay. Aye, but..." She paused with frustration, took a deep breath to calm herself, then started again. "I found a cross in my room the morning after the dream. I thought nothing of it at the time. I did not know whom it belonged to, but thought perhaps it had fallen from someone's throat in the hall and gotten caught in my skirt and fallen off by the bed as I disrobed ... or perhaps a servant had lost it while cleaning the room."

"Aye," Emilie said patiently. "I understand."

"Well, this morning while he was dressing, Balan spotted the cross on the floor and - "

'You left it on the floor?" Emilie said in surprise.

"Nay, I put it on the table. It must have got knocked off somehow," she said, blushing as she recalled what Balan had done to her on the table and just how it had probably gotten knocked off. Giving her head a shake, she went on: "Anyway, he picked it up, saying he thought he'd lost it and that it must have simply been caught in his clothes. And then he put it on." Emilie nodded. "He has worn the cross ever since his father gave it to him some years ago."

Murie scowled impatiently. "Do you not see? It was his cross ... in my room . , . the morning after I dreamed he came to me and kissed me."

"Ah." Emilie sat back. "I see. You think it was not a dream at all, but that he came to you in person and kissed you in your bed." She paused, looking startled, and then exclaimed, "Before you were married! Why, that is scandalous. That is - "

"Not a dream at all," Murie said grimly, trying to return to the point. "I did not dream he was there; he w as there. Why?" Emilie blinked. "Why?"

"Aye. Why? We had never met before. I had never even seen him before I woke up to find him kissing me. But it was the night I was supposed to dream of the man I was fated to marry, and I woke up thinking that was him!"

"Oh, I am sure that had nothing to do with it," Emilie began, but she was looking concerned.

"Nay? Then why did he come in and kiss me - a veritable stranger?"

"Mayhap he was drunk and stumbled into the wrong room, and when he saw you sleeping there he was so overcome he could not resist kissing you," she suggested.

"Cecily told me the day after the dream that she'd seen Balan lurking in the hall when she left that night. I did not think anything of it at the time, but now . .. Lurking in the hall does not suggest he stumbled into my room by accident."

Emilie was frowning. "Murie, I prithee do not overreact to this. I am sure there is a perfectly good explanation for everything."

"Like what, pray tell?" she asked dubiously.

"I do not know," Emilie admitted. "And you will not either until you ask Balan. Just ask him."

Murie was silent for a moment, then stood with a small nod and moved to the door. "Aye, I shall ask him