Danger’s Promise

With her face averted, Clarise rolled her eyes. Nell’s imagination didn’t bode well for her own secrets. She sensed the culmination of her own deceit coming steadily closer. “I would like to take a bath alone,” she informed the maid. “You may come later when I’m done.”

“Aye, milady. May I wash yer hair?”

“I’ll take care of it.”

Nell left the room, reluctant to return to her less glamorous chore of laundering.

Many hours later, smelling of lavender and sleeping in her newly laundered chemise, Clarise’s eyes sprang open. A fleck of moonlight had fallen on her face, reminding her to waken. She sat up slowly. Simon was sleeping in his cradle for a change. He had yet to rouse for a midnight feeding. If he did, she would have nothing to feed him. The pail was empty as it usually was by this late hour.

She dragged herself from bed. The servants would have sought their pallets by now. It was time to make her move. Opening the chest, she retracted the empty pail. She wriggled her feet into her slippers and set out on another perilous quest for goat’s milk.

This is truly madness, she thought, not for the first time. Her stomach endured a familiar uneasiness as she slinked through the darkened castle and out the rear door. She edged cautiously around the kitchen and arrived at the animal pen. The ground seemed to glow under the incandescent moon. A fresh layer of straw crunched beneath her feet.

At least the goat was used to producing at this time, she comforted herself. The door to the pen gave an agonizing groan. She pinpointed the two nanny goats by the whites of their eyes. The one with the dark patch on its side was her favorite. As she stalked it, her foot came in contact with a bucket.

The full pail sloshed but didn’t tip. She bent down to examine it.

It was a full bucket of goat’s milk, fresh from the udder if its warmth was any indication. She dipped her finger and tasted it. Sour, just like Roger said.

Who would be so careless as to forget a pail of milk? She straightened and eyed the bucket thoughtfully. One of the milkmaids must have left it behind.

Why waste the time of milking a goat when she ran the risk that Simon would awaken? What if he were crying even now, drawing the unwanted concern of his father? Mere stone could not disguise the baby’s volume.

Making a quick decision, Clarise snatched up the bucket and hastened back into the castle. Remembering the fall of Troy from Homer’s famous volume, she hoped she wouldn’t regret this gift the way the Trojans regretted the gift horse and the enemies who lay concealed within it.

“Lady Clare!”

Clarise winced openly and ground to a halt. She’d been tiptoeing past the Slayer’s solar, hoping not to gain his notice. It was Friday afternoon, and the servants were scheduled to leave for Abbingdon at any time. This was her big chance to enlist the Abbot Revesby’s aid in getting word to Alec.

“My lord?” she inquired, stepping closer to the open doorway.

The warlord was seated at a writing table, quill in hand. Sunlight streamed through the window behind him, framing his torso in a haze of gold. He looked different, she noticed, and then she realized why. He wore a bleached undershirt and no tunic. She’d never seen him in white. He looked like the archangel Gabriel.

Until he looked up. The scar on his face betrayed an inner tension that was entirely at odds with an angel’s serenity. “Call me Christian,” he demanded, stabbing the inkwell with the tip of his quill. He paused to take in her appearance.

She wore a different gown today, a smock of forest green with a satin ribbon that laced up the front. His gaze fell to the sling she carried against her hip. “Where are you going?” he added sharply.

She rubbed her moist palms against her linen skirt. “I would like to go to Abbingdon to hear the Abbot of Revesby preach,” she replied, holding her breath.

“With my son in a sling?” His eyebrows predictably lowered.

“He will come to no harm,” she assured him. “I go in the company of many servants, even men-at-arms, to keep us safe.”

“My son does not pass outside these walls,” the Slayer quietly explained. His expression was stern enough to make her fidget.

“But I wish to confess,” she insisted, fighting to keep her tone mild. “Is there another here who may watch Simon in my stead?”

The warlord clenched his jaw. The scar on his cheek became more pronounced. “What if he hungers whilst you are gone?” he queried. “ ’Tis an hour’s walk in either direction, and I have no horses docile enough that you could ride with a babe.”

“Then I will take him with me and nurse him on the road.” A full bottle of milk was tucked inside the sling, thanks to the bucket she’d discovered last night.

The Slayer laid down the quill and scrutinized the scratches on the parchment. “Are you so devout, then?” he asked, frowning mightily.

She sensed the struggle within him. He was trying to be fair. “My lord, you have no priest here,” she pointed out.

He looked up at her then. “What sins have you committed that you must confess?”

“That is between me and God,” she retorted sharply. Frustration welled within her. He had no idea how important this mission was to her. The Abbot of Revesby was not due to visit again for another month. In the meantime, every day brought her mother and sisters closer to death. “Oh, just forbid me to go and have done with it then!” she snapped. She threw him a glare and was halfway down the gallery when he called her back.

“Lady Clare.”

She slowed to a halt but refused to turn around.

“Please stay,” she heard him beg.

His deep voice pitched on such a humble note was her undoing. Turning slowly, she stalked back to the door with her mouth compressed. “Why?” she demanded.

“I need your help.” He gestured to the vellum sitting on his desk. “ ’Tis a letter to Alec. Since I’m unable to speak to him in person, I will put my offer on parchment and see it delivered.”

A letter to Alec? Maybe she need not ask the Abbot of Revesby after all! Adjusting the sling on her hip, Clarise ventured into the Slayer’s solar.

The room was a very different place than the rest of the castle. Here, rich blue tapestries padded the walls. The rushes under her feet were woven into a thick mat. At one end of the room stood a massive bed, draped in blue velvet. At the other end was his writing table and a chest laden with manuscripts.

The sight of so many books distracted her. “Oh!” she exclaimed, stepping over to the chest to admire the jeweled covers. “Proverbs of Solomon,” she cooed, picking up a book and reading the titles of its lengthy poems. “History of the English,” she added, putting it down. “Where did you get these?” She hoped he wouldn’t say he’d acquired them in his sieges.

“They were a gift from the abbot you just mentioned. Ethelred illustrated them when he was master novice at Rievaulx.”

“Ethelred,” she echoed him. “You know him well enough to use his first name?”

“He wed me to Genrose,” said the warlord shortly.

With that simple admission, Clarise’s hope for help expired. Was there no way around her troublesome quandary? Perhaps this letter would finally put the matter to rest. “What did you need my help with?” she reminded him.

The Slayer glanced around. “Let me find you a stool.”

“Simon will wake if I sit,” she declined. It was true. The minute she held still, the baby rose from his slumbers. He seemed especially agitated today. She stood by the table, swaying softly to keep him lulled.

The warlord seemed distracted by her movements. He sat behind his desk and forced his gaze downward. “Let me read what I have already written. ‘Amiable and God-fearing knight, Greetings from your humble neighbor and friend, Christian de la Croix, and wishes for good health . . . ’ ” His eyebrows sank so low they formed an unbroken line over his eyes. Half a minute of silence ensued. Clarise gazed in consternation at the rigid warlord. “Is that how you address a man whose father you have murdered?” he finally asked, in a voice gritty with remorse.

Compassion flooded her. While sunlight sat brightly on his shoulders, shame also weighed them down. He looked forlorn, clutching the quill as though his words alone would redeem him. “Give me the words,” she heard him mutter.

She knew an insane urge to shelter the beast. “You must apologize,” she instructed him. The letter would have to be worded carefully. If Alec accepted the warlord’s offer, he would need a wife to help him rule Glenmyre. But was he strong enough to defend her? she wondered disloyally. “Confess your guilt,” she instructed, “and accept full blame for killing Monteign. He will respect your honesty.”

She noted, absently, that the Slayer’s lashes rimmed his eyes the way Simon’s did. He took up his quill and began to write.

His handwriting was forceful and sweeping. Black ink bled into the vellum as the Slayer worded his apology. His hand seemed to tremble slightly. She could not read what he wrote, as the script was upside down and some distance from herself. The words were for Alec—and perhaps even God, if he meant them true enough.

When he lifted his gaze to look at her, she was surprised by the honesty in his gray-green eyes. She was suddenly convinced that he hadn’t killed his wife. People simply delighted in keeping the rumor alive.

“Shall I mention you?” the Slayer asked.

Alec would need to know where to find her. “Please do,” she answered, wondering why she wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of Alec’s rescue. “Tell him Cousin Clare dwells safely at Helmesly, caring for your son in exchange for your protection.”

It would take Alec a moment to puzzle through that statement, but then he would arrive at the conclusion that Clarise had taken up residence at Helmesly, using an alias to hide her identity. Curiosity would then bring him to Helmesly to ask for her. The sooner he came the better, she thought, chewing on her bottom lip.

The quill scratched away at the parchment. It stopped just as suddenly, and the Slayer looked up at her. “I take it he knows what his father did to you,” he guessed, the lines of his face hardening with disapproval.

Guilt rose up in her like bile. How she hated to be reminded of her deceit, especially when the warlord seemed so genuinely concerned. “Of course,” she said tightly. “We went to Rievaulx together.” The moment the words were out, she regretted them. With his letter the Slayer was unburdening his soul. Why not confess her own sins now and tell him who she really was? Her pulse accelerated at the thought. Could she afford to pass up such an opportunity, with the Slayer in such an amenable mood?

“Forgive me,” he said, stabbing at the inkhorn, unknowing of her thoughts. “It must be a painful matter to discuss. My own mother was raped, you know, by my father.”

She didn’t know. But his admission stirred her curiosity.

“She was a nun at the time, a novice gathering herbs outside the convent walls,” he added, gazing down at his work. “A lone rider surprised her and took her by force. He boasted that he’d defiled a child of the Christian God, and he told her his name—Dirk of Wendesby.” He made another stab at the inkwell.

Clarise remembered clearly the tales her father had told of that heathen warlord. How horrible for an innocent novice to be debauched by a man who held no law to be higher than his own.

“My mother endured the shame of bearing a child when she was supposed to be chaste,” he continued, his mouth twisting with bitterness. “Fortunately, her superiors were compassionate and refrained from casting her from their order. She gave birth to me within the convent walls, and I remained there, to the age of twelve.”

Amazement and understanding came to Clarise in the same instant. No wonder Sir Roger had called his lord devout. The man had grown up in a convent, of all places!

“When I was twelve,” he continued, his voice flattening with tension, “my mother fostered me to a nearby family. I wasn’t told that the lord of the house was my father.” He broke off, waiting to see her comprehension. “ ’Twas an act of forgiveness, she told me later.” Though his face was now a mask of ruthlessness, she saw the pinch of pain overtake him briefly.

Horror followed in the wake of amazement. Why would the nun want such a man to raise her child? And yet this tale explained why the Slayer was a man of contradictions, a fascinating blend of good and evil. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Why give you up to him?”

His jaw muscles bulged. “She thought he would change for the better once he knew me.” A frosty look entered his eyes, and she knew he was reliving painful memories.

It took little insight to realize the Wolf had mistreated his son. Clarise felt for the boy he was then. Every child deserved a father like her own, a man who had doted on his daughters and adored his wife. “I’m so sorry for you,” she told him, feeling the sting of tears in her eyes. She blinked them back, surprised by the depth of her empathy.

The Slayer gave her a searching look. “You need not pity me,” he said, straightening his spine. “I had the benefit of a good education, and my father, despite his failings, made me strong. Without his training I would not have become a master-at-arms here.” He gave her a grimace that was meant to pass as a smile, then he applied himself to finishing his letter.

With her heart pounding, Clarise realized the time had come to tell the truth. Surely this man was capable of mercy, for that was a virtue his mother would have taught him. She would begin by telling him how her own father had been slain, and then he would know that she had no allegiance to Ferguson. Other than her lies, she had nothing to be ashamed of. She’d refused to poison the Slayer, and she had brought Simon from the brink of starvation. The Slayer’s punishment, if any, was bound to be light, she reasoned.

The warrior’s tongue appeared at the edge of his lip. Seeing it, Clarise’s stomach performed a cartwheel. She remembered the banked desire smoldering in his eyes. What would it be like to be kissed by him? she wondered, distracted from her resolution.

He glanced up in time to catch her considering look. It was too late to disguise the direction of her gaze. A smile kicked up the edges of his mouth. “Did I swear you would be safe with me?” he inquired, his eyes sparkling.

Her voice deserted her, and she gave a jerky nod.

“Pity.” He looked down again, melting wax to form a seal.

The lightness of his tone was unexpected. Clarise gave a laugh that was half relief, half amusement. Suddenly she was not afraid to tell him anything—even that she’d substituted goat’s milk for the precious breast milk she was unable to give.

With a shy smile he looked up at her. “I like you, lady,” he admitted, astonishing her with his honesty.

Flustered and beset with guilt, she could say nothing by way of reply. She realized, suddenly, that Simon was stirring. From the bundle at her hip rose a garbled cry. It wasn’t like any other cry she’d heard from him before. Clarise plucked the blanket off the baby, giving him air.

Simon did not look happy. With concern knifing through her, she touched her fingers to his cheek.

“What is it?” the Slayer demanded, noting her expression. He rose to his feet and peered down into the sling at his son.

It was worse than she feared. Simon’s skin was burning to the touch, his face beet-red with fever. “God’s mercy,” she whispered. “He has taken ill!”

She looked up in time to see the warlord’s Adam’s apple rise and fall. He put his hands out. “Let me have him,” he demanded.

Keeping the full nursing bladder out of sight, she wedged her hands beneath the baby and passed him carefully to his father. Simon’s eyes were opened but glazed. Again, he issued a cry that sent anxiety twisting through Clarise’s heart. “What can we do?” she begged, raising an uneasy gaze to the Slayer’s face.

Only once before had she seen such a stricken look on a man. Her father had worn that look the moment he realized he’d been poisoned.

“From the cold,” the Slayer rasped, staring down at his son. “The other night, when I found him naked . . . he was so cold.”

“Yet he has thrived since then,” she pointed out, touching Simon’s burning cheek.

“Someone in this castle is responsible,” the warlord growled. He sounded capable of killing with his bare hands. He glanced up at her then, his eyes now an icy gray. “You have reason to avenge me,” he accused.

She threw her arms around her body, feeling suddenly defenseless. How could he think she would harm Simon—or any baby? My God, she had just been on the verge of telling him who she was! If he reacted so rashly to Simon’s illness, what would he have done had she confessed her true identity?

“I did not do this,” she said succinctly. She looked the Slayer squarely in the eyes. “Now, what can we do for him? Can we send for a physic?”

He dismissed her suggestion with a shake of his head. “I trust no one in these parts,” he said shortly.

“Not even a wise woman from the village? A midwife mayhap?”

At the mention of the midwife, his eyes flared with outrage. “The midwife gets her herbs from the abbey. The scourge may spread from there to here. Nay!” he thundered. “I will care for him here. I will bring his cradle to my room and watch over him. You will stay with me until he is well again.”

The underlying threat was plain. Until the baby recovered, she would remain suspect in the Slayer’s eyes. Inwardly she cringed. This was the side of him that terrified his servants and made him a lonely man.

“Of course I will,” she retorted, defying his temper as her own anger flared. “But we must have medicine to save him. The illness has to be purged from his body. We cannot save him alone.”

“What do you suggest we do?” he snarled.

Beneath the blustering tone, she heard a thread of desperation and she answered more reasonably. “I will ask Nell or Sarah what they know of healing. Those two are loyal to Simon; I know it.”

“Go fetch them, then.” He skewered her with a warning look. “But you’d best come back,” he threatened.

She whirled on him, her entire body trembling with distress. “I happen to love your son,” she countered, her voice breaking on the final word. With that, she raced through the door to find help. For love alone she would do all that she could to ensure that the baby lived. Only then might she herself be saved.

Christian was used to sleepless nights. More times than he could count, he’d stood watch beneath the heavens and not succumbed to drowsiness. The Wolf had molded him into a disciplined soldier. Like a smithy, he had hammered his son into an instrument that felt neither pain nor deprivation. The Wolf had taught him that mercy to the enemy could be fatal, that might prevailed, and morality was the great tormenter of souls.

In one hideous night’s work Christian had implemented every tool of war that the Wolf had taught him. He had killed his father in his very own bedchamber. He had slaughtered the Wolf’s men who came after him. He had set fire to Wendesby, and the smoke had killed both women and children. At the time he’d felt no remorse, only blinding fury. That was the night he had learned the Wolf was his father—a vicious, war-loving Dane.

Remorse had found him before the dawn. Fury faded in a matter of hours. Now the screams of innocents haunted him nightly. His soul bled with remorse for the slaughter committed by his hand. And sleep was no longer a refuge for him, but a place of anguish.

His envious gaze fell to the sleeping nurse. Lady Clare suffered no affliction like his. After hours of silent vigil, she had wilted onto the floor beside the baby’s box, her head resting on an out-flung arm. Her body was curved around Simon’s cradle as though protecting him, even in her sleep.

Christian gazed at her in the light of the sputtering tallow lamps, and his bitterness softened at the miracle of what he saw. This woman was no enemy. She could not have been the one to steal the covers off his son. In the past twelve hours she, Nell, and Sarah had devoted themselves to Simon’s welfare. Fear was not their motivation, but rather love.

Clare had spoken the truth when she said she loved his son. Her appearance at Helmesly had saved Simon from starvation. And after tonight he could only believe that fate had delivered her to his stronghold for a purpose. Could she possibly bring herself to love the Slayer, too?

One of the lamps dimmed, telling him the wick was drowning. It was well past midnight. He rose from his desk and crossed to the open window. A brief spell of rain had passed, leaving thick patches of mist floating above the land. It looked like fleecy sheep were dotting the meadow. He closed the shutters and moved to the baby’s cradle.

Simon had suffered pains that could only be communicated through his cries. Nell could not supply fresh cloths at the same rate that Simon soiled them. Together, he and Clare had forced the infusion blended by the servants down the baby’s throat. They’d dispelled the evil humors, causing Simon to purge whatever ailed him.

The baby’s suffering had left Christian pale with helplessness. He relived the fear that Simon would be snatched away, that his strange and lonely marriage had been for naught.

Clare, with her tender and efficient touch, had brought the baby through the worst of it. Her voice, her consolation, had done as much to comfort Christian as it had his baby. Gratitude swelled in Christian’s heart.

Kneeling by the cradle, he turned his attention to his son. Simon’s skin was waxen, his eyelids sunken and bruised. Bending his head, Christian found a prayer on his lips.

He had not prayed for more than thirteen years—not since the Wolf discovered the altar he had built in a corner of the stable. Christian had been mocked for his piety and flogged for seeking help from anyone, even God.

Helpless men pray, Dirk of Wendesby had scoffed.

I am helpless. There was nothing within the range of Christian’s powers that would save his infant’s life. The choice was entirely up to providence.

Hot tears pooled in his eyes as he begged the Almighty to spare Simon. A part of him still felt that he was wasting his time. He didn’t deserve a son.

Clarise found the floor unbearably hard. With her shoulder paining her and her arm growing numb, she stirred from slumber. The sound of fervent whispers brought her fully awake. She shifted slightly and cracked an eye. Lord Christian was kneeling over the cradle. In the faint bluish light she saw that his head was bent. His hands gripped the wooden box.

He is praying, she realized with amazement. And his Latin was perfect.

A rush of empathy brought a lump to her throat. She gazed at him for what seemed an eternity. He was an enigma to her! One moment he struck her as merciless and fear-inspiring. The next he demonstrated a deep streak of honor and generosity. He was well read, with nearly as many books in his solar as her father had owned.

Ignoring her discomfort, she decided not to disturb him. He needed peace in his heart more than anyone she’d ever met. Besides, it pleased her to watch him, to know that he was just as human as she was. At last her eyelids grew weighted and drifted shut.

Moments later she felt herself being lifted. The unyielding floor dropped away, and she sank into a feather mattress. It was the Slayer’s bed, she realized in her semiconscious state. Yet she felt no fear of ravishment. I like you, he had said to her today. The simple proclamation offered reassurance in spite of how quickly he’d accused her of making Simon ill.

Christian gazed at the graceful figure in his bed. Her scent clung to him from the brief moment he’d held her in his arms. She smelled of lavender and woman. Her scent was comforting in the same way that his mother’s sweet smell had been when he was small.

She murmured in approval of her newfound comfort and snuggled into the coverlet. Her bosom rose and fell with a sigh. He remembered the lush perfection of her breasts. Poor woman, she had been misused by a man, just as his mother had. He had no right to entertain the thoughts that sizzled through his mind each time he looked at her.

With a self-directed sneer he turned away. All he could think of lately was possessing the woman for himself. That made him no better than Monteign, no nobler than his father.

Making his way to the tallow lamp, he snuffed the flame. Then he moved toward the far side of the bed, where he hoped he wouldn’t reach for Lady Clare in his sleep. Something unseen lay in his path. He tripped over the cloth object, then bent down to retrieve it.

In the sooty darkness he identified the sling that Clare had carried Simon in. Something soft and heavy was caught in the material’s folds. His hands closed over a pouch of some kind. The slosh of liquid helped him realize what it was.

It was the same nursing skin Sarah had used without success before Clare’s intervention. As he clutched the smooth vessel, his mind began to churn. What would a nurse need with such a tool? Had she given Simon milk that was not her own?

The question unearthed new doubts. Had the milk been rancid? Had it been tampered with somehow? The doubts, like maggots, began to gnaw at his newfound faith.

Could his son have been poisoned?

Nay, he could not believe it! The woman had just demonstrated the depths of her devotion. She would never have poisoned his son.

Resolve hardened the warlord’s jaw. Because of her devotion to Simon today, he would let her sleep. But she would have to account for the nursing skin the moment she awakened on the morrow.

Chapter Nine

Soft yellow light penetrated Clarise’s eyelids. The gentle cooing of a pigeon came from somewhere close by. In the courtyard a supply wagon rumbled over the cobbles. Reluctantly she opened her eyes. She could not remember for a moment where she was. Then she recognized the Slayer’s solar. She was lying in his bed.

Her gaze jumped to the warlord, who was sleeping silently beside her. His jaw was dark with unshaved bristles. A streak of hair had fallen over his forehead, softening the severity of his brow. The scarred half of his face was buried in the pillow. She was struck by how handsome he looked without the flaw, how young.

Her gaze wandered from the powerful curve of his cheekbone to his stubbornly square chin. His mouth fascinated her. She wondered again what it would be like to kiss him.

And then she remembered Simon.

Holding her breath, she turned over and dropped her feet to the floor. She peered wide-eyed into the cradle, terrified that she would find the baby dead.

He looked utterly at peace. At the telltale rise and fall of his chest, the breath rushed out of her lungs. She touched a finger to Simon’s cheek. His skin was cool. The fever was gone.

With a cry of joy Clarise spun around on the bed, jarring the warlord into wakefulness. He sprang up, gripped her by the shoulders, and slammed her to the mattress before she uttered a word.

She found herself pinned beneath his rock-hard body, the breath pushed from her lungs. As she struggled to inhale, the scent of juniper and manliness washed over her. The heat of his body seeped through her clothing and warmed her skin. Christian looked just as astonished as she was to find that they were pressed together, chest to thigh.

Putting his hands to the bed, he lifted some of his weight, but not all of it. His alert gaze centered on her lips. “My apologies,” he said, not sounding at all contrite. And then he rolled away.

Clarise felt robbed of something. It took her a second to remember the reason for her joy. She sat up and seized the Slayer’s white shirt, noting how soft it felt against his muscled arm. “Simon’s fever is gone!” she cried. She bounced to her knees and gestured at the cradle. “Look! He sleeps peacefully.”

Hope kindled in the warlord’s eyes. He scooted across the bed and leaned over the cradle to study his son. She remembered his fervent prayers of last night, and she was certain they’d been answered. Tears of gratitude sprang to her eyes.

“Praise God,” said the Slayer hoarsely. He glanced at her then, catching sight of her damp gaze. A long-fingered hand came up and wiped away the tear that had seeped over her lashes. “Is this happiness?” he asked.

His thumb was warm and callused. As it stroked her cheek, she experienced a melting sensation and leaned unconsciously toward his palm. “I am grateful Simon is restored to good health. I so was afraid,” she pushed the confession through her throat, “that you would blame me if . . .” She couldn’t finish the thought.

He nodded as if understanding, but he looked away, his eyes narrowing. “You have practiced some deceit,” he accused quietly.

The blood slipped from her face in an instant. What had he discovered? “Deceit?” she repeated. “What do you mean?” She was amazed that her voice remained so steady.

He flung himself off the bed and bent to collect the cloth sling from the floor. “I found this,” he said, holding up the nursing skin.

The breath in Clarise’s lungs evaporated, but her mind produced another lie quickly. “You will note that it’s full,” she said. “I carried it thinking Simon might cry on the way to Abbingdon and I could assuage him without . . . without stopping.”

“Did he drink any of it?” he demanded harshly.

She found she couldn’t deny it. “He had a little. Apparently it didn’t agree with him,” she added faintly.

The Slayer dropped the bottle as if it were a venomous serpent. He stalked to a basin and splashed water on his face.

Clarise felt like a piece of fraying rope. A moment ago she’d thought that the root of her deceit had been detected, but it had only been a small part of her complex lie. And the Slayer was furious with her for just that small transgression. How would he react to learn that goat’s milk was all the baby ever got?

He turned around, then, dragging a towel over his face. His expression was irritated but not murderous. “From now on, Simon will only take nourishment at your breast,” he warned. “He is the next Baron of Helmesly, by God. He will not take milk from a goat that eats anything to cross its path!” His volume rose so that by the end of the sentence he was practically yelling.

Clarise lowered her gaze to the baby. She felt she deserved his chastisement. “I am sorry, my lord,” she choked out. Guilt cut deeply into her heart as she realized the milk had very likely been the reason for Simon’s affliction. Had it just been rancid? Or had someone possibly poisoned it?

Her pallor must have convinced the Slayer of her contrition. He tossed aside the cloth and strode toward the bed to sit beside her.

She glanced at him warily.

“I don’t mean to be harsh,” he said, propping his elbows on his knees. He frowned down at his feet, his scar distinctly pale upon his cheek.

With surprise, she realized he felt sorry for having just raised his voice at her. She rushed to reassure him. “Nay, you were right to be angry. ’Twas my fault. I must guard him more closely.”

He turned his head then, his gaze probing. “Why do you love him?” he inquired with genuine puzzlement.

She pulled back and frowned at him. “Why?” She glanced at the baby. “How could I not? He is innocent, he is beautiful. Look at him!” She gestured to Simon.

The warlord glanced at his son, then back at her. “You are beautiful,” he corrected her roughly. His eyes warmed to a clear, bottomless green. “And I thank you for loving him.” He leaned toward her unexpectedly and pressed his mouth to hers. Clarise gave a start of surprise, her eyes flying wide.

His lips felt just as she’d imagined, warm and firm. He put brief and gentle pressure on her mouth and then withdrew, taking away the promise of more.

She felt as though she’d been doused in a warm, fragrant rain that abruptly stopped. The Slayer had just kissed her! She could only stare at him, amazed that she wanted to be kissed again.

“A kiss of thanks,” he explained, waiting.

She needed to be kissed again.

Without thinking of the consequences, she slipped her hands into the long strands of his hair and pulled him back for more. She had kissed Alec to convey the depths of her love and willingness to wed him. In this instance, she had nothing in mind but to feel the Slayer’s mouth on hers and the thrill of courting danger.

He held perfectly still, his breath quick and shallow, while she placed feathery kisses upon his mouth, along his bottom lip, and at the corners. Flushed and confused that he was not responding, she pulled back, chagrined by her boldness.

He slowly raised a hand and captured her jaw, keeping her motionless. His eyes flashed a warning, and then he lowered his head and the assault became his.

His kiss was surprisingly gentle, given the steely strength of his fingers on her face. He fused his lips softly to hers. The contradiction of gentleness and strength brought heat coursing through her veins. With focused intent he added pressure to his fingers, causing her jaw to fall open. With great tenderness the Slayer slipped his tongue between her parted lips and slowly, thoroughly explored her mouth.

Caught up in a whirlpool of dizzy delight, Clarise gripped his shoulders. Never had she known a kiss could be so sweet, so intoxicating. When the Slayer lifted his head, she made a sound of protest.

With a look of bemusement he studied her flushed face and bright eyes. His fingers moved from her jaw to slide across her slightly parted lips, and his own face darkened with desire. He lowered his head again and kissed her with sudden, unrestrained force.

Shocked by his sudden savagery, Clarise clung to him, her heart pounding with expectation. His erotic plunge and retreat was nearly more than she could stand. It left her breathless and squirming and desperate for some unknown relief.

He pressed her smoothly back against the pillows, and she sank into the softness, disoriented. The room seemed to wheel behind her eyelids as their mouths merged again. She was vaguely gratified to feel the hard length of him against her. She strained upward, needing to feel more, her breasts aching with some vague hunger.

His hand molded her hip and slid along the indentation of her waist. His touch inflamed the strange, new restlessness that was building in her. His hand closed suddenly over the swell of her breast, and she gasped in surprise and pleasure. The memory of his tongue gliding over her nipple caused it to rise toward his palm as though beckoned. With a groan, the warrior squeezed her tenderly. Then he tore his lips from hers and nipped her shoulder through the material of her gown.

The light sting intensified her sensitivity. His mouth moved lower. Suddenly he was grazing her erect nipple with his teeth. She moaned aloud at the stabbing pleasure. Then he closed his mouth over the linen bodice and sucked, straight through the moistened fabric, his mouth hot and insistent.

Clarise cried out in mixed astonishment and delight. She sank her fingers into his hair, confused by the mixed urge to push him away and pull him closer. “My lord, you must stop,” she begged in a voice without substance. She realized now this was moving too far, too fast.

His mouth moved stealthily upward and kissed her into acquiescence. She briefly forgot her concerns; after all, kissing could cause no harm. But then he pressed his hips against her, and the enormous proof of his arousal brought her quickly to her senses.

With sudden alarm she began to struggle. “Let me go,” she begged, between his kisses. In retrospect she realized she should never have encouraged his attentions. She should never have fallen asleep in his chamber, should never have let him put her in his bed. “Please, release me at once!”

The Slayer lifted his head. He stared at her stricken face and frowned. And then he thrust himself away. Whatever he might have said, whether in apology or in anger, was forestalled by a pounding at the door. He leaped from the bed and went to answer it.

At least he had the presence of mind to shield her from the caller’s view. She could only imagine what she looked like with her hair in disarray and her clothes disheveled!

“My lord,” Sir Roger rapped out. “Our spies say Ferguson will strike Glenmyre at dawn tomorrow.”

The warlord seemed to grow in size as he gripped the door latch. “Tell Justin to ready my horse. I will speak with you anon. Let me dress.”

He shut the portal quietly. Clarise slipped to the edge of the bed and wrapped her arms over her torso to keep herself from trembling. Without looking at her, the warlord moved toward his boots. He stamped his feet inside them and laced them up without a word. Silence grew to unbearable proportions. When he straightened again, he seemed to have made a decision.

“Watch over Simon carefully,” he instructed, scowling so fiercely she was tempted to flinch. “No one may tend him but you,” he added.

“How long will you be gone?” The knowledge that he was off to fight Ferguson filled her with excitement and trepidation. Maybe he would kill the Scot without her asking him to do so.

The muscles in his jaw clenched rhythmically. “I know not.” He studied her defensive posture, then he sighed almost despairingly. “Will you kiss me when I return?” he asked.

The request was almost boyish in its uncertainty. She was tempted to say yes, if only to reassure him. Part of her longed to resume their passionate kisses! She had never tasted anything like them. But she had no intention of offering her favors in exchange for his sword arm. She was the daughter of a nobleman, not the leman she professed to be.

She looked away, wishing she could blurt the truth. ’Twas safest to say nothing at all, she decided.

“I see,” he said, reaching for his belt. In a furious gesture he slung the strip of leather against the bedpost. The resulting crack made her leap with alarm. The baby came awake with a gasp. The warlord snatched up a charcoal-colored tunic and strode to the door.

Simon began to cry. “Lord Christian,” Clarise called out as she reached for the baby.

When he looked at her, his anger was subdued. “Aye, what?” he asked, taking in the two of them.

“Be careful. Ferguson uses alchemy as a weapon. But I suppose you know that already.”

His gaze narrowed with interest. “What do you know of it?” he demanded.

The truth quivered on her tongue, but his volatile temper made her loath to confess it now. “I told you, Monteign feared Ferguson and his trickery. Beware the powders that he uses to spread fire. Beware any ruse for peace, for he will use deceit to gain advantage.”

He pondered her words in silence, seeming to take them to heart. Then, with a brusque nod, he left the room.

Her thoughts ran after him. She found herself wishing him the best possible outcome, fearing for his life. If only he could kill Ferguson in the conflict to come! Then her family would be free, and then she would dare to tell him who she was, knowing Ferguson could not learn of her betrayal.

Suddenly she realized she should have told him the truth after all. Wasn’t the Slayer going to Glenmyre? The people of Glenmyre would unknowingly expose her, for there had never been a Clare de Bouvais in their midst, only an Isabeux by that name.

She looked at Simon with consternation. Aye, she should have told him who she was. Instead, she’d lied and lied again, simply to avoid the Slayer’s wrath. With those lies she’d sealed her own uncertain fate, whatever it might be.

Several mornings later Clarise parted the cupboards of the lord’s conservatory and eyed the stale bread with lukewarm enthusiasm. This was what she got for sleeping so late and missing the morning meal. Her late-night exploits to the goat pen had left her exhausted.

On three more instances she had found the same offering of milk awaiting her. With every discovery her skin tightened and a chill washed over her. She was certain someone knew of her masquerade. But who? And how could they know when Nell was the only one to enter her chamber?

Since Simon had fallen ill, Clarise knew better than to use the milk. She’d dumped the bucket in the corner of the shed and milked the nanny goat herself. She wouldn’t take the risk that the offering was poisonous. If a plot was afoot to see Simon murdered, she refused to be party to it.

It was not entirely the baby’s fault that she was tired. After stumbling into bed again, she would lie awake, thinking of her family and wondering how they fared in her absence. Often her interference was the only thing that kept Ferguson from cuffing her mother in plain sight of his men. Her vigilance kept Merry from being fondled by the Scottish men-at-arms. The only time that Kyndra bathed was when Clarise toted her, kicking and screaming, to the bathhouse.

She was also preoccupied by thoughts of the Slayer. Word had come from Glenmyre that Ferguson had not attacked on the first day. The warlord remained at Alec’s stronghold, ready to defend it if the need arose, free to make inquiries into her background.

The knot in her stomach would not allow for a big breakfast. Clarise poured herself a mug of watered ale and cut a wedge of cheese from a wheel. Carrying her food to the only trestle that hadn’t been put away, she adjusted the sling in which she carried Simon and sat down.

The food was tasteless. The reason for her anxiety, she acknowledged, was not whether the Slayer could repel Ferguson’s attack. She had confidence in his abilities. It was his reaction to the truth she feared. She ought to have told the warlord who she was before he came to his own conclusions.

Glumly she nibbled on her cheese. A few well-placed questions would expose her. When the peasants were asked if they’d ever heard of a Lady Clare, they would inquire if he didn’t mean Clarise, for the names were all too similar. And then they would describe the elaborate betrothal that had taken place there just a month before the Slayer seized Glenmyre.

She’d had ample opportunity to tell Lord Christian the truth. Because of her reticence, he would likely assume the worst.

What could she do to soften the blow? How could she appease the warlord when he came storming back to Helmesly?

“Oh, oh, oh!”

This cry of lamentation wrenched her gaze to the far end of the hall. Clarise spied Harold pacing before the fire pit, wringing his hands and muttering in distress. She looked around for the source of his worry. Other than the two of them, the hall was deserted. Harold gave another cry of despair, and she abandoned her breakfast to hurry over to him.

“Why, Harold, whatever is the matter?” She put a hand on his shoulder to gain his attention.

The steward looked amazed to see her there. “Oh!” he cried again, halting his frantic pacing. “Lady Clare,” he said, staring at her blankly.

“What is it, Harold?” she asked again. “Tell me what is troubling you?” Her first guess was that his overbearing wife had caught him filching pastries from the kitchen, as it was a common occurrence.

“ ’Tis Doris,” he blurted, his color high, his white hair waving as he rocked himself. “She’s going to have a baby, a baby.”

“Who is Doris?” Clarise asked in bewilderment.

“The cook!” Harold seemed to force the words out.

Immediately Clarise envisioned the heavyset woman who prepared all the meals at Helmesly. Surely she was well beyond her childbearing years. “Are you sure?” she asked.

“The midwife has come. Oh!” he groaned. “She is going to die. Doris is going to die, oh!”

“Calm yourself.” She tried to reassure the rattled steward. She brought him a flagon of ale and made him drink it, but still she could make no sense of his prattle. She decided to look into the matter right away. With Simon sleeping in the sling, this was the best time.

Clarise headed straight for the servants’ quarters in the castle’s southern wing. A handful of women had gathered outside one of the many tiny chambers. Among their number was Sarah, a brunette version of Nell, looking drawn and pale. “How does she?” Clarise inquired.

Sarah merely shook her head, reluctant to spread poor news. “Dame Maeve haffe summoned the midwife. She be with Doris now,” was all she said.

Clarise peeked through the curtain that separated the room from the hall. The sight that greeted her filled her with dismay. Doris lay like a great mountain on her pallet of straw. Her body was covered in sweat, due to the blazing brazier. It was common practice for midwives to heat the chamber to unbearable temperatures. There was no window to open in order to relieve the occupants.

Clarise did not believe that heat encouraged the body to expel a baby any faster. All it caused was premature exhaustion. She stepped into the cell with the intention of extinguishing the brazier’s flames. The sight of blood between Doris’s legs drew her up short. Her gaze flew with alarm to the midwife’s stoic expression.

“Push with the next pain,” said the shriveled woman. She had yet to notice Clarise, for her shoulder was positioned toward the door. More than that, a blinding film clouded the woman’s right eye.

Doris gave a tortured gasp. The cook’s big body tensed with pain. The midwife leaned forward, lifting the blanket. “ ’Twill soon be over,” she predicted, scooting to the edge of her stool.

Clarise could not have moved if the castle fell into ruins around her. The stain on the pallet spread, until it went clear to Doris’s ankles. The sight was ghastly, yet the midwife’s grip remained steady as she held up the blanket.

Again, Doris was racked with pain.

“Push,” urged the midwife. “Push!”

A baby eased out of the passage in a breech position. It had obviously come before its time. Scrawny in size and coated in a cheesy substance, it lay still and silent on the soiled pallet. There was not a sound in the room, other than that of Doris’s heavy breathing.

Then the midwife bent low and dragged a metal object from the beaten bowl at her ankles. It was an iron cross.

Clarise took a look at the lifeless baby and the dull cross and fled the room. She succumbed to her sudden need to pull Simon from his sling and hold him close.

An hour later she summoned the courage to visit Doris again. The servants had moved into her cramped chamber, telling Clarise that the cook could stand to have at least one more visitor. The women shuffled aside as she entered, giving her room to kneel at Doris’s side. “We suffer with you, Doris,” she said, not knowing what else she could possibly say to ease the woman’s pain.

Doris closed her eyes. Her doughty face was ashen from the loss of so much blood. “ ’Tis God’s will, my lady,” she said bitterly.

Clarise floundered in her helplessness. “What can I do for you?” she dared to ask. She was not the mistress of these people, and yet she felt protective toward them. They had no one to lend an ear to their complaints. No one but the stern Dame Maeve.

A fat tear squeezed between Doris’s stubby lashes. Behind Clarise, the servants scuffled near the box that held the dead infant. “Looks just like ’im,” someone whispered.

Like who? wondered Clarise. Did they know who the father was?

“If I could have a mass for my babe,” the cook finally murmured. “If I could have him buried close, in the castle graveyard, where my mother and brothers lie, ’twould ease my spirit.”

It took Clarise a second to understand the significance of Doris’s request. Priests would not venture near to Helmesly with the interdict in place. Who would perform the burial?

Her spine stiffened with resolve. The chapel must be restored to use. The servants hungered for Godliness. They seemed to blame their seneschal for their inability to worship. It would be a favor to Lord Christian to open his chapel doors. Finding a priest, however, lay beyond her powers. Perhaps she could convince the Abbot of Revesby to ignore the interdict and perform the necessary sacrament.

“I will do what I can,” she heard herself say. And in the same instant, she thought of several improvements she might make at Helmesly before the seneschal returned. Would it help her cause at all to make his castle more welcoming? It might dissuade him from violence, she reasoned, to find his home transformed when he did come back.

She could place a tapestry or two upon the walls, make torches to brighten the great hall, gather flowers to add color. At this juncture she would try anything within her powers to earn his good will.

She felt precisely like a straw dummy hanging in the wind, awaiting the thrust of a lance.

Chapter Ten

With Simon ever present in the sling tied across her shoulders, Clarise carried luncheon for two to the outer ward. The day was growing hotter, much like the situation in which she found herself. She hoped today to make an ally of Sir Roger. If anyone could aid her with her cause, it was he.

She found the knight in the training arena, tightening bowstrings on the arsenal of bows. With no men-at-arms to train, he focused his energies on keeping Helmesly in constant readiness for war. All the fighting men were off with the Slayer at Glenmyre.

Clarise hailed him from a distance and showed him her basket. They found a shady area in the orchard, where Sir Roger spread the blanket under a pear tree. She didn’t miss his quizzical look. If his watchfulness were any indication, he knew that she was up to something.

“Have you any news?” she asked to distract him. She pulled Simon from the sling and laid him on his stomach in the center of the blanket.

The knight eased himself down beside her, his joints protesting loudly. “Nay, nothing more than to say that Ferguson has yet to strike. Perhaps he has changed his mind with my lord on site defending Glenmyre.” He began to unpack the basket. He lifted out a bit of dry meat and grimaced. “How does the babe today?” he asked.

“Fully recovered,” Clarise assured him. She patted Simon on the back. The future baron grunted in an effort to lift his head. There was much to catch the eye. A butterfly settled at the edge of the blanket and fanned its black and yellow wings at him.

Clarise glanced sidelong at the knight to gauge his mood. He appeared more somber than usual. She guessed it must chafe him to linger at Helmesly awaiting summons, but such was his duty as second-in-command.

She began by informing him of Doris’s miscarriage. He listened intently, clucking with compassion to hear that the baby was stillborn. Clarise did not miss the pitying glance he sent her way. No doubt he was thinking that she had suffered a similar loss. For the hundredth time she lamented the necessity of that particular lie. “I wonder who the father was,” she said out loud. “The servants must know, for one of them whispered that the babe looked just like his father.”

“Did you see the babe?”

“Nay,” she admitted. She had scarcely been able to glance at the lifeless infant.

“Hmmm,” said the knight. “Doris is a spinster.”

Which meant that she could be with whomever she pleased, provided she was discreet. “As you can tell, the event will have an impact on the food we eat,” she remarked, indicating the meat at which he had already pulled a face. “Doris was the best cook in the castle.”

They settled on splitting a capon wing and sharing the wine. “ ’Twill take her a week or so to recover,” she said, accepting the wineskin he handed her. “I could speak to the others about the quality of the fare.”

“You had best leave that to Dame Maeve,” he warned. “She is jealous of her duties, that one.”

Clarise agreed with him and steered the conversation back to the day’s events. “Is there only one midwife in these parts?” she asked.

“Aye,” he said. “Why?”

“Then the woman I saw this morning must have been the one who oversaw Simon’s birth?” She knew she was prying, but she could not imagine the Slayer putting up with the shriveled woman’s malpractice.

Saintonge cast her a glowering, sidelong look. “Aye, she was the same,” he answered bitterly. “Lady Genrose was fine until that shrew took over,” he added.

Clarise took note of his disapproval. “I do not agree with her methods,” she felt safe in adding. “Heating the chamber is a heathenish practice. She was insensitive to Doris’s pain and seemed not at all dismayed to deliver a stillborn.”

“As I said, there are no other midwives.” Taking a bite of the bread, he added that the men would grow discontent if they were made to eat such fare.

The time had come to lay her proposition before him. Clarise reached into the basket. “Would you like a sugared almond?” she offered. “ ’Tis the last one in the kitchens.” She held out the confection she had squirreled away for bribery.

His gray eyes narrowed, and his familiar smile took hold of one edge of his mouth. “What do you want?” he asked. “I know you ventured into this heat for something. Out with it.”

“ ’Tis a simple request, really,” she assured him.

“Speak it then,” he said kindly.

She experienced an inward twinge. Would the knight be so congenial when he learned how very much she had kept from him? “First I need the key to the chapel.”

“What!”

“Doris asked that her babe be given a mass,” she quickly explained. “She wants him buried in the castle graveyard with the rest of her family. The servants hunger for a spiritual life, Sir Roger. I know that the interdict prohibits services of any kind,” she added, cutting off the protest that was certain to come, “but they will be happier with a chapel where they may venture in and pray.”

Sir Roger itched a spot inside his collar.

Clarise saw that Simon’s eyes had begun to cross as he examined the pattern on the blanket. She put him in a new location.

“Who would bury the babe and say the proper words over his grave?” Saintonge finally asked. His question betrayed at least some consideration.

“Perhaps the Abbot of Revesby would come? The servants think highly of him.” She also had personal reasons for wanting to meet the good abbot. If she didn’t soon get a hold of Alec, she was doomed to confessing her guilt to Lord Christian.

The knight shook his head. “I doubt he will defy his colleague again.”

“Defy? What do you mean?”

He looked displeased with himself for having said so much, then grimaced with resolve to share what he knew. “It was Ethelred who wed Lord Christian and his lady in the very chapel you speak of,” he grimly explained. “The Abbot of Rievaulx had refused to marry them, offering no other reason than his differences with the baron. Ethelred petitioned the archbishop and received permission to perform the sacrament in Gilbert’s stead.”

“Gilbert is the Abbot of Rievaulx?” she asked.

“Aye.” He gave her an odd look. “You must not have lingered long at the abbey to have escaped that knowledge.”

“I was housed separately from the men,” she answered, wincing. Coward! You should have seized the opportunity to confess to him.

“Ah. Well, on the day of the wedding, Gilbert discovered Ethelred’s betrayal. He tried to stop the ceremony but arrived too late. In a choleric fit, he cried out a warning that has caused a rift between the serfs and their seneschal ever since, just as he meant it to.”

“What was it?” Clarise asked, feeling a chill on the top of her head. At last she would know why the folk at Helmesly persisted in fearing their master.

The knight began dumping leftovers in the basket.

“Please tell me,” she softly begged him.

He stilled, struggling with himself. “My lord is an honorable man,” he told her. The scars stood out starkly on his face.

Clarise felt her eyes sting in response to such loyalty. “I have seen the better side of him,” she admitted. And she would doubtless see the worst unless she could soften the blow when it came. “What did Gilbert say?”

Sir Roger looked down at his own callused hand. “He said Lady Genrose would be slain by her husband.”

Clarise barely smothered her gasp. A vision of a body desecrated rose up in her mind’s eye, and she shook it free.

Sir Roger’s eyes flashed with unaccustomed fierceness. “The lady labored long and died in childbirth. Lord Christian saved Simon from dying, also. He never wanted such a fate for his wife!”

She put her own hand over his roughened one. “I believe you,” she said convincingly. “I do. And God will reward such loyalty as yours.” As she squeezed his fingers, she mourned that their bond of friendship would soon be put to the test. “Gilbert is mad,” she added, saying out loud what she had thought the moment she saw the unreal glitter in the abbot’s eyes. “When I spoke with him, he left me feeling quite uneasy.”

“You may be right,” Saintonge agreed. “They say he works night and day pouring over his herbs. Likely he has tried one too many of his concoctions, and it has turned his brain to mush.”

Clarise smiled at the knight’s imagination. “I don’t know why the servants put any credence in the things he has to say,” she commented lightly.

His eyes began to crinkle at the corners. His smile took up its post once more. “Helmesly is a happier place for your presence, lady,” he told her with feeling. “You have cast your light into my lord’s dark heart, and I thank you for it.”

So that he wouldn’t see the guilt in her face, she lifted her gaze toward the main keep where it stood between its graceful buttresses. To her amazement, contentment flooded her heart when she looked upon its clean lines. How could she feel so connected to a place when the foundation of her existence here was built on sand?

Heathersgill had ceased to be a home after Ferguson usurped her father. For months she’d felt abandoned by Alec, overwhelmed by her family’s plight. Now all those feelings were removed from her, by time and distance. It was wrong of her to forget her family.

“Do you know if Alec has made reply to Lord Christian’s offer?” she dared to ask. If there were any way to escape her final judgment, she would take it. Alec’s chances of defeating Ferguson were not as high as Christian’s. But at least she knew him for an honorable man, a kind man.

The knight studied her from beneath his lashes. “There’s been no word,” he said neutrally.

Sir Roger had praised her for bringing happiness to Helmesly, but he didn’t yet trust her with issues of power and politics. She could not forget that underneath his friendly veneer there remained a bond of loyalty, firm and enduring. “Tell me how you came to serve Lord Christian,” she heard herself inquire.

Saintonge leaned in with an air of confidence. “I served the Wolf before him.”

“His father?” she asked in amazement.

“I didn’t know he was his father. Nor did Lord Christian, until later. He came to Wendesby to train as a squire. He was but twelve years old—a slim lad with a vocabulary that had me scratching my head to remember my grammar. He spoke eloquently of angels and apostles and a vision of the future.”

Clarise went curiously light-headed. “He was that innocent, then?” she breathed, all ears as she waited for more. “Go on,” she said when the knight paused thoughtfully.

“The Wolf refused to recognize him publicly. He kept their kinship a secret, I think because he didn’t understand him. He looked at the boy and saw his weakness rather than his strength. He felt the need to turn the whelp into a warrior.”

Oh, nay. She felt a sudden pang for Christian’s lost simplicity. “Did Lord Christian take offense to that? Is that why . . . why he razed his father’s demesne six years ago? Did he hate him so much?”

Sir Roger picked up the baby, whose head had dropped wearily to the blanket. He held Simon against the hard surface of his iron-linked chest. “My lord was ill treated by his sire. He was made to sweat and to toil. To train long hours and then grow hungry. He did not discover that the Wolf was his father until his half brother taunted him on the lists, calling him a bastard.”

Clarise stifled a gasp of sympathy.

“By then I had grown fond of him,” the knight continued. “He was a quick study in the art of warfare. In just a few years, he had grown as tall and strong as the father who denied him. His sword arm became the stuff of legends. Yet what I most admired in him was that he never lost his sense of right and wrong. He had a determined spirit and a streak of chivalry that the Wolf could not snuff out.”

He patted the baby, transferring his loyalty to the Slayer’s child. “That is how he got the scar on his cheek,” he recalled. “His father found an altar he had built in one corner of the stables. He was a Dane, himself, and a godless man. He ordered Christian chained to a post and whipped. My lord refused to cry out. He even turned his head to send the Wolf a defiant look, and the tip of the whip cracked his face. He was only fifteen.”

Clarise touched a finger to her cheek. She could almost feel the sting of the whip herself. Why, he’d been only a boy! How could a father treat his flesh and blood so cruelly? She stared at the knight, aghast.

“Five years later my lord left Wendesby with blood on his hands. I cannot say that I blame him. All those years he’d trained under a man he hated. It was too much to learn that the man was his father.

“When he left, I was afraid he would lose the honor that I cherished in him. So I mounted my horse and followed him. There have been times,” the knight said with a sigh, “when I believed the Wolf succeeded in claiming his soul for evil. But lately, I remark more of the Christian I once knew. He is coming back into himself,” he decided with a contented nod.

Clarise was enraptured by the tale. She found herself rallying fiercely behind the Slayer of Helmesly. So, she was right in guessing that he was not as ruthless as rumor depicted. Ah, the Saints, she should have trusted her instincts and told him what had brought her to Helmesly. Perhaps if she had, she would now have a champion at her side. As it was, she would have to earn his trust all over again.

“We traveled east,” the knight added, recapturing her attention, “and pledged our swords to various lords. The Baron of Helmesly saw Christian fight in a tourney and hired him at once to train his men. A few years later, desiring to go to the Holy Lands and needing to leave his estate in capable hands, the baron betrothed my lord to his only daughter.”

Simon, who was finding the unyielding surface of Sir Roger’s armor too hard, let out a plaintiff cry. The knight quickly passed him to Clarise. As always, when she took him in her arms, she felt a rush of tenderness for the helpless babe. The fear that her days at Helmesly might be numbered tinged the tenderness with grief. “Sir Roger,” she began in a strangled voice, “I . . .”

Someone across the field called out his name at the same time and waved him over.

The knight struggled to his feet, unaware of the confession that hovered on her tongue. “Thank you for the meal,” he said. “I pray that Doris soon recovers.”

“As do we all,” Clarise replied. Perhaps this evening she would get around to admitting to what had brought her to Helmesly. “Er, there’s just one more thing, Sir Knight,” she added, coming to her own feet. “Could you ask Dame Maeve to give me the key to the chapel? She won’t heed my request.” She’d asked the steward’s wife herself, but the woman had refused her.

He nodded his head distractedly. “Very well.”

“Oh and, er, may I have your permission to make some changes in the castle?”

Now she had his full attention. “Like what?” he asked, scowling suspiciously.

“Well, I think the hall would benefit from the addition of flowers, don’t you? And there is an urgent need for more torches to be made, or perhaps you haven’t noticed that everyone scuttles about in the darkness? Also, it would not be amiss to hang a tapestry or two.”

Sir Roger wiped away the sweat that was dripping from his forehead. He looked quite overwhelmed by her quick suggestions. “Fine, fine,” he said, clearly eager to return to such simple things as weapons and their use.

“Thank you,” Clarise replied. “Do you know what happened to the tapestries that were there before? Nell says the baron had a number of them hanging in the hall.”

The knight’s brow wrinkled and then smoothed again. “The Lady Genrose gave them to the poor in honor of her parents’ memories, I believe.”

“And the silver, too?”

He shrugged. “I suppose.”

Clarise could not contain her remark, “Then she managed to live in a convent after all!”

“Indeed,” the knight agreed, not missing a beat. Thanking her for lunch again, he strode across the field, returning to his labors. Clarise worked to return Simon to his sling. Then she bent to shake the crumbs from the blanket. If she thought that replacing a few tapestries would ensure the Slayer’s forgiveness, she was literally hanging by a thread, she reflected ironically.

Christian couldn’t sleep. That circumstance in itself was not a novel one, but this was the third night in a row that he’d awakened in the middle of the night, unable to return to sleep. The tedium of waiting for the darkness to lift taxed his patience.

He lay on a feathered bed in the chamber that once belonged to Alec Monteign, staring at the whitewashed ceiling. The bed curtains had been stripped by the peasants and used for clothing. The shutters had been broken off the window and used for firewood. Nothing prevented the moon from shining through the open window to mock him.

Perhaps he should have slept in the lord’s chamber, where the bed was tucked out of the way of the moon’s illumination. Yet he’d made it a point never to sit in Monteign’s chair nor sleep in his bed. Not only did he worry that the ghost of Alec’s father would torment him, he had no wish to exacerbate his relations with the people of Glenmyre. They disliked him well enough as it was.

He sent a hopeful look toward the open window. No hint of dawn yet. Stars paid court to the half-moon’s brilliance. Insects chirped in the overgrown yard below. The room was hot and humid. His eyeballs burned, but whenever he lowered his lids, unanswered questions beat against the door of his brain, finding no outlet.

Who was the woman in his castle?

No one at Glenmyre had heard of Clare de Bouvais, only Isabeux de Bouvais, Alec’s cousin who had departed years ago after being compromised by the stable master. Monteign had no mistress by the name of Clare. There was nothing that tied Simon’s wet nurse to Glenmyre, save the quick looks exchanged by peasants when he questioned them.

They knew something, Christian was certain of it. He was also certain he would be the last to discover what it was. He flung an arm over his eyes and groaned. Was she a spy for the people of Glenmyre, an advocate, or someone else entirely?

A vision of her beauty swam behind his eyelids. As in the flesh, she glowed with purpose and strength. He’d assumed her purpose was to rise above her past. I am no longer any man’s mistress, she’d told him with haughty disdain. She’d kissed him with passion, then sent him away.

Could it be she was somebody’s wife? He cursed long and fluently at the mystery. Then he turned and buried his face in the pillow.

Her lips were like rose petals, enticing him with their silken texture. Her passion was a hot spring bubbling just beneath the surface. He would go mad if he couldn’t have her. But what chance did he stand, scarred as he was—a man guilty of murder?

For the Slayer of Helmesly, passion took place under the cover of darkness. It was done quickly, spuriously, and always with feelings of guilt.

He’d never kissed a woman with the slow, searching sweetness that he’d kissed Lady Clare. Moreover, touching her hadn’t left him feeling guilty at all. How could he when she’d pressed herself so eagerly against him?

Why had she ultimately denied him then? Will you kiss me when I return? he’d asked. What did her silence mean?

Without his awareness, Christian drifted back to sleep. When he next cracked his eyes, the chamber was saturated with harsh, yellow light. He sat up quickly. Someone was shouting. Leaping from the bed, he rushed to the window. The shouts became clearer.

“Fire! Fire!”

Thrusting his head through the second-story window, he realized that the roofs of the huts below him were smoldering. Chased from their houses, Glenmyre’s peasants coughed against the smoke and huddled together. A few brave men struggled to put the fires out. But the water seemed to have no effect on the conflagration. It died with deceptive ease, then sprang up in a great roar. It made no sense, for the roofs had been newly thatched. The only explanation was that they’d been doused with a flammable substance and then set on fire with flaming arrows, volleyed over the wall.

Beware the powders that he uses to spread fire. Clare’s warning echoed in Christian’s mind. “Ferguson,” he ground out, realizing the Scot’s long-awaited attack had come at last.

He raked his gaze along the tree line, seeking sight of his enemy in the thickly shadowed pines. One man alone could have thrown packets of flammable powder over the wooden wall, for it was not particularly high. Fortunately the wall itself had been stained with a substance that was resistant to fire. The buildings inside, however, were not protected. Whatever Ferguson had used, it was highly combustible.

“Ferguson!” he roared. His shout was louder than the crackling fire below, so loud that it echoed back at him in mockery. But he was certain the Scots remained nearby, hiding in the distant trees perhaps, hoping that the wall would catch flame.

Suddenly he spied movement in the trees. His soldiers, posted on the wall walks, saw it also and whipped the bolts from their quivers. A solitary figure hurtled toward them. It tumbled into a low-lying area, then rose up again, racing over the earthworks toward Glenmyre’s closed gate.

Second by second, the figure took shape. It was not a lone Scot, as he’d first guessed, but a woman, dressed in nothing more than a white shift that molded her slender body as she ran. The sound of her cries rose over the snapping of flames. She was screaming for the gates to be opened.

“Hold your arrows!” Christian called. The men at the battlements heard him. Tension eased on the bowstrings.

Christian snatched up his boots and raced outside to join the soldiers on the wall. “Is she from Glenmyre?” he asked, breathing harshly from his race to the battlements. Smoke billowed thickly from the fire, obscuring his view of the field. For the moment he’d lost sight of the woman, but he could hear her. She was crying out, hysterically.

“I know not,” answered one soldier. The other one shrugged.

They were no more familiar with the people of Glenmyre than he was. Christian shimmied down a ladder and grabbed a peasant man by the scruff. “Come to the top with us. Tell me if you know the woman out there.”

The man scrambled obediently up the ladder. Meanwhile, the woman had arrived at the gate. She was pounding at the oaken barrier with great distress. “Do you know her?” he shouted, dangling the poor peasant over the edge of the wall.

“I . . . ne do not know,” the man wavered. “My vision be poor. But I . . . I think I do.”

“You think so!” Christian raged. This was not the time for uncertainty. He released the peasant and thrust his fingers through his hair. He did not have time to drag another peasant up the ladder. He longed to yell out for the gates to be opened, but wary of a ruse, he decided to be cautious. The woman could well be a decoy sent by Ferguson to get the gates open.

He searched the field for any sign that the Scots were hidden in the grass, rather than the trees, preparing to swarm forward and take them by surprise. He could see no one. Still, with Clare’s warning ringing in his ears, he was reluctant to open the gate right away.

He leaned over the parapet and peered through the haze at the woman below him. For a heart-stopping moment he thought it was Clare herself who bloodied her fists as she sobbed for entrance. But then he could see that this woman was older. Her slender bone structure was the same, as was her hair, only darker. As she threw her body against the oaken gate, she screamed until her voice was hoarse. All his instincts to shelter the weak demanded that he let her in.

“My lord?” queried the soldier he had posted at the gatehouse. Clearly the man suffered the same impulse.

“Wait a moment,” Christian answered grimly. He could not get over his impression that the woman was somehow related to Clare. A sliver of suspicion began to work its way beneath his skin. “Crack the gate,” he decided. “Let her in and shut it quickly behind her.”

“Aye, sir.” The soldier bounded into the gatehouse and jogged down the narrow stairs.

Christian heard the shouts below him. It took several men to lift the heavy crossbar from its slot. He hoped they could slam it into place again at once. He heard the crossbar roll to one side. Not too far, he cautioned silently.

There came an unmistakable roar of voices. Before his eyes, the very ground seemed to rise as men, disguised by mats of straw across their backs, leaped up and raced to the gate with their swords raised. At the same time the sound of thunder ripped Christian’s gaze to the tree line where shadows took the form of distinct silhouettes. Men on horseback exploded across the field in a second wave.

“Close the gate!” he roared down to his men.

They struggled now to shut the gate against the foot soldiers who threw themselves against it to push their way in. Though the woman had been a ruse to get the gates open, she now howled like a cat gone mad, seeming truly distraught that she’d been denied entrance. The crossbar rumbled back into its slot, effectively locking her and the army out. The force of it reverberated under Christian’s feet.

He turned his attention to the second wave. The Scots’ horses devoured the remaining distance to the wall. Ferguson was easiest to find, betrayed by the burnished beard that jutted from beneath his helm. He wielded his trademark battle-ax in lieu of a sword.

Out of the Scot’s leering mouth came the command to halt. His men pulled hard at the reins, out of range of Christian’s arrows. Horses reared up in whinnying protest. With a furious gesture, Ferguson roared for his men to retreat and the woman in the shift to return to him.

Christian cursed at his cowardice. “Weapons down!” he called to his men, who had readied their crossbows again. He did not want the woman accidentally struck while his men sought to pick off the Scots.

The woman refused to come. In reply to Ferguson’s orders, several of his soldiers grabbed her and began to drag her away. All the while, they looked over their shoulders, fearful of being struck by the Slayer’s arrows.

“Weapons down,” Christian repeated.

He watched as Ferguson reached out and yanked the woman up onto the saddle in front of him. Her stricken face was the mold from which Clare’s own features had been cast.

With a flash of insight Christian guessed the truth. He recalled the rumors of how Ferguson had seized Heathersgill, killing Edward the Learned and then marrying his widow. Was that she, then? If so, then Clare the wet nurse was Ferguson’s stepdaughter. The thought spattered his brains like a blow from a mace. He hadn’t realized how much he had wanted to believe in her innocence.

But at the present moment he could not afford to dwell on his discovery. The savage troops withdrew just far enough to where they could gloat as the fires they’d spawned undid all the work that Christian had expended in rebuilding.

Christian bellowed orders to the serfs to herd their livestock into the main keep. The stone wall of the keep would protect them as long as the fire didn’t sink its teeth into the timber floor joists. Their primary job was to ensure that the outer wall, which was made of timber, continued to resist the flames.

Rallying the heartier people of Glenmyre, he called them to fight the fire. While it had taken only a handful of men to spawn such mischief, it would take many more to keep the fire from spreading. The Scot was planning to burn them out, then slaughter them all.

Eight hours later they stared in weary stupefaction at what remained of the lesser buildings. Charred timbers rose from postholes like ragged pikes. The walls, the roofs, the contents of the buildings lay in steaming piles of cinder just an arm’s length from the main keep. But the outer wall held, keeping the Scots at bay. They’d survived Ferguson’s attack with no loss of life, and at last the Scots melted away, sullen with their defeat.

Christian wiped a hand over his blackened face. His limbs ached. He longed to collapse where he stood, but that was an indulgence he would not allow himself. Despite the knowledge that his reparations at Glenmyre had been undone, he felt a sense of accomplishment at having saved the wall and the keep.

The livestock were led from their sanctuary, snorting, stamping, bleating in confusion. He smiled wearily. It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.

He had worked side by side with the people of Glenmyre to save their home. The grain had been kept from harm. The water was still clean. In the act of fighting for Glenmyre’s future, they had forged a bond of mutual respect. He could see it in their blackened faces, in the steady gazes that turned his way.

“Let us celebrate the saving of the Glenmyre!” he shouted, startling more than a few of his own men.

A rousing cheer rose over the hiss of steaming wood.

“And for every man that joins with me to defeat the Scot, I will build you a wall of stone, so that Ferguson can never burn you out again.”

This announcement was followed by another cheer. Three barrels were rolled from the keep’s cellar and set upon trestles for the people to help themselves. Ale flowed freely, drowning despair and replacing it with a vision for the future.

Christian waited for the right people to become sotted with drink before he cornered them. What was the name of the woman Alec was going to wed? he asked. What did she look like?

In short time his suspicions had been confirmed. He’d been taken for a fool.

As the sun set that evening, he rooted out a solitary spot on the wallwalk. The sun glowed an angry orange, lighting the tips of the pines like so many tapers. A flock of geese honked noisily overhead as they flapped their way toward Spain and thence to the land of the infidels.

Christian eased his aching back onto a ledge, thankful for the balm of cooler air streaming from the mountains, and raked his fingers through his hair. Some of the longer strands were singed. He would have to cut them.

Oh, but it felt good to take his ease! He dropped his head into his palms. The sound of a woman screaming echoed in his ears. He was able to name her now: Jeanette DuBoise, the mother of the woman in his castle. To see such a fair woman wearing only a shift and crying with such desperation had been shock enough. But the fact that she looked so much like her daughter, Clarise, made it all the more disturbing.

He wished very much that they had managed to let the woman in. What was clearly a ruse to open the gates might also have been her only hope. Ferguson had put her directly in the path of danger, as though he cared not a whit if she were killed.

The thought sickened him.

He dragged his fingers over his face. What was he going to do now? The only thing left to him was war. Ferguson had asked for it by willfully attacking Glenmyre. And yet everything inside him rebelled at the spilling of more blood. He did not care to fight anymore, to add yet more hellish visions to those that paraded through his dreams.

And what of Clare? Clarise, he corrected himself. Seeing her mother’s situation firsthand, he was certain she could not be loyal to the Scot.

Why had she come to Helmesly, then? Why?

The sun sank lower, and the crickets began to chirp in the high grass between the wall and the tree line. Christian lay down on the wallwalk and closed his eyes.

All he knew for certain was that she hadn’t come to Helmesly to save his son. The hope that God had sent an angel to redeem him was nothing more than fantasy. Clarise had another purpose at his castle altogether. And it wasn’t likely a purpose that would benefit his soul.

Chapter Eleven

A thin mist hung in the castle graveyard. The sound of wet earth falling on a wooden casket rose over the sniffles of the heavyset cook as she watched her baby being buried. Clarise huddled with the few servants who dared to test Maeve’s patience this morning by shirking their duties. There were no holy words to soothe the spirit of the grieving mother, only the mournful call of a dove as it settled on the wall to observe them.

As the grave was steadily filled, Simon grew impatient for his breakfast. Clarise shifted him to her left shoulder and thought about the meager milk supply in her bedchamber. A bucket of goat’s milk was no longer enough to get the baby through a day. How on earth, she wondered, would she manage to procure two buckets without drawing notice?

Simon broke into angry cries as the gravedigger dropped the last clump of earth on the mound and patted it down. Sniffles rose from the more sympathetic women. One of them helped Doris to her feet. Clarise, who needed to break away for a feeding, hurried over to offer the cook a word of encouragement.

“Might I hold him?” the woman asked, her wet gaze falling to the baby’s swaddled form.

Clarise was more than happy to let Simon shriek in someone else’s ear, at least for the time being. He looked tiny against the woman’s robust breasts as she cradled him in her arms. With his mouth wide open, he turned his head, searching hopefully for sustenance.

“He knows that I have milk!” Doris cried with surprise. Her many chins wobbled at the thought of what might have been.

Clarise’s eyes widened as a notion hit her. Rather than rush Simon off into the castle, she dawdled in the graveyard while others approached Doris and offered their comfort. “Doris,” she called, when the last one moved away. “I have a favor to ask of you.”

“Yes, milady?” Doris replied, still holding the squirming Simon.

Clarise hoped it wasn’t too much to ask of a grieving woman. “I have so much to do,” she began, “making changes in the castle, and I fear that I’m depriving Simon of the proper nourishment. Do you think you might feed him with your own milk on occasion?”

Doris’s eyes narrowed with sudden discernment. “Ye have ne milk o’ yer own, do ye, milady?” she guessed.

Clarise made a choking sound and looked around, relieved to see that none of the lingering servants were close enough to have overheard. “How do you know that?” she breathed, deciding it was pointless to lie.

Doris rocked the disconsolate Simon. “Nell tolde me that ye hide a pail o’ milk in yer chamber.”

Of course, thought Clarise, with a grimace. Nell was not the soul of discretion she required in a lady’s maid. “Do you know who’s been leaving a bucket for me in the goat pen each night?” she asked, still no closer to solving that mystery than she’d been two weeks ago.

“Nay, milady.” Doris shook her head. “But I am happy to helpe ye now.” She gazed with pleasure at the squalling Simon. “Bring him to me whene’er he hungers, and he will grow plump on my breast, I warrant ye!”

A great weight seemed to rise from Clarise’s shoulders. At the same time a voice of caution whispered in her ear. “I would prefer you to come to my chambers to nurse him. I promised the seneschal my vigilance, and I would stay with you when you do.”

“As ye wish, lady.”

“Can you come with us now?” Clarise pleaded. It would save her the trouble of feeding Simon herself.

Doris fell into step beside her.

“Will you promise me something?”

The cook looked at her askance.

“Promise you’ll not speak of our arrangement to anyone yet,” Clarise whispered. “It must appear that I am still Simon’s nurse. Very soon, the truth will be known,” she added. Her spirits sank as she realized the moment was coming ever closer.

The messenger who’d stamped his way into the hall that morning had announced that the Slayer would be home by nightfall.

Doris paled a bit at the necessity for secrecy, but she nodded nonetheless. “I swear,” she said.

Two hours later Clarise surveyed her handiwork from the landing on the stairs. Shortly after her picnic with Sir Roger two weeks ago, she had stumbled on a room full of goods in one of the castle storerooms. Most of the pieces Genrose had supposedly given to the poor still remained, collecting dust. Maeve protested that she’d forgotten about the goods, overwhelmed as she was by the baron and his lady’s death. The amazed knight had given Clarise permission to haul it from the cellar for display.

At first the servants had been too paralyzed by the housekeeper’s influence to help Clarise bring the goods up. Dame Maeve had secretly threatened them with additional chores, while in the presence of the master-at-arms she was solicitous and helpful. Clarise had found the woman maddening to deal with.

However, when it came to the chapel, servants had come whenever they could sneak away. With additional hands it had taken only a week to coat the ornate woodwork in beeswax. The embroidered kneeling cushions had been washed and replaced under the pews. They had swept up the stale rushes and scrubbed the floor with lye and wood ash. In short time the chapel was fit for worship.

Clarise had then turned her attention to the hall. With an eye toward decorating the walls, she’d enlisted Harold’s aid in hanging a tapestry on the gallery wall. She chose the tapestry of a hunt, attended by lords and ladies, complete with comical hounds and red-tailed foxes. Silver trays were hung between the windows where they flung the light of the many torches back into the chamber. Even with the shutters drawn to keep out the gusty rain, the hall appeared as bright as if it were a fair day.

Clarise had placed a pot of flowers on every step of the grand staircase and brightened the high table with a colorful bouquet. She’d plundered the castle gardens and sent servants outside the walls to procure wild roses, savory, and meadow saffron, which now filled the room with their perfume. Oxeye daisies and pink mallow splashed color against the gray stone.

All stood in readiness for the lord’s return. The room lacked only the crowning touch—a fire crackling in the fire pit. But with Dame Maeve threatening to complain to Sir Roger, Clarise admitted that a fire might make the room a mite too warm.

Studying the combined effects of her labor, she sought reassurance that the Slayer would be pleased. She had heard that Ferguson had set fire to Glenmyre. While the wall and central keep had held, the rest had been gutted by flame. If Lord Christian had discovered her identity by now, his need to avenge the Scot might well overshadow his reason.

The blare of the gatekeeper’s horn shot through her like an arrow. Clarise nearly dropped poor Simon, who was sleeping in her arms. He’s back. Her first instinct was to flee to her bedchamber and lock the door. But she was not a coward. Aside from a few white lies, she was guilty of no wrongdoing.

Clutching Simon like a shield, Clarise headed to the forebuilding. There, she encountered Harold dawdling at the base of the steps. He seemed reluctant to step through the protective arch and into the pounding rain.

“ ’Twould put me in a foul mood to travel in this mess,” she called out, announcing herself. The thought depressed her further.

“Foul mood,” the steward repeated. He glanced at her with something akin to wariness. She could only assume his wife had blistered his ears for doing her bidding this afternoon. She reminded herself that she had promised to read to him in exchange for his help with the tapestry.

Perhaps tomorrow, if the Slayer could forgive her lies.

She found herself wishing she had told Sir Roger who she was. The opportunity had presented itself at nearly every meal. And yet, as she was loath to see the disappointment on his face, she had bitten her tongue. The last time he’d questioned her, weeks ago, he had demonstrated great trust in her. How would he feel to know she’d been misleading him all the while?

In tense silence Clarise waited with the steward at the base of the steps. Sir Roger dashed across the courtyard from the garrison and joined them in a huddle. “Is all in readiness?” he asked, casting her a conspiratorial wink.

She gave him a weak smile. “I pray so,” she replied, her voice barely above a whisper. Anxiety was twisting her innards into knots. What if the Slayer didn’t like the changes she had made? What if they were viewed as presumptuous?

The clopping of hooves played descant to the spattering rain. They were all astonished to see a lone rider pass through the gate on the top of a donkey. The beast hung its head dolefully against the downpour. The rider was cloaked in a mantle, his hood pulled low over his face.

“ ’Tis Ethelred!” Sir Roger exclaimed. He ran into the rain to greet the good abbot.

Clarise went weak from a mixture of relief and disappointment. She watched the Abbot of Revesby slide from his mount. She could see that he was quite a little man, coming only to Sir Roger’s shoulder. As a stable boy took away his donkey, the two men splashed through the puddles as they raced for shelter.

Clarise had just lit the torch on the stairwell—a true feat with a baby in her arms. She had adopted the habit of carrying a flint with her, as it afforded her pleasure to witness the fruits of her labor.

As she turned around, the abbot shook back the hood of his mantle. He was still a young man, she saw, having pictured him much older. His sandy-colored hair was cropped short. He wore the black garb of an Augustinian monk, yet unlike the Abbot of Rievaulx, he went without a fancy stole. No jewels twinkled on his fingers. Sandals peeked from below the hem of his cloak. She looked into his friendly gaze and found him watching her intently.

“Father, this is Lady Clare, Simon’s nurse.” Sir Roger made the introductions. “Lady, the esteemed Abbot of Revesby.”

“Pleased to meet Your Grace,” she murmured, masking the sudden certainty that this man would help her reach Alec if the necessity arose. She hoped it would not.

The abbot’s gaze fell upon the bundle in her arms. “This could only be Christian’s son!” he exclaimed. “What a mighty one he is already!”

Simon was swaddled in purple silk, a color chosen to complement Clarise’s lavender gown. He returned the abbot’s praise with a dispassionate stare. Father Ethelred laughed out loud. “A miracle!” he pronounced, chuckling.

Clarise felt her heart swell with love, both for the baby and the cleric who was so clearly pleased to see him. She kissed the curl that grew skyward from the top of Simon’s head.

“I have news,” announced the abbot happily, “and I would say it without delay. But where is your seneschal?”

“Due to return at any minute,” the knight supplied.

“I cannot wait!” Ethelred’s blue eyes sparkled. “I have just come from a meeting with the archbishop. The subject of the interdict came up in casual conversation. Archbishop Thurston said that the interdict was never approved by the Holy See. Tomorrow I go to Rievaulx to see the papal seal. If Gilbert fails to produce it, this matter will place him under grave scrutiny.”

Ethelred did not seem at all displeased by his colleague’s treachery. Clarise recalled that there was rivalry between them.

“Verily?” exclaimed Sir Roger after a moment of astonished silence. “Then it was just an attempt to breed discontent at Helmesly. Gilbert hoped the people here would turn against their seneschal.”

“Mayhap so,” Ethelred agreed.

“Well, why stand here like knaves when Lady Clare has put the great hall to rights? Our castle is now a welcome place for visitors.”

An hour later Clarise had developed a pounding headache. The abbot had been given a room where he would dry out his robes. All she had intended to do was to tell the new head cook that a special meal would have to be drawn up for the cleric, who could not eat meat, except for Sundays. The cook, who’d finally been persuaded to concoct a jellie of fyshe this night, complained to Maeve. The steward’s wife intercepted her in the breezeway.

“Lady Clare!” she called in her strident voice.

Rolling her eyes at the woman’s tone, Clarise turned, just two steps from an escape into the great hall. “What it is?” she inquired sweetly.

“I see you have taken it upon yourself to perform Harold’s duties once again. What the abbot—or for that matter, what anyone—will eat is none of your concern.”

“I am certain Harold would not mind a little help. You, on the other hand, seem to resent it strongly. I have to wonder why you wield your power like a sword. Even your husband is subject to you.”

Maeve drew herself into a rigid line. “Do you wish to play lady, then?” she hissed. “Very well. Let us see if you can take my place. I’m retiring to my chambers,” she announced, pivoting sharply. She took her keys with her as she headed toward the servants’ hall.

Clarise stared after her with her mouth agape.

This was a setback she hadn’t expected. She had hoped to greet the Slayer with poise and elegance from the vantage of the dais, not scurrying around with her hair slipping from the knot on her head, sweating from the heat of the kitchen and the burden of having to tote Simon wherever she went.

Harold, she feared, would be more of a hindrance than a help. He paced before the kitchen exit, wringing his hands and muttering in agitation. Promising once again that she would soon read Stories of the Saints’ Lives to him, she managed to convince him that they would get along without his wife.

In the kitchen the pages and maids milled aimlessly. Hearing them squabble over the order in which they would carry in the food, Clarise pushed into their midst and gave them a lecture worthy of the Empress Matilda. The jostling for position ceased but not the complaints.

She reentered the hall to find the abbot conversing with the reticent steward. He detached himself to approach Clarise.

“Harold tells me that a babe has been buried in the graveyard and awaits the sacrament of burial,” said Ethelred.

Clarise was forced to calm a fussing Simon. “Aye, Your Grace. ’Twas the cook Doris’s babe, a stillborn. She would be thankful if the proper words could be said over him.”

“At dawn tomorrow, then. It should be done at once, now that the interdict has been lifted, so to speak.”

“Has Simon been baptized?” Clarise asked, realizing that she didn’t even know. He fretted loudly against her shoulder.

“I baptized him the day that I buried his mother,” said Ethelred solemnly, “as Christian had refused the right of the midwife to do so. True,” he added under his breath, “the interdict forbade both sacraments at the time, but I never did see the point of it.” His hand came up and stroked the soft spot on Simon’s head. Immediately the baby quit his hungry mewls. “At the time,” Ethelred continued, “I was quite concerned that this babe would not live. You have been a blessing to him,” he added, glancing at her sharply. “Where are you from?”

She looked into the abbot’s inquisitive gaze and found she couldn’t lie. “From Heathersgill,” she admitted quietly. “My father was Edward the Learned.”

“Keeper of the Books,” he elaborated with a smile. “I met him once.”

“In truth?” She was astonished to hear it.

“He tutored King David’s children in the Scottish court.”

“Aye, that he did!”

“I was educated there myself. How does he now?”

Clarise’s throat closed with grief; still, she managed to repeat the awful story of Edward’s death. It came as a relief to speak of it after guarding her identity so long. “Now Ferguson rules my father’s keep as if he were the rightful lord,” she added, pained by the knowledge that she had done nothing yet to ensure her mother’s and sisters’ survival.

Ethelred’s face reflected shock. “I am saddened to hear it,” he said. “Your mother? Is she well?”

Clarise shook her head. “The selfsame Scot forced my mother to wed him. He abuses my mother at will; my sisters, also.”

Ethelred put a hand on either one of her shoulders. “What can I do to help you?” he asked sincerely.

Her hopes took wing. “Is there something that the Church can do? Annul the marriage, perhaps?”

“I will look into it,” he promised.

“Your Grace,” she added, resisting the urge to cling to his sleeve. “I have yet to tell Christian who I am. You see,” she added, lowering her voice, “Ferguson sent me here to poison his enemy. Only I couldn’t do it. But if Ferguson learns that I’ve betrayed him, he will kill my mother and sisters as he has sworn to do.”

The abbot looked astounded by such subterfuge. “You haven’t told Christian the truth?”

“Not yet,” she admitted miserably. “I was afraid that Ferguson would catch wind of it, and the ones I love would be swiftly put to death. Now I have spun so many lies, Lord Christian has every right to be angry, perhaps to throw me out with nowhere else to go, or worse.” She tried not to think of what worse might entail.

“You must tell him at once,” said Ethelred firmly. “Truth is a better fortress than deceit.”

She nodded in agreement of his admonition. The time had come to cast herself on the Slayer’s mercy.

Further discussion was curtailed by Sir Roger’s presence as he trotted down the steps behind them. No sooner had the knight joined them than the horn trumpeted loudly, announcing the Slayer’s return.

“He’s here,” Sir Roger stated cheerfully.

Oh, God. Clarise gripped the baby so hard he let out a shriek. She had just enough time to cast a final look over the hall, wishing again that she had struck a fire in the hearth, in spite of Maeve’s disapproval. But now it was too late. Both the doors to the main entrance crashed open. Into the glare of fifty candles and ten torches stepped the Slayer.

Clarise’s eyes flew wide. He looked every inch a warrior tonight—immense, powerful, swathed in black. The links of his armor, dulled with soot, swallowed the light of the torches. His sword hung out of sight beneath a swirling, black cloak. As he threw back the hood, she could see that his hair was cut shorter and plastered wetly to his skull. It looked as if he hadn’t shaved in days. His eyes gleamed above the scruffy darkness of his beard.

Christian drew up short and blinked at the unexpected glare. The great hall was ablaze with torches and blinding reflections. Despite the gathering that drew him toward the stairs, he paused a moment to marvel at the changes that had taken place since his departure.

The scent of flowers masked the odor of so much burning tallow. The most immediate difference was the enormous tapestry that hung from the gallery to cover an entire wall. A row of blazing torches drew his gaze toward the high table, covered in snowy linens and bouquets of colorful flowers. On the eastern wall, silver platters, with their polished luster, reflected the gay scene.

The great hall bore little resemblance to the echoing chamber that his wife had made of it. A rush of contentment filled him as he beheld his home transformed. There was no doubt as to who was responsible for the changes. Just as suddenly, bitterness tinged his pleasure. How dare she taunt him with what he longed for most? She hadn’t come to shed her light into his morbid world. She’d come for a different reason—to spy or to hide. And yet she teased him with the illusion of what he craved.

He ripped his gaze from the wall hangings and shot her an accusing look. Clarise’s eyes reflected hope and fear in equal parts. Her pale face was framed by copper tendrils that had slipped from the knot on her head. Her mouth was slightly parted as if she struggled to inhale. Good, he thought, as betrayal stung him anew. She would do anything to procure his mercy.

A movement next to Clarise dragged his gaze to the cleric standing beside her. “Ethelred!” he exclaimed, surprised to see the abbot in his castle. He hurried forward and extended a wet hand. Water streamed off his cloak onto the fresh rushes. “ ’Tis a pleasure as always.”

“The good abbot has brought us excellent news,” Sir Roger interrupted, his smile at the height of crookedness. “You tell him, Father.”

Ethelred offered his boyish smile. “The interdict has been lifted from Helmesly,” he announced, pumping Christian’s hand as if he didn’t mean to let it go. “In fact, it never truly existed in the eyes of the mother church, for it lacks the approval of the Holy See. I am going tomorrow to question Gilbert about the matter.”

It seemed to Christian as if the hall were suddenly brighter, though that was impossible given its present brilliance. He looked from Ethelred’s blue eyes to Sir Roger’s happy smile and felt his vocal chords vibrate. The laugh that rasped free was almost an embarrassment. He darted a look at Clarise and found her gazing at him with wonder in her eyes.

He withdrew at once behind a façade of solemnity. “I owe it to you,” he said to the abbot, whose hand he still squeezed.

Ethelred let go with a muffled yelp. “Not at all, not at all,” he assured him affably. “The matter came up in casual conversation.”

Christian nodded. His thoughts had already turned to Lady Clarise, who stared at him like a paralyzed hare. Anger boiled in him anew. She had lied to him so many times that he found himself looking at a stranger. She wasn’t from Glenmyre. She was never Monteign’s mistress. He didn’t know whose child she had born out of wedlock, or had she lied about that, too?

He took a step that brought him close enough to hear her sharp intake of air. Her head tilted back, offering him a clear view of the hollow fluttering at the base of her throat. The fact that she was frightened of him meant that her purpose at Helmesly was a sinister one. She hadn’t come for protection or simply to hide.

He leaned over her, allowing his knowledge of the truth to blaze in his eyes. “You and I have much to discuss,” he warned her. He was perversely satisfied to see all color slip from her cheeks.

It was the glare of his infant son that distracted him from toying with her further. The baby, swaddled in royal raiment, glowered at him from the throne of Clarise’s arms. The little baron looked displeased with his father’s behavior.

Christian straightened guiltily. He thrust a finger out for Simon to squeeze, but the baby ignored him. The frown on his downy brow bespoke of grave disapproval. “He doesn’t remember me,” he said by way of explanation. Addressing the onlookers, he added, “Give me a moment to wash up, and I’ll join you for supper.”

Ignoring his vassal’s questioning look, he tackled the stairs two at a time. He couldn’t help but notice the effort that had been put into ensuring his mercy. On every step there stood a pot of wildflowers, artfully arranged.

Nevertheless, he thought, squaring his shoulders, she would have to pay a price for her deceit. She was guilty of putting a hunger in his heart, and he would not be satisfied until he forged his spirit in her fire.

Chapter Twelve

A murmuring of masculine voices was audible through the closed solar door. Clarise hovered on the gallery, uncertain whether to wait for their conversation to end or to knock. Though she trusted Doris to care for Simon in her stead, she could not leave the baby alone with the cook all evening.

She was eager to put this reckoning with the Slayer behind her. Throughout the meal, she had caught him sending her narrow-eyed looks, and she’d held her breath, awaiting a public denunciation, only it hadn’t come. At the same time she’d had to keep an eye on the food’s distribution as Harold struggled to perform his duties without his wife.

Following supper, the abbot had excused himself to visit the chapel. The Slayer had scraped back his chair and announced to his second-in-command that they should retire to the solar. Clarise was left to deal with a fussing baby. She withdrew to her own chamber, chafed by the delay in the inevitable confrontation.

Never before was she so hopeful of the Slayer’s help. He’d made it clear by his looks that he knew who she was. And yet he hadn’t mocked or publicly exposed her. Perhaps all her worries had been for naught.

The door of the solar opened suddenly, and Sir Roger stepped through it, stopping just short of plowing her down. “Ah!” he exclaimed. “I was just coming to get you. . . Clarise DuBoise.” At the purposeful mention of her name, she drew a quick breath and searched his face for condemnation. His expression was taut. The smile that hovered perpetually at one corner of his mouth had fled.

“Please,” she begged, grabbing his sleeve as he held the door for her, “I never wanted to lie to you. Please understand that I had a very good reason.”

“Go in,” he said, ignoring her plea, but his tone had mellowed. He gave her what she took to be a pitying look.

Her heart beating with dread, Clarise inched through the portal, expecting the worst. Her gaze flew to the Slayer, who was seated behind his writing table. With the candle behind him, shadows pooled in the hollows of his face, concealing his expression.

She looked back at the knight in a silent plea for his support. But then he shut the door between them, and she was left alone with her nemesis.

Two tallow lamps cast feeble light onto the tapestries. Rain beat loudly on the closed shutters. The room seemed full of menacing shadows, not the least of which was the Slayer himself, dressed in the black tunic he had worn to dinner.

“Where is Simon?” he asked, breaking the stillness.

The hard edge of his tone made her stomach cramp. “With Doris in my chambers,” she replied. “I will fetch him right away—”

“Stay,” he commanded before she could flee. He propped his elbows on the writing desk and leaned forward. Light rose up his cheekbones, illuminating the scar on his cheek. “You owe me an explanation first,” he told her very softly.

To give herself courage, she thought of how he’d come by that scar. “My lord, I will tell you the truth,” she promised him, “and you must ask yourself what you would have done in my stead.”

“Fair enough.” He watched her with a steady gaze.

Clarise clasped her hands together and squeezed them. “A year and three months past Ferguson appeared at our gates, a traveler with just a band of men,” she began, saying the words she had rehearsed in expectation of this hour. “They begged my father’s hospitality and we gave it, never suspecting how we would be repaid.” She took a breath to steady the tremor in her voice.

“That night Ferguson sprinkled poison in my father’s drink. He hides his powders in his brooch rings.” The memory replayed itself, and the words came more easily. “My father fell from the dais, stricken with pains. The Scots jumped up, catching our knights unawares. They pulled daggers from their boots and killed every man that dwelled in Heathersgill. Then Ferguson took his sword and severed my father’s head from his body.”

A thundercloud had gathered on the Slayer’s forehead. Encouraged by his look of outrage, she sought to convey the depth of her horror. “Ferguson dragged my mother to the upper chambers. She had just seen her husband beheaded and now she was being forced . . .” She put her hands to her ears, hearing the awful screams again. “Oh, God, I could not stop him from raping her!” she cried.

The warlord came abruptly to his feet and rounded the table. She was startled to feel his arms band around her. He pulled her gently against him, and the last thread of her self-composure snapped. She tried to master herself, but her grief consumed her. A ragged sob tore free from a place in her that she had kept firmly under wraps. “I am sorry,” she wailed, shamed by her loss of control.

“Hush.” With no warning, she felt the floor fall away. He lifted her into his arms and carried her to the high bed.

Clarise was vaguely conscious that the warlord had seated himself at the edge of his bed. He scooped her in his lap, cradling her as if she were a babe.

She was helpless to fight her grief. It rolled over her in waves, drowning her in despair. Memories of her gentle father besieged her—how she missed him! The plight of her poor mother and sisters crushed her spirit. She had done all she could to help them, but ultimately she was helpless without a champion.

At last her tears had run their course. Clarise stirred. Her nose was buried in the crook of Christian’s neck, where every breath was filled with juniper and musky maleness. Just knowing how near his mouth was to hers left her weak with private yearnings. Yet she realized she could not stay where she was. She had yet to confess her reason for coming to Helmesly.

Lifting her tear-stained face, she looked at him uncertainly. His thoughts seemed far away as he brushed aside the tendrils that had straggled into her eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” he asked, his voice rumbling deep in his chest. “Why did you say you hailed from Glenmyre? You pretended to be a freed serf and then Monteign’s leman.” The lines of his face grew harsher as he shook his head. “Why so many lies?” he demanded.

Sensitive to his rising ire, she tried to get out of his lap, but the warlord held her fast. His grip became bruising.

“Very well, I’ll tell you!” she submitted. “I lied because Ferguson sent me here. Aye!” she cried, seeing the flash of surprise in his eyes. “He sent me to poison you, just as he had poisoned my father.”

The Slayer let go of her wrist, only to seize the locket that still dangled from her neck. “Poison me?” he growled. “With this? Did you carry the poison in here?”

“I did once,” she admitted, meeting his blazing eyes with the appearance of courage. “He said if you weren’t dead in two months’ time, then he would hang my mother and sisters.”

The horror of that ultimatum left him temporarily speechless. “Where is the poison now?” he asked more gently.

“I poured it out.”

“Out? Where?”

“Into the air,” she said, gesturing. “ ’Tis gone. I couldn’t do it.”

He let the locket fall from his grasp. “Why not?” he asked, tilting his head back to look at her.

Why not? She focused her gaze on the scar he’d received because he was once so devout. “Because you are not evil,” she told him simply. “I realized that almost at once,” she added.

For a startled moment, he stared at her. Thoughts ebbed and flowed behind his gray-green eyes. Then he released her, all but thrusting her off his lap.

She staggered on her feet, while he himself prowled to the far side of the room. Clarise backed away from him, uncertain of his actions. Should she flee to her room and let him decide her fate? Nay, ’twas better to remain and answer his questions. She could see that he was battling with the knowledge that the woman who had seemed to be Simon’s best hope was also the one who’d been sent to kill him.

Locking her trembling knees, she awaited the Slayer’s judgment. Her heart beat so heavily that it rocked her lightly on her feet. She watched him as he paced back and forth, casting her disbelieving glances, as though trying to reconcile the woman before him with the one he’d known before.

Clarise’s gaze fell to his hands, clenching and unclenching as he stalked in and out of the candlelight. She became aware of a rising sense of sympathy for him. He had just come from salvaging Glenmyre. How must he feel to discover that she too had been sent to undermine him?

“ ’Twill be all right, my lord,” she heard herself soothe. “No harm will come to Simon or to you, I swear it.”

He swiveled suddenly and glared at her. “Were you in league with the minstrel?” he demanded in a chilling voice.

She shook her head. “He’d been sent by Ferguson to assure that I arrived at Helmesly and that I fulfilled my evil task, but I had nothing to do with his pilfering. He said there were others who would gladly see you ousted. They were the ones who helped him steal.”

The warlord made a sound of disgust and stalked to the window to lean out of it. He gulped down air as though needing its purity. The rain outside spattered the windowsill. Droplets bounced off the stone to wet the warlord’s tunic, but he didn’t seem to care.

“My lord, there is something more I need to tell you,” Clarise admitted. Now that she was baring the truth to him, she wanted no more secrets between them. They would start anew and be guided by honesty as Ethelred had suggested.

He turned around warily. “How could there possibly be more?” he growled.

“ ’Twill anger you,” she acknowledged miserably. “ ’Tis about Simon. I want you to know that I take full blame for the harm it nearly caused him.”

Darkness settled over him. “Go on.”

“I never gave him milk of my own,” she rushed to confess. “I couldn’t, for I have never been with child.”

The Slayer’s face was expressionless, telling her nothing. “You mean that you always fed him with that nursing skin?” he asked evenly.

“Aye,” she confessed, casting herself utterly at his mercy.

His gaze fell to the outline of her bosom, defined by the narrow bodice of her purple gown. “But I saw you nurse him.”

“I did that to convince you,” she admitted, her breasts tingling beneath his regard. “I needed an excuse to find my way inside of Helmesly. I believed I could care for the babe, because I’d done the same for my youngest sister when our mother suffered the birth fever.”

His eyes had narrowed to slits. “Simon deserves better,” he stated, through his teeth.

“Which is precisely why Doris feeds him now,” she cut him off.

“Doris?” His tone was now incredulous.

“I asked her just this morning, after we buried her baby, if she would nurse Simon in my stead. I believe her to be most loyal to you,” she added. “And I have supervised every feeding but the one that is taking place right now.”

An insurmountable silence settled between them. The warlord ran his gaze over her lithe form, lingering in a manner that left her feeling exposed. “I suppose you expect me to help you now,” he said, his tone emotionless.

She shifted nervously, wishing the lighting were better. She knew he must be furious with her, yet his voice now betrayed no emotion whatsoever. “What do you mean?” she asked.

He couldn’t mean he was volunteering to be her champion. Surely she hadn’t wasted all this time hiding the truth from him when she only needed to ask for his help!

He took three quiet steps in her direction, bringing him within an arm’s reach. “I suppose you want me to take up arms for you,” he paraphrased, his eyes like a hawk’s as he scrutinized her face.

Clarise sensed a trap. Perhaps it was the predatory gleam in his eyes. “You would do that?” she asked, her heart beating unevenly. “Challenge Ferguson for me?” Hope rose like a bubble before the realist in her squashed it down. “In exchange for what?” she wanted to know.

He hesitated, his gaze dropping to her breasts. “In exchange for a kiss.”

His answer brought her to prickling, physical awareness. He stepped closer still, his shoulders blocking the light of the tallow lamps completely. His evergreen scent filled her head, making her suddenly dizzy.

“A . . . a kiss?” she stammered, thinking vaguely that such an exchange was more than fair. In truth, if he didn’t kiss her now, she would be sorely disappointed. “Very well, if . . . if you so desire.”

He slipped a hand around the back of her neck and pulled her mouth to his. The taste and texture of him filled her hungry senses. Ever since their first kiss, she’d secretly longed to be kissed again, in that same plundering way that weakened her knees and brought a moan rising from the depths of her feminine soul.

With his kiss came the glorious realization that she had found a champion at last! The enormous burden she had carried alone was no longer hers to bear. In gratitude, she parted her lips to him, offering him the deepest recesses of her mouth, not protesting when he pulled her deeper into his embrace, his arms like giant manacles, keeping her captive.

Without warning, he lifted her completely off her feet. She realized he was taking her to his bed. Alarm bells tolled in her head, but he stifled her protest with his lips.

Without severing their mouths, he lowered her onto the bed and pressed her slowly back, coming down on top of her. His body, heavy and hard against her, caused excitement to shimmer through her. If any place were dangerous for a maiden to lie, it was beneath this man of brawn, steel, and determination.

With his knee he nudged her legs apart. His thigh settled between hers, causing her to gasp at the intimate intrusion. She tried to speak, but once again he headed off her protest with a deep, disturbing kiss.

He tasted of wine and darkness, and soon she was lost to the dizzying pleasure of his kiss. He’d begun to move against her, his thigh rubbing so subtly against her womanhood that she didn’t notice it at first. It was the prodding length of his manhood that roused her to reality.

It dawned on Clarise that Christian de la Croix would not be content with a single kiss, as he’d led her to believe. He intended for her to give him everything, her body in exchange for his sword arm!

The realization sent panic streaking through her. She pushed at his shoulders and found him impossible to budge. “Stop!” she cried. “This isn’t what you said at all!”

“Shhh,” he soothed, “I won’t force you, you have my word of honor on it.” He lowered his mouth and kissed her again, this time more gently, persuasively.

She believed him to be an honorable man. If he swore not to force her, then her virtue was safe, wasn’t it? She had difficulty answering the question, for she could scarcely think with the dark, insidious pleasure of his kisses stealing over her again.

His thigh, riding against her crotch, further diffused her thoughts.

When she felt the heat of his hand on her ribs, she did not protest, for he had touched her there before. His hand inched higher, and soon he was cupping a plump breast and squeezing gently. Her nipples ached with exquisite sensitivity, so that when he soothed a thumb over the rigid peak, a jolt of pleasure stabbed straight to her womb. Her insides turned liquid. She wondered, ashamedly, if he could feel her moisture between her legs through the fabric of her gown.

She would have a champion! she marveled anew. Ferguson could never defeat the Slayer. Her hands strayed up his arms to feel the rock-hard muscles bulging there. What a beautiful warrior’s body he had, she thought, clinging now to his immense shoulders. The tension in her tightened another notch. She felt utterly restless and needy. She could not pull him close enough to satisfy her. Her skin grew flushed and heated, so that it came as a relief to feel the stays of her dress slip apart. Cool air wafted over her breasts.

“Let me suckle you,” the Slayer begged, sliding his mouth downward.

His words left her quivering with longing. She lacked the will to resist him; indeed, she tangled her fingers in his hair and guided his lips to one breast. He took her nipple deep in his mouth, stroking it between the ridge of his tongue and the roof of his mouth.

Clarise gasped for breath. The tension in her was becoming unbearable. She needed relief, a place to focus the overwhelming sensations. By the time she realized he had worked a hand beneath her skirts, his palm was resting on her thigh, squeezing and molding her sleek muscle.

She knew she should protest the violation. He’d said he would not force her, but at this rate, there would be little force involved. She craved something, craved it so badly that her heart felt it would jump from her chest. His hand slid abruptly higher, so that the heel of his palm was touching her woman’s hair. She struggled to her elbows, dislodging her breast from his mouth. “Don’t!” she cried, trying to clamp her legs together.

“I told you already, I won’t force you.” His voice was as hypnotizing as the hand, moving now in slow, thorough circles, pressing where she was most sensitive.

The pleasure was so exquisite, so overwhelming, that further protests died in her throat. She sought the Slayer’s gaze in the shadows of the boxed bed. His eyes glittered with a sensual intent that snatched her breath away. She realized with deep awareness that he was touching her. This dangerous man whom everyone feared, whose savage scowls made peasants run for cover, was touching her most private places and wreaking havoc on her senses.

She gasped at the wanton realization, and her breasts rose and fell, her nipples so hard that they stabbed the air. The moisture between her legs was spreading. The Slayer shifted so that he lay half beside her, half on top. His hand shifted also, so that it was not his palm that caressed her but his long, strong fingers. He lowered his head again and kissed her, stifling the whimper of uncertainty that vibrated her vocal chords. His fingers traced the delicate petals of her womanhood.

Lubricated with her moisture, his finger eased neatly into her passage. At the same time, his thumb pressed against the nub that pulsed above it.

Clarise ripped her lips from his. “Stop,” she begged, disconcerted by the unfamiliar tightness. “You mustn’t do that.” She was concerned for her maidenhead, a precious commodity for a maid who wished to be a virgin bride.

“I won’t take your maidenhead,” he assured her, as if reading her mind. “ ’Tis firmly lodged. ’Twould take more than my finger to break through it.”

“Why are you doing this?” she demanded, with belated panic. “You said you only wanted to kiss me.”

“I do.” He recaptured her mouth. The hot insistence of his tongue was more than she could resist. His finger moved in and out of her, and his tongue mimicked the plunge and retreat, driving her to an instant frenzy. Tension coiled in Clarise’s belly. His thumb began to play with the nubbin of flesh that was quivering with excruciating sensitivity.

Clarise forgot to breathe. Something powerful, inexorable, and sweet beyond her imagining threatened to roll over her and wrap around her. Again and again, the Slayer’s finger plumbed her softness. Again and again his tongue thrust into her mouth. His thumb slicked mercilessly over her pouting flesh, and then it happened.

She spasmed, rocked by her first climax. It flung her to a place she’d never been before. Stars seemed to flicker behind her eyelids. Her muscles clamped down hard, squeezing, pulling, milking the pleasure that went on, and on, and on.

Then with a ragged sigh, she released the breath she was holding. Her muscles went limp with exhaustion. She spasmed once again as the Slayer’s finger slipped out of her. He pulled slowly away, smoothing her skirts down as he did so. Her breasts were still naked, glowing like pale orbs in the semidarkness.

The Slayer slid back so that he was no longer touching her. He lay on his side, waiting, watchful. His eyes glittered with an intensity that could not be disguised by the darkness. The lines of his reclining body looked rigid.

In the painful silence that followed, Clarise scurried to regather her wits. She sat up swiftly, fumbling with the laces at the front of her gown. Her fingers trembled so badly that she could not tie them. Shame burned up her throat and singed her cheeks. She was painfully aware of the Slayer’s silent perusal.

How could she have responded with such abandon? She was a maiden, by heaven, still betrothed to Alec Monteign, should he decide to leave the priesthood. Yet she’d behaved like the wanton leman she’d once professed to be!

She wanted to die! She wanted to leave Helmesly Castle and never set eyes on the Slayer again. And yet he’d promised to take up arms for her, so that was impossible. She forced herself to focus on their agreement. After all, the arrangement had just been sealed, hadn’t it?

“Now you’ll take up arms for me and free my family?” She was dismayed to find her voice thin.

His hungry gaze caused an unwanted awareness to ripple through her. “Not quite,” he corrected. “First, you’ll agree to be my mistress.”

His answer hit her like the broadside of a sword. Clarise reared back at the unexpectedness of it. “Nay!” she cried in protest. “You said I owed you a kiss and that was all!”

“The way I look at it, lady, you owe me a great deal more than a kiss,” he retorted on a growl. “You have taken advantage of me since your arrival at my gates. If you want me to kill Ferguson, you will have to give me something in exchange. What I want is you. All of you.”

Her body quivered with excitement, betraying her. Her mind exploded with rage. A bright red haze rose up before her eyes. “You lowlife, sneaking bastard,” she hissed, pulling back an arm to strike him.

Moving swifter than a snake, he caught her descending arm in a grip that was bruising. Just as suddenly he let her go. She scooted wisely off the bed, surprised to find her legs so weak as she came to her feet. “How dare you promise me one thing and then raise the price,” she raged, wishing she could do him lasting harm.

He said nothing at all, frustrating her desire to do battle.

“Oh!” she raged, stamping a foot on the rush mat. “You . . . you conniving, scheming blackguard! How dare you blackmail me in such blatant fashion? Why you’re nothing but a—”

“Save your breath, lady,” he interrupted. “I’ve been called those things before. Go on now,” he added, jarring her with his demand that she leave. “Doris must be wondering where you are.”

To be thrust from his room was just as humiliating as his ultimatum. With a cry of outrage, Clarise cast her eyes about and spied an earthenware pitcher. Snatching it up, she hurled it with all her might at the Slayer. To her chagrin, it bounced harmlessly on the mattress and landed by his thigh. She wished, then, that it had been full of water. “Go to the devil!” she raged, marching for the door. Tears of humiliation smarted her eyes as she wrenched it open.

She gained small satisfaction in slamming it as hard as she could behind her.

With a low whistle of amazement, Christian fell back against the bed. Clarise’s passionate nature was evident not only in her body’s response to him but also in her formidable temper. He hoped he had not ruined everything by giving her such an ultimatum. And yet he’d decided that unless Clarise DuBoise was the prize, there was little allure in engaging in a long siege for the purpose of retaking Heathersgill. He already had his hands full with Glenmyre. Such chivalry was for other men, men who couldn’t bear to see a damsel in distress. Not he. He wanted to have a palpable reward for his efforts. He wanted Clarise DuBoise’s body for his sole possession. He wanted to be on her, over her, in her, and around her, always.

His body throbbed with a hunger too fierce to be ignored. Rolling down the tops of his chausses, he caught up his swollen shaft and eased it up and down. He had brought Clarise to a shattering orgasm! The truth of it exhilarated him; it excited him beyond bearing. Her body had been so responsive, yet so innocent with its tight sheath. He vowed he would have her soon.

The scent still lingered on his hands. He breathed it in, stroking his flesh as he lost himself to his imaginings.

Would she agree to be his mistress? He knew it was no light decision, giving her soul to the Slayer of Helmesly. Much depended on how badly she wanted Ferguson eliminated.

But for now, he pretended she would tell him yes. Then tomorrow at this time he would sink his aching shaft into her softness and know true fulfillment. The thought hurtled him to a speedy climax. Scalding hot seed spattered his tunic and wet his hand. He let out a groan, and realized later that he’d groaned Clarise’s name.

Chapter Thirteen

Clarise read aloud the entire chapter on the life of St. Dunstan without absorbing a word of the text.

If you want me to kill Ferguson, you will have to give me something in exchange. What I want is you. All of you.

The Slayer’s words reverberated in her head, making other thoughts impossible. She found herself at the end of the chapter with no memory of what she’d read.

Across the trestle table Harold wore a wistful expression. His white hair was bleached by the sunbeams slanting through one of the windows. The lingering aroma of trout griddled in herbs filled the empty hall. Clarise had left Simon safe in Doris’s care in order to fulfill her promise to the steward. Reading, he said, was something his niece had done for him. The girl, apparently, had died quite recently.

“Did you like the story?” she asked, wresting his attention from a corner of his mind known only to him.

Harold smiled at her sheepishly. “Aye.” He sighed. “You read as well as my lovely Rose.”

“Was that your niece?” Clarise asked, closing the book. “Rose, that’s a pretty name.”

“Our pretty Rose has wilted,” he intoned in a singsong voice. His vague blue eyes darkened with loss.

Clarise felt a pang of sympathy for the old man. She reached across the plank table and touched his hand. “She is with the saints now,” she comforted, knowing Harold’s fascination for saints and martyrs.

Harold’s gaze drifted until it landed on her face. “My Rose had a baby,” he told her mournfully. He frowned as though struggling to remember something.

“Did she die in childbirth? ’Tis such a sad thing. Simon’s mother also died,” she reminded him.

“Not Doris,” he said, sounding relieved.

“Nay, Doris is well, thank God. ’Twas her babe that died,” she clarified, thinking him confused.

He scratched the bristles on his jaw. “So sad,” he echoed her earlier statement. “She was a baby once, my Rose. I rocked her on my knee. Here’s your horsey.” He clicked his tongue to imitate the clip-clopping of hooves.

“You must have been a wonderful uncle.”

“Harold, brother of John,” he said, as though introducing himself.

Awareness stirred at the edges of Clarise’s mind, but with her thoughts elsewhere, she failed to grasp what it was. Instead, she found herself recalling the conversation she’d shared with the Slayer over breakfast.

She’d had no intention of speaking to him at all, for she had no answer to his ultimatum. But hearing him recount for his men-at-arms Ferguson’s attack on Glenmyre, she’d realized he had seen her mother with his own eyes, and she longed for reassuring word of her. “How did my mother look?” she asked, buttering her bread to avoid eye contact. Nonetheless, her face flushed crimson, and she was certain that anyone who looked at her would guess her indignity of the night before.

He had turned his attention from his men to her. “Not well,” he’d said with a frown. “She seemed desperate to enter the gates.”

Desperate. The word sliced deep into her heart. “Could you not have tried to let her in?” It was useless to hide her dismay.

“I did try, lady.” He’d captured her hand, then, the strength of his grip reassuring. “The foot soldiers were too close, and a second wave of men hid in the trees. The most I could do was ensure she didn’t get hit by our arrows when Ferguson called her back.”

She had almost told the Slayer, then and there, she would accept to be his mistress. Ferguson had put her mother in the direct path of the enemy’s arrows! How could she risk the lives of her family by waiting another day?

But pride kept her in check. There was yet another option, one that did not involve the threat to her senses, the indignity of trading her body for the Slayer’s aid. With the Abbot of Revesby’s help, there was still a chance that she could contact Alec.

The scuffle of sandals roused her to the present. Just then, the good abbot stepped through the rear entrance of the hall. This morning’s service, followed by the sacrament of burial for Doris’s babe, had afforded no opportunity to catch him alone. Perhaps now, she thought, seizing what might be her only chance.

“Excuse me, Harold.” She abandoned the Slayer’s book on the table and hastened toward Ethelred. He had spotted her as well, and his face lit up. His short stride was charged with purpose. They met by the empty fire pit.

“Lady Clarise,” he greeted her. “I was told to seek your assistance in showing me the herb garden.”

“By all means. But I’ve only stepped foot in it once,” she admitted. “I believe Dame Maeve knows more about herbs than I.”

“It was she who bid me seek you out,” he said, looking puzzled.

“Ah, well, the housekeeper is feeling ill.” Suffering from a case of wounded pride, she nearly added. “Shall we find the garden now? I would speak with you about a certain matter.” She glanced surreptitiously over her shoulder. The hall was deserted at midmorning. The Slayer had left with his master-at-arms to run through drills in the outer ward.

“Lead the way.” The good abbot gestured.

“What exactly are you looking for, Your Grace?” she called a moment later. He paced the walkway of crushed seashells, looking hot in his black robe. Sweat dripped from his temples as he peered at the rows of aster, tansy, and feverfew. He stroked his beardless chin in contemplation.

“I wish I knew, lady,” he cryptically confessed. His gaze hovered over a bright patch of horeshound, then inspected the heavy stalks of foxglove. At last he glanced at Clarise. “Do you know much about healing?” he inquired.

She shook her head regretfully. “Not I, Father. My sister Merry is skilled in the herbal arts. What little I know I learned from her. Why do you ask?” she inquired, feeling a chill despite the heat.

He clasped his hands together and looked away. “ ’Tis a matter the archbishop has asked me to look into,” he answered vaguely. He turned away and paced down another shell-strewn aisle.

Clarise followed his gaze and managed to summon the names of just a few of the plants crowding the narrow beds. Pink lady’s mantle, pale Saint-John’s-Wort, and purple pennyroyal. There were others, but she could neither name them nor list their qualities.

For the moment Ethelred seemed content with his inspection. He approached her, smiling a bit grimly. “What is it you wished to speak to me about?” he asked.

Clarise’s heart began to pound. She had waited so long for a priest to assist her. At the same time she felt as though she were bent on a secret mission, one that the Slayer would disapprove of should he catch wind of it. “Your Grace,” she hedged, plucking the folds of her salmon-pink gown. “There is a novice monk at Rievaulx, an old friend of mine. I’ve been unsuccessful at reaching him, either by letter or in person. I fear,” she added, feeling the heat of embarrassment on her cheeks, “that he may be stricken by illness there.”

“What is this brother’s name?” the abbot asked. His probing blue gaze was not without sympathy, and Clarise took heart.

“Alec Monteign. He was once my betrothed,” she admitted, baring all. “He went to Reivaulx six months ago.” She was startled to find that the pain of his desertion had miraculously eased.

“I believe I met him once,” Ethelred mused. “Is he a man of average stature, with golden hair, light eyes?”

“He is!” she cried. “When did you see him?”

“This winter past. He was newly come to Rievaulx, quite zealous to live the life of an eremite. I remember he approached me and asked me questions about my book.”

Alec hadn’t shared his religious zeal with her. It came as a surprise to hear of it. Clarise had to wonder if he hadn’t agreed to wed her for his father’s sake.

“Is it at all possible to get word to him?” she asked, wishing she had more confidence in his skills.

Ethelred thought for a moment. He gave the garden a quick but thorough inspection. Walls surrounded them on every side. The air was saturated with birdsong and the distant gurgling of the moat. “I think I can,” he told her quite decisively. “As you know, I will go to Rievaulx to investigate the matter of the interdict. I will look for Alec while I’m there.”

“But what if Gilbert denies you entrance? After all, Rievaulx is quarantined. He can say that in your best interest you must keep away.”

Ethelred’s eyes sparkled with adventure. “I was master novice at Rievaulx for two years. While I was there, I discovered something Gilbert doesn’t know.”

“And what is that?” she asked.

“A second entrance into the abbey.”

“Verily?” She found herself smiling in wonder.

“Aye, in a cave on the side of the abbey hill, there is a hole, big enough for a wild animal or a small man like me. The cave leads to an underground passage and thence to the chamber where I used to gloss Psalters. Now, should Gilbert deny me entrance, I will still find my way inside.”

“But what of the illness? You must be careful. They say if you breathe through a satchel of herbs, you won’t catch the plague.” She looked helplessly at the garden around them.

He patted her hand. “The illness is the least of my concerns,” he assured her.

She thought him exceedingly brave. “There is one more thing, Your Grace. Lord Christian wrote Alec a letter in which he offered to return Alec’s inheritance to him. Would you ask him if he received the letter and whether he has considered the offer?”

The good abbot’s eyes narrowed with sudden comprehension. “Do you hope that he will take up arms on your behalf?”

“I have nowhere else to turn,” she admitted, feeling suddenly forlorn, though her chances of getting word to Alec had never been higher.

The abbot frowned in confusion. “I thought perhaps Christian would help you now that you’ve told him the truth of your plight. Perhaps since you care for his son, he would be willing to reclaim your father’s home for you. Have you asked him?”

She looked down at her knotted hands. “I’ve already asked,” she replied, willing herself not to blush. “He refuses to help.”

A thoughtful silence followed her words. She glanced up to find his keen gaze on her face. “Would you like me to speak to him?” he offered kindly. “Perhaps I can convince him—”

A hot wave of mortification crested in her cheeks. “Nay, thank you,” she refused, not wanting the abbot to know of her humiliating choice. “If you can get word to Alec, you’ll have done more than enough.”

The abbot nodded gravely. “Then, I’ll do my best,” he promised.

“When will you go?” Desperation made her bold. She feared the Slayer would try again to persuade her. The thought made her heart race and her mouth go dry.

“Shortly after none’s prayers today.”

Good. If there was any recourse to the Slayer’s proposition, she would know it soon. “Thank you,” she told him. “How can I repay you?”

He winked at her as he tightened the sash around his waist. “I was headed to the abbey anyway,” he said.

Clarise’s spirits rose a notch. “I must go now. Simon is mine for the afternoon.”

“A blessed burden,” said Ethelred.

He is indeed, thought Clarise. Because of Simon, she was actually thinking of accepting the Slayer’s proposition. She had loved the infant from the first. She could not bear the thought of leaving him when the time came to leave Helmesly.

If she left. She refused to accept that the Slayer’s touch might influence her. Yet whenever the memory of her ecstasy replayed itself, her bones seemed to melt like butter, and a delicious shudder overtook her. Humiliation could not defeat desire. There was a part of her that would secretly revel in becoming his mistress. A part of her that found the Slayer exciting and fascinating. Only she refused to acknowledge it.

Clarise DuBoise had been born a lady, and a lady she wished to remain. She owed it to her bloodlines to discover if Alec would trade his cleric’s robes for a sword. Alec, she thought, would never demand such a price as the Slayer had demanded. He was far too honorable for that.

Abbot Gilbert crushed the purple berries in the large marble mortar, heedless of the juice that spurted stains onto his vestments. The beauty of being an abbot was that no one could take him to task for soiling his clerical garb.

At Rievaulx no monk dared question the things that he did or said. Anyone foolish enough to try was shut away in a dark cell, with Horatio visiting in short but painful interludes. These unfortunates rarely survived to speak of the horrors they’d endured.

Gilbert chuckled and reached for one of the glass vials on a shelf above him. Of all the chambers in the abbey, this cellar chamber was the most cluttered and unkempt. He preferred it that way. The lack of order encouraged him to think creatively. As he ground the seeds of the fruit into the pulp, he looked about his cellar herbal with satisfaction.

In addition to the shelves of corked vials, all of them unmarked and known only to him by their smell, the room contained a long table where he performed his masterpieces. On the table were various instruments for heating, mixing, and separating his creations. Squares of parchment were scattered across his work area. Now and then he jotted down the ingredients and quantities of his experiments.

Behind him, crates were stacked as high as the wall. These contained various beasts that snuffled and stirred in continual despair. Their animal odor blended with the herbs’ perfumes. A pair of foxes lived in one box, a pig in another—the gluttonous creature. It had knocked its slop out of the bowl, so that it dribbled through the slats of the crate onto the stone floor.

The smaller boxes held animals ranging from a mouse to a poisonous lizard. These were the recipients of his experiments. Some of them were wounded or ill when they came to him. He had healed a few with his herbal remedies—pure happenstance, he admitted. He had killed the majority.

I will let them go, Gilbert decided with uncharacteristic magnanimity. In truth, their noise intruded on his thoughts so often that he would be better off without them. He uncorked a vial and added a careful drop of anise infusion to his mixture.

He had no use for beasts anymore. He was skilled enough to work with humans. As soon as word of the scourge reached Clairvaux in France, he would dazzle the world by healing his monks. He savored the vision of his acclaim. No longer would he be considered a rustic priest, doomed to obscurity in the fells of Yorkshire. Nay, he would have as much fame or more as his colleague Ethelred. And that little man would finally show him some respect!

The familiar beating of a bird’s wings caused him to drop his pestle and pivot toward the single window. It was just a narrow vent that filtered the sunlight and kept the room in gloomy illumination. In the aperture at level with the ceiling paced a pigeon, bobbing its iridescent head.

“My clever one!” Gilbert exclaimed, stepping on a stool to reach the sill. “What have you brought me today?” he asked. He reached with stained fingers to free the cord looped over the bird’s neck. From the reed that was strung along the cord, he pulled out a tiny piece of parchment.

Archbishop Thurstan denies interdict at Helmesly, he read. Ethelred comes today to make inquiry.

Gilbert balled the minuscule letter in his fist and hurled it with fury across the cellar room. “Cursed, meddling man!” he railed, bounding off the stool.

Ethelred had once been a brilliant monk at Rievaulx. Several times during his years as a master novice, Gilbert had been tempted to cast him into the Cell of Castigation. But Ethelred was looked upon favorably by Bernard of Clairvaux. The Augustinian leader had encouraged the master novice’s writing to such an extent that Ethelred was released from his rigorous schedule and left alone for hours. Now that he was the Abbot of Revesby, he was Gilbert’s social equal. Was there no such thing as justice in the world?

Gilbert trembled with irrational fear. If the interdict were found to be a fake, then his integrity would be called into question.

Wouldn’t the illness keep Ethelred away? He paced the length of the cramped chamber, then back again. A thought occurred to him that soothed his anxiety.

He could get rid of the meddling Ethelred once and for all! He would explain to Archbishop Thurstan that Ethelred had fallen ill and died of the scourge. He envisioned the little priest chained to the cellar wall. Horatio would force a liquid laced with malignant herbs down his throat, and that would be the end of him.

The abbot smiled outright and rubbed his hands with anticipation. Aye, Ethelred would get what was coming to him. But that did not prevent the matter of the interdict from coming up again.

Ah, what did it matter? He would think of something to excuse himself. The interdict had failed, in any event. The people at Helmesly should have closed the gates against their evil seneschal, but they were too afraid to defy him. Shunned by the church or not, the Slayer ruled the fortress with an iron hand. And now he had a whelp, a boy with a rightful claim to the lands.

Gilbert sighed in disgust. He had done everything he could to expel the Slayer from Helmesly. It was up to the sender of the messages to do the rest.

Nell gasped in fear and slapped a hand to her heart. “Oh, m’lord, ye gave me such a start!” she exclaimed, flattening herself to the corridor wall. One of the torches lining the passage found a reflection in her golden curls as she gawked at the warlord.

Christian regarded the girl’s panic with mild amazement. Would the servants never cease to shrink from him? “Nell, is it?” he asked, summoning an expression that he hoped looked harmless.

She nodded mutely and at the same time forced herself to step away from the wall.

“I hear that you have many siblings and that Sarah raised all of you,” he said, utilizing the information Clarise had once fed him.

She nodded her head, looking dazed.

“Were you orphaned?” he prompted.

Again she nodded.

“Have you a plot to call your own?” He realized he should know the answer to his own questions. But between Ferguson’s mischief and domestic demands, he’d put off perusing the castle’s ledgers. Harold took care of the bookkeeping—or was it Maeve?

“Nay, sir,” the girl finally spoke, gazing at him earnestly. “The baron reclaimed our lands under the Right of Escheat when my da passed away. But he gave us work in the castle and a roof over our heads.”

“Then you had no brothers to inherit the land?”

“There be Callum and Aiden, but they were only wee ones at the time.”

Christian crossed his arms over his chest. As seneschal, he could distribute the peasants’ holdings however he saw fit. “How old are your brothers now?”

“Fifteen an’ twelve,” she told him, apparently forgetting to fear him.

“Tell Callum and Aiden they will each have a plot to call their own. And if they have an interest, they may take up swords and be trained to fight.”

Nell’s mouth rounded into a perfect circle. “M’lord, ’twould please them immensely!”

“I’ll send for them soon,” he promised.

“Thank ye, m’lord!” She bobbed him a curtsy and nearly kissed his hands.

Christian stepped back, unused to such affection. “Is your lady within?” he asked.

Nell hesitated. “I left her with a full tub o’ hot water.”

“So she’s bathing.”

“Aye,” she said, drawing out the word.

“How long did you know she was feeding Simon goat’s milk and not her own?” He threw the question out suddenly, taking her by surprise.

Nell grew pale. “Not long, m’lord. Mayhap a week.”

“Then you should have told me a week ago,” he chastised. “I’m the seneschal of Helmesly,” he added, pointing to his chest. “Lady Clarise could have been a spy.”

Nell cast a helpless gaze down the hallway, but no one was coming.

“Who else knew the truth?” he demanded. He felt a little mean, torturing the girl, especially as they’d just had a pleasant exchange.

“Me sister,” she admitted mournfully. “An’ Doris.”

He frowned down at her sternly, letting her stew in her distress a moment longer. “From now on you will come to me with news that bears on Simon’s safety.”

Nell’s eyes flashed with sudden fire. “The Lady Clare—Clarise would ne’er think to hurt the babe!” she cried.

Clarise had been at Helmesly, what, about a month? And yet the servants defended her over a man they’d known for years. “Fortunately for you, she has cared well for him,” he relented.

Nell swallowed hard, not knowing what to say.

“If I had known her circumstances sooner,” he heard himself explain, “I’d have killed Ferguson already.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. He’d have maneuvered Clarise more swiftly to his bed, and perhaps gone after Ferguson in their latest conflict.

Regret darkened Nell’s blue eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said, empathizing with her mistress’s plight.

Christian jerked his head. “Go about your duties,” he said, dismissing her.

She edged thoughtfully past him. Before she’d taken three steps, she stopped and turned around. “There be somethin’ ye should know, m’lord,” she blurted.

“What’s that?” Curiosity rose along with caution.

“The lady hath marks on her back where she haffe been beaten. An’ she cries out often when she sleeps.” Nell looked miserable for having revealed just that much.

Christian hissed a breath through his teeth. Ferguson had beaten Clarise? Anger came to a flash boil. He pictured the burly Scot leaving marks on Clarise’s flawless skin, and he couldn’t wait to kill the fiend!

But then he reined himself in. Nay, he wouldn’t kill the Scot for free. He’d placed a price on his willingness to help. The price was Clarise’s body—his for the taking.

He offered the maid a reassuring nod. “You were right to tell me, Nell. She is safe now.”

Safe, hah. He was a hypocrite to say so, casting himself in a chivalrous light, as though he meant to defend the lady without recompense. Mercenaries were not chivalrous. They killed for pay. And the price he’d demanded was Clarise’s sweet and willing body.

As the maidservant retreated, Christian approached the lady’s door. Uneasiness roiled in his stomach. What if she declined his offer? What if she turned him down flat? After all, it must be distasteful for a lady of her breeding to yield to a monster like himself. Perhaps if he sweetened his offer with the promise to restore her home. According to his spies, Ferguson had all but destroyed it.

The sound of splashing water distracted him from his thoughts. He put an ear to the wood and was astonished when its hinges gave way and the door eased slightly open. The view that greeted him through the resulting crack made him freeze like a thief.

Clarise sat in a wooden tub, the water to her shoulders. Her hair was a damp, russet rope mooring her to the floor. The scent of lavender hung sweetly in the air. The brazier snapped with mellow light. She had not seen him, for her back was to the door.

Just as it occurred to him that he should turn away, she perched a long, slim leg on the edge of the tub and reached for the soap.

Like a hungry hound he salivated. He told himself to leave, but for the moment he was spellbound. With lazy movements she began to lather herself, starting with the leg she’d lifted and then switching to the other one. Limb by limb, she rubbed the scented bar into her skin. His fingers itched to follow the same path.

Go now, he told himself. ’Tis bad enough that you take advantage of her circumstances. Must you sink to new depths by spying on her?

Her head fell back, and she rubbed her neck, sighing softly as she eased the soap between her breasts. Christian swallowed a groan. Desire pulsed through his body with double vigor. Uncertainty followed close behind. What would he do if she refused him? His need for her could not be slaked by any other woman!

Something pounded on the door of his conscience, demanding to be heard. This is honor! shouted the entity. I demand that you free her family without reward.

But he ignored it. He was a bastard warlord, not an honorable knight. He needed Clarise DuBoise, and there was no way to get her other than by blackmail. Ladies of her ilk didn’t give themselves to baseborn mercenaries.

Unless they proved themselves worthy, replied the voice inside.

She caught up her hair and squeezed it, coiling it on top of her head. Then, without warning, she put her hands on either side of the tub and stood straight up. Christian’s gaze fell at once to the pink streaks lining her back. Nell had not been lying. “Jesu,” he cursed, unable to keep silent.

She turned with a gasp. “Who’s there?” she called, trying to see through the cracked door.

He swiveled guiltily and beat a hasty retreat.

Cur, he called himself, stalking furiously toward his solar. He wanted so badly for her to want him that he had stooped even beneath himself. There was more of his father in him than he cared to admit, he lamented, grinding his teeth.

Yet he had to capture her incandescence or else lose himself to the despair that threatened before she came.

In the sanctuary of his solar, Christian dropped his head into his hands, his temples throbbing. A promise to rebuild her home was not enough. Short of offering for her hand, nothing he did could cast his offer into a nobler light.

He straightened abruptly, startled by the workings of his mind. Offer for her hand? Nay, the thought was ludicrous! Absurd! The lady would take her own life ere she agreed to wed him. Wouldn’t she?

He forced himself to rationalize. There were factors in his favor, not the least of which was Simon, whom she adored. Then, too, he was not without the ability to give her a decent home, to feed and clothe her as befitting her station. Most important, he could give her what she truly desired of him: his sword arm to defend and protect those she loved.

It might just work.

His gaze fell upon a book that lay open on his table. It was Ethelred’s Mirror of Charity, the latest text brought for Christian’s erudition. He and the abbot made a practice of discussing the readings the abbot supplied. They’d had no time on this particular visit. But Ethelred had marked one of the pages with a ribbon in order to draw it to Christian’s notice.

Christian dragged the manuscript closer and read the indicated page. His attention was drawn in particular to the closing remarks. Put off the mantle of self-absorption and embrace the world unselfishly. For God, who sees all things, rewards the righteous heart.

Christian read the lines three more times. With fingers that had butchered and maimed, he smoothed down a wrinkle in the parchment. It was time for the Slayer of Helmesly to forget his bitter roots. For his son’s sake, he could not continue to be a fearsome warlord. Why not do as Ethelred suggested and shuck the mantle of self-absorption? What would it cost him? A mistress, probably.

What would he gain? Perhaps a wife.

God rewards the righteous heart, wrote the abbot. Christian hoped the abbot was right. He didn’t want to go through the trouble of redemption and not get what he’d set his sights on: Clarise DuBoise.

Chapter Fourteen

^“When did they leave?” Clarise asked Malcolm, who kept the mews.

The aged falconer regarded her through eyes as bright and watchful as the birds he tended. “They left but a second ’fore ye came,” he answered in a creaky voice.

She shot him a word of thanks and raced across the treacherous cobbles of the inner ward toward the first gate. Already, she was breathless from this morning’s activities. It had all begun at morning prayers when the good abbot failed to show himself.

Clarise had raced to Ethelred’s chambers, hoping that she would find him sleeping in exhaustion from his visit to Rievaulx the day before. His chamber was empty. His bed had not been touched.

Agitation fizzed in Clarise’s empty belly. Ethelred wasn’t safe at Rievaulx. She remembered the mad gleam in Abbot Gilbert’s eyes, the festering sores on Horatio’s face. If anything had happened to Ethelred, she would blame herself for encouraging him to visit the scourge-ridden abbey.

Clarise had looked for Christian, wanting to apprise him of the circumstances. He had already eaten, she discovered, not finding him in the great hall. She would not break her own fast until she delivered her news to him. If anyone could help the good abbot, it was the Slayer.

“He’s gone ahunting,” the stable boy had said, yawning with maddening apathy. At last the falconer had more definitive news. If she hurried through the shadowed barbican, she might catch the seneschal and his vassal before they left.

The sun was still creeping skyward at this early hour, promising a warm day as it tinted the air a peachy pink. Swallows dipped and whirled for their breakfast of bugs. A rooster crowed from the henhouse. Clarise caught sight of the Slayer and his master-at-arms disappearing on horseback through the second gate. Sir Roger’s gyrfalcon rode on its perch. Its jeweled hood gave a final wink as they passed under the barbican.

“My lord, Sir Knight, wait!” she cried, dampening her slippers on the grass as she raced toward them. They failed to hear her, for the rushing of the moat.

The vigilant gatekeeper gave a blast on his horn, alerting them for her. Lord and vassal turned together at the end of the drawbridge. Their faces reflected alarm to see Clarise chasing after them, her hair flying like a banner.

She slowed to a brisk walk, wary of the Slayer’s enormous black mount, snorting impatiently to be on its way. The men were dressed in minimal armor. They bore all the accoutrements needed for a successful hunt, including bow and quiver slung over their shoulders.

“What’s amiss?” the warlord asked, his scowl taking up its usual post. “Is it Simon?” He looked ready to return at the least word.

“Not Simon,” she assured them, catching her breath. “The Abbot of Revesby. He went to Rievaulx yesterday, and he hasn’t returned. Something foul has happened to him, I can feel it.”

The Slayer’s alarm subsided into something more like consternation. He looked to his vassal for an opinion.

Sir Roger’s smile wavered and dipped. “He and Gilbert have never seen eye to eye,” commented the knight. “If Ethelred accused his colleague of dissembling, Gilbert may well have reacted without thinking.”

Clarise rubbed away the chill on her arms. She swallowed down the admission that she’d made her own request of the good abbot.

“But Ethelred has the backing of the archbishop,” Christian countered. “Gilbert can do nothing to deter him.”

Sir Roger gazed off in the direction of Rievaulx. “Still, if Ethelred doesn’t return by sunset, we should act.”

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Clarise repeated, admitting nothing for the time being.

The warlord returned his focus to her. His gaze was still as intense as it had been in the last two days. But a secret light now sparkled in his eyes, making them more green than gray. He seemed happier, almost gay—if such a word could be applied to a man who never laughed. As he stared down at her, his mouth curved in a hint of a smile.

Could he have been the one spying on her bath the other night? she wondered. The thought put butterflies in her stomach. She told herself that she’d imagined the whispered curse and that Nell had left the door cracked.

“Did you not lock the door?” she’d asked the girl, who’d appeared a moment later.

“Nay, milady.”

“Did you see anyone in the corridor?”

“Only Lord Christian. He means to make me brothers squires, milady. An’ he means to give them both a plot o’ land!”

That had been excellent news for Nell. But it also meant the warlord had been skulking in the corridor. Pacing like a fox for a rabbit to come out of its hole.

“We have to hunt,” he said now. He still looked secretly pleased. “There will be a feast if we are lucky.”

“A feast,” she repeated. The lightness of his spirits was contagious, if curious. “And what is the occasion?”

“You will know it soon enough,” he said. He turned faintly red beneath his tan.

“Can you not send others to do the hunting?” she asked, thinking of Ethelred. “There must be men-at-arms who would undertake the task.”

“Sir Roger’s falcon answers only to his call. My men remain at Glenmyre. That leaves only us.” He shrugged, looking like a handsome woodsman with a bow on his shoulder.

“Well, go then, but hurry back,” she relented. She made to turn away, but then remembered that she wanted to thank him for a recent kindness. “My lord, I thank you for moving Doris to the nursery. I am well rested for the first time in a month.” The cook had taken over Simon’s midnight feedings, giving Clarise the leisure to sleep.

The warlord’s half-smile faded. His expression became quizzical. “I would like to take credit for such thoughtfulness, but it wasn’t I.”

Not he? Then it could only have been Sir Roger. They both looked to the knight, who shook his head.

Possibly Harold, then, or Dame Maeve. Had the steward’s wife tired of their rivalry? Was she ready to make amends? “Do you object, my lord? I will, of course, watch him at all other times.”

His gaze caressed her upturned face. “You look better for your rest,” he decided kindly. “Doris may stay.”

“Thank you.”

“I wish to speak with you this afternoon, about my offer,” he announced. With those alarming words, he yanked his mount around. The destrier gave his tail a haughty swoosh, and they were away.

From the edge of the drawbridge, Clarise watched the two men cut a fresh path through the knee-high flowers. Daisies and loosestrife swayed beneath an easterly breeze. She only had eyes for the dark-haired warrior who rode so confidently in his seat, his sharp gaze focused on the tree line. She felt a clutching pang in her chest that she attributed to missing breakfast.

What was he going to talk to her about? Likely he wanted an answer right away.

She didn’t have an answer yet, though she’d imagined in vivid detail what it would be like to be his mistress. Despite his bloody reputation, she was certain he would treat her well, perhaps even come to feel affection for her. Breed children on her if he so desired.

Or marry again and leave her with her shame.

She recalled the things she had wanted for herself since childhood—the things she’d thought Alec could offer her: a marriage blessed by God, a husband who cherished her, children in her lap and at her feet. A longing came upon her, so deep and pulling that she sighed out loud. How could she settle for anything less and be happy?

She turned and plodded the length of the drawbridge. In light of the good abbot’s absence, her yearnings were selfish. Her mother and sisters suffered on, while she pined for something that was more than most women ever attained.

The Slayer offered her his sword arm and shattering physical ecstasy. Unless Alec could top that offer, it would have to be enough for Clarise DuBoise.

Was it a boar or a deer? Christian couldn’t readily tell by the color of its fur. The animal froze as though sensing that it had become a target. He pulled his bowstring taut until it creaked ominously in the silent clearing. The birds were dumb with terror. The leaves on the trees ceased to tremble. In the meadow nearby, the pure, high scream of the gyrfalcon signaled Sir Roger’s success in his portion of the wager.

Christian gave a determined smile. By felling this animal, he might still come out the victor and produce the biggest game.

The animal suddenly bolted. Through the underbrush it crashed, snapping twigs, crushing ferns. “Don’t shoot!” it cried.

Christian brought his arrow down. A talking boar? Nay, it was a monk. He could see that clearly now. The man wore the dun-colored cloth of a novice. The bottoms of his sandal’s flashed as he ran.

“Hold!” he called out. “I mean you no harm.”

The monk disappeared behind a tree, then peeked around it.

“What are you doing on my lands?” Christian snapped. It irritated him to be reminded of the Abbot of Rievaulx right now. He’d been enjoying this challenge between himself and his vassal. It had been a long time since he’d taken part in the hunt. More than that, every pheasant, every rabbit felled would find its way to the banquet table in celebration of his marriage to Clarise. Provided she agreed to wed him.

“I’ve been following you,” the monk admitted feebly.

“What the bloody hell for?”

The man blanched at his foul language and crossed himself. “I . . . I have a package for you,” he replied. An arm jutted outward. Dangling from the monk’s hand was a large leather satchel.

“What is it?” Christian demanded, suspicious of anything the Gilbert might have to give him. Two possibilities occurred to him: a ransom note for Ethelred—he dismissed the notion, as the bag was too big for a note. Or a body part of the good abbot—a hand, perhaps.

“Letters!” cried the cleric. “Letters from Clarise DuBoise to her lover, Alec Monteign.”

Those were not the words Christian expected. He heard a buzzing in his ears that might have been caused by a fly. Clarise and Alec? Lovers? He recalled that they had been betrothed at the time he seized Glenmyre. But he’d assumed their marriage was a legal arrangement, an alliance between Monteign and Ferguson. It was the catalyst to every event that followed.

He sat astounded in his saddle. Shock gave way to denial. Gilbert was meddling again. “Come forward,” he growled.

“Will ye kill me?” the man inquired. His eyes darted to the warlord’s sword.

Christian could see his reputation was alive and well at the abbey. “I don’t kill clergy,” he growled.

When he seized the bundle from the man’s shaking hands, he was instantly impressed by the quantity of letters inside. “Stay a moment.” He loosed the cord and withdrew one of the parchment tubes. He would determine at once if the letters were real or forged. My beloved Alec, he read, struck by the flowing script of the writer. You have been gone but a month and already I feel that years have passed. He released one end of the parchment and it sprang closed.

He could not begin to name what he was feeling. A vise had closed about his chest, squeezing so hard that he could scarcely draw breath. Without a word to the watchful monk, he jerked his horse around and galloped from the glen. He rode blindly in the direction of the field where he’d left his hunting partner. Through the green canopy overhead, he caught a glimpse of the gyrfalcon circling the sky. Sir Roger would know what to do.

Hours later they sat in Christian’s solar with the table between them and Clarise’s letters lying in two piles: those they had read and those yet unread. He’d refused to let his vassal read the majority. The messages were too intimate, too sensual. They made him burn with jealousy and shame.

Dearest One, read the letter in his hand. When you lie on your narrow cot at night, do you not dream of me? The marriage bed is a warmer place and softer, I trow. To sleep with your hand on my breast were as pure an act as prayer. He dropped the letter out of Sir Roger’s reach and snatched up another.

Alec My Love, if you knew the humilities I endure under Ferguson’s rule, you would not have abandoned me so cruelly. Have you forgotten the kiss we shared at the Feast of St. Michaelmas? We strolled by the lake, and you held my hand. Have you forgotten that you pledged your heart to me that day while a starling serenaded us? I have not forgotten. I dream of kissing you again. All that I have are my dreams, now. Ferguson and his men roam the halls of Heathersgill looking for wenches, willing or nay. I try to stay clear of them. Do you lack the courage to rise up for me? You took your horse and armor with you when you left. In the name of chivalry, how can you leave us to suffer so?

Even with a bitter taste in his mouth, he was not immune to Clarise’s desperation. Had she directed such words to him, he would have snatched up his sword and leaped on his horse at a full run. Yet, these pleas were not for him, which was precisely the rub. They were for Alec, her beloved, her Dear One.

In a violent gesture he scythed his arm across the table and swept the letters to the floor. “Enough!” he shouted, scraping back his chair. He stalked to the window and stuck his head outside to find a breath of air. The wind had turned and was coming from the north. Clouds bruised the afternoon sky, bringing the threat of a storm.

“ ’Twill rain,” Sir Roger observed from where he sat. “This front will bring relief from the heat,” he added.

Christian wondered how his man could even think about the weather. “What shall I do?” he asked, feeling perfectly violent. He rubbed his forehead where his scalp seemed to be pulled too tight. The alliance he had terminated by killing Monteign had been a love match! He reeled with the truth of it.

“What had you intended to do?” Saintonge inquired easily.

“Kill Ferguson,” he retorted. It had all been so simple. He would kill the Scot, thereby earning the right to wed Clarise. But everything had changed with the appearance of her letters.

“And then?” prompted Saintonge.

“Wed Clarise,” Christian admitted, feeling the bite of jealousy in his gut. He darted his vassal a warning scowl. “Don’t laugh,” he warned.

Sir Roger glanced at the letters scattered all over the floor. “Your plans have changed?”

A streak of lightning jagged from the clouds, drawing the warlord’s gaze outside again. “She loves Alec,” he said, forcing the words through his clenched teeth. “She would never have me.”

Trees foamed on the horizon. A breeze stirred his hair.

“Why would the abbot give you these letters?”

Sir Roger’s question forced Christian to think and not to feel. He watched the storm surge closer. “Clearly, Gilbert wishes to expose her,” he said. “He lives to strike misery into the hearts of everyone.”

“True enough,” said the knight. “But there is more to this picture than pettiness. Gilbert suspects that you covet the lady for yourself. He means to drive a wedge between you and Alec in the hopes that you will withdraw your offer to return Glenmyre to him.”

“How could he know such things?” Christian demanded, referring to his intentions toward Clarise.

Sir Roger shrugged. “He must have put a spy among us.”

That gave him pause. “You think he wants me to withdraw the offer to Alec.”

“Alec’s lands are forfeit to the Church,” the knight pointed out, “but only as long as he remains a monk.”

The warlord raked a hand through his hair. Following Sir Roger’s logic was like wending along an ancient riverbed; he never knew where it would lead him. “I presume we are speaking of Glenmyre, which is presently in my control.”

The knight tapped his fingers on the table. “Gilbert will question your right in due time. He means to absorb Glenmyre into the abbey’s holdings, mark my word on it. Alec knows nothing of your offer. Nor will he ever know. He is completely cut off from the world, just as the abbot designed.”

It was true. Alec had never replied to his offer.

He thought of the distress in Clarise’s letters. Alec, in the name of God, you must answer me.

A disturbing notion settled in the pit of Christian’s stomach. If Alec did accept the offer of Glenmyre, he stood to gain more than his own lands. He would need a bride to run his household, and he would logically ask for Clarise.

His teeth clicked together. Nay. If her love for Alec had been earlier revealed, then maybe. If he hadn’t raised his own hopes falsely, perhaps he could be generous. But it was too late now. Either he would have her for himself, or no one would get her!

The darkness in his heart mirrored the storm outside. He could not stand to think of another man touching her!

Suddenly a horrible notion struck him. Perhaps Clarise had come to Helmesly, not only to poison him, but to be closer to her betrothed. He turned around, his fingers curling into fists. He’d caught her trying to leave once. She’d said she was going to Abbingdon to hear the Abbot of Revesby preach in English. Hah! Likely she intended to steal off toward Rievaulx and tryst with her lover!

A sharp rap at the door jerked him to the present. “Who is it?” he shouted.

“ ’Tis Clarise,” called his nemesis. “I would speak with you about Ethelred.”

Christian darted a look at his vassal. The knight shrugged. “Come in,” he growled. He would have the satisfaction of witnessing her mortification. Aye, he would squeeze the truth from her this time and make her weep for the heaviness that was in his heart.

She tugged on the latchstring and pushed. He could see at once that she had his baby in her arms. His anger died to a seething bitterness.

Clarise wondered what lord and vassal were up to. They rarely cloistered themselves in the solar during the day. She hoped they weren’t discussing Ethelred’s plight without her. “Gentlemen,” she began, “I have something to tell you.” She had just closed the door behind her when she noticed the mess on the floor. It looked as though someone had lifted one end of the Slayer’s table and dumped its contents. “What has happened here?” she asked, staring down at the letter that was touching her toe.

With a sense of unreality, she recognized the handwriting on the edge of the vellum. Holding Simon to her body, she leaned over and plucked it up. Her heart began to pound in earnest. My Dearest Alec, she read.

She felt as though her feet were driven into the ground with spikes. Quickly she estimated the number of letters on the floor. She had written Alec over fifty pleas. There were at least that many here. A hot wave of self-consciousness rose toward her cheeks. “How did you get these?” she croaked.

“Gilbert sent them by messenger,” said the Slayer, watching her through half-closed eyes.

Clarise wasn’t the least bit fooled by his sleepy look. He was furious. “The Abbot of Rievaulx?” Anger rushed out to replace humiliation. “He gave you these!” she cried, her volume rising. “How dare he? How dare he meddle in something that has naught to do with him?” Even holding the baby, she managed to rip the parchment in her hands, tearing it first this way and then that. “I should like to put an arrow through his shallow heart!”

“Compose yourself,” the warlord warned. He looked nonplussed that she was shouting. What did he expect? Repentant tears?

“How simple for you to say!” she yelled, forgetting that the baby grew distressed at the sound of raised voices. “Do you know the hours I spent laboring over these letters? I called upon every creative power I had to persuade Alec to quit his studies and defend us. I’ll wager he never even got these letters. The abbot kept and read them for his own perverse pleasure!”

The warlord was looking at her very intently now. With her fury exorcised, she grew calmer, more aware of the currents weaving through the chamber. He, too, had read her letters, she realized. She felt exposed to him now, completely vulnerable. So many yearnings she had poured upon the page. But more than that, in attempting to entice Alec from the church, she had displayed the depths to which she would sink.

What did he think of her now? she wondered, laying the shredded letter on the chest piled with books.

“You think Alec never read them?” Behind the glimmer of his green eyes, she saw that his mind was busy calculating.

“I think he would have helped if he had,” she said with more certainty than she felt.

The warlord crossed the room to approach her. She locked her knees to hold her ground. As her gaze fell to his lips, she experienced the wistful urge to be kissed by him. When they kissed, she felt treasured and revered.

“I should have you punished, lady,” he said in a voice devoid of emotion.

“Why?” she asked, taking a startled step back.

“You swore to me, no more lies.” Thunder rumbled outside, adding a menacing undertone to his words. “You told me you came here because Ferguson sent you to poison me.”

“I did!”

“Another lie,” he snarled. “You came to Helmesly to be closer to your beloved.”

“Nay, if I wished to be near to him, I’d have stayed in Abbingdon.”

“The day you wanted to go with the servants to pray, you had planned to meet with him, hadn’t you?” He tilted her face up, putting his fingertips beneath her chin. His touch was searing.

“I meant to speak with Ethelred,” she corrected, “so he could contact Alec for me.”

“Ethelred,” said the warlord, stunned. His mind was quick to grasp at clues. “Is he even now at your behest?” he guessed. “Is that why he’s gone to the abbey?”

“Of course not. He has gone to see the papal seal on the interdict.”

“Is that all?” he pressed, his gaze incinerating.

She jerked her chin free and stepped to one side. “Nay, that isn’t all,” she admitted, darting him a wary look. She had come to his solar to tell him the truth. So be it. According to Ethelred, truth was a stronger fortress than deceit.

The sound of rain showering the cobbles told her that the clouds had buckled. The room gave an eerie flash as lightning forked the sky. The warlord made a sound of disgust and stalked back to the window.

Clarise looked to Sir Roger for help. The knight sat straighter. “My lord, make no rash decisions,” he warned uncertainly.

Decisions? “What will you do?” she asked. Volatile currents filled the chamber, making her uneasy.

Simon seemed to sense her agitation. His round face crumpled with distress. He sobbed against her shoulder. Clarise felt like weeping with him.

The Slayer stood with his back to her. “I have had enough of your lies, lady,” he announced grimly. “I will not be used to reunite you with your lover. Nor can you convince me again to raise arms on your behalf. I will return you to Ferguson,” he announced, against the backdrop of pouring rain. “You and the Scot have more in common than you think. You are both dissemblers.”

She soothed the baby with automatic gestures. Shock settled over her, leaving her emotions in frozen limbo. “Return me?” she cried. “What makes you think Ferguson would want me back? He will see that I have failed and he will hang me, along with my mother and sisters. Aye, he’ll hang us all!”

The mercenary shrugged, still presenting her his back. “What does it matter to me, Clarise DuBoise? I have tried to turn myself toward righteousness, and you and others have taken advantage of me. Leave me to my sins. You had no intention of staying with me, anyway.”

Clarise frowned as she struggled to interpret his words. She gave up trying. All she knew for certain was that he’d sentenced her, her mother, and her sisters to be hanged. It was too horrific even to envision. Even the Slayer of Helmesly was incapable of such malice!

“Er, my lord, why not take some time to think about it?” Sir Roger asked. Alarm had turned his face into a map of battle scars.

The Slayer flicked him an obstinate look. “I have made up my mind,” he snarled, his profile unfamiliar against the screen of rain.

Sir Roger closed his eyes and dropped his face in his hands. He said nothing.

“You’ve forgotten about Ethelred,” Clarise offered in a quaking voice.

The warlord swiveled abruptly. “What did you ask him to do for you?” he demanded.

“Simply to see if Alec had received your offer.”

“So, you take on yourself to settle my affairs for me,” he observed, his eyes as silvery as the rain, “and in the bargain you get yourself a landed husband.”

If she had a knife, she would carve a matching scar on his right cheek. “He was my betrothed before you stripped him of his inheritance,” she shot back, fisting her hands.

Simon matched her volume with a deafening wail.

“I do not recall meeting him on the field of battle,” the warrior rebutted. “He ran like a coward for Rievaulx. Or mayhap he was simply grateful for a reason not to wed you!”

With his face still in his hands, Sir Roger groaned.

Clarise went perfectly still. The pain that diced her heart gave her something to cling to. “Do what you will with me, you monster.” Her voice turned fearless and resolved. “I pray one day that you will eat your words, for I will have naught to do with you even if you crawl on your knees, begging my mercy. You do not deserve this babe that I have loved. . . .” Her voice broke and the dam burst behind her eyes, flooding them. Before they betrayed her, she spun around and raced to the door.

She slammed it behind her, startling Simon into silence. Then she hesitated, pricking her ears to the quiet on the other side. Just when she despaired of hearing anything through the thick wood, Sir Roger drawled with irony. “Well done, my liege. Your father would be most proud.”

Chapter Fifteen

Clarise worked the laces of the boy’s braies tighter and marveled at how quickly her circumstances had changed. One day the Slayer was determined to have her for his mistress, the next he wished never to lay eyes on her again. The pain of his rejection made her fingers stiffen as she tightened the last two stays.

Nell had secured the boy’s clothing from one of her brothers. “The lord told me to bring all manner o’ knowledge to him, and he would ease yer circumstances,” the young girl whispered as she arranged the pillows on the bed to take the form of a person sleeping. Clarise could tell that Nell was torn.

“That was before he threatened to return me to my stepfather,” she retorted. “He suffered a moment of human compassion, ’tis all. Do you put faith in his promises, you will be sore disappointed.”

“But why must ye travel at night?” Nell complained as she straightened from the bed.

In the darkness Clarise could just make out the golden halo of Nell’s hair. She nosed through the oversize tunic until her head popped through the proper hole. “Do I look like Callum?” she asked, holding her arms out to her sides. As she was standing in the only puddle of moonlight, she was certain the maid could see her.

Nell shook her head. “Nay, m’lady. Me brother ne hath such a bosom as thine.”

“That is precisely the reason I must travel at night,” Clarise pointed out. “Now remember what I said. You last saw me when I went to sleep earlier this evening. When asked, you don’t know where I am, or how I ventured through the gates. You must lie to protect yourself. Is that clear enough?”

Nell mumbled an unhappy answer.

“Where are those awful boots I have to wear?” Clarise asked, peering around the perimeter of the moon’s glow.

She had lived through the past few days as in a dream. The warlord was too busy tracking down Ethelred to make good on his threat. The Slayer had ventured to the abbey twice now to demand an audience with Gilbert. According to the monk at the gate, both abbots had fallen ill. There was nothing the warlord could do to gain entrance or prove otherwise. The abbey was sacrosanct. To attack it would be a violation of the Church proper.

He sent a message to the archbishop of York, stating his concerns. All they could do now was wait.

In those two days Clarise had joined the servants in lighting candles for the good abbot’s health. In silence she added prayers for her own deliverance. As the hours crept by, her dread mounted to unbearable proportions. She could only hope that the warlord had changed his mind about returning her to Ferguson.

The sound of the baby fretting next door jerked Clarise to the present. It was Dame Maeve who had moved Doris to the nursery in order to care for Simon. Yet Doris snored so loudly at times that she failed to hear the baby’s cries. His pathetic wails tugged at Clarise’s heartstrings. She refused to consider that she might never see him again.

Focus on the present, she told herself, blowing out a slow breath. She would need to find the secret entrance Ethelred had mentioned. The fate of her family still rested on her shoulders. Once Ferguson realized her plan had failed, they would all be killed. Alec was now her only hope.

Gathering her hair into a hat, Clarise pulled the brim over her ears and carefully opened the door. Nell followed her down the tower stairs and through a deserted corridor. It was well past midnight, and the torches had burned themselves out. Only a few sputtered intermittently, casting grotesque shadows on the walls. Clarise found herself wishing this were all a dream. She pretended she was slipping down to the goat pen to fetch Simon milk. The fantasy brought a lump to her throat.

As they scurried along the gallery, past the Slayer’s solar, she was beset by memories. She recalled the evening she and Christian had watched over Simon in his illness. She recalled how he had prayed by his son’s cradle. Her heart softened briefly toward the warlord. Surely he had reconsidered his threat to cast her off to Ferguson; after all, he’d yet to execute it.

Where was the chivalry Sir Roger had remarked in him? It seemed anger had the power to douse the flame of goodness that burned in him. Even if he did recant his threat, all that he’d ever offered was his bed. She burned in shame to think that she’d nearly agreed to become his mistress. Where was her pride? The man had accused her of liaisons with a monk!

Nell still tiptoed behind her. Clarise hurried down the grand staircase, drawing the notice of the wolfhound that stirred the rushes with his tail but couldn’t bring himself to slit an eye. Alfred was used to her midnight ramblings.

Clarise’s heart raced with unnatural urgency as she lifted the crossbar on the double doors and slipped through them. She gave Nell the signal that all was going as planned. The maid would wait until her mistress had passed through both gates. Then she would replace the crossbar.

The plan was a simple one of assuming another’s identity. The gatekeepers were accustomed to Callum’s midnight outings. Rumor had it that Nell’s brother had several sweethearts in Abbington and devoted his nights to keeping them all content. As he worked in the castle’s brewery, it was his custom to reward the guards with ale. In exchange they left the pedestrian gates unlocked between the hours of twelve and one.

Callum always returned at dawn to commence his work in the brewery. Clarise, disguised as Callum, would not return.

That realization struck her forcibly as she stepped off the drawbridge and onto the well-worn path to Abbingdon. Her passage through the pedestrian gates had gone unchallenged. One guard even called in drunken encouragement, his crude words making her ears burn. The sweat that had gathered between her shoulder blades quickly dried. She’d escaped the castle without raising a hue and cry.

The sweet night air filled her lungs but failed to lift her spirits. The rain that had deluged the land for the last two days had passed, sweeping away the last lingering cloud. The moon was a half crescent, hanging like a pointed pendant in a star-spangled sky. It shed just enough light to guild the hilltops in gold and gleam on the puddles of the muddy road. A good omen, she thought to cheer herself.

Listening to the squish of her boots, her short-term worries faded and the larger issues loomed. A wolf howled in the distance. She couldn’t help but consider that she was right where she’d been a month ago. Yet so much had happened since her first attempt to reach Alec! She had dwelled in the stronghold of a much-feared mercenary. She had eaten at his table, cherished his son, bantered with his master-at-arms. She had even kissed the beast and quivered with pleasure at his touch!

But because of Abbot Gilbert’s interference, the Slayer had discovered her original intent. Dimly she realized his pride had been wounded by his discovery. He hadn’t liked to find himself second to Alec in her choice of champions. Yet it was his violent overreaction that left her with no choice but to seek Alec’s help again.

In the process she would try to locate Ethelred. It seemed impossible that he would be stricken by the illness within a day of visiting the abbey. The plague is the least of my concerns, he’d told her. He wasn’t sick at all, she’d decided, but held prisoner by the Abbot of Rievaulx.

Her plan was perilous and impractical. She would find the secret entrance described to her. She would seek out Alec and enlist his help in determining Ethelred’s whereabouts. If she could do that much, then she wouldn’t feel so bad about steering the good abbot toward his ruin.